taylormaximus
Active Member
So I've been feeling quite frustrated with reefing lately because I feel like I've been doing everything right, I did loads of research and every decision I make with my reef tank is for a specific purpose. Despite this I have just about every issue you can think of in my tank, and no end in sight. Here's a short list:
Hair algae, not outrageous amounts but unstoppable
Dinos (confirmed with a microscope) covering sandbed during the day, they seem to be the harmless variety, and I used to have a sand sifting goby that made it almost a non issue, but absolutely nothing has worked to fix this
An unidentified green film algae that coats the rocks and also covers and kills a lot of coral. No one I've asked has had any ideas on what this is, and despite it killing corals they said not to worry about it
Most recently I've gotten a patch of red cyano, unknown yet how devastating that will be for the system
Besides algae problems, I've had a number of fish simply drop dead despite appearing perfectly healthy, and not from ich or another disease, everything I add to the tank goes through a Copper Power + Paracleanse QT treatment, yet I've lost a Bangaii Cardinal, 2 Chromis, and a Diamond Watchman Goby
Inverts also seem to die prematurely. I'm not sure how long certain things typically last, but for me snails will die after 2 or 3 months at most, hermits can actually last close to a year, although they don't really do much of anything clean up wise. My tuxedo urchin who was quite small just passed suddenly after having it for 6 months. Ive also tried conchs and cowries in the past, but both died within the week
The list of coral I've lost (and my main struggle and purpose of this post) is even longer. The only coral I have that I've seen any growth at all on is GSP, but it usually isn't fully opened. And I've managed to keep some zoas alive but even those will shrink over time. Every other coral I've tried has either immediately closed up and never opened again, slowly shrunk over a period of weeks until completely disappearing, or gotten quickly coated in algae and died. The one SPS I tried (birds nest) was the latter category, any LPS I've tried (blastos, euphyllia, Duncan's, candy canes) will never open, and even softies like Xenia, Colt coral and toadstools will shrink until they're gone. I even tried adding invasive corals like blue sympodium polyps and they disappeared pretty much overnight.
The few fish (clownfish, azure damsel, royal gramma) and corals (GSP and select zoas, as well as purple star polyps I just added) that I have been able to keep alive have done well, but I feel like I'm missing something. It can't be normal to have such a high mortality rate with livestock, but I haven't been able to pin down the cause, although its safe to assume there's multiple reasons. I feel guilty even purchasing most things now because theres such a high chance of me killing them.
And I should say too that I don't in any way neglect my tank. I do 12% weekly water changes, regular water tests, feed frozen mysis as well as dry food, and I'm very alert to changes in my system. I also don't think I over maintain or tinker with things. My light and flow settings have stayed the same throughout, and the only things I'll dose (usually less than a capful on a weekly basis) are Microbacter 7, Clean, or Razor to help keep the various algaes under control. Nonetheless here's my equipment and parameters:
Equipment
Tank age: 1.5 years, with dry rock
Tank size: 32 gallons
Light: Fluval Sea Marine 32 Watt
Filter: Seachem Tidal 35
Wavemaker: Hygger Mini DC Wavemaker 1600 GPH
ATO: FZone Auto top off
Salt mix: Red Sea Blue Bucket
Water: I use tap water, which where I live in Canada our water is quite clean (I think a lot of people may point to this as the issue, which it may well be, but is my only option for the time being), and I also treat the water and don't use it in my system until I get phosphate readings under 0.1ppm, and Nitrates are usually 0 already.
Parameters
Salinity: 1.025
Temperature: 78°F
Nitrates: 0 (I can't get a Nitrate reading with the algae in the system)
Phosphates: 0.15 ppm
Alkalinity: 10 dKh
pH: 8.1
Calcium: 450 ppm
Magnesium: 1250 ppm
QT
Fish: I do a 3 week QT for fish and treat with Copper Power and Paracleanse
Coral: dip with Coral Rx
Inverts: no QT, but I will scrub their shells with a H2O2 solution before adding to the tank
This is basically my whole set up, top to bottom. Basically my question is, what am I missing? Is it normal to deal with so many unexplained deaths in the hobby? Is it normal to have waves and wave of algae, despite all the precautions I've taken? I feel like I'm doing everything right and yet I'm having results as if I'm doing everything wrong. I'm also wondering in your experience, has there been one thing that once you realized was the problem, it clicked and you were able to stabilize things in your tank?
Sorry this ended up so long, just trying everything I can't to figure out the problem. Thanks for your help.
Tl;dr, I can't seem to keep anything alive and I'm trying to figure out if the hobby is just that hard or I'm doing something very wrong.
Hair algae, not outrageous amounts but unstoppable
Dinos (confirmed with a microscope) covering sandbed during the day, they seem to be the harmless variety, and I used to have a sand sifting goby that made it almost a non issue, but absolutely nothing has worked to fix this
An unidentified green film algae that coats the rocks and also covers and kills a lot of coral. No one I've asked has had any ideas on what this is, and despite it killing corals they said not to worry about it
Most recently I've gotten a patch of red cyano, unknown yet how devastating that will be for the system
Besides algae problems, I've had a number of fish simply drop dead despite appearing perfectly healthy, and not from ich or another disease, everything I add to the tank goes through a Copper Power + Paracleanse QT treatment, yet I've lost a Bangaii Cardinal, 2 Chromis, and a Diamond Watchman Goby
Inverts also seem to die prematurely. I'm not sure how long certain things typically last, but for me snails will die after 2 or 3 months at most, hermits can actually last close to a year, although they don't really do much of anything clean up wise. My tuxedo urchin who was quite small just passed suddenly after having it for 6 months. Ive also tried conchs and cowries in the past, but both died within the week
The list of coral I've lost (and my main struggle and purpose of this post) is even longer. The only coral I have that I've seen any growth at all on is GSP, but it usually isn't fully opened. And I've managed to keep some zoas alive but even those will shrink over time. Every other coral I've tried has either immediately closed up and never opened again, slowly shrunk over a period of weeks until completely disappearing, or gotten quickly coated in algae and died. The one SPS I tried (birds nest) was the latter category, any LPS I've tried (blastos, euphyllia, Duncan's, candy canes) will never open, and even softies like Xenia, Colt coral and toadstools will shrink until they're gone. I even tried adding invasive corals like blue sympodium polyps and they disappeared pretty much overnight.
The few fish (clownfish, azure damsel, royal gramma) and corals (GSP and select zoas, as well as purple star polyps I just added) that I have been able to keep alive have done well, but I feel like I'm missing something. It can't be normal to have such a high mortality rate with livestock, but I haven't been able to pin down the cause, although its safe to assume there's multiple reasons. I feel guilty even purchasing most things now because theres such a high chance of me killing them.
And I should say too that I don't in any way neglect my tank. I do 12% weekly water changes, regular water tests, feed frozen mysis as well as dry food, and I'm very alert to changes in my system. I also don't think I over maintain or tinker with things. My light and flow settings have stayed the same throughout, and the only things I'll dose (usually less than a capful on a weekly basis) are Microbacter 7, Clean, or Razor to help keep the various algaes under control. Nonetheless here's my equipment and parameters:
Equipment
Tank age: 1.5 years, with dry rock
Tank size: 32 gallons
Light: Fluval Sea Marine 32 Watt
Filter: Seachem Tidal 35
Wavemaker: Hygger Mini DC Wavemaker 1600 GPH
ATO: FZone Auto top off
Salt mix: Red Sea Blue Bucket
Water: I use tap water, which where I live in Canada our water is quite clean (I think a lot of people may point to this as the issue, which it may well be, but is my only option for the time being), and I also treat the water and don't use it in my system until I get phosphate readings under 0.1ppm, and Nitrates are usually 0 already.
Parameters
Salinity: 1.025
Temperature: 78°F
Nitrates: 0 (I can't get a Nitrate reading with the algae in the system)
Phosphates: 0.15 ppm
Alkalinity: 10 dKh
pH: 8.1
Calcium: 450 ppm
Magnesium: 1250 ppm
QT
Fish: I do a 3 week QT for fish and treat with Copper Power and Paracleanse
Coral: dip with Coral Rx
Inverts: no QT, but I will scrub their shells with a H2O2 solution before adding to the tank
This is basically my whole set up, top to bottom. Basically my question is, what am I missing? Is it normal to deal with so many unexplained deaths in the hobby? Is it normal to have waves and wave of algae, despite all the precautions I've taken? I feel like I'm doing everything right and yet I'm having results as if I'm doing everything wrong. I'm also wondering in your experience, has there been one thing that once you realized was the problem, it clicked and you were able to stabilize things in your tank?
Sorry this ended up so long, just trying everything I can't to figure out the problem. Thanks for your help.
Tl;dr, I can't seem to keep anything alive and I'm trying to figure out if the hobby is just that hard or I'm doing something very wrong.
