Tank Maintenance - Seeking wisdom from the greats

[element291]

Here is a pic of my tank at least. Not the greatest picture but I will take some more tomorrow when the lights are back on.
I started with cured rock from store on my 75 gallon then mixed together a bunch of rock that filled a 120 gallon from another guy who had it in his tank for about 2 years so everything had been cycled.

I will take some pictures of my GSP that is coming off the rock and you can see where the rock is ligher in colour where the coral used to cover.

The lights are Coralife aqualight LED. Here is a link,

http://www.coralifeproducts.com/product/aqualight-led/

[whatcaneyedo]

Salinity is low, 1.025 should be your target. Definitely start monitoring your alkalinity, 8-9DKH is a nice range and stability is very important. Temperature stability is also critical, try to keep it as close to 78 F as possible as swings will negatively affect coral growth/health. A controller to turn a cooling fan on and off for you is pretty handy.

[gregzz4]

I agree with Russel, except I run my tank @ 1.026 instead of 1.025.
Either way, your current Sg is too low for the long-term health of many corals, even the most easy to keep ones.
Running your tank @ 1.023 is pushing the limits of near death for many inverts too ... hermits, snails, shrimps, all the life on your rocks such as copepods, isopods and amphipods and such, mysids, sponges, the list goes on ...

I know, seems like it's not much of a difference, but ya, that's all it takes.

Slowly bump your Sg up to what we recommend and see how things go after a month or so.
And when I say slowly, I mean no more than 1 point per day. Otherwise you'll upset or kill what you have left.

So, today is 1.023. Add enough salt to make tonight 1.0235
Tomorrow night make it 1.024 and so on.

Slow and easy is your best approach to the hobby

I know my recommendations above seem extreme 'cause fish can handle faster swings, but your corals will be happier if you take it slow as I suggested

[corallivore]

MY corals started looking similar.

I'd gotten lazy and started using a hydrometer instead of a refractometer.

Hydrometer was reading 1.25 but when I calibrated and checked because I couldn't figure out why my coral (especially my chalices) were looking so bad all of a sudden and some Algea was really starting to flourish.

The calibrated refractometer read near.y 1.3.



Have been slowly dropping salinity since but my corals were looking pretty similar to yours.

Still concerned about long term effects.

My fish, euhpyllia, zoas and shrooms did not seem to mind at all.

[element291]

Thanks everyone I really appreciate the advice so far!
There is 2 great issues then right off the hop. I am using a hydrometer that is probably over a year old I have all this money in the hobby I will buy a quality refractometer before I make any salinity changes to ensure I know exactly where my tank stands at a better accuracy.

I was not aware that being at 1.022 could have such harmful affects that is very good to know.