Chronicles of a 20 (Bulkhead cracked!!!!!)

Well I'm not sure why, but my coralline hasn't been growing at all since the tank move and all that I did have died from the lowered water level. The entire back wall is grey from former coralline.

This is really frustrating. I felt that after these changes, my tank would have taken off by now (2 months later). If it weren't for the extremely slow but steady encrusting of my SPS coral, I'd consider quitting and starting over in the Fall.

I'm pretty much down to the last thing I haven't experimented with to help get my tank where I want it to be; that's increasing phosphates (yes, increasing) and feeding my coral.

I've been around to local houses to observe reef tanks and the growth in some of these tanks relative to mine is a huge let down. NOTHING grows in my tank and my params are PERFECT. So perfect, that I am actually raising my nutrient levels. I've had some frags for 6-8 months and they haven't grown a fraction of an inch. These other tanks I've seen have seen colonies grow in that time from frags like mine.

There are no param swings in this tank what so ever (everything stays constant, temp and salinity included) and I have top of the line lighting and every filtration method imaginable. I just don't get it. There's something wrong when you can't grow GSP, ZOAs, Mushrooms, Candy Cane etc in a tank. Those things grow like weeds. Mine stays colorful but doesn't grow.

If feeding and higher nutrients don't do the trick, I might punch a Panda.

 

Look at the back wall. The coralline has pretty much dissolved away slowly over the course of 2 months. I wonder if that a reason why I A) can't get coralline and B) why I am not getting much, if any, calcification out of my coral.

Possibly a low pH issue causing calcium carbonate to dissolve?

April 15


June 30

 

What are all of your parameters?

 

That's the mind boggling part:

Calc- 420 (Red Sea)
alk- 3.8 meq/L or 10 dKH (Hanna Checker)
mag-1380 (Red Sea)
salinity- 1.025 (Refractometer)
Temp- 77-79 daily
pH- 7.9-8.0 (Seachem, I think may be reading high and the culprit)
Nitrates- 0 (Seachem)
Phosphate- 0.006 ppm (Hanna Checker ULR Phosphorus)

The salinity, calc, alk and mag numbers have been pretty much dead set for the past couple months.

 

Given those parameters, I tend to agree with you that it is likely a nutrient issue. I would tend to doubt pH would be an issue in an established reef tank, but who knows. I would double check it with another test kit or digital tester if you can just to make sure.

Otherwise, feed your corals

 

But that shouldn't be the reason why the coralline is dissolving, should it?

 

Did you not change your fixture to MH around that time?

 

Indeed. I know why it lost color (I drained water and likely killed it), but I am unsure as to why the calcification that built up on that back wall started to dissolve these past two weeks.

I haven't scraped it, but it looks like I did.

 

When I change lighting sometimes the coralline dies off and eventually regrows.

I have had the best coralline in tanks with less intense lighting.

Daniel told me to to increase my Ca to 450, I did now I see a lot of coralline growth.

There are two things I like about coralline. A strong growth suggest water chemistry might be compatible with sps, and I like it when the rocks are purple. You can keep the purple backs and coralline on surface areas, pumps.....

If you look on RC at some of the most stunning SPS long established tanks you will notice many do not have a ton of coralline.

 

It appears I brought the halide on on April 1. It's been about 3 months.