Treefer32
Valuable Member
I have a 340 gallon mixed reef tank with 20 larger fish in it. By mixed, it's a very mixed reef. A massive 12" Toad stool, many bubble mushrooms, Xenia, Duncans (That are doing great now with reduced phosphates and nitrates), Candy cane colonies (2 different color types) growing well, Multiple Acropora and other SPS doing well for the most part! However, I had purple, gold, and orange Hammers, and 1 Acan with about 6 tiny heads. The purple hammers grew for about 2 years from one head to just over 18 heads. Then died. I had a gold hammer that died shortly thereafter and my orange hammer grew 5 new heads when my other two hammers died.
NOw, My orange hammer has been retracted for weeks and at lesat one head has died completely. The others are not far behind if I didn't figure something out. . .
The Acan heads don't grow, but they don't dye. I've had the same sized Acan now for about 3 years. I've tried target feeding the hammers and acans, I've tried many things. And in the end. I'm not sure what to do.
I've got the benepets coral food mixed into my custom made frozen fish food. So, the corals get broad spectrum fed. Along with selcon and coral aminos.
My nitrates are finally down to 24-25. After getting my nitrates down below 30, one of my acros started bleaching. Go figure. When they were around 40 it was growing thick. The rest of the acros show no change..... Go figure.
Phosphates are down from .25 to .1 finally and remaining stable at .1. Alk is remaining stable between 9.2 to 9.3 week to week. Which tells me my magnesium and Calcium are remaining stable.
Salinity is remaining stable at 1.025.
Are hammers intolerant of any phosphates and nitrates? Or does vodka dosing irritate corals? I thought the additional bacterial blooms would feed the corals, but the hammers don't seem to like it at all....
I'm dosing around 80 ml of vodka per day, is dropping my nitrates right now about 3-5 ppm per week. I'm dosing phosphate - 3 around 8 ml once a week now. Was dosing every 3 days to get phosphates from hovering around .3-.4 week to week, and so far they're staying around .1-.13 now with a small dose once a week.
I have gonipora that are growing new heads, have full extension and doing beautiful. Yet, my hammers are being more sensitive than goni's... Which makes no sense to me....
If the orange ones die I'll have gone from fragging hammers because I had too many heads to no hammers and having to purchase some in the future (if I can figure out what's wrong...)
Tank is 4 years old. Hammers were doing amazing from years 2-3 and slowly died off from the start of the 3rd year. Back then I had phosphates as high as .5 ppm and nitrates up to 45. Now, Nitrates are in half and phosphate 1/5th of what they used to be, and hammers are dying. . .
NOw, My orange hammer has been retracted for weeks and at lesat one head has died completely. The others are not far behind if I didn't figure something out. . .
The Acan heads don't grow, but they don't dye. I've had the same sized Acan now for about 3 years. I've tried target feeding the hammers and acans, I've tried many things. And in the end. I'm not sure what to do.
I've got the benepets coral food mixed into my custom made frozen fish food. So, the corals get broad spectrum fed. Along with selcon and coral aminos.
My nitrates are finally down to 24-25. After getting my nitrates down below 30, one of my acros started bleaching. Go figure. When they were around 40 it was growing thick. The rest of the acros show no change..... Go figure.
Phosphates are down from .25 to .1 finally and remaining stable at .1. Alk is remaining stable between 9.2 to 9.3 week to week. Which tells me my magnesium and Calcium are remaining stable.
Salinity is remaining stable at 1.025.
Are hammers intolerant of any phosphates and nitrates? Or does vodka dosing irritate corals? I thought the additional bacterial blooms would feed the corals, but the hammers don't seem to like it at all....
I'm dosing around 80 ml of vodka per day, is dropping my nitrates right now about 3-5 ppm per week. I'm dosing phosphate - 3 around 8 ml once a week now. Was dosing every 3 days to get phosphates from hovering around .3-.4 week to week, and so far they're staying around .1-.13 now with a small dose once a week.
I have gonipora that are growing new heads, have full extension and doing beautiful. Yet, my hammers are being more sensitive than goni's... Which makes no sense to me....
If the orange ones die I'll have gone from fragging hammers because I had too many heads to no hammers and having to purchase some in the future (if I can figure out what's wrong...)
Tank is 4 years old. Hammers were doing amazing from years 2-3 and slowly died off from the start of the 3rd year. Back then I had phosphates as high as .5 ppm and nitrates up to 45. Now, Nitrates are in half and phosphate 1/5th of what they used to be, and hammers are dying. . .
