Ford's 75 (6 months old): New Additions! Pg. 3

Well, its already been six months since i set up my tank, its hard to believe.

I have to say overall I am rather proud of myself for getting this far and building everything involved.

However i feel rather disappointed as all my tank levels have been dead on and stable for several months and still no corals are really growing.

Nothing has died except a monti cap, everything is just sorta alive and stagnating. The only thing that has really changed with my corals is that they have lost color. I still get polyp extension and everything seems to be "okay" just not great.

Temp: 82F
Ph: 8.0
Alk: 9.0-8.6 Max swing over a week
Cal: 440ppm
Mag: 1300
Nitrate: 0ppm
Sg: 1.025
Phos: no test

I feed my fish 3 times a week either pe mysis or pellets. I rinse the mysis shrimp with RO/DI water. Once a week i broadcast feed the recommended dose of reef chili. I run 1 cup of GFO in a dual brs reactor with rox 0.8 carbon. I skim 24/7 with my reef octopus 150. My cheato never grows, my mangroves grow somewhat steady. I do a 15% water change once a week with reef crystals and RO/DI water. I dose BRS two part manually to keep my alk and cal pretty darn stable. My lights run for 10 hours with 2 bulbs and 4 hours with 6 bulbs. My bulbs are 54 watt ATI Blue plus and ATI coral plus. I have two MP 10s set to lagoon mode at about 50% power. My return pump is a mag drive 12 throttled back significantly. I have about 60lbs of live rock and 120lbs of mixed sized aragonite.

Like i said earlier i had a monti cap die on me, it started to bleach from the bottom up. (STN)? Everything else just seems blahh.

I have gone the whole time without any nuisance algae until about a week ago i had some cyano form on the sandbed. should i start vacuuming the sand bed? its about 2" deep. This is why iam now worried about my tank. Something must not be right with all this going on.

GSP: wont grow but good pe
Xenia: wont grow
Mushrooms: were growing, not stopped
frogspawn: good pe, lost some color and wont grow. fed regularly
torch: seems very happy, but lost color. fed regularly
brain: seemed happy at first, but lost color and growth stopped, pe getting worse. fed regularly
zoas: wont grow, lost a little color in some, good pe

all fish, starfish, snails, and hermits are as happy as can be.

i will post pics after my class. they will be up around 3:30 ish. expect a bunch!

thanks for any help... i am totally stumped about what to do.

 

As promised:

FTS



Refugium & Return Sections:



Mangroves doing well:



Skimmer working hard:



Brain seems sunken in almost:



Frogspawn is always like this, still the same size:



Watermelon Zoas doin good:



BRS Dual Reactor:



These zoas have not grown a single polyp since bought:



Torch Coral, always happy but lost some coloration though :/



Blue Coralline Algae:



Small Patch of Cyano in back of tank:



Beautiful Mushrooms, sorta glittery, doing good but growing slow



These zoas have also not grown at all



More to come in a few min....

 

I am in the EXACT position as you are. My growth halted and my colors faded a bit. Things looked healthy and PE was great, just no growth and pastel colors.

I decided, after 3 months, things needed to change. I changed my lights from LEDs to metal halides, I've done a 15%, 20%, 15% and 15% water changes over 2 weeks because my mag, alk and salinity were high. I bought a refractometer and realized that the saliniy was in the 1.030-1.031 range and it is now down to 1.024. I also added more flow (45x volume to 57x volume).

My alk. is still high (4.5) and I plan on getting it down further. I've never had any sort of algae or die off, so I wrote off phosphate, nitrate and ammonia.

 

You may be getting a false reading on the nitrate test. If you have algae it could be using it all up and thats why it is reading 0 on the test. Or maybe your water is just really really clean.

I don't really know but I am sure others may be able to help you more.

I would say to just give it time, patience is the key to success.

 

You're doing everything fine. My tank was very similar for the first year. It wasn't until my pod population took off that I really noticed a difference. Have you seeded your fuge with pods? Do you feed them? I think the corals greatly benefit from the various pod deaths, spawns, random feedings, etc. You may also try target feeding the Reef Chili instead of broadcast feeding it. I drop 5-10 NLS pellets in my fuge each week to feed my pods.

I would cut back a bit on the water changes to maybe 5-10% a week. With all that filtration, you might be keeping things a bit too clean for a new system. LPS and softies don't mind a little nutrient in the water.

You're pH is a bit on the low side, but not bad. I noticed a nice improvement in my tank when I elevated it from 8.0-8.1 to 8.3-8.4. My tank is in a basement with excess CO2, which kept my pH low. I now use a CO2 adsorbent to scrub the CO2 from the air going into my skimmer. It's worked wonders.

Your tank is looking great and the corals look healthy. Your tank just needs some more time to mature. It'll take off before you know it.

 

Strikes me as one of two things (or both): too clean and/or too much light.

You might try feeding everyday or back off on the GFO for a few weeks. And shorten your photo-period to 8 hours/day.

 

Thanks for the advice and support everyone.

Should i vacuum my sand bed? It just seems like its collecting a lot of junk and "looks" dirty. Otherwise what can i do to clean it up and rid of my little bit of cyano?

Also if i get the flow any higher my LPS wont come out, so i have it as high as possible right now.

I agree the nitrate test may be wrong as well.

Just curious, why should i reduce the amount of water changed each week? I always thought the more the merrier!?

Also, i think i will also start target feeding, good idea. I just always broad cast fed because i liked to feed all the small critters and filter feeders in the tank.

I have a fair amount of pods, worms, and sponges in the fuge.

Any more things i should do differently?

Mixing some saltwater for a wc:



Some coralline growth:



Making some RO/DI water in the bath tub:



Plenty of pressure:



My sand has this dirty look, I am thinking its pretty dirty... should i vacuum?



Behind the scene:



Another FTS:



Again, thanks for any help on how i can improve!

-Ford

 

If it was too clean, then wouldn't i not have the cyano forming?

Someone else told me too much light as well, so i will try cutting back to 8 hours.

 

Cyano is a funny thing; it can grow in a lot of environments. And there's different schools of thought as to why it happens, all from excess nutrients (which is the common opinion), to a bacterial imbalance, to excess iron. The latter can definitely fuel it, and GFO is a great source of iron. If you took your GFO offline and it went away, you wouldn't be the first person to see such a result.

As for your sandbed, you can use a piece of airline tubing to siphon off the surface. If it's a shallow sandbed (less than 2") you should be safe to vacuum it. However, I wouldn't do more than 1/3 of the tank at a time with several days of rest in-between.

 

Reduce light period, remove gfo/carbon feed daily. Stop doing so much water changes. 20% monthly is what I do.