Regmanabq
Community Member
Hoping for some more eyes on this to help me nail down what's wrong with my green goddess birdsnest.
She was doing great for months after a rocky start in Nov where it lost over 90% of it's polyps after accidental exposure to RO water during the initial introduction to the tank. (noob move on my part having a dish of RO on the table while dipping corals when distracted) I never thought it would make it, but by Jan we had polyps everywhere, and it's been doing great and growing slowly since.
Then three weeks ago (so June 19th) she flew off the rock during a water change and landed head first on the sand. I put her back as delicately as possible, but ever since she's been losing polyps on one side and some tips are turning brown.
The side that is losing polyps is on the "non flow" side, I guess? I have a gyre that sits at the top of the tank and flows over the top, around the side and back down the bottom. I also have two returns which are literally right above it and do give some flow from this direction, although not as much as the gyre. (am considering adding another gyre on the opposite end, but it's a biocube, so not much room for more gyres!)
This side also faces a window which is always closed with blackout blinds, but of course some light does come through, but nothing direct that I can find. (I thought maybe a hole was beaming sunlight directly at it, but no, that doesn't seem to be the case)
This spot is around 250 - 300 par? It's right at the top of the rock work in the back corner, so I'm sure it's not getting the full 300, but it was doing well in this spot for months, so i'm not convinced it's a lighting issue.
I should mention.... In April we had a movie shot in our house. No one was supposed to be in the office where this tank is, but during the day of shooting they put two 10,000 watt movie lights outside the window and shot light down the hallway through the doorway this tank sits right next to.
I was not happy and figured I'd see some issues, but did not until July save for an algae outbreak that we are still fighting. I'm not sure if the algae problem is actually light related or just the increase in nitrates and phos that i'm sure happened in the two weeks I was gone and had the movie crew feeding the tank. I'm pretty sure we ended up over feeding as I only have one clown... anyway, we did have that in April, but I would think any damage from the light would have been more immediate? And my nitrate and phos levels have been back to normal for over a month now.
My first thought is the fall into the sand did some damage. But the browning is something i've not dealt with yet.... so I wanted to reach out to the amazing community and see if anyone had any thoughts?
TANK
Biocube 32 with stock lighting
Filtration: bio balls, chemipure elite (last change was July 9) and floss. Was using the phos sucking floss in May and June to get the phos down but it's been regular floss since)
Cycled in April of 2023 with two clowns, a hammer coral and some trochus and serith snails introduced in May of 2023.
Corals were introduced Nov 17 2023 and lived on a frag rack until Jan where they were moved to current location. Baby snails born in Jan? I think? So now we have one clown (one died in Oct 2023, blamed on dropsy and liver damage. unsure of cause.) and 20 ish baby trochus, three cerith and two emerald crabs plus a ton of copepods etc in the sand.
Temp: 79.0 - 79.5 throughout the day
PH: Very stable at 8.1ish in the morning and 8.2ish by evening for five months although we have had a few weeks where it rose over the week to 8.3 before a water change, probably due to all the algae?.
Salinity: 35ppm (B-ionic salt mix is the only mix ever used)
Alk: 7 *(been ranging from 7 - 8.2, but hovering around 7 now for over a month)
Nitrates: 0 (we were at 3-5, and I'm sure this reading is not truly accurate as we still have some hair and turf algae in there)
Phos: .03 (was up to 2 after the movie shoot, but has been holding steady in .03 - .05 range since June)
Magnesium: 1330 (I was keeping this around 1500 last year by just adding a 5% extra on the A and B from my B-ionic salt mix, but all this year it's been in the 1320-1350 range as I just started doing the regular amount)
Calcium: 480 (been 480 - 500 for over a year)
Water change of 10-20% every sunday. (3 - 5 gallons with a 10 gallon change last sunday to try to address this issue)
Tank has been very stable and corals have been doing well. All my cyphastria took over the frag rack, my hammer has gone from two heads to 15 since last June and I honestly stopped testing often because everything was doing great. Now I test once a month.
The only additives we do is 5ml all for reef every two days and 4ish ml of coral aminos during daily night feeding with some reef chile spot feeding once, maybe twice a month. Feeding is once a day of TDO chroma boost and some mysis three or four times a week. This has been our schedule since Aug 2023.
See the pics and offer your take to help me nail this down?
The first pic is June 21, second is July 7, Third is Aug 2 and last is today, august 9.
She was doing great for months after a rocky start in Nov where it lost over 90% of it's polyps after accidental exposure to RO water during the initial introduction to the tank. (noob move on my part having a dish of RO on the table while dipping corals when distracted) I never thought it would make it, but by Jan we had polyps everywhere, and it's been doing great and growing slowly since.
Then three weeks ago (so June 19th) she flew off the rock during a water change and landed head first on the sand. I put her back as delicately as possible, but ever since she's been losing polyps on one side and some tips are turning brown.
The side that is losing polyps is on the "non flow" side, I guess? I have a gyre that sits at the top of the tank and flows over the top, around the side and back down the bottom. I also have two returns which are literally right above it and do give some flow from this direction, although not as much as the gyre. (am considering adding another gyre on the opposite end, but it's a biocube, so not much room for more gyres!)
This side also faces a window which is always closed with blackout blinds, but of course some light does come through, but nothing direct that I can find. (I thought maybe a hole was beaming sunlight directly at it, but no, that doesn't seem to be the case)
This spot is around 250 - 300 par? It's right at the top of the rock work in the back corner, so I'm sure it's not getting the full 300, but it was doing well in this spot for months, so i'm not convinced it's a lighting issue.
I should mention.... In April we had a movie shot in our house. No one was supposed to be in the office where this tank is, but during the day of shooting they put two 10,000 watt movie lights outside the window and shot light down the hallway through the doorway this tank sits right next to.
I was not happy and figured I'd see some issues, but did not until July save for an algae outbreak that we are still fighting. I'm not sure if the algae problem is actually light related or just the increase in nitrates and phos that i'm sure happened in the two weeks I was gone and had the movie crew feeding the tank. I'm pretty sure we ended up over feeding as I only have one clown... anyway, we did have that in April, but I would think any damage from the light would have been more immediate? And my nitrate and phos levels have been back to normal for over a month now.
My first thought is the fall into the sand did some damage. But the browning is something i've not dealt with yet.... so I wanted to reach out to the amazing community and see if anyone had any thoughts?
TANK
Biocube 32 with stock lighting
Filtration: bio balls, chemipure elite (last change was July 9) and floss. Was using the phos sucking floss in May and June to get the phos down but it's been regular floss since)
Cycled in April of 2023 with two clowns, a hammer coral and some trochus and serith snails introduced in May of 2023.
Corals were introduced Nov 17 2023 and lived on a frag rack until Jan where they were moved to current location. Baby snails born in Jan? I think? So now we have one clown (one died in Oct 2023, blamed on dropsy and liver damage. unsure of cause.) and 20 ish baby trochus, three cerith and two emerald crabs plus a ton of copepods etc in the sand.
Temp: 79.0 - 79.5 throughout the day
PH: Very stable at 8.1ish in the morning and 8.2ish by evening for five months although we have had a few weeks where it rose over the week to 8.3 before a water change, probably due to all the algae?.
Salinity: 35ppm (B-ionic salt mix is the only mix ever used)
Alk: 7 *(been ranging from 7 - 8.2, but hovering around 7 now for over a month)
Nitrates: 0 (we were at 3-5, and I'm sure this reading is not truly accurate as we still have some hair and turf algae in there)
Phos: .03 (was up to 2 after the movie shoot, but has been holding steady in .03 - .05 range since June)
Magnesium: 1330 (I was keeping this around 1500 last year by just adding a 5% extra on the A and B from my B-ionic salt mix, but all this year it's been in the 1320-1350 range as I just started doing the regular amount)
Calcium: 480 (been 480 - 500 for over a year)
Water change of 10-20% every sunday. (3 - 5 gallons with a 10 gallon change last sunday to try to address this issue)
Tank has been very stable and corals have been doing well. All my cyphastria took over the frag rack, my hammer has gone from two heads to 15 since last June and I honestly stopped testing often because everything was doing great. Now I test once a month.
The only additives we do is 5ml all for reef every two days and 4ish ml of coral aminos during daily night feeding with some reef chile spot feeding once, maybe twice a month. Feeding is once a day of TDO chroma boost and some mysis three or four times a week. This has been our schedule since Aug 2023.
See the pics and offer your take to help me nail this down?
The first pic is June 21, second is July 7, Third is Aug 2 and last is today, august 9.
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