Hi everyone,
I am very new to the world of marine aquariums and corals and this is also my first time posting a question, so please be gentle with me!
My partner and I set up a tank about 6 months ago...he had a marine aquariaum previously so I assumed that he knew all that was needed and I was just along for the ride! So after we installed the tank he declared that he was never very good at 'all of the technical science bits', so that could be my department!
We have a 550litre tank (including sump) and added the TMC Eco Reef. Understanding that this is not the same as live rock we added the pure reef balance bacteria balls and let that all circulate for a bit. we started testing water about a week later and watched the tank cycle through from high ammonia to high nitrite and then high nitrate and then eventually settle down. After about 2 weeks we added some hermit crabs, Pearson shrimp who have all been very happy and all fine.
Since then we have added some other livestock, we now have about 8 hermit crabs in total, 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 2 peacock wrasse, 2 chalk gobies, 1 dot dash blenny, 1 parrot wrasse, 1 blue cleaner wrasse, 1 blue eyed tang, 1 sandsifting starfish and one red/ orange starfish, 4 emerald crabs and 4 anemones... We also had a beautiful mandarin which I was not convinced the tank was ready for as I had read that you should have a mature tank of at least 2 years, but my partner really wanted one so went for it anyway and he was OK for quite a while, we were feeding live copepods , but sadly he did not make it in the end.
Anyway, that's the back story (apologies if I have gone into too much detail, just wanted to give all of the relevant info!) so more rcently we have started adding corals, in February we added a pulsing xenia (which is doing fine and growing nicely), a feather duster (seems happy) and (I think) a candy cane coral. At this point the only water parameters that we had been testing were pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, so I don't know what any other ones were when we started adding corals.
Since then my partner has gone a bit mad with the corals and has added in quite a few extra corals of both hard and soft varieties (I'm not great with the IDs of them I'm afraid), but some of them did not seem too happy, especially the hard corals...I had read that calcium and magnesium in particular were important for corals, so we got test kits for these and started testing...calcium was extremely low, way off the chart, something like 180ppm! Magnesium was slightly higher than the optimal I think it was around 1350ppm. So we started adding Red Sea brand calcium but had read that too much at once can shock the coarals, so initially we were only adding 10ml per day but then with a bit more research realised we could do more, so we were adding 50ml per day...the calcium is now up to 410ppm so much closer to where it should be, but the hard corals are still declining, some have lost what seems like an outer 'skin' and are now completely white.
So my question to you all with your superior experience is, what do you think we are doing wrong? Do you think the initial low calcium caused the corals to die off and even after the levels came up in the water it was too late to recover the corals, or do you think its something else entirely?
My partner was feeding the Red Sea Coral food daily, but I read that too much might not be good for them so we are doing that every other day now.
Any insights/ advice would be greatly appreciated, and apologies for such a long rambling post!
I am very new to the world of marine aquariums and corals and this is also my first time posting a question, so please be gentle with me!
My partner and I set up a tank about 6 months ago...he had a marine aquariaum previously so I assumed that he knew all that was needed and I was just along for the ride! So after we installed the tank he declared that he was never very good at 'all of the technical science bits', so that could be my department!
We have a 550litre tank (including sump) and added the TMC Eco Reef. Understanding that this is not the same as live rock we added the pure reef balance bacteria balls and let that all circulate for a bit. we started testing water about a week later and watched the tank cycle through from high ammonia to high nitrite and then high nitrate and then eventually settle down. After about 2 weeks we added some hermit crabs, Pearson shrimp who have all been very happy and all fine.
Since then we have added some other livestock, we now have about 8 hermit crabs in total, 1 peppermint shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 2 peacock wrasse, 2 chalk gobies, 1 dot dash blenny, 1 parrot wrasse, 1 blue cleaner wrasse, 1 blue eyed tang, 1 sandsifting starfish and one red/ orange starfish, 4 emerald crabs and 4 anemones... We also had a beautiful mandarin which I was not convinced the tank was ready for as I had read that you should have a mature tank of at least 2 years, but my partner really wanted one so went for it anyway and he was OK for quite a while, we were feeding live copepods , but sadly he did not make it in the end.
Anyway, that's the back story (apologies if I have gone into too much detail, just wanted to give all of the relevant info!) so more rcently we have started adding corals, in February we added a pulsing xenia (which is doing fine and growing nicely), a feather duster (seems happy) and (I think) a candy cane coral. At this point the only water parameters that we had been testing were pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, so I don't know what any other ones were when we started adding corals.
Since then my partner has gone a bit mad with the corals and has added in quite a few extra corals of both hard and soft varieties (I'm not great with the IDs of them I'm afraid), but some of them did not seem too happy, especially the hard corals...I had read that calcium and magnesium in particular were important for corals, so we got test kits for these and started testing...calcium was extremely low, way off the chart, something like 180ppm! Magnesium was slightly higher than the optimal I think it was around 1350ppm. So we started adding Red Sea brand calcium but had read that too much at once can shock the coarals, so initially we were only adding 10ml per day but then with a bit more research realised we could do more, so we were adding 50ml per day...the calcium is now up to 410ppm so much closer to where it should be, but the hard corals are still declining, some have lost what seems like an outer 'skin' and are now completely white.
So my question to you all with your superior experience is, what do you think we are doing wrong? Do you think the initial low calcium caused the corals to die off and even after the levels came up in the water it was too late to recover the corals, or do you think its something else entirely?
My partner was feeding the Red Sea Coral food daily, but I read that too much might not be good for them so we are doing that every other day now.
Any insights/ advice would be greatly appreciated, and apologies for such a long rambling post!