I am unsure if these 2 things can be related, would be interesting to see how many people who experience 1 also experience the other. These are 2 problems I have been dealing with for quite some time though.
Quick background. Tank is 90 a gallon with sump, about 125 gal total volume. Was set up with about 30 lbs liverock from KPAquatics and 50 lbs dry pukani. Sand was all bagged dead sand rinsed and added. Some dry fiji and a small piece of live from the lfs in the sump. Filtration includes a dark sump with small cryptic fuge section, skimmer, carbon reactor with brs rox, and the typical cuc. Lighting is hybrid with 4 t5ho bulbs and 2 kessil 360x. Red sea blue bucket is the only salt used, 2 part dosed by pump. Tank is currently about 18 months set up.
Parameters fairly stable over the past year
Sg 1.026
ALK 8
CA 460
MAG 1300
PHOS .08
NITRATE 20
With the liverock from the keys and a bottle of bacteria the tank cycled very quickly. Within a few weeks I attempted my first coral. I added lps, softies, sps including acros all within the 1st month. First 6 months things looked fantastic and grew/encrusted amazingly quickly. Felt like I couldn't kill a frag if I tried and confidence was sky high. I had some minor algae annoyances, typical diatoms, small tufts of hair algae, even some dictoya from the liverock. This all subsided with time and a solid cuc.
Then last March I added fish. A dwarf angel picked on everything and had to be removed but other than that no issues. That's when problems started. Montis and birdsnest all died after having previously grown, acros stopped growing and lost color, lps not extending as much. Chemistry all remained on par and ICP found nothing unusual. I let this go on for 6 months making no changes hoping it'd just right itself in time. Kept testing and everything always on par. Coralline growth is great, no algae on the rocks to deal with just cyano on the sandbed. After 5 months there was no improvement but I didn't notice any further decline. I hacked off all corals that were dead or close to it and frowing algae. I ordered a package from IPSF with livesand and all kinds of goodies to bump my biodiversity. I also started dosing trace elements, picked up my WC schedule, and decreased the kessils intensity. Slowly but surely I noticed some improvements in the surviving corals and after a couple months felt like I finally won the battle.
Fast forward to today. Past 3 months I've added numerous corals. Acro frags have about a 75% survival rate and encrusting within a month of placement. Lps extended and full and all looking great. I still cant keep a Monti or birdnest, within a week they just lose all their skin and decline until death. The acros look ok but arent growing as well as I feel they should or have the colors I feel they should. I'm not seeing much stn but some new frags do have some stn at the bases and some at the tips. I'm still dealing with cyano on my sandbed.
The cyano did recede a little after the IPSF order but not much. It never goes to the rocks, only on the sand. It disappears at night and remains gone all morning when the blues are on. Once the whites come on it grows to cover the sandbed. I've tried siphoning, got a gravel vac to clean the sandbed during WC weekly, would stir the sand multiple times a day manually, all just to have it hang in there day after day. No invert loss including my conch snails. No other nuisance algaes in the tank, small patches here and there where fish cant reach but they're small. Time to bring in the chemiclean.
I have never used this before and am nervous, usually avoid chemicals and like to let nature play its course. I have felt like from day 1 my coral issues were from something bacterial I can not measure. I am not sure if the bacteria associated with cyano are also associated with stn or not, or if the antibiotic in chemiclean just targets both types of bacteria well. I have heard of people using chemiclean to help treat stn as well as make dips for sick corals with success. As for the cyano I have heard it's a bandaid treatment, but I've honestly exhausted all means of removal without success. Nitrates at 20 aren't great but people have much higher with no issues, and the 20 is from hanna checker and ICP testing so accurate. I so worry it can be some form of Dino, but my understanding is those don't take hold unless you bottom out your nutrients which I've never done. I will treat in hopes of solving both problems and pray I don't nuke the tank, I've read a few horror stories but most reviews seem positive.
Quick background. Tank is 90 a gallon with sump, about 125 gal total volume. Was set up with about 30 lbs liverock from KPAquatics and 50 lbs dry pukani. Sand was all bagged dead sand rinsed and added. Some dry fiji and a small piece of live from the lfs in the sump. Filtration includes a dark sump with small cryptic fuge section, skimmer, carbon reactor with brs rox, and the typical cuc. Lighting is hybrid with 4 t5ho bulbs and 2 kessil 360x. Red sea blue bucket is the only salt used, 2 part dosed by pump. Tank is currently about 18 months set up.
Parameters fairly stable over the past year
Sg 1.026
ALK 8
CA 460
MAG 1300
PHOS .08
NITRATE 20
With the liverock from the keys and a bottle of bacteria the tank cycled very quickly. Within a few weeks I attempted my first coral. I added lps, softies, sps including acros all within the 1st month. First 6 months things looked fantastic and grew/encrusted amazingly quickly. Felt like I couldn't kill a frag if I tried and confidence was sky high. I had some minor algae annoyances, typical diatoms, small tufts of hair algae, even some dictoya from the liverock. This all subsided with time and a solid cuc.
Then last March I added fish. A dwarf angel picked on everything and had to be removed but other than that no issues. That's when problems started. Montis and birdsnest all died after having previously grown, acros stopped growing and lost color, lps not extending as much. Chemistry all remained on par and ICP found nothing unusual. I let this go on for 6 months making no changes hoping it'd just right itself in time. Kept testing and everything always on par. Coralline growth is great, no algae on the rocks to deal with just cyano on the sandbed. After 5 months there was no improvement but I didn't notice any further decline. I hacked off all corals that were dead or close to it and frowing algae. I ordered a package from IPSF with livesand and all kinds of goodies to bump my biodiversity. I also started dosing trace elements, picked up my WC schedule, and decreased the kessils intensity. Slowly but surely I noticed some improvements in the surviving corals and after a couple months felt like I finally won the battle.
Fast forward to today. Past 3 months I've added numerous corals. Acro frags have about a 75% survival rate and encrusting within a month of placement. Lps extended and full and all looking great. I still cant keep a Monti or birdnest, within a week they just lose all their skin and decline until death. The acros look ok but arent growing as well as I feel they should or have the colors I feel they should. I'm not seeing much stn but some new frags do have some stn at the bases and some at the tips. I'm still dealing with cyano on my sandbed.
The cyano did recede a little after the IPSF order but not much. It never goes to the rocks, only on the sand. It disappears at night and remains gone all morning when the blues are on. Once the whites come on it grows to cover the sandbed. I've tried siphoning, got a gravel vac to clean the sandbed during WC weekly, would stir the sand multiple times a day manually, all just to have it hang in there day after day. No invert loss including my conch snails. No other nuisance algaes in the tank, small patches here and there where fish cant reach but they're small. Time to bring in the chemiclean.
I have never used this before and am nervous, usually avoid chemicals and like to let nature play its course. I have felt like from day 1 my coral issues were from something bacterial I can not measure. I am not sure if the bacteria associated with cyano are also associated with stn or not, or if the antibiotic in chemiclean just targets both types of bacteria well. I have heard of people using chemiclean to help treat stn as well as make dips for sick corals with success. As for the cyano I have heard it's a bandaid treatment, but I've honestly exhausted all means of removal without success. Nitrates at 20 aren't great but people have much higher with no issues, and the 20 is from hanna checker and ICP testing so accurate. I so worry it can be some form of Dino, but my understanding is those don't take hold unless you bottom out your nutrients which I've never done. I will treat in hopes of solving both problems and pray I don't nuke the tank, I've read a few horror stories but most reviews seem positive.
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