Sorry it has been a bit since I have talked to anyone. I have a few concerns since last posted. My tank now over a year old, its 75 gal reef with two 304 fluvals, three power heads, Freedom filter, the large one for up to 300 gal tank and the large prizsm protien skimmer, two 65 watt atinic blue lights two 50/50 65 watt lights and two 250 watt metal halide lights.
Everything has been growing great except a few suicide jumpers, and a power blue tang that never eat from day one, last month lost him. 5 bubble tip anenomies, two currly cues, feather dusters, mushrooms of all kinds, 4 leathers, frogspawn that has five new heads, torch coral that has added about a half inch since I got, candy cane growing great, green fuzzy doubled in size, purple pogoda cup, sun coral, cabbage coral orange branching sponges, zoas of kinds large and small, bubble coral, two maxma clams, cleaner shrimps, Very large green brittle star, orange linka, snad sifting and two other unknown baby serpent stars, 5 clowns, 4 damsels, flame angel, two gobies, two tiger pistols, scallop, snails crabs, cactus coral, acoparas, pulsing zineas(?) spelling bad. yellow star polyps, blueberry gorgians red and purple gorgians, plate coral and like I said every thing has been great.
My tests on phosphates, nitrites, ammonia are 0, nitrates are slightly elevated 1.5<>, have been batteling a bit with sino bacteria but nothing to serious, calcium 440. salinity 1.024, using RO/DI water. Water changes done 1 to two times per week at at least 10-15%. Well I am loosing two cats paws, and s I think it is a staghorn frag, these three all started bleaching out at the same time, but nothing else in the tank seems to be affected by what ever is going on. Have seen a few new critters in the tank, they are some sort of snail without the shell, about the size of a thumb tack head, brown and white stripped and lightning fast.
When cleaning out the filters there are bi-valves hatching in the containers. I believer these are coming from the food that I am feeding because I have not added anything new in quite some time. I use a micro filter about every other week to polish the water run it for 24 hrs give or take. Whein I change the water I use a power head and try to blow the detruis arround to help vacume it up and from it building up in unwanted areas. Aftere the water change I let the filters run for a few hours intil everything is settled back down and clean them after this step. So why would just this couple species be bleaching out all at the same time and what am I doing wrong? Really confused.
I had been doing salt water with my mother when I was just a tennager and worked in a fish shop every summer for 8 years growing up. Have had several tanks prior, but all were just fish dedicated, had been away from the tanks for about 9-10 years because of moving around. finaly got settled and got back into the swing of things and started out with a 2 1/2 gal tank. very tiny. then moved up to a 12 gal nano, then jumped to the 75 gal because of needing more room. I never thought that I would get so addicted to the reef and have bought equiptment as I have progressed and the pocket book will allow, so kind of piece milled together.
I want to add a sump but the stand that I purchased, the doors are too narrow to put one in and I will have to drain the tank down enough to take the center support out with out breaking the tank in the process. I am saving now to have a custom tank built from ground up, but it will be a bit before I get that. It will be my dream tank. I am thinking about doing a bit of house work on the tank and removing the occupants and adding a bit more live sand to the bottom, its not quitet as deep as I would like and the pistol shrimps move it to big mounds in areas and valleys in other places, and also adding a few new pieces of live rock, is this a good ideal to do? I feed clyclopeeze, mysis, rofers, tiger pods, coepods, plankton, have a brine shimp hatchery, coral freenzy, reef bugs, treats of oyster, clams, silver sides, and are all fed on alternating days,. I add iodine about 1/4 capful every three days and trace elements, strongtium/molybdenum occasionally maybe every other month and very lightly. Now that I have written a book I would love to hear from everyone and get your Ideas on solutions to my bleaching corals.
I also have a low light 29 gal reef and a 55 gal fish dedicated tank all doing quite well.
Thanks for listening and hopefully some advise on what I could be doing better.
Diane