Banner image

My Trachyphyllia is dying, acan issues. Dang flabba dabba (1 Viewer)

odie

odie

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2008
Messages
1,178
Location
Rochester, MN
Trach has only been in the aquarium for 2 days. Looked great till today, now it is showing skelton.

I have been having some kind of issue with my aquarium and or coral. For some reason any coral in the sand acans (lasted a week before going to a friend), trachyphyllia/brains or favia will recede fast. My duncan is doing ok, but will get grumpy and close up at times. But looks great. These are all in the sand.

I have softies that are growing well (gsp, xenia, leather), torch and hammer that are doing great, echninata growing fast also. My zoas look ok always to be the same not alot of growth but no decline.

Numbers look decent but my calcium was higher as I was using Reef Crystals but switched to Kent 2 months ago.

Lights are 320 watts of T5 from a Tek. It has 2 Blue +, Geisemann Aque Blue Plus, KZ New Generation and a 72 inch Reefbrite Blue.

I am wondering if it is the Reefbrite as it is hanging at the front of the tank facing down at an angle and is facing down at the coral in the sand. Maybe?

Or could it be my GFO that I have been changing more often as I saw some hair algae cropping up.

I also have been battling cyano that keeps showing up on the sand. I have been siphoning the sand when I do water changes every 2 weeks but it is so clumped in the sand that I cant seem to vaccum the cyano without losing the top layer of sand.

Ideas?
 
Last edited:
Go ahead and post your exact test results for us, maybe we'll see something that you missed.

For what it's worth I once ran carbon and GFO and it greatly improved the overall health of my tank. Then suddenly a few weeks into it my corals started to look terrible. I stopped the carbon and GFO and things returned to normal. Maybe consider turning off your GFO reactor and see if there is any change.
 
Last edited:
I will post as the tests come in.

So far hannah phosphate is 32 PPB. Not sure what is normal for that and if I need to convert that to something?
 
Symptoms/Test results sound like a phosphate problem. I would put in new gfo and a water change soon. If your feeding fish I would lower that too at least untill you can get the phosphate in check. It might take a little while to get the phosphates down if it has built up in the sand and what not.
 
All the stuff you say is doing good don't require alk/ca. If your alk is too low can cause issue and if too high can cause issue. However, if it's low it's very unlikely to cause issue after just two days. Makes me think your ALK might be through the roof.

Just a guess since no reading as of yet.

Ammonia could be suspect. Any fish or snails/crabs ? All doing okay ?

The type of light coming from the reefbrite is usually very coral friendly. You would probably see bleaching of the majority of the coral before you would see some recession. Usually there is some warning signs if its the lighting.
 
Last edited:
Ok redid the phosphate 2 more times. It came back as 12 twice and 32 once. That is PPB converted to ppm that is .036 and .098. I am not sure what is normal.

Nitrate came back just off of zero but I am using a crappy API.

Alk 9 and Calc 490. But I just noticed the test are expired so not sure of accuracy. They expired 18 months ago.....wow I have only been in the hobby for 3 years and I got them after I started.
 
Last edited:
aquaholic said:
Symptoms/Test results sound like a phosphate problem. I would put in new gfo and a water change soon. If your feeding fish I would lower that too at least untill you can get the phosphate in check. It might take a little while to get the phosphates down if it has built up in the sand and what not.
Click to expand...

Water change was done a week ago Saturday. About 25 gallons. I changed the GFO yesterday. I am using half the doseage but changing every 2 weeks. So alittle over a cup for my 125 gallon.
 
.02 ppm is the target. But even at 2X shouldn't cause issue within just two days. It would be more of a long term thing than short term.
 
I got it on Saturday, looked good. Saturday need fed mysis as it looked hungry. It ate and looked good in the morning and afternoon. The around 4 pm swapped GFO. It was about 2 weeks old, used 1 1/3 cups. Got home today and it looked horrible.

Forgot to mention I also have an echinata that is doing really well.

So duncans and echinata in sand are happy. Torch and hammer are happy, softies are happy.

Acans had to go to a friends setup as they receded badly after a week. Trach bad after 48 hours.

live stock is doing well!!!
5-6 Astrea, one Trochus. Couple ceriths, 5 scarlet hermits, 2 peppermint shrimp. Have had some hermits die but I suspect the scarlets killing the blue legs I had. 4 larger Nassarius.

Fish no problems. Kole Tang, single false perc, bi-colot, yellow stripe hogfish and a single chromis. All have been their for the transfer, tang and hogfish have been there for 5-6 months.
 
Last edited:
When I had high phosphate my acans were the first ones with issues. My phosphates were extremely high but it has taken over 2 months to get them down running high capacity gfo at full dosage. So if it is phosphate it could be awhile, best thing is to just take all preventive measures and keep up the battle.
 
I had a tang go wild on me and it ate 2 of my brain corals before I realized where the problem was. Good luck getting it sorted out
 
aquaholic said:
Symptoms/Test results sound like a phosphate problem. I would put in new gfo and a water change soon. If your feeding fish I would lower that too at least untill you can get the phosphate in check. It might take a little while to get the phosphates down if it has built up in the sand and what not.
Click to expand...

Sand was brand new in October it is special grade sand.

So should I take the GFO off line as that was the only thing that happened since I have had the brain. But I know that doesn't help my long term issues with acans etc being mad.
 
Ok ordered new alk and calc tests as I am not sure how accurate they are as they are expired. Should be here on Wednesday.

So run the GFO??
 
I left the GFO off for the eveing and turned it back on this AM.
Any more thoughts on GFO?
 
Be careful how often you switch on/off the GFO. Phosphate levels will be fluctuating, and you may stress your corals. Granted these aren't acropora, but you never know.
 
OK got new test kits. They are close to the expired tests.

Alk 9.5-9.8. Closer to 9.8.
Calc 450.

Alk is way high.....now what.

Reason I switched to Kent was I had really high Calc and Alk with Reef Crystals.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top