I bought some good peices at our frag swap and I have bought some cool peices but I really need some help on how to keep a thriving healthy growing reef tank when I have a heavy livestock tank. I have AI lights, use RO water, and have 300 gallon total system. I’ve adjusted lights but I don’t get that look as if they are doing well. z<>z
What kind of filtration do you have? What’s your maintenance routine?
Maintenance is cause for some concern, because I do have a heavy bio-load w/ approx 30 fish and 4 of em being tangs in the main tank. But I have an S-300 eshopps skimmer, algae scrubber, filter socks, and live rock in my fuge. The sump water volume is around 45-50 gallons.
If algae scrubbers aren’t scrubbed regularly (every 2-3 weeks), the algae dies and released the absorbed nutrients back into the tank. What size is your scrubber?
Filter socks need to be cleaned every 2-3 days otherwise the food/detritus will begin to rot.
You have a good skimmer, so just make sure you’re cleaning the neck and it should work great. You can also raise the water level in the skimmer and get some wetter skimmate.
Does your water have a yellow tint when you look down the length of the tank?
How often do you do a water change? How many gallons are you changing?
Usually 40 gallons every 2-3 weeks, yet this past June was rough because my schedule. I guess my biggest concern is lighting. I don’t have a PAR meter and I have my LEDs around 35-40%. 3-90 watt LEDs around 18k
Justin the club has a par meter that premium members can borrow. Let me know if you are interested. I believe Bill ( VP) has it right now!
What are the corals in question? Do you spot feed?
See that’s a great question because I just thought that there was enough food for them to feed off what’s in the tank. I’ve thought about feeding just didn’t know if it was worth doing…
[quote=“beadlocked450r, post:8, topic:8717”]
What are the corals in question?[/quote]
^—This. We can’t make a suggestion without knowing what coral it is. SPS like clean tanks, LPS like dirtier tanks.
All frags of zoas, some sps, some lps in different tanks.
Lets start with the zoa, have you tryed a peroxide dip on them i had some issues and that helped them. Do some looking peroxide dips on zoa, it will help get rid of any bacteria on tjem that could cause them to close up. Also im sure you have but did you try moving them around the tank up and down in the lighting?
Lps is next, have you checked them at night? Do they have sweepers out? If so you need to spot feed meaty foods,rotifers,oryster eggs or other lps type foods and then watch them grow!
Sps as everybody knows is the hardest to keep, there is alot of variables to keep them thriving. You say they dont look good or aren’t growing? Im gonna start with all the tank parameters and will go from there
Ok most lps will look like these acans, and if you have any chalices they will look like the other pic. The acans are hungry and the chalice was just fed and is trying to eat the brine shrimp
Well? You asked for help and not a single update or response to all the questions
I have some acans but I still cannot grow any chalice. My acans seem to be doing ok, they are nice a full looking during the day and they have some sweepers out. They are in the seahorse tank which is about 72 degrees. I figured I’d try with removing the high amounts of phosphates 1st.
Ok the chalices should also get sweepers, what you wight wanna try doing is at night when loghts are off, i would turn all the pumps off and take a turkey baster and put a small pile of food ontop of the chaloce with or without the sweepers out. You might be suprised to see it will probally open up and start eating.
Also 72*? Seems a bit cool for corals,but good for horses!
Ok now I just need some chalice… LoL I haven’t tried since the last piece bleached out (about a year ago)
[quote=“beadlocked450r, post:17, topic:8717”]
Also 72*? Seems a bit cool for corals,but good for horses![/quote]
I was hoping that was a typo. You should be in the high 70s. I run my tank at 80-81.
Seahorses have to be kept at 72-74 max… Those corals actually look good! Not a lot of growth but they seem happy. They have been on that tank for 2 months. The big tank is giving me problems.