Some Corals Healthy While Others Dying

[Maho.B]

HI all, looking for any feedback or advice on what seems to be a healthy system, yet struggling with some "easier" corals. Awhile back I had posted about healthy corals all of a sudden dying or struggling, I never really ended up determining what happened, I did 4 water changes in a two week period and started running some ROX carbon for 2 weeks. I also sent in water for an ICP test. The corals that weren't struggling seemed to hold on and I removed the ones that dyed, then sort of held tight on things and didn't add anything new for a few weeks. Once I tried some new corals some ended up okay, and some didn't.

The ICP test revealed nothing off, just a little low on Iodine and Strontium, not terrible, just on the end of the low scale. Below are my current parameters as of today:

Alkalinity: 8.2
Calcium: 400
Magnesium: 1380
Nitrate: 1.7
Phosphate: .03
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 77.8

Corals that dyed all together:
- 3 Acropora
- 2 Cyphastrea

Corals that are currently struggling:
- 2 Acropora
- 2 Montipora caps
- 1 Neon green birdsnest
- 1 Stylocoeniella Burning Bananna
- 1 Montipora setosa
- Green Hulk Lepto

Corals that are currently healthy:
- Red Acans
- Alveopora
- Frilly Mushroom
- Metallic green button polyp
- Zoanthids
- Hammer
- Cabbage leather
- Montipora Spongodes

The corals that are struggling do so after a couple of weeks of adding them. My parameters don't swing much, the Alk dosing is automated and I have tested at 3 different times of the day and the swing is never more than .5 in a 24 hour period (like 8.2 to 8.7 from morning to late night) hopefully that is stable enough. All other parameters get tested every 3 days and adjusted as needed. I have 2 Red Sea Reef LED 90's for lighting over a Red Sea Max 400. They are set to 100% Blue and 50% White and run 11 hours total including a small ramp up and ramp down period. I have two Reef Wave 25's (one on each end) the two powerheads built into the back wall and the return pump, so flow seems adequate?

I have coraline algae starting to grow nicely (the system is 7 months old) and what seems like a good pod population. No real aglae issues other than a thin brownish green coat on the back wall ( I don't scrape it) and I have to clean the other 3 sides of glass about every 3 days or so. I dose ammino acid every other day according to directions and perform a 20 gallon water change every two weeks like clockwork.

The fish in the system are all quite healthy and consist of:
- 2 clown fish
- Tailspot blenny
- Royal gramma
- Randalls goby
- Gold neon goby
- Geometric pygmy hawk

WIth all this being said, I think I will hold off on adding any more corals for awhile and keep doing what I'm doing and see if it "matures" and the struggling corals are perhaps recovered. I posted to see if anyone has had a similar situation and if so what if anything different was done to help. I would love to get it to a point where I can confidently add various corals and keep them all healthy. Apologies of the long post, thanks in advance for any feedback.

 

[Spare time]

Consider feeding more or dosing amino acids. The nitrate may be zero due to error margins on test kits. Even if its 1ish, that means you are possibly putting in food at below what the tank is demanding. Other than that nothing seems off. Make sure the SPS are getting enough flow.


PS your profile picture made me laugh. I love blennies. They are just so comedic looking.

 

[Maho.B]

Thanks for the input spare time. You may be in to something as I actually need to dose Neo nitro to get the Nitrates where they currently are, I'll ramp them up to see if it helps. Your comment on the Blenny is spot on, total comedians! He (and the pygmy hawk) for sure has the most personality of this fish group! Thanks again.

 

[Spare time]

Thanks for the input spare time. You may be in to something as I actually need to dose Neo nitro to get the Nitrates where they currently are, I'll ramp them up to see if it helps. Your comment on the Blenny is spot on, total comedians! He (and the pygmy hawk) for sure has the most personality of this fish group! Thanks again.

You could probably afford just feeding the fish more too since the phosphates are not high.

 

[iseethruyou2]

Nutrients too low. With the margin of error on testing kits you could be zeroed.

 

[Maho.B]

Okay, I currently feed once or twice a day. I am always a bit worried about the phosphates, from what I can tell the majority say nothing above .05 with sps. Is that your experience? I also just picked up some Benepets Reef Food so I will start trying that as well, it seems that can potentially raise nutrient levels as well. Thanks.

 

[krollins]

Could you send pictures?

 

[Maho.B]

Could you send pictures?

Sure, I will take some tonight when I get home. Thanks!

 

[Maho.B]

Hi guys, here are some pics of the mix struggling and healthy coral, sorry in advance for the pic quality, took them on my phone and I'm no photographer! Just tested water and all parameters are the same (within .1) as written in this post a few days ago except calcium, I have bumped that up to 425 over the last few days. Again I think I'll just keep the parameters stable and hold off adding anything until it turns around, if anyone sees/notices anything I'm all ears. Just strange how everything seems "fine" tank wise and some corals still struggling. The Red Setosa Monti is barely hanging on, and the blue staghorn acro (which used to be bright blue, growing new branches and encrusting at the base) is all but dead now. Bummer. The burning banana Stylo was completely covering the frag base and all polyps out all the time, now a month later it's basically half dead. The little Cyphastrea meteor shower and the Pectinia space invader are the most recent additions (week and a half ago) so I'll wait to see how they do. Thanks in advance for any advice!