SPS Dying, LPS doing great??

[v10king]

Originally Posted by 150778

How long does a 500ml bottle last on a 150 gal setup

I do 10ml a week on my 120gallon water volume. So 50 weeks for me.

[Reefvet]

Originally Posted by mhucasey

Based on your picture, your skimmer is pulling a lot of stuff out of the water. If you skim aggressively enough you can have no algae even with Phosphate and Nitrate in the water. I would back the skimmer off to dry skim(gunk mostly collects in the neck) and lower the level of light by at least a third.

If you are concerned with something leaching from the sand, a polyfilter in the sump is good insurance and its a cheap way to give you peace of mind.

2 very good recommendations!

The tank looks barren and the skimmers holding some serious skimmate. Time to back that thing down and put more fish in the tank.

The polyfilter can help correct anything that might have built up from the lack of water changes AND the aluminum your Phosguard may be leaching into the tank.

[LittleSardines]

Originally Posted by Reefvet

Your tank is not too young. You can grow SPS in a 3 week old tank. The age bit is outdated urban lore. Your tank will support more SPS in time but there's no reason it shouldn't now.

Your black sand has the same buffering ability as white sand, which you're not relying on anyway.

It sounds like you have sufficient light and flow.

Your phosphate level isn't a problem though it can't hurt to lower it with water changes. Phosguard is an aluminum based product that's outdated and no the best solution. It potentially can introduce problems.

Only changing water once a month and not feeding or supplementing any coral foods means the only food sources for the SPS are light and detritus from the fish.

I'd change a significant amount of water and start doing water changes at least every 2 weeks. You also don't mention any dosing of aminos or feeding the corals. Monthly water changes are not sufficient for many SPS.

I only see 1 clown fish and I see what looks like cyano on the sand.

How many fish are in the tank ?

Have you siphoned/cleaned the sand since you set the tank up ? The sand be looks pretty deep and if that's cyano it may be holding too much detritus and that's where your nitrates are coming from.

I've been keeping SPS for 25+ years, been in the hobby for 40+ years. I have a pretty good idea of how to run a reef tank

I actually have quite a few fish in the tank, I turned on the light to take that picture. I've got 1 clown, 1 banggai cardinal, 1 one spot foxface, 4 chromis, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 pistol shrimp, 1 scopas tang, and 1 purple dottyback.
I clean the sand regularly by mixing it about once a week and turning my skimmer up to pull out gunk - that way it doesn't have time to really get those deep sand bed problems with nutrients built up over long periods of time.

I did start feeding my corals some coral food in addition to whatever they get from me feeding my fish and the LPS have improved for sure.

Originally Posted by v10king

Are those real reef rocks with fake corraline or real corraline? Tank looks pretty new and sterile. I started SPS in my tank after 7 days and those I first put in are still alive and kicking and are biggest ones I have now 9 months later. I don't change water on my tank and I dose CA, ALK, MG, and Fauna Marin color elements . I used to have GFO and Carbon and change water all the time and had no success with sps, they floundered along and were pale and eventually would stn never growing a MM. Now, every 45 days I take a reference pic and these things are growing significantly with minimal maintenance work required. Best of both worlds, try dosing Fauna Marin color elements and take off any carbon or gfo if you are running any. Let me know if that works, I bet it does.

The rocks are manmade concrete I believe, but all covered in real coraline. What's making it look new/sterile?
I dose CA and ALK (seachem prt 1 & 2 - so the CA has mg and some trace minerals in it).

Originally Posted by mhucasey

When you say receded from the base, are you saying they thin slowly there then die off a little at a time, or are you seeing the pieces of flesh slough off the skeleton from the base up? If it s the first It's similar to what Ive seen in my tank. The cause seemed to be a combination of too much light and too aggressive skimming. Based on your picture, your skimmer is pulling a lot of stuff out of the water. If you skim aggressively enough you can have no algae even with Phosphate and Nitrate in the water. I would back the skimmer off to dry skim(gunk mostly collects in the neck) and lower the level of light by at least a third.

If you are concerned with something leaching from the sand, a polyfilter in the sump is good insurance and its a cheap way to give you peace of mind.

They thin slowly then die off for sure, i've never seen chunks of flesh coming off them. My par readings from a couple weeks ago still read ~400-450 for the areas where all my SPS were sitting.
If I was skimming too much wouldn't my skimmate be pale? I might be making a lot of assumptions there but that's what I have understood.

[Art13]

What do you calibrate your refractometer with? I had this same issue with my sps until i realized my tank was sitting at 1.022 because i was using ro water instead of a calibration solution. i picked up a bottle of 35ppt solution, corrected the issue, i haven't had a problem since. Might not be your problem, but just a suggestion.

[lynchmob3000]

I'd say do weekly wc simply because that's standard for a tank that size. Then I'd say just because, you should get that gfo rollin and get that p04 down. But before all that I would calibrate my refractor and make sure it's right...

What salt brand are you using?

[lynchmob3000]

Someone said something about p04 not being a problem, might be true might not be! Frags sometimes can't take the higher po4, it has to be gradually raise but started out at a normal level for it to handle it

[LittleSardines]

Originally Posted by Art13

What do you calibrate your refractometer with? I had this same issue with my sps until i realized my tank was sitting at 1.022 because i was using ro water instead of a calibration solution. i picked up a bottle of 35ppt solution, corrected the issue, i haven't had a problem since. Might not be your problem, but just a suggestion.

I calibrate it using R/O. I've never had a problem with that before with my other tanks.. I guess it doesn't hurt to double check though.

Originally Posted by lynchmob3000

I'd say do weekly wc simply because that's standard for a tank that size. Then I'd say just because, you should get that gfo rollin and get that p04 down. But before all that I would calibrate my refractor and make sure it's right...

What salt brand are you using?

Where are you getting that as a standard water change regimen? Just curious.
I'm using the Phosguard to try and lower my phosphate, which is a substitute to GFO. I read a little about it leeching aluminum, but the studies only say that happens if its in massive quantities, I'm not using it even quite at the reccomended dosage for a tank my size.

I'll recalibrate my refracto and double check..

Using kent salt

[oldbones]

Calibrating with RO yielded much different results for me when compared to a calibrating solution. BIG difference.

[tmz]

Not sure causing the issues with the corals .

PO4 at 0.1ppm shouldn't do much if any damage ,though I personally, like it lower 0.02 to 0.04ppm. If the sand is biogenetc calcium carbonate/aragonite( Agramax claims it's Hawaiian balck sand is 99% biogentic aragonite and silicate free )it wouldn't add much silicate which wouldn't kill the acros anyway.Might be an impurity in the coloring but I wouldn't think so

GFO also pulls out silicate btw.

The rock may be an issue depending on how it was made, it can contain phosphorus, silicate ,alumina and other impurities.

I also prefer smaller more frequent water changes, ie; 1% per day for constancy

[vette.tech]

Before you do anything get some 35 solution to verify, it may be fine it may not be. My buddy's refractometer has a slope that RO works for when checked against calibration solution, mine is off .004. I didn't think that was possible so I tried multiple company's fluids and googled it. It sure is possible and I was running at 030 for a while

[billyzbear]

I believe in small WC's every week too.
So the pic was when lights just came on? How about a normal one?
I would hold off on adding any thing new until the ones you have are doing well.
I would not mess with sand like you described. Get a conch and or other sand cleaners.
I'm not one for chasing numbers, once my p04 was at 2. Nothing died but I feed coral too much. I did have an algae bloom.
Normally I buy coral from fellow reefers, they tend to do better. I usually have bad luck with shipped livestock and some that come straight from wholesellers. The tank and rock are newer not seasoned. Go slow. I understand some think it's fine to add a bunch of sps to a new tank and rock. And to the guy that said it's fine, was the rock from another tank, new? In the beginning stick with hardy sps like the monti's, birdsnest, green slimmer to name a few. Once those are doing well try others.
With all that being said, I had a couple t5 and a lot of leds. Corals were doing ok but not really. I added two more t5 and things really turned around for the better. You may want to try t5 if things don't improve.