Why cant I keep euphyllia?

[Krak-A-Pat]

Ill start out and say tank parameters are ok and relatively stable. Tank is about 5 months old.
Dkh 9.3-9.9
Ca-430-440
Mg- 1300-1350
Ph-8.1
Phos-1.0
Nitrate-7-8

My frogspawn seems to be fine(might be getting too much flow) but my hammers are/have lost color and seem to be melting. The gold one has really gone down hill but i dont have a more recent picture. The green hammer has since opened up a bit more since i moved it up higher in the tank. Par levels are around 250-200 in that spot. I moved the gold hammer there hoping to have it open up again as well but no luck.

Last week i dipped both corals again in coral rx and checked for brown algae but didnt spot any.

Any ideas? I feel the Mag. Is a bit low. I was dosing but could never get it over 1350 and was dosing an insane 200mg a day!! I ran out but the levels have remained pretty stable. I preform weekly water changes around 10-15% and i am using nyos salt crystals.

Water looks a bit dirty cause i had just dosed some phyto.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Are you sure about that par level? Looking at the picture, there is a lot of shade on the sand where they are, it looks like they are in the shade to me. "Losing colour and melting" IMO is a typical sign of low lighting.

Also phosphate level of 1.0 is very high

 

[JayM]

Is Phos really 1.0? That's ridiculously high if so.

 

[i cant think]

Is Phos really 1.0? That's ridiculously high if so.

You don’t want to see my phosphates in my 5’ tank if that’s high…

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

What is the water source?

 

[Uncle99]

Phosphate elevated.
Mid term maturity.

 

[Lavey29]

I agree with the above posts. There is no way your tank needs that much magnesium dosing if any at all. Water changes replenish magnesium. It depletes very slow. You need to verify your salinity with a calibrated instrument and retest. Shadowing on the sandbed not good for euphyllia. Did you actually par check your tank? 5 months old is not good for euphyllia either.

 

[JayM]

You don’t want to see my phosphates in my 5’ tank if that’s high…

I do. The "acceptable range" has slowly and steadily been slipping away from me. I'm not doing anything to stop it because everything looks great, but that little voice in the back of my head keeps trying to convince me to do something about it.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

I agree with the above posts. There is no way your tank needs that much magnesium dosing if any at all. Water changes replenish magnesium. It depletes very slow. You need to verify your salinity with a calibrated instrument and retest. Shadowing on the sandbed not good for euphyllia. Did you actually par check your tank? 5 months old is not good for euphyllia either.

I think it's situational and more based on knowledge than age of tank. Have had my frogspawn and even elegance(catallophyllia or however spelled) since day 1for elegance maybe 2 weeks to month after for frogspawn, and doing well. Take is over 4 months old now

 

[Lavey29]

I think it's situational and more based on knowledge than age of tank. Have had my frogspawn and even elegance(catallophyllia or however spelled) since day 1for elegance maybe 2 weeks to month after for frogspawn, and doing well. Take is over 4 months old now

True, very experienced reefers can start much sooner because they know exactly what they are doing. The majority of us though spend a lot of money killing off euphyllia during the first year of ugly stages. After a year my tank went through a transition and became much more stable and predictable and my euphyllia along with other corals thrive huge now. I just think the overall biome plays a critical roll in sustaining corals.

 

[Lavey29]

I do. The "acceptable range" has slowly and steadily been slipping away from me. I'm not doing anything to stop it because everything looks great, but that little voice in the back of my head keeps trying to convince me to do something about it.

Mine typically sits .2 to .4 but lately I've just let it do it's thing with no intervention. It's .79 now and all the corals are as bright and puffy as I've ever seen them. Obviously growth would have to be evaluated month to month but at least for my tank elevated phosphate doesn't appear to harm anything.

 

[JayM]

Mine typically sits .2 to .4 but lately I've just let it do it's thing with no intervention. It's .79 now and all the corals are as bright and puffy as I've ever seen them. Obviously growth would have to be evaluated month to month but at least for my tank elevated phosphate doesn't appear to harm anything.

Mine was typically .05-.07ish from start up a little less than a year ago, but has been steadily rising the past month and a half - two months up to .15 -.20ish. It seems to have settled there for the moment. Aside from some GHA that may or may not be related, I'm not seeing any negative effects.

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

True, very experienced reefers can start much sooner because they know exactly what they are doing. The majority of us though spend a lot of money killing off euphyllia during the first year of ugly stages. After a year my tank went through a transition and became much more stable and predictable and my euphyllia along with other corals thrive huge now. I just think the overall biome plays a critical roll in sustaining corals.

There isn't much biome in our water columns. And what there is, isn't much. My favorite tank setup I did 100 percent changes weekly which ran for over a year before I moved. Even when downsized, I kept some of the coral.

My downfall is sand. Soon as I added, corals went south including my prized wilsoni I rescued.

Back on topic lol. I do believe it's a water quality issue. Either source, or something added intentionally or unintentionally. Could even be a dead body somewhere lol.

 

[Lavey29]

There isn't much biome in our water columns. And what there is, isn't much. My favorite tank setup I did 100 percent changes weekly which ran for over a year before I moved. Even when downsized, I kept some of the coral.

My downfall is sand. Soon as I added, corals went south including my prized wilsoni I rescued.

Back on topic lol. I do believe it's a water quality issue. Either source, or something added intentionally or unintentionally. Could even be a dead body somewhere lol.

Not much biome? I have to disagree with that one. Tank biome is everything for keeping a successful reef.

Understanding the Coral Biome and Microbiome | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

As our understanding of corals and coral reefs has increased over the past few decades it has become increasingly clear that a coral reef and even each individual coral is far more diverse than we…

reefbuilders.com

 

[ReefStable]

I would start by making sure temperature and salinity are in check.

I'm not too worried about your parameter levels.

That being said, either that PAR must be wrong, or that's the likely problem.  Most euphyllia like par between 50 and 100. Ive heard some people that keep different PAR on their torches, but they are few and far between compaired to the majority.

I would either adjust the lighting down, or if you plan to keep acros, move the euphyllia to a lower PAR around 75.

 

[Lavey29]

I would start by making sure temperature and salinity are in check.

I'm not too worried about your parameter levels.

That being said, either that PAR must be wrong, or that's the likely problem.  Most euphyllia like par between 50 and 100. Ive heard some people that keep different PAR on their torches, but they are few and far between compaired to the majority.

I would either adjust the lighting down, or if you plan to keep acros, move the euphyllia to a lower PAR around 75.

My torches with 20 heads sit in 250 par and thrive. Hammers. Frogs, fox coral, leathers, lobos. Pectinia etc... sit in 100 to 150 par

I do agree his problems may be par related though but to low pat not the opposite.

 

[Jeremy_d]

That is very dark for 200 Par

 

[Ben's Pico Reefing]

Not much biome? I have to disagree with that one. Tank biome is everything for keeping a successful reef.

Understanding the Coral Biome and Microbiome | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

As our understanding of corals and coral reefs has increased over the past few decades it has become increasingly clear that a coral reef and even each individual coral is far more diverse than we…

reefbuilders.com

The micro in article here is not referring to the tank water but to the coral itself. Consisting of inner biome and outer layer biome which includes slime coating and the surface and not the tank. Tank will have some but very little in the over all scheme of things and not what this article talks about at all. This is stated and shown in second image after the top down tank shot. The slime coating helps protect the coral and its biodiversity as well as carry. Why some corals can live fine and do well even when exposed out of water for hours during tides.

This article mainly addresses the issue with corals getting diseases and stn/rtn. 2 suggestions are the corals themselves being mixed with other corals in different areas and that the biomes on the corals aren't compatible to things such as one coral from a low energy area and one from high energy where the biome on the corals are different. Even further mixing species. Where we drift to making one coral happy, that another may suffer. So on and so forth with corals from different area in the world as well where chemistry is different.

Further down the author stated that to increase bio diversity is to add live rock and dose bacteria to "inoculate". Meaning these biomes live on surface areas. Same as the author discussing corals being transplanted.

Water quality place a role in providing nutrients and transport. But water is not where the biome live or generate from. It's like putting some mud in a tank full of rock where all the mud is at the bottom. But with constant flow and such you will find particles and such in the column.

There are some exceptions such as plankton and phytoplankton etc that do live in the water column. But these tend to cloud the water and either used up quickly, removed manually or UV sterilized. If water biome was a big issue I would think people would be writing more articles to stop UV sterilizing. Now I'm going down a rabbit hole lol.

 

[Lavey29]

The micro in article here is not referring to the tank water but to the coral itself. Consisting of inner biome and outer layer biome which includes slime coating and the surface and not the tank. Tank will have some but very little in the over all scheme of things and not what this article talks about at all. This is stated and shown in second image after the top down tank shot. The slime coating helps protect the coral and its biodiversity as well as carry. Why some corals can live fine and do well even when exposed out of water for hours during tides.

This article mainly addresses the issue with corals getting diseases and stn/rtn. 2 suggestions are the corals themselves being mixed with other corals in different areas and that the biomes on the corals aren't compatible to things such as one coral from a low energy area and one from high energy where the biome on the corals are different. Even further mixing species. Where we drift to making one coral happy, that another may suffer. So on and so forth with corals from different area in the world as well where chemistry is different.

Further down the author stated that to increase bio diversity is to add live rock and dose bacteria to "inoculate". Meaning these biomes live on surface areas. Same as the author discussing corals being transplanted.

Water quality place a role in providing nutrients and transport. But water is not where the biome live or generate from. It's like putting some mud in a tank full of rock where all the mud is at the bottom. But with constant flow and such you will find particles and such in the column.

There are some exceptions such as plankton and phytoplankton etc that do live in the water column. But these tend to cloud the water and either used up quickly, removed manually or UV sterilized. If water biome was a big issue I would think people would be writing more articles to stop UV sterilizing. Now I'm going down a rabbit hole lol.

All the components make up the biome, water, sand, rock, coral, fish flow, lights, erc... but I agree the majority is on hard surface.

 

[slingfox]

I had to dose massive amounts of magnesium to keep it above 1400 while my tank was maturing. I went through several 1L bottles and eventually bought the dry bulk version from BRS and mixed my own solution. After I got through the ugly stage and tank stabiles at around month 7, I didn't have to dose magnesium or nitrate any longer and my crazy phosphates level steadily declined.