Hi. I just stumbled across your channel researching builds, and you, sir, are criminally undersubbed! The amount of information and the quality of the videos is incredible. Thank you!
I always struggle with LPS, all the parameters are bang on, it's stable, then one day I'll lose a polyp head from my hammer. This hobby completely baffles me
@@richishere82 always appreciate help! 35.2ppt, KH 9, calc 450, mag 1400, nitrate 10, phos 0.08. light is 100 par on the rock that the hammer lived and I just dropped the flow as "a just in case" but it shod it's other head today. I've stuck them in a plastic tub with some rocks, I doubt they'll live but I can hope
If were talking about the shrimp in the video, it's blurry footage but I'd be surprised if that was a Lysmata Wurdemanni (the true peppermint) or a Lysmata Boggessi, which are similar & what usually gets sold in the hobby trade as "Peppermint shrimp". There are many shrimps sold under the name "Peppermint" & they are very difficult to tell apart, which is exacerbated by the fact there is quite a lot of variations between individuals within the same species. Some are behave the same way as a Wurdemanni & some do not. Even amongst Wurdemanni (& Boggessi) there will be some coral eaters just like with cleaner shrimps, bloods etc. I've constantly kept around 25 to 30 "Peps" amongst my various coral tanks for the last 10 years & touch wood I've not had a coral eater as yet although I have had a cleaner that loved to eat Xenia. I'm sure I will get one 1 day but it seems as though they are the exception rather than the rule (with certain species) & considering the amount of work they save me by keeping my tanks Aip free it's a gamble that's well worth it for me anyway ✌
@@northeastcorals I think they're also much more likely to attack corals and whatever else they can get their claws on if they're extremely hungry. I keep peppermint shrimp (all L. boggessi so far) because I think they're adorable, rather than for Aiptasia control. So they're fed daily, sometimes by hand. The only live animals I've seen them go after are adult brine shrimp, which are there as feeders anyway.
Nothing special with parameters and they don't need feeding. Keeping the main parameters at roughly the correct levels all the time is very important so lots of maintenance - dosing, testing and water changes. Dosing manganese helps too, but gonis are a very tricky coral to keep still. Low to medium light and flow.
I’ve never checked Mg levels nor what my PAR is lol. And my salinity is at about 1.026 specific gravity. So far things have been going well, but now I’ve got enough in that tank that I **REALLY** don’t want to mess something up. Here’s a tank status overview, please critic anything that can be improved! Tank age: 6months Tank size: 40gal cube, internal filtration sections AIO. Salinity: 1.026 Ammonia: near 0, test kits always the same color & accuracy is questionable. Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0-5ppm Calcium: 380 Phosphate: near 0. Mg: unknown All other elements or chemistry: unknown. Light PAR: unknown, AquaIllumination(AI) Hydra 32 light. Filtration: sponge cube, followed by media baskets of carbon, then filter material, then 2 sections of porous rock. Occupant corals: 1 Pulsing Xena, 2 Kenya Trees, 1 Zoa, 1 Green Star polup, 1 unknown, 1 long legged anemone. Fish&other: 2 clownfish, 1 diamond back gobie, 1 skunk shrimp, 1 emerald crab, 4 red legged hermit carbs, 1 tiger conch., 1 tuxedo urchin (I think).
Dinos can be very demoralising (I've been there myself) but they are actually relatively easy to deal with but only when you know what type you have - join this FB group and they'll tell you how to identify and treat whatever you have facebook.com/groups/macksreef/
@@ReefDork Yeah, I've learned to feed the shrimp first (preferably lure it as far away as possible from the coral I'm feeding). Cleaner shrimp are greedy little bstrds but are fun to watch.
Fun fact: polyp inflation/tentacle extension correlates to coral health only up to a certain extent. If you look at corals such as Micromussa, Dipsastraea, Cycloseris, etc. in the wild, they are way less fleshy than their captive counterparts. I have shown wild (true) Goniastrea to some reefkeepers and they were surprised at how drawn tight to the skeleton the corals were.
I remember when I first got started with my nano reef. A local store sold me some other shrimp that we’re supposed to be cleaner shrimp but they were hired killers if you ask me. They ate everything, including new fish that I would add. And then peep out from behind the rocks and dangle the left over flesh from fish 😢 I couldn’t believe it until I researched and learned about camel shrimp being sold as cleaner shrimp 😳
Yes. Salinity. I have 4 ways to measure it because I’m paranoid about it. I check it daily 😂 I’ve crashed my Fluval three times because of screwing up this parameter. Never again if I can help it.
My calc and mag were Elevated so I turned my doser off, then forgot to turn them back on till my torches started wilting, checked everything, turned them back on put the mag up to 1400. And presto happy torches again.
I was losing some lps and finally figured out what was wrong. Refractometer calibration solution evaporated cause its a 3yo bottle so the refractometer was totally out of calibration too. I only found out after getting a new bottle of solution after my mag was testing 1600+. Salinity was 40ppt! And it was at this salinity for monthssss. And during this time most new lps i added were not doing good. Now i got it back stable
Regarding salinity issue: be sure to check whether you are using densimeter or salimeter! Those are two different things. :) Corals started dying and then I've found out my salinity is almost 40 ppt! Turned out I had a densimeter, LOL
+1 on the magnesium, my nano got down to 1200ppm and my candy canes were sulking. Once it was back to 1350ppm they were happy as anything! I also find usually people are loosing lps when nutrients are low too.
Hmm… I’ve had some LPS loss and maybe it is my peppermints. Usually they eat all my aiptasia and then get eaten by my wrasse but for some reason my wrasse are leaving my latest alone.
Hi Alex, #5 is getting me as we speak. I have a 110 gallon and I have not been able to keep sps coral and have been wracking my brain as to why. Additionally, my alk, calc, mag, ph levels have also been off. Did some tests, went to my LFS who first thing told me is my salinity was reading 39ppt. Hanna was telling me 35. I’m in the middle of doing bigger and several water changes to lower salinity and get back to baseline. Not sure what cause all my issues in the first place but resetting my tank water parameters with big/frequent changes seem to be helping so far. Great video.
I just had a year old duncan coral which started with 1 head and had like 10 mini heads all around it die in a matter of a week or two. Just started melting away. All other corals were fine and the only thing I could determine was the cause is that I switched from All for reef to a combination of All for reef and Kalk, but in the transition I had a quick drop from 9 to around 6 Alkalinity. Don't know for sure though. Agree with the shrimp free part. Very annoying that I can't spot feed since that little psycho goes nuts and rips food out of them
can Torch corals repair themselves? I tried fragging one and it split. I used a bit of epoxy to piece the fragments together, will this work? Also, my torches keep dying (vermetid snails keep popping up, also not sure if shrimp are eating them like yours), and I'm frustrated trying to figure out why. A lot of conflicting information. Too much flow, too little flow, too much light, too little light... most frustrating hobby ever
They can do but that's often a death sentence - superglue is better than epoxy. Torch corals are difficult to keep - I'd personally avoid them for now if they keep dying in your tank.
Amazing videography of your corals. With the top 3 being brilliant advice for all corals. 🙌 Those Goni's look incredible and that amazeballs coral has some serious pop. Love your frag tank reef. Looking forward to the next video 👍.
Gonna put this checklist in action straight away to hopefully cure my hammer and a goni. Question: Let's say you move a hammer to a lower light area of your tank. How long do you give it without improvement before you start to think it's something else? I've been moving my fading hammer to lower light areas for weeks and it still is not regaining color even though it is extended fairly nicely. If I want to put it under lower light, I'll have to bury it under a rock.
I am getting different results from my refractometer and hanna salinity checker.... not sure which one to trust... however, I zero the refractometer with distilled water, and then check salinity, and it still doesnt jive....
Hey, what about flow? I noticed some of my LPS retracted when I put them in a higher flow area and didn't open anymore. It wasn't that strong flow, it didn't blow the flesh off, etc. Just moderate flow that caused polyps to wave a bit more.
I had issues in my aquarium. Howver everything was perfect. Icp came back perfect. Regular water changes and nothing improved. Then as a last ditch effort i sent out a aquabiome dna test which came back saying i had stony coral tissue loss disease in my reef tank.
My nitrate and phos have been at 0 for 5 weeks now not gone up at all my corals won’t grow pls help tried feeding every day and even turned my skimmer off what can I do without adding liquid nitrate
would you be able to maybe directing me to a video that can help me help my candy cane coral? I have a Duncan that is doing really well but the candy cane isn't happy and idk why.
So much of this hobby is based on anecdotal advice...true scientific methodology/experimentation is expensive and time consuming. Just ask anyone that works in a real-world lab.
What do you use to test Magnesium? I've been wanting to get the Hanna Checker for it but several bad reviews for Mg in particular make me reluctant to trust the accuracy.
I love Hanna checkers generally but not the mag one. I use Salifert - it's quick and easy and not difficult to read the result, unlike say nitrate and phosphate tests which is where Hanna shines.
I put a little xenia frag in my tank and it just sat there for a year. Then I quit buying saltwater from the LFS (Inst Oc) and got an RO/DI and Tropic Marin Classic salt and the silly thing started pulsing and then started growing. Now it is everywhere!!! 😋
@@so_so_reef no, it'd still only be coming from one direction - I tried just 2 powerheads either side of the weir box at first but the flow is so much better with this setup. If the tank was bigger, it'd be easier to place the powerheads for aesthetics and performance
@@ReefDork thanks Alex, About gonis, would you say as long as the parameters are in range that you don't really need the additional manganese for gonis.
@@jameswithers3066manganese has definitely contributed to my success with gonis, but they're still a tricky coral and the coral I have most problems with in this tank
