Need Help

viper1972 · Oct 20, 2011

Hello,
Its time I asked for help. I have a 46 bowfront with 4 39wt T-5 lights. It has two HOB filters with two water pumps for water movement. It has plenty of LR, about 50 lbs. or more. It has 5 fish, 3 percs, a yellow tang and a flame hawk. I have about 30 ricordea polyps a duncan with 12 heads and a wellsy brain. It has been up for about 9 months. Up to about 2 months ago all the coral was great. The ricordea opened awesome and the duncan open great and the brain was excellent. The duncan only had 6 heads when I bought it and grew 6 more heads. Then the ricordea started not opening so good and the duncan opens about half as big as they was. The brain always and still looks great. I put new bulbs in the light and I do water changes about 10 gallon a week with RO water. I use seachem additives, reef plus and complete. I cant figure out why my ricordea and duncan started not doing so good, but the brain looks awesome. The only test I have is ammonia 0, nitrite 0, ph is 8.0, nitrate 0. It always tested this way and for the first 7 months looked awesome then some coral started pouting and I have tried everything. I know I need a better filter system and I will get one. I dont have a skimmer yet because I was going to stick mainly with ricordea and I have had tanks go years without one and the ricordea always did great. I just dont know why it did great for 7 months then some coral started pouting. The fish are great. The tang eats lke a horse. Nothing has died, but one turbo snail. PLEASE HELP???? Thank you!!!

Troylee · Oct 20, 2011

What's the temp and salinity??? Other params might help also... Mag, cal, alk..

GeoHawk · Oct 20, 2011

What is the KH or alk? I had a problem similar to you when my KH dropped below 7.

viper1972 · Oct 20, 2011

I dont have them test. The temp. is 78 and the salinity is 1.024. The other test I dont have. I had these ricordea in a 16 gallon bowfront and they where awesome everyday for 6 months and I decided to get a bigger tank and for 7 months they were awesome then the past two months they open but about half way. I was always told they best fix is always water changes. Maybe a bigger water change like 20 gallons. How do you fix the problem you mentioned, a big water change??

pumarjr · Oct 20, 2011

it's not good to do such large watcher changes, you run the risk of shocking your system, small 10 to 20 Percent; water changes would be recommended if that was the cause. First tell us more about your setup, is the only problem that your Ricordeas are not fully opening? or are there other issues? When you are performing these water changes, what type of water are you using? Tap?, R/O?, if R/O, when was the last time you changed the filters, TDS count of the water? are your other parameters within reason? Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia, PH, PO4(Phosphates)? Keeping corals requires more than 78 degrees and a slightly low S/G.

viper1972 · Oct 20, 2011

The only problem is my ricordea is not opening very good and my duncan. The brain always looks great. Ive done coral for years and the books say 76 degrees is perfect and I have read that most of the reefers on this site runs there salinity higher than 1.024. I buy my water from the local store so I dont know about the filter. I worked at a pet store for 7 years and we never wanted our water higher than 80 degrees. The books also says the salinity to be 1.023 so mine is close enough not to cause a problem. This tank ran great for 7 months and the ricordea and duncan opened great and then all of a sudden they started pouting a little. My clowns do play in the duncan a little. If it was to bad the brain would not look good and the fish would not be eating. I have never had luck with yellow tangs. They are a hard fish to keep, but this one is fat and mean and eats like a horse. I do want to go to a sump filter and put a aquac remora skimmer on. I am disabled and its the money keeping from this. You know when I had problems in the past I would decide to leave it alone. The more you mess with a tank and put your hands in one the more problems you have. I have left them alone for a couple weeks and it always started looking better.

GeoHawk · Oct 20, 2011

viper1972 said:
I dont have them test. The temp. is 78 and the salinity is 1.024. The other test I dont have. I had these ricordea in a 16 gallon bowfront and they where awesome everyday for 6 months and I decided to get a bigger tank and for 7 months they were awesome then the past two months they open but about half way. I was always told they best fix is always water changes. Maybe a bigger water change like 20 gallons. How do you fix the problem you mentioned, a big water change??

I used more of the Ca2+/ alk 2 part additive that I had not been adding to my tank. After a few weeks everything was happy again.