Hi,
3 days ago I got my first corals 1x Xenia and 1x Toadstool leather. To my disbelieve I had insane amounts of problems with both and after a ton of research I came to some theories which maybe you could pin point so I don't repeat them in the future.
Quick background
The tank is 630ltr display + 300ltr sump. It was setup about 7 weeks ago and the cycle has been completed about 5 weeks ago. The tank has about 70kg worth of live rock and as per stocking it only has 2 small sapphire damsels. As per filtration I'm running Japenese matting (mechanical), Crystal Bio (bio) and caulerpa in a fuge which is lit 24/7 under an led grow lamp(caulerpa is doing great). Tank is lit with 6x 10w led flood lights.
Water Parameters
ph 8-8.2
kh 9
salinity 1.025-1.026
mag 1420
ca 380
No3 0
Nh4 0
Problems
3 days ago I got my first corals 1x Xenia and 1x Toadstool leather. To my disbelieve I had insane amounts of problems with both and after a ton of research I came to some theories which maybe you could pin point so I don't repeat them in the future.
Quick background
The tank is 630ltr display + 300ltr sump. It was setup about 7 weeks ago and the cycle has been completed about 5 weeks ago. The tank has about 70kg worth of live rock and as per stocking it only has 2 small sapphire damsels. As per filtration I'm running Japenese matting (mechanical), Crystal Bio (bio) and caulerpa in a fuge which is lit 24/7 under an led grow lamp(caulerpa is doing great). Tank is lit with 6x 10w led flood lights.
Water Parameters
ph 8-8.2
kh 9
salinity 1.025-1.026
mag 1420
ca 380
No3 0
Nh4 0
Problems
- Xenia is almost dead, fully deflated and no matter what I do it doesn't seem to help it all so for now just letting it be and hope for the best...
- Toadstool has 2 heads and they seem to be alternating when it comes to opening up and even when 1 of the heads is almost fully open it never reaches 100% opened and it's constantly shedding.
- Light Issue
The leather seems to absolutely hate light and even more so it hates complete darkness. I have bought some filters for my flood light to dim them down to a point where I can barely see in my tank anymore and that is the only light they will try to open up to. If I increase the light slightly they close up and as soon the lights go off they close off as well... It makes no sense to me.
- Refugium is sucking up all the nutrients
I have some coraline algae growing super fast in the refugium due to the 24/7 light cycle and it's bring down kh and ca down fairly fast, it's so fast that water changes are no longer an option and as of today I will start dosing kalkwasser. This however begs the question... Softies don't really need calcium and the levels are still fine so could it really be an issue?
- No protein skimmer = not enough oxygen?
I can't afford a protein skimmer for the time being I'll get to it in a couple of months so I thought maybe I have low levels of oxygen however I do have a powerhead pointed at the surface of the water and the overflow drain pipes are about 1m high so there is plenty of aeration and even more so the damsels never showed any signs of oxygen related problems.
- New tank syndrome?
I've read that in the first 6 months the reef just goes to very rapid and major changes that might happen between water tests (I do all tests daily) that might stress corals but not bother hardy fish at all. To me this theory just seems too far fetched especially considering the size of my tank it will take 1hr just to drop .1 of a degree let alone swing the ph / kh in drastic ways in less then 24hrs...
- Incorrect dipping
Yes I have to admit that I totally screwed up the dipping process... After dipping them I forgot to rinse the corals before putting them in tank therefore some drip trace elements are in my tank but I did a 10% water change a couple of hours after adding the corals so most of those elements should have been diluted severely.