No reply on RC, Poor Polyp extensions. Help please

buddy08

buddy08

SPS Addict
Basically copied and pasted this from RC as I got no help there. Many of you that have seen my build have noticed my sps's but some of them arent doing so hot and the others are doing great so I sought out for a different opinion. This was my thread on RC, maybe you guys will be better help (like always)

I recently have started to keep Sps corals in my 75g. Between November and January, I have purchased roughly 30 frags. Since then, I have lost 3 of these frags but may loose 2 more. They all started bleaching from their bases and slowly progressed upwards. I tried to salvage a branch each from 2 of the 3 frags that died but ended up doing more harm than good and inevitably lost them. The other died rather quickly within a few days of first noticing the bleaching coral but this one bleached at the base and tips and there was nothing to salvage. I have looked for AEFW but have found no signs of the pests so I ruled that one out. I have also checked for red bugs but have yet to find one; not ruling that one out yet as I have never treated for redbugs but Its safe to say, I havent seen any yellow specks on my acros.

Another thing I've noticed with my sps frags is poor polyp extension. My Digitata, Montiporas, and Milleporas hardly extend polyps; unlike the mother colonies in other tanks that these came from. I have tested my water, and changed my powerhead positioning and still have poor polyp extension. They show great color and are encrusting to the rocks/frag plugs but they lack the extension I would like to see.

My cali tort, pearlberry, tri color, german blue, & garf bonsai are showing decent polyp extension and growth so at least some sps are happy, but the others worry me.
freak5.gif


Run down of my tank including Parameters:
Calc 440
Alk 9
mag 1380
phosphates 0
nitrates 0
ph 8.0
salinity 1.025
temp 79
as for lighting, Im running 48diy leds that push on average 650 par 5 inches below the water line, 450 in mid level of tank and 200 at bottom so I can assume my lighting is sufficient

I does using 2 part but I rarely have to do so as my water levels stay constant every time I test it. My Lps corals seem happy but with that being said, I've never had big polyp extension with my meteor shower coral either (they protrude away from the coral base but do not show much of their orange polyps) although it is growing as its started off as a 3/4" frag and is now about 5" in diameter.

What do you think? Any idea or explanation that can lead to improved polyp extension and ultimately better coral growth? Thanks in advance for your time
 
I don't really have any advice, but do have a few more questions that might help someone else give advice:

How do you know what your PAR is? Are you using a PAR meter, or are these the readings the manufacturer gave? (I presume you went through a company to build the DIY LED fixture? If not and you built the unit entirely on your own, are the LED bulbs made for aquariums specifically?) What color LED bulbs do you have (ratio of white, blue, and royal blue)? What is the wattage per bulb?

How long do you have your lights on per day? Do you use a ramp-up/ramp-down period? Do you run your lights at 100% intensity?

Are there any fish or inverts that are pestering or nipping at these particular coral specimens?

Have you tried moving them from their current place to either higher or lower in the aquarium to see if they behave differently?

What is the flow in your tank? Are these specimens in a high flow area? (I believe SPS need high flow)

How are you measuring phosphate? I believe phosphate only stays in the water column for a very short time (matter of seconds), so tests are notoriously inaccurate.

Are you dosing anything? If so, are you monitoring and testing for it?

Do you use RO/DI water? (I presume you are) If so, are the filters still good? If not, maybe its time to replace them (I'm thinking if you have copper pipes and copper is getting through the filters that this could affect your corals)

What are the SPS specimens that you are having the most trouble with? Could it be that these are just really slow growing specimens who simply need more time before they start thriving?

If you have particular specimens that have started to bleach, are they bleaching from the bottom or top?

Do you have a grounding probe? If not, could stray voltage affect corals?

Those are all of the questions I can think of for now, hopefully the answers will help us figure this out for you!
 
lol answering his questions with more questions.....only time thats acceptable =)

He is right tho....we need more info. Are you sure your PHOS is at 0 like he said, its hard to detect. Im battling phos right now and my sps is basically doing what you explained.(only some,my red planet still looks GREAT along with some others.) Matter fact thanks for reminding me. I need to go do another WC.
 
FishyReef said:
I don't really have any advice, but do have a few more questions that might help someone else give advice:

How do you know what your PAR is? Are you using a PAR meter, or are these the readings the manufacturer gave? (I presume you went through a company to build the DIY LED fixture? If not and you built the unit entirely on your own, are the LED bulbs made for aquariums specifically?) What color LED bulbs do you have (ratio of white, blue, and royal blue)? What is the wattage per bulb?

How long do you have your lights on per day? Do you use a ramp-up/ramp-down period? Do you run your lights at 100% intensity?

Are there any fish or inverts that are pestering or nipping at these particular coral specimens?

Have you tried moving them from their current place to either higher or lower in the aquarium to see if they behave differently?

What is the flow in your tank? Are these specimens in a high flow area? (I believe SPS need high flow)

How are you measuring phosphate? I believe phosphate only stays in the water column for a very short time (matter of seconds), so tests are notoriously inaccurate.

Are you dosing anything? If so, are you monitoring and testing for it?

Do you use RO/DI water? (I presume you are) If so, are the filters still good? If not, maybe its time to replace them (I'm thinking if you have copper pipes and copper is getting through the filters that this could affect your corals)

What are the SPS specimens that you are having the most trouble with? Could it be that these are just really slow growing specimens who simply need more time before they start thriving?

If you have particular specimens that have started to bleach, are they bleaching from the bottom or top?

Do you have a grounding probe? If not, could stray voltage affect corals?

Those are all of the questions I can think of for now, hopefully the answers will help us figure this out for you!
Click to expand...

1. fixture is DIY, built it myself and borrowed a par meter from my LFS for readings. using 24 cool whites and 24 royal blues. the blues are running at 900ma and the whites are at 700ma which gives my tank a nice contrast of color

2. at 12:00am my royal blues come on, at 2:00pm the whites then turn on and shut off at 9:00pm, the blues go off at 11:00pm.

3. the first coral that died from the base and tips may have been nipped at by my coral beauty although I have never seen him in the act and he doesnt bother other corals. He mainly nibbles at what little algae growing on the frag rack but he stays fed pretty heavily as I feed alga sheets daily for my tang and mysis shrimp 2 times a day for my anthias

4.they started at the bottom of the tank and acclimated their way up over a 4 week period, they never extended polyps at the bottom of the tank but my cali tort, german blue, ad pearlberrys are currently on the bottom and they seem to be fine

5. flow is a decent 40x turnover right now, return pump is pushing anywhere from 400 to 700 (not sure how much head loss is effecting the flow, its a mag 7). Also have 2x 1400 hydor pumps on a wavemaker but they alternate so in reality thats only half of 2800gph as they dont run at the same time so I figured the flow could have been an issue so I tossed in one of my older maxi 1200's with mod kit pushing 1600gph which gives me a constant 3400-3700 gph of flow which should be plenty

6.measuring phosphates with an api test kit (not a big fan), I want to buy hannah digital test kits but am budgeting my money as i just purchased an engagement ring for the lady

7. i dose using 2 part but rarely have to do so because my levels are always in the same level being 440 calc, 1350-1380 mag, and 8-10 dkh alk. I always test before dosing and use BRS calculator to determine the ammount I need to dose to keep things in check. I probably dose once every 2 weeks though. My corals arent pulling it out of my water fast enough to does more frequently

8. I do use ro/di water, filters should be fine as the tank is only 1 year old and I bought the unit new, I make roughly 60 gallons a month with it and the filters are still clean and white looking; no brown residue at the bottom of the filters yet

9. mainly having troubles with monti's, millis, and my digitata although the ones that die from the base up where smooth skin acros (not deepwater)

10. they bleached from the base up but veeeeeery slowly

11. no grounding probe, wouldnt know if I have stray voltage or not.

most of the info you asked was provided in the first posting but I listed it in a few more details
 
Yea the API phos test is about as reliable as my ex girlfriend....not saying that's your problem but could be part of it.
 
Now that you said that, Im going to take my water up to my LFS and see what they come up with. They use saliferts so maybe thatd be a better test. Would stray voltage inhibit corals? I dont know if I have it but I do know that im using an old visi therm heater by marineland, one which they recalled last year due to quality. My temp is set to 82 but the tank is reading 78.1... could this heater have stray voltage? How would I know?
 
Phosphates are very difficult to test for, not only are the test kits inaccurate, but even if you can detect phosphate, the level that you can actually detect is far lower than what is acutally present and being consumed by algae, either nuisance algae such as the film that grows on the glass, other nuisance algae such as cyano, or macro algae in refigiums that was put into place to absorb phosphates and nitrates out of the system

Definitely get a second opinion test, but testing for phosphates is difficult
 
Did a water change last week little fish, was roughly 15 gallons. I try to do one once a month but the time before last weeks water change was probably before I started housing sps. I never did water changes based on my test and everything tested in a suitable level. I did last weeks water change in hopes of improved polyps extension in the corals but didnt notice a deference which is why I began looking for answers on the forums. I did visit my LFS earlier and had them test my water... these we're their results

salinity -1.025
po4 - 0.0110
kh - 10
cal - 500
no2 - 0
no3 - 12.5/2.5 (not sure what that means, he tried to explain to me but said it was my nitrites... nitrites is no2 correct? meaning no3 is my nitrates which makes sense with the excess feeding for the new anthias)

Im researching STN now smitty, thanks for the reference. the photos definitely look like what I've experienced. Now I have to figure out why whether it be Alk (which I have dosed heavily in December) or Temp swings (my tank temp does jump around but nothing that seemed alarming; I assume)

Could those factors explain the lack of polyp extension? Or should I still investigate stray voltage. I want to replace the heater as I know its not accurate and am not sure if its even working properly but with the 180g upgrade around the corner, I dont know what heater to look into buying and I would hate to buy a new one that would be replaced once I got the bigger tank.

I just went out and bought another hydor 1400 powerhead and mounted it in the left corner mid level in the tank and its aimed to the middle front portion of the tank flowing constantly. The original 2x 1400s are opposite of one another and alternate flow every 10 seconds, the left one above the new powerhead is aimed slightly upward towards the overflows and the one on the right is aimed slighty down towards the bottom left corner of the tank. I took the maxijet out as I couldnt stand the hum any longer.
 
I would start doing regular water changes, while you have been replacing the calcium and alk, you are now missing all the other trace elements that you need such as iodine, strontium etc.

Also the high nitrates could definitely be part of the issue. I would still test for stray voltage, it wont hurt anything and will rule out at least one issue.
 
Even if stray voltage isn't your problem, replacing the heater probably isn't a bad idea since old heaters are notorious for temperature swings. Stable temps certainly can't hurt!
 
I have dipped a select few frags but most of them have encrusted to the rocks and will be nearly impossible to dip.... so anything harmful to the corals being dipped will be re exposed to them again once theyre back in the main display. I got a reply on RC that mentioned my bio pellet reactor could be starving the tank of its nutrients, and if thats the case.. like little fish said, more frequent water changes should help... But is there another method of supplementing these nutrients?
 
Try removing half of the bio pellets...I've heard stories of adding too much( the recommended dose) too soon, can cause issues.
 
man... I just added more the other day hahaha. Should I cut back on the pellets or shut it off completely for a a few weeks?
 
Even though I've been running pellets since September? I started with the recommended amount and over the past months, its broke down into smaller pieces so I topped off with more. Im affraid if I remove the Bio Pellets, or even shut it down then I will battle phosphates and I dont want that for sure. Ever since I installed the reactor, red slime hasnt been an issue. I had small battle with it back in august. This is a hard decision, why cant there be a cookie cutter setup that says hey, Buy this, use that, and twalla... Youre successful :(
 
on second thought... I lost a colony of yellow polyps, my toadstool has looked like an utter mess, and I lost 4 heads on my torch coral ever since I started running the reactor. Could that be the reasoning? Then again, my other softies havent been phased. I think I will cut back on the pellets, test for stray voltage, and order a new heater. Thats about all I can do I suppose. What heater should I buy? I need one that will be able to transfer over to the 180 when I upgrade
 
I would get two heaters for the tank, that way you have backup. And it sounds like you have a good plan, I hope everything perks back up!
 
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