Need your thoughts, Im missing something...

[Bella Vita]

Hey Guys Im having an ongoing issue with corals not doing to hot in my 30gal biocube converted with eshopps overflow and 18gal fuge underneath.
One issue I was thinking is that the Ramora skimmer is sucking and returning to the fuge ? I dont have much room to put it anywhere else though.
Also Im running a 528GPH eheim compact on the entire system, and dose B-ionic 10ml per day and mag one cap every other day. Iodine I dose 2 drops evry night and it still reads on the low scale.
Phosphates also read zero, and im running a GFO reactor that I change every three to four weeks. And I run Carbon seperately in a bag.
I keep the fuge light on 24/7 and on the display I have 150 MH I run 6 hrs a day and an actinic led bar I run 24/7.
Another thing I was thinking may be the culprit is my sand bed. I have a engineer Goby I wish I never put in, which stirrs through it like crazy and I have dark spots all along the front glass.
Tank temp stays 77-79 and nitrated are at the bottom of the chart, I do a 5gal water change every week.
I use only RO water for top off and water changes (tropic Marin).
None of my corals really thrive, ever cloves never open!! I cant figure it out. Any thoughts would help !! Thanks for your thoughts!!
Another thought is that The Clam was the culprit!! What do you think? Sps does the worst and usually brown out or bleach out in a day or two.

 

[wickedfish]

2 drops of iodine is way too much. That's what I add in a week and my rig is almost 10x your size. Nothing in there would consume that much. That may be why your coral are brown. What is your current alk and calcium?

What is your salinity? Any deaths? What do you use to calibrate your refractometer? Any old magnets in the tank? You look for stray electricity? List other pumps.

 

[Bella Vita]

2 drops of iodine is way too much. That's what I add in a week and my rig is almost 10x your size. Nothing in there would consume that much. That may be why your coral are brown. What is your current alk and calcium?

What is your salinity? Any deaths? What do you use to calibrate your refractometer? Any old magnets in the tank? You look for stray electricity? List other pumps.

I run 2 other pumps, maxijets one for the GFO and one for the Remora. I also recently added a grounding probe just in case. I know the iodine sounds crazy, I dont know why it always reads so low!! I just started dosing that in the past month or so anyway though... but the Calc is 500 and alk (KH or DKH ) stays just under 9.
I did have an issue with movement in the back portion of the biocube and took out the false floors to uncover massive flow restrictions and detritus. But that was over a month ago too. Do you think its too much flow with the system pump?

 

[dorkymk3]

I think you are over dosing your tank. Don't dose your tank for 3 days and test your water. Check the water parameters and if they are still good then continue another 2days and test again. Also there's really no true good test kit for Iodine, for that kind of tank I would dose 2 drops once a week only.

 

[Bella Vita]

I think you are over dosing your tank. Don't dose your tank for 3 days and test your water. Check the water parameters and if they are still good then continue another 2days and test again. Also there's really no true good test kit for Iodine, for that kind of tank I would dose 2 drops once a week only.

ok thanks I just tested the alk again and it was 7.7 ( thats after dosing today, so its dropping) from what I thought it was at

 

[Bella Vita]

ok thanks I just tested the alk again and it was 7.7 ( thats after dosing today, so its dropping) from what I thought it was at

should I add buffer? then stop dosing?

 

[dorkymk3]

if its 7.7 then i would dose part A slowly to raise it back up to 9. Don't raise it to 9 in one day. probably drop your calcium from 500 to 440 as well. As for Magnesium anything above 1350 is fine.

 

[Surgical]

whats your ph? Salinity?

 

[Bella Vita]

whats your ph? Salinity?

Ph: 8.2
Salinity: 28 ( I usually keep it at 26, but I ran out of top off water)

 

[wickedfish]

So 1.028 and you usually keep it at 1.026? Or instead of 35ppt you have a brackish tank? A swing that high in salinity is bad, in Sps real bad usually.

Brown coral are because of the care for your tank. A couple of contributors too much nutrients via high TDS water or too much feeding slash too many fish doing their thing. Also inadequate lighting and flow will play a big role in that. But pi are saying they turn white which is usually salinity swing, contaminants, alk or you're just stinking up the program.

When handling Sps the export I believe is more important to understand than what you feed.
So if I feed 3 cubes I know my tank can handle the load of food. How? Well the macro consumes a lot of extra nutrient, I don't feed the corals, so the fish poop more, corals eat.
Also my skimmer is rated high and is super efficient, I keep good fast flow in all areas of the tank to assure dung moves out quick, surface agitation is important to break up any nasties that made it o the top of the water column.

In working on a single malt and a movie to be continued.

 

[Bella Vita]

So 1.028 and you usually keep it at 1.026? Or instead of 35ppt you have a brackish tank? A swing that high in salinity is bad, in Sps real bad usually.

Brown coral are because of the care for your tank. A couple of contributors too much nutrients via high TDS water or too much feeding slash too many fish doing their thing. Also inadequate lighting and flow will play a big role in that. But pi are saying they turn white which is usually salinity swing, contaminants, alk or you're just stinking up the program.

When handling Sps the export I believe is more important to understand than what you feed.
So if I feed 3 cubes I know my tank can handle the load of food. How? Well the macro consumes a lot of extra nutrient, I don't feed the corals, so the fish poop more, corals eat.
Also my skimmer is rated high and is super efficient, I keep good fast flow in all areas of the tank to assure dung moves out quick, surface agitation is important to break up any nasties that made it o the top of the water column.

In working on a single malt and a movie to be continued.

I was gonna ask you to dumb that up for me : ) , but I think I got it. I tested my nitrates again and they were high too, I think it's over feeding, I was feeding corals and fish every day. Do you think the skimmer sucking from and returning to the fuge is ok?

 

[wickedfish]

Don't need to feed coral every day unless you have a humongous coral collection rivaled by a public aquarium.

Can you list what you feed daily in hand amount or actual measurements so we can help you out.

 

[lowbudget]

corals need rest time. having the actinic light bar on 24/7 the coral has no time to rest. they are animal need time to rest too. thats is one of your problem. iodine. i do 4 drops a week on a 120 gallon system and i skip a week sometimes

I keep the fuge light on 24/7 and on the display I have 150 MH I run 6 hrs a day and an actinic led bar I run 24/7.

View attachment 16080 View attachment 16081

 

[Bella Vita]

Don't need to feed coral every day unless you have a humongous coral collection rivaled by a public aquarium.

Can you list what you feed daily in hand amount or actual measurements so we can help you out.

Usually a cube of either mysis or spiralina brine , then ill spot feed some oyster feast or ultra ricordea zoanthus food (fauna marin)

 

[wickedfish]

Didn't even notice that he said led actinic on all day! What brand is it? Is it a strip with fakey no par diodes or an actual Cree or lux led

 

[wickedfish]

Usually a cube of either mysis or spiralina brine , then ill spot feed some oyster feast or ultra ricordea zoanthus food (fauna marin)

Half or 1/3 cube is fine for a tank your size. And spot feed twice a week Should be plenty.

 

[wickedfish]

corals need rest time. having the actinic light bar on 24/7 the coral has no time to rest. they are animal need time to rest too. thats is one of your problem. iodine. i do 4 drops a week on a 120 gallon system and i skip a week sometimes

This guy is right. Just think if you and I went on a coke and whore binge raw dogg for a week straight!!!! Someone will definitely RTN!

 

[Bella Vita]

This guy is right. Just think if you and I went on a coke and whore binge raw dogg for a week straight!!!! Someone will definitely RTN!

Lol, be good times though !! In that case I'd expect the corals to be popping for at least the first week!! ....
Point taken though!!
The led bar is just a cheapo marine land thing I got to accent the halide, but I never put it on a timer, so it wound up staying on 24/7. I will get a timer tomorrow!!