The Great SPS Revolt - Fuzzy Stick Troubleshooting

[NexusCriteria]

Dear wife,

R2R said I had to buy more fish. I wish I had a say in the matter but the sages have spoken

10-4 scottB!

 

[Troylee]

I think your lighting is the issue! I have a ”single” blue g6 xr15 on my 60 gallon cube..24x24x24. par numbers are horrible from what I’ve seen online lol… I’m running ab+ at 80% and my Sps are beautiful and happy! I can’t keep any lower light Sps thou like birds nest they cook! I’m not buying these par numbers that everyone is posting and getting… I think the uv is much stronger than par meter can pick up honestly.. there’s a whole thread how this light can’t grow Sps because the par is sooo low blah blah blah! I saw the tank most of my Sps came out of and it was ran by xr15’s on 40% intensity and he was having problems with cooking his corals also. It’s actually what sold me on a xr15 after everyone said no way you’ll need 3 to grow corals on my tank lol… I started mine at 50% and ramped up to 80% over the course of 2 months and I have a 12hr photo period which consists of 1 hour ramp up with 10 hours at 80% and back down the last hour. I have torches and hammers in the sand without issues and I had to hide my montis and a chalice in the shade lol..

 

[NexusCriteria]

Just got my second ICP back, and I guess good news it all looks fine except for a slightly low iodine level and a high lithium level again. Chem experts : there’s no way the lithium level could be doing this ? Everything else is green as can be. Might lead the hunt back towards bacterial maturity again. Level on the Li was 393
Thoughts ?

 

[NexusCriteria]

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/181784

In case anybody wants to peek

 

[minus9]

Lithium is of no concern and iodine is usually low unless you dose it or do daily water changes. Some additives and foods will contain iodine, but usually not enough to keep up with demand.
Source water can be another culprit with mystery problems that don’t show up on ICP. Where do you get your water? Make your own?

 

[NexusCriteria]

Lithium is of no concern and iodine is usually low unless you dose it or do daily water changes. Some additives and foods will contain iodine, but usually not enough to keep up with demand.
Source water can be another culprit with mystery problems that don’t show up on ICP. Where do you get your water? Make your own?

Make my own with a 7 stage RO reading zero TDS along with Tropic marin pro reef salt. Never had a Turkish blend swapped briefly to a blue bucket but back on TM

 

[Troylee]

My PO4 is .37. Last week it was .50. My acros love it. I used to loose acros frags left and right cuz of 0 nutrients. I kinda went overboard with dosing NP Plus but my acros loving it right now. I am slowly bringing it down to a target of 0.15. At 0.50, my Walt Disney started to loose the yellow polyps. Since bringing it down to 0.37, the yellow polyps are back.

This photo is from a month or so ago after I dosed PO4 higher.

My purple Stylo also loves higher nutrients.

I target feed my SPS every night 30 mins after lights out with a small amount of benepets and easy SPS.

Mi nitrates finally dropped from 90ish to 25 but my po4 is holding steady at .54 Hannah url and my acros love it also! Go figure lol..

 

[Loosechangereef]

What he says. Plus add more established LR from other established systems growing acros. And add more fish!

Fish Pee, Coral's Number One Nutrient Supply, Cut by Fishing

Fish urine plays an important role in coral reefs' food chain—but unsustainable fishing can devastate this natural nutrient flow.

www.nationalgeographic.com

Kenny knows, his store has acros growing all over , I live near Pieces Ocean,He keeps it simple and if you ask him is advice is always on target

 

[MartinM]

Unreal that your setup is an almost copy cat of the one I set up a few years back. I am a little surprised on your PAR reading -- I would've expected more from 3 X XR15s. It wouldn't hurt SPS to run harder, but not likely the sole culprit. I would raise them a little if necessary and firewall them for 350+.

As you know, all your numbers are fine for raising SPS. Clearly not your first rodeo. Somebody might comment on the Marine Pure blocks and potential Al contamination but I run cubic yards of the stuff and do just fine. No Al anomaly shows in my ICPs.

I am going to suggest you just need more time / microorganism diversity. Dead rock starts (cured is NOT live rock) just take a LONG time for the biome to stay friendly and stable. You could check this with Aquabiomics testing if you are curious. If you have SPONGES growing then you are getting REALLY close. I would just adding/trying (cheap) sticks until all the right bacteria are present in the appropriate proportion. While acros get the vast majority of their energy needs met via photosynthesis, their next favorite source is bacteria. Virtually 100% of their PO4 uptake comes via consuming the bacteria that consume phosphates. (Lou Ekus, YT)

If you are patient, wait it out. If you are not, source some quality live rock and sump it.

1) I would definitely add new live rock

2) Borne, et al. Actually found that the vast majority of coral energy is derived from prey capture, not from light, and that Montipora and Acropora species studied could live entirely without light if they had enough food (food for thought, pun intended). That being said, we can’t replicate that in our aquariums. However, note that corals can only produce carbon (not fats or proteins) from light

3) Don’t feel bad, I think the vast majority of posts about SPS are people having issues keeping SPS alive. Nice SPS tanks are few and far between

4) Something to consider: what did you do before that got you such success? There must be something different between then and now

 

[X-37B]

Well just read the thread. I have same tank and run 4 15 gen 5 blues.
Tank is 6 months old now.
I started at ab+ and it was to strong and browned out coral.
I now run first 4 at 100% last 4 at 50% with 55% scheduled intensity.


Your issue may be bacterial in nature. I have corrected similar issues with KZ flatworm stop. It helps strenthen coral over time. I never had flatworms.

This is my 80 with quite a few stags and others.

 

[minus9]

Be careful with KZ flatworm stop, it’s loaded with iodine and other things they don’t list, so keep an eye on your levels. I stopped using that stuff a long time ago. Keeping acropora isn’t hard, keeping the water stable can be. I’ve never started a tank with dry rock and I never will, too many issues if you don’t know what you’re doing. You have two choices with dry rock, let the tank mature for a long time (hopefully seeding with some mature rock) or set it up and fill the tank with coral and go. Starting with dry rock and tiny frags is very difficult. You’re better off throwing in larger corals to get the tank going, then flip them out for the corals you want to keep later on.

 

[Lavey29]

Alright R2R,

Apologies for the wall of text in advance......

I've been lurking and watching similar threads for a long time, and have been in this hobby for 20+ years. I did take break for around the last 8ish years, but have never racked my brain or had so many issues keeping more finicky corals than my current tank. I wanted to see if anybody had any sage advise or if a second set of eyes reveals something very obvious I have overlooked for many moons. I think I've just gotten so deep in the trees I think I can't see the forest anymore. It seems like a lot of time threads like this get posted and somebody immediately notices something that is wrong, hoping that is the case here!

The long and short is that I cannot seem to keep SPS alive and thriving for the life of me. I used to have no trouble growing frags into big colonies and then becoming a source of cool frags, but my SPS all seem to do ok for about 2 weeks, then gradually drop color then tissue and STN or just RTN. I've been racking my brain trying to find the cause, my chemistry numbers whenever I check them all have looked great, my PAR readings and flow seem to be ideal as well. The system has been up for about 14 months now, and grows unlimited deep purple coraline algae, but SPS just mock me. I first tried SPS frags about 6 months in, and honestly have around the same result now well over a year in. I'm worried it's an issue I'm overlooking or just haven't thought about, so with that being said here's the rundown below:

The Tank:

• Deep Blue 80 Gallon Shallow 48" x 24" x 16" (h) - I'm the only owner, never had any medications or copper in it's previous setup, was washed out with RO water both before and after storage
• Trigger Systems Sapphire Sump = 40 gallons, currently running with 3 filter socks that get changed weekly and rinsed in the sink then afterwards with RO water before they dry for a week and are back in the lineup
  • Skimmer in the first chamber, a softball sized hunk of chaeto in the second chamber and live rock rubble
• Maxspect Jump SK400 Skimmer - set to 80%
• Right before the return chamber I have two PolypLab bio bricks standing vertically that were also seeded with Dr. Tim's at startup
  
  
• Rock was a mix of cured rock that I had leftover from the previous setup and new dry rock from BRS.
  • I let it cure for around 3 months and seeded with Dr. Tim's one and only
• Sand was all Arag-alive, my sand bed is about 2-2.5" deep

Flow:

• Vectra S2 as a main return pump, I have it tuned to 30%. Both loc line returns are pointed across the surface
• Vortech MP40 set to Reef Crest, running at 40% at night, 65% during the day
• Vortech MP40W (older model) also set to reef crest, running 40% at night, 65% during the day
• Maxspect Jump Gyre 4k - Set to progressive gyre max 50%
• Small Powerhead in the sump pointed upwards under the dosing lines to help mix, but it lives in the return pump chamber to agitate the drips

Control/Dosing:

• Apex EL Controller with a PAR meter module, Trident
• Dosing ESV 2 part Alk, Calcium and Mag through two separate DOS pumps, all under smart control and seemingly maintaining parameters at ideal levels
  • Currently Alk dosing ~19 mL per day spread over the day
  • Currently Ca dosing ~10 mL per day spread over the day
  • Currently Mg dosing ~22 mL per day spread over the day

Water Chemistry and Production

• RO: BRS 7 stage (upgraded from 5 stage about 2 months ago) - Always reading 0 TDS, changing the resins before they get to 2/3 golden. Pressure into the system with a booster pump at recommended 70 PSI
• Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt - never had the Turkish fiasco blend, briefly ran a Blue bucket of red sea when supplies were low but this was around 6 months ago
• I change about 5-7 gallons per week
  
  
• pH Ranges each day from 8.15-8.38. I reverse the fuge light cycle to help temper this
• Salinity - 1.025, checked with calibrated refractometer
• Temp 76.5-78 F
• Alk Range : 8.35-8.5 based on trident, my Hanna checked thinks it's +.4 or so on this number
• Ca Range: 420-430 based on Trident, but when I spot check with Red Sea kits it's in this general range
• Mg Range: 1290-1340 based on Trident, also spot checked with the updated version of the Hanna Checker
• Phos Range : 0.02-0.06 with Hanna Checker, it once had spiked to 0.1 but that was isolated and months ago
• Nitrate Range: 4-10 ppm with Hanna Checker
• Last ICP was a few months ago and really only showed that my Lithium was out of line at 407 ug/L , but I saw another thread here that this wasn't of much consequence in most cases so didn't chase it
• I had tried dosing AcroPower and Red Sea AB+ but didn't seem to change the success rate
• Planning repeat ICP this week

Lighting - I THINK this is the issue, but LEDs continue to baffle me. I swear I don't mess with them!

• Radion XR15 Blue Gen 5 x3 mounted on the RMS arms
• I run AB+ at 70% intensity, lights on 11:30 am - 8:30 pm
• At peak light: Every channel to 100%, the point intensity is 100% but again the schedule intensity is only 70%
• PAR checked initially with a rental Apogee to a max of 275-300 on the top of the tank but this was at 85% intensity that I've backed off of
• I run an Apex PAR meter that maxes at 250-255 during the max day that is higher than any coral in the tank

Corals

• Two torches doing fine and happy
• Large colony of Zoas that have gotten away from me, but they are not Palys
• Several smaller zoa frags, but no leathers or other known toxin emitters
• Attempts at Millipora, Montipora, Acropora, etc have been met with resistance, the only hard coral that seems to be doing ok is a green branching monti but it's coloration is more green/brown than neon green that it was on arrival
• All coral gets a brief CoralRX dip, inspected for parasites, never had any sightings of SPS red bugs or nudis
• I typically will put new SPS frags on a rack low towards the sand to let them recover for a few days, then mount them with PolypLab glue on their frag discs to the rockwork higher up to get more light and flow. I don't handle the frags

Non Sessile Tank Inhabitants

• Purple Tang
• Whitetail Tang
• Melanurus Wrasse
• Flasher Wrasse
• Frostbite Clown
• 1 Cleaner Shrimp
• 1 Peppermint (yes actually a peppermint) shrimp
• Fighting Conch x2
• Astrea Snails + blue leg hermits

I really appreciate anybody's thoughts, it's the darn SPS that just won't seem to take. A shiny nod of gratitude for the reefer who solves this conundrum!
NC

Excellent documentation of your set up. I know you have already received good suggestions here buy I'll add my .02. As others mentioned, sure seems like excessive magnesium dosing. I have a similar size tank with 37 SPS corals and I dose 15ml per week to maintain around 1400. I have the XR15 pro lights which I was running at 70% on AB setting. I was shocked at how low my par measured. I now run them at 100% on AB and even that is on the low end for corals.

I'm far from an SPS expert but have had decent success so far. You are extremely diligent in your methods for your tank and if nothing blatantly stands out then perhaps the biome is currently unwelcoming for SPS. I focus back on that excessive mag dosing. Something is off here as this is the buffer for alk and cal. It reduces at 1/10th the rate of alk and cal consumption. Which also brings me to your alk and cal dosing. These parameters work proportionally with each other. If you dose 19ml alk you should be dosing 19ml of cal and 1.9ml of magnesium. Everything generally works off alk consumption.

Have you checked apex probes? I think your lighting is low and your dosing is off and yes I can see your numbers but something is out of balance and stability is the name of the game for SPS.

I wish you luck finding the source of your problem.

Merry Christmas to all the cool R2R reefers here.