ok.. something is not right..

[FishyReef]

A few thoughts: Remove the torch with brown slime - that slime will spread to the others and kill them.

Remind me what kind of lights you have? I'm thinking LED but don't recall the fixture.

Where did you get the corals? Were they healthy to begin with? If from an LFS or local hobbiest, how long had that place had them before you bought them? Where do you have them placed in your tank? How close together are they placed? How much flow are they getting?

I'm really curious that you've heard of higher PO4 levels in salt - can you point me to some links? I know that a lot of folks have been having alk trouble with salts recently, but I hadn't heard about PO4. (I just got my water tested last night and was very surprised to hear there was PO4 in it - given my alk issues, if it is my salt mix I'd like to know asap!) What type of salt are you using?

What type of rocks do you have in your tank? Where did you buy them from? How many lbs of rock do you have?

The hermit may have been on top of your coral because it was eating dead tissue and not actually causing the coral to die. But yes, you should still try to trap that other crab - he could be contributing to your snail deaths.

Your peppermint shrimp are very likely hiding - I've heard countless stories of people thinking their peppermint shrimp are dead and they keep adding more only to find 20 healthy peppermint shrimp alive and well when they break down their tank. The only shrimp that are usually out and about in the tank are the skunk cleaner shrimp.

Do you have any urchins in your tank?

What do you have for fish?

Okay that's all of my questions for now!

 

[poksal]

Fishy->
Lots to talk about… here we go.. and THANK YOU for the time..

OK, removed BOTH the torches as they both were dead. One had brown tentacles at first on one side then this AM it was all dead. The other just looked poor for a couple of days then as I removed the first one I noticed the second was clearly almost 100% dead.. they both smelled really foul. The second one, after I boiled them for the live rock value, had had something living inside that looked like a barnacle. No pictures, sorry. .. too late. I should of taken pictures. I’m afraid I’ll have to remove the hammer, I think it is deceased too. Yes, they all appeared to be healthy and were all well extended when purchased. . BUT.. all these recent failed corals came from the same LFS. I have no idea how long they were at the LFS nor where they got them... bub now I have questions!!! about that!

The tank is on LEDs and I think they are fine and have plenty of dim up and down tolerance. I do not know the PAR level but I have PLENTY of light. I generally run the main bank of LEDs at about 1-3 power... They are RapidLED and AquaticLIFE.

I get my coral from three different LFS. I now have a fourth that I think is a better expert and will be more of an asset to me. It is where I purchased the 3” cup that is not dead… but I’m afraid something has nipped the pedals off the polyps. Currently it is not coming out any, but I still see good color down in the skeleton openings on the disk … this new store owner has been doing tank leasing and servicing for over 20 years. I plan to have a long talk with her and explain to her how if she can help me get my tank up to keeping healthy coral she will become my only LFS. She will of earned my exclusive business.... and how if I can't keep coral she can't make any $$ of me. ..and, if I get to where I can keep coral from a LFS I will be dropping serious cash for serious corals.... and supplies.. and .. equipment.

As for the PO4.. I quoted wrong in my disappointed state of mind with the corals going downhill. It IS Alk. ..sorry….I take it fairly hard when I lose a life form I took under my wing.

Rocks: They are mostly Fugi I think and have come from my three original LFSs. I do have a couple of large “porous river rocks” as a main stack around. I must have around 120 to 150 pounds of LR. There is a bunch if you include my refuge. I do have some question in my mind about the “river rock”. ..it could be I need to remove it. .. do a re-restack .. this would allow me to do some frag hole drilling.. and drill some holes for acrylic rods to stabilize my formation… that is a big job.. do you think I should? (the tank is a 95 + 15 sump & 15 refuge).

So you don’t think my favorite hermit should be in jail?

No urchins in my tank that I know of.

None of my fish eat my coral, I’ve watched them too hard.. and they all go tuck themselves in at night. What are they?....Lavendar tang, two yellow tails, two tri color damsels, a three stripe (black and white) damsel.. a pair of matched clowns. My 6 line is MIA.

As I stated it appears these snails are alive and well which has never happened... so that is something good.

 

[ErinCahir]

Where did you get the "river rock" from?

 

[poksal]

Where did you get the "river rock" from?

Hi Sis,
From a LFS.. that I am loosing faith in.. say what you are thinking...please...
..said LFS has changed owners three times in the last month or so..... ????? dauh..

 

[ErinCahir]

I wouldn't put anything labeled "river rock" in my tank. Was it dry when you got it?

 

[poksal]

I wouldn't put anything labeled "river rock" in my tank. Was it dry when you got it?

Yes.. It was the first rock I bought.. when I knew even much less than I do now.

.. so you are leaning towards a take it out and do a restack??? Most of my coral is on the sand so I wouldn't loose much but a totally disturbed tank... .. I could do water changes about every three days after it for a couple of weeks to bring things back to ...... a semi-normal state.... My RODI system could keep up with that.

EDIT: towards that aim a PRO... I may get lucky and find that coral eating SOB that may be in my tank in the process. Thinking each LR could get a good swalshing around in a bucket of change water before being returned... complete with a hard turkey baster blasting.

 

[FishyReef]

+1, take out the river rock. It might be leaching something bad into your tank and doesn't belong in reef tanks. Same goes if you have any sort of lava rock.

You didn't say how close together you placed your torches/hammer. Torches are very aggressive corals and need to be placed at least 6 inches away from other corals. If not, they may have stung each other and your hammer to death. They also may have been getting too much/little light or too much/little flow - though the fact that they died so quickly suggests to me that they either stung each other to death or were unhealthy to begin with.

As far as your lights, LEDs can be very strong but not appear that way to our eyes. If your LEDs are 3w bulbs, then you should have a powerful enough unit. If they are 1w or stunner strips, then you don't have enough light in your tank. You mentioned that you have them on a dimmer - do you run them at 100% during the day? If so, for how long? And if so, then you are probably running them too strongly and burning your corals, even those placed at the bottom. For reference, I run my lights at max 50% for 1.5 hours, the rest of the light cycle is run between 30-40% with dawn/dusk effects at either end. I'm very slowly ramping my lights up, around 5% every few weeks until I get closer to full power. I expect it to take me a good year before I will be running my lights at 100% for 6 hours a day, ramping up/down on either end of that.

Thanks for the clarification about the PO4 - I had a scare yesterday when I had my water tested with lab grade tests at my local club yesterday and it came back at .6 - had a second sample then tested at my LFS and it came back at .1 - I think the first sample might have been contaminated but was very curious to hear you mention PO4 problems!

EDIT: One more question - you said you dipped your corals before putting them in your tank - what dip did you use and how long did you dip them for?

 

[poksal]

Fishy, Erin…. And others.. offering help

Most of my LED’s are 3 watts.. and I run them at about ½ or less.. I back off while introducing coral at the bottom of 23” of water and a foot off the water. I plan to buy myself a PAR probe for Christmas and will use it on my DVM. Then test the PAR with permission when I purchase a coral. Then I “think” I can place the coral to a PAR level they were fully open at when purchased. PAR probes are about $150 and a DVM is only around $25. You multiply the micro volts by 5 to get PAR, ... as a reference if you get a reading at the LFS and match that reading at home.. there is no math to do.

The torches were about 8” apart. The hammer was about 15” away from them.

I dip in One Shot for about 10 minutes… floating for an hour or so in the bags.. all these corals were wanting to extend in the bags.. then I do a drip for about an hour.. then lift the corals out and place them in the tank with goves.

OK… I will plan a re-stack… geeeze.. I’m on board with this.. just have been dreading it. I think I may add some new LR in the process. Maybe Tuesday evening on the re-stack, we have a C-party this evening. And I need to salt my change water…
and do some serious planning.

I guess I need to capture most of the CUC and bucket them so they don’t get smushed in the re-stack.. before I do the put back… may as well plan to do a stack the rock on acrylic stands off the sand while I’m at it.. and drill and pin... hey this is going to be work...

So now I go research stacking LR on acrylic studs and pinning them together..so I am ready on Tuesday evening. Though thinking here and now....., I'm thinking to drill the bases of the bottom rocks and push acrylic studs into them for them to set on.

Comments?

 

[ErinCahir]

Why are you going to stack with acrylic pins?

 

[poksal]

Why are you going to stack with acrylic pins?

Actually, "lock" with acrylic pins would be a more correct description ... sorry.

Thinking to avoid any chance of future rock slides...the plan is to stack the rock in open bridges and such with a solid connection.

I'm planning to drill three holes in the bottom of each base LR, insert acrylic pins, and stand them on the glass tank bottom on these short tripod legs. Then build on the stack. It will be a learn as I do process. I plan to take pictures and share them, .. though I usually forget to take pictures as I get involved in projects... I live for projects & tend to get immersed. don't eat...don't stop.... and.. forget to take the pictures.

Acrylic pins: in my case this means band saw cut sticks of acrylic, cut from 12mm (about 7/16") thick sheet that I happened to have. They should fit tight in holes drilled with a 5/8" carbide rock drill.

 

[FishyReef]

Using a two-part epoxy is much easier IMO :)

As for the snails, don't worry about them. Just pull your rocks, put them in buckets, remove the river rock, and replace your rocks. You can then just pull any snails, etc., off of the river rock. When you restack them, try to get them as far down in the sand / as close to resting on the glass as possible.

Good luck!

 

[poksal]

Using a two-part epoxy is much easier IMO :)

As for the snails, don't worry about them. Just pull your rocks, put them in buckets, remove the river rock, and replace your rocks. You can then just pull any snails, etc., off of the river rock. When you restack them, try to get them as far down in the sand / as close to resting on the glass as possible.

Good luck!

thanx for the "luck"...

I agree, it might be easier.. but not as solid..
.......I have the tools, and that makes all the difference... it may be just as easy or even easier with the right tools. Most of the time is in figuring out what rock fits where and how.. as we all know.

...and this is my chance get it right....umm, "try" to get it right...... let's face it that epoxy never really holds that good on the LR because it is only as good as what it is glued to and LR crumbles off mighty easy sometimes.

Besides, I want to provide some coral frag plug holes so I'm already drilling.

 

[Ted]

Oooo man I wish I had seen before that you had river rock in there. I tried that three years ago, was a nightmare...My thinking was I live in Texas and its all limestone around here sure that should work....wrong! I ended up tearing the tank down and redoing everything. I hope that you have better luck fixing this then I did...:x:

 

[poksal]

Oooo man I wish I had seen before that you had river rock in there. I tried that three years ago, was a nightmare...My thinking was I live in Texas and its all limestone around here sure that should work....wrong! I ended up tearing the tank down and redoing everything. I hope that you have better luck fixing this then I did...:x:

Thanx... me too... on the bright side... I can put my rocks on legs off the sand.

So, what kind of trouble did you have? Did taking it out solve the problem? .. after some water changes?...

Looking last evening at how much I have, and there are 4 large pieces, I had forgotten how much.... as a base. I will be purchasing more LR today.... oh,well. I'm going to get the bottom of this.. I WANT A CORAL REEF TANK!

 

[Ted]

Had dino's bad. Snails wouldnt live. I hadnt tried corals at that point yet. When I took the river rock out I ended up changing the sand as well because I knew I was going to stir it bad and wanted the sheets of dinos out of there. I had a minni cycle and killed the three fish I had at the time. After the minni cycle it came back online and the tank was basically problem free for the next three years.

 

[poksal]

Had dino's bad. Snails wouldnt live. I hadnt tried corals at that point yet. When I took the river rock out I ended up changing the sand as well because I knew I was going to stir it bad and wanted the sheets of dinos out of there. I had a minni cycle and killed the three fish I had at the time. After the minni cycle it came back online and the tank was basically problem free for the next three years.

Nice....... ok... geeeze... here we go..

But in my best Texan...k es dinos??

 

[FishyReef]

thanx for the "luck"...

I agree, it might be easier.. but not as solid..
.......I have the tools, and that makes all the difference... it may be just as easy or even easier with the right tools. Most of the time is in figuring out what rock fits where and how.. as we all know.

...and this is my chance get it right....umm, "try" to get it right...... let's face it that epoxy never really holds that good on the LR because it is only as good as what it is glued to and LR crumbles off mighty easy sometimes.

Besides, I want to provide some coral frag plug holes so I'm already drilling.

I used epoxy in my tank and my structures are as absolutely solid as can be. But the difference is that I used mostly dead rock and took a good month just building my rock work, then epoxied every single rock into place, and epoxied every rock to every other rock. Its gonna be a PITA when I move the rock to the new tank, but I have no doubt that my rock work is stable. I added 5 pieces of live rock after that and also secured those with epoxy, but found the red epoxy from two little fishies worked far better than the white home depot 2 part for wet rock. I'll be curious to hear how it goes with the rods and drilling! Do you have a smaller tank that you could temporarily house your fish in while you do the work? Also, buy dry rock to replace the river rock - it will become live in no time and is far cheaper!

 

[Bifferwine]

Dinos = dinoflagellates. It's a particularly difficult type of algae to get rid of. Oh and it's toxic (yay!) so herbivorous fish and clean up crew that eat it die.

 

[poksal]

I used epoxy in my tank and my structures are as absolutely solid as can be. But the difference is that I used mostly dead rock and took a good month just building my rock work, then epoxied every single rock into place, and epoxied every rock to every other rock. Its gonna be a PITA when I move the rock to the new tank, but I have no doubt that my rock work is stable. I added 5 pieces of live rock after that and also secured those with epoxy, but found the red epoxy from two little fishies worked far better than the white home depot 2 part for wet rock. I'll be curious to hear how it goes with the rods and drilling! Do you have a smaller tank that you could temporarily house your fish in while you do the work? Also, buy dry rock to replace the river rock - it will become live in no time and is far cheaper!

Bingo... dry rock... I may have to buy it on-line.. none of my LFS carry dry rock because they use it for their own use... and sell it live.. So, I wait ....we have established I'm not good at that...until I have enough new rock.

Thanx... for some reason that had not occurred to me.

 

[poksal]

Dinos = dinoflagellates. It's a particularly difficult type of algae to get rid of. Oh and it's toxic (yay!) so herbivorous fish and clean up crew that eat it die.

What color is it????