[aussiemcgee]

Hi ya guys

I've got some cool red morphs - well they were cool when I bought them, they were nice and big and standing up on their stalks. Since then the bulk of them (there's about 10 on the rock) have shrunk down a bit and have become pale. I've moved the rock down the bottom of the tank and 3 of them have come back and are a nice fluffy red again but the rest are still struggling.

Tank is about 300L and the water qual is pretty decent, any ideas?????

cheers

[Neakit]

what is your lighting? what are your parameters? do you run a skimmer? what fish do you have? what water circulation do you have? what water are you using to top up the evaporation? Information is needed before diagnosis can be done.

[Tucunare]

did your tank hit 30 degrees in the hot days?

[aussiemcgee]

what is your lighting? what are your parameters? do you run a skimmer? what fish do you have? what water circulation do you have? what water are you using to top up the evaporation? Information is needed before diagnosis can be done.

• Lighting - 72" T5 HO
• Macro needlewheel skimmer in 40L sump with ~4kg live rock and jap mat in one of the baffles
• main tank has ~ 20 kg live rock, separate orange, blue and brown carpet morph rocks, and a rodactin? (green carpet soft coral)
• Fish - 2 x sleeper gobies, 2x PJ cardinals, 4 x cromis, 1 x block clown, 3 x damsels, 2 x fire gobies, 1 x false gramma?, 1 x wrasse of some kind? (looks similar to the gramma)
• water flow - 2000 lph return pump, 2000 lph koralia
• water top up I just use tap water (i know, i know... but I really fill the bucket vigorously to get heaps of O2 in and try and degas a little, then I leave it sit for a while before I top up)
• salintiy - 32ppt, 1.025
• pH - 8.05
• NH3 - 0.25mg/l (usually 0 but skimmer airline clogged so that's the reason for elevated levels today)
• NO2 - <0.3mg/l
• Temp - 25c

I reckon flow has a bit to do also, cos i was playing with direction the other day an noticed an immediate reaction with increased flow on the morphs in question.
I am after more flow but unfortunately its not a priority on the expense list at the moment.

I don't think those hot days had too much of an impact, the highest the temp got was ~ 28c

[Neakit]

firstly you need ro water, tap water has copper and other nasties in it that Will kill all your corals, you have a fairly large bio load for the size of tank you have, The ammonia should always be zero but the teasts you should be looking at is the nitrite and nitrate. you should not have a nitrate reading of 30mg/L. Increase your water movement everything will love your for it. Whats your magnesium level, whats your calcium level and what is your aklalinity?

[aussiemcgee]

G'day, cheers for the response.
Haven't got any of those kits to test with but I know when I was setting up 12 mths ago and getting regular tests from LFS, my calcium levels would always drop quickly. As a result I top up with about 2 capfuls every fortnight of eco calcium liquid.

Where do you get RO water?
Prob a dumb question, but can you age tap water and use some of that chlorine eliminator stuff?

[Neakit]

a big problem with tap water is it contains copper. Copper kills coral and inverts in higher than normal consentrations. Also tap water contains phosphates which helps fuel algea. You can buy ro systems i think vebas sells ro water, i know ocean reefs sells ro water. How often do you do water changes? what test kits do the lfs use?

[Warby]

Vebas does sell RO water... $20 for a 20L drum filled or $4 to fill your own I believe it was, check the thread in off-the-wall forum

[aussiemcgee]

Havent had a water test from lfs for ages, I'll go get one tomorrow, pretty sure it was fairly broad, although i had no corals at the start so they probably didn't do mg, P04, Cu etc.

At the start i was doing water changes (~30%) every few days, now I try to stretch it out to ~50% fortnightly with regular glass and genral scum cleans - house faces west and the tank cops all the arvo sun so algae is a killer.

I appreciate all the help, the tank has been set up for a while now and we are doing a big house reno so when the floor get redone I'll have to move the tank. So, if I can iron out all the bugs now, I know what to add, fix or change.

I thought i was a full bottle on aquariums having kept fw tanks for years but this sw stuff is like starting the learning curve all over again!

[Warby]

...and the spending curve My wife still spins out at how much I am spending getting the last bits and pieces I need to be reasonably happy with my SW tank heh

[Neakit]

i spent 10 grand on my first tank and i still wasn't happy with it.