Long standing failure with Acropora

[Cubeguy]

Hello everyone, as the title says I’ve been having ongoing issues keeping acropora. They will do well for a couple months, encrust pretty well, good colors and pe and then either stn slowly or I’ll have large sweeping rtn events.

Some background:
My previous setup was a 4 gallon which had primarily acros. Had a cheap 30w led and grew acros really well. Did frequent large water changes and fed mysis daily and dosed Kalk. Tank got to be about 2 years old when I decided I wanted more room so I went to a 15 gallon cube. Transferred everything over plus some additional dry rock. Did seed some smaller pieces of live rock. Maybe 1/5 of total rock. And got a cheap 100w led. Lost all acros in the move unfortunately but I was kinda expecting that since it was a new tank still. Let it get settled for about 9 months or so before I went back into acros. I have lots of coralline algae and the tank uses a good deal ok kalk for not growing acros of 250ml daily. 15 gallon is a little under 2 years now.

I have two hygger power heads that pulse slow, there is a lot of flow in the tank, a small refugium in the back that I grow cheato in. Light is turned down a ton, 45% on 450nm Violets 25% warm white 10% don’t have a par meter but lux at water level is 30,000. Light is 16-18” from water level. Ramps up and down for an hour, from 12-10:30. I use tropic Marin pro and do a weekly water change of about 1-2 gallons depending on phos/no3

Things I’m considering:

ph swinging:
.5 seems like a big swing but I never measured it on my pico.

Possible contaminates:
I’m a mechanic/ student and I try and keep my hands out as much as I can. When I do I always wash my hands but anyone that works on cars would know that stuff can really stick to your hands.

Small water volume:
I understand that keeping sps in a small volume is counterintuitive as we strive for stability but I test daily and have achieved good Stability.

Some odd bacteria:
Lately acros and some montis the skin has been swelling up. over the course of a couple days it deflates.

LEDs:
I would love to go to t5 or pc bulbs but the lighting options for a tank this size is really led only.


Parameters:
Alk 7-8.5 (most swings .1-.2 daily)
Calcium 420-440
Mag 1450-1500
N03 5-15
Phos .1-.15
Ph 8-8.5 daily

I’m just at a loss, thing will do well and then I’ll buy some frags they encrust quick then just freeze growing then slowly decline and after 2-4 months they either start stn from the base or just sluff off all at once.


crappy cell phone pic but it has a lot more white in person

Also the alk spike in the graph was when I switched from an old test kit I ran out to a new one. Back to back tested them and they were about 1dkh from one another so there wasn’t really an alk spike.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hmmm.
Your numbers seem great. except the po4 quick fall which would explain 1 event not chronic.

What light do you have?
How are temp swings daily?

Have you noticed any bugs? I'm stretching here...

 

[PeterErc]

I dont know whats going on there. Other things to consider.

Do you use any smell good in the house,febreeze, plug ins etc
Cleaning products near tank, aerosol or spray or other possible contaminents (my wife's cooking) that could enter the tank.

If it was heavy metal toxicity from say bad magnet/impeller or foreign object it would be constant decline.

 

[Cubeguy]

Yea the phos did get a bit high there. But at least it didn’t bottom out as I dropped it.

I have a inkbird controller for temp control that keeps things around 77-78 in the winter. In the summer it’s more 78-79 as the fan cycles.

I do check for bugs, I did have red bugs maybe a year ago and I treated with interceptor and haven’t seen any since.

Light is a hipajaro a100. I’ve been considering getting one that people have used and have had good luck with.

Thanks for your response!

 

[Cubeguy]

I dont know whats going on there. Other things to consider.

Do you use any smell good in the house,febreeze, plug ins etc
Cleaning products near tank, aerosol or spray or other possible contaminents (my wife's cooking) that could enter the tank.

If it was heavy metal toxicity from say bad magnet/impeller or foreign object it would be constant decline.

I don’t let my gf burn candles in our room, and no smell good stuff. We have a swamp cooler that we run in the summer so all the windows are open in the house and all the air in the house is constantly being changed as a result. My roommates do make a good deal of smoke when they cook but that’s the other side of the house, and again with the swamp cooler the smoke is quickly flushed out of the house.

Yep and I agree it’s really odd that it happens in waves where everything is looking good and growing and then one day it reverses and everything slowly declines…

 

[alindell]

Yah honestly I think a larger water volume is the trick. I put my green slimer from a small tank into a large tank and it took off. It's almost like they can sense the water volume lol. The tanks were using similar methods too. Although I still have a stag growing in my 40 gallon. It's slow but still hanging in there

 

[Biff0rz]

Have you done an ICP test to check for contaminants? Amazon sells arm length reusable gloves for like $10....worth it imo esp given your trade.

Also, it looks like po4 was at 0.3 for a bit, that's pretty high (but I'm sure someone here has done it). Then now it's around 0.10 which is a 66% reduction/change over a 1 week period, that to me is a bit unstable.

I would-
ICP
Check SG with a Tropic Marin hydrometer (makes a big difference imo)
Use gloves
Check for household contaminants getting into the tank

But other than that, it seems like something is not being stable and maybe it's not being monitored in some way because mostly everything you're doing checks out for having success.

 

[Reefahholic]

There’s typically 4 main issues where people struggle with Acro’s.

Low or depleted nutrients (Especially P)

Instability/ Swings

System too young

Depleted trace elements (some species of acro will STN/RTN if something like Potassium is too low.) It’s amazing what happens when you give them the elements they receive in the ocean at a little higher target range where they don’t become completely depleted.