BB - Help

[kirkwood]

I have a question for those that have been BB awhile and have more experience than me.

I went BB on my new build a couple months ago. A few weeks ago I noticed some zoas agitated and I had a colony of Space Monsters melt. These have always been super hardy and prolific growers for me so I'm stumped. I didn't find any major issues with parameters aside from my Calcium having crept up to 500 over that 2 month period. No fast movement.

I started wondering if maybe something was eating them, unfortunately with my 2 young kids I can't even stay awake anymore until my lights go out so I haven't been able to investigate for any offenders. I started wondering if maybe something from my CUC was doing the damage since I've gone BB and my flow is heavy I thought maybe left over food has become nonexistent and perhaps they are widening their menu. I saw a hermit nipping around some zoas the other day, and started thinking maybe the hermits could be starving in the BB and started eating zoas.

What do you think?

 

[ringo®]

I know you said parameters checked out. But out of curiosity, what were pH and Alk at?

 

[hiimsean]

I noticed an astrena(sp) star munching on a sunny d before. I pulled it off and looked as though it melted but has since bumped back. How long of a time frame did they melt?

 

[kirkwood]

Ringo®;957792 wrote: I know you said parameters checked out. But out of curiosity, what were pH and Alk at?

alk has been steady at 8.5kh and ph is usually around the 8.2 range. Over the last year I haven't seen any variation at all in my ELOS ph test kit. I'm pretty much done testing ph unless I change my dosing regimen.

my salinity was a bit high at 1.027-1.028 so I've slowly brought that down to 1.025-1.026 range.

these zoas have always been super hardy and virtually indestructable for me, so that is what really has me guessing.

i did switch from Fuel to Acropower about 3 weeks ago and I took my GFO offline but that was all after the polyps initially started closing up.

 

[kirkwood]

HiImSean;957794 wrote: I noticed an astrena(sp) star munching on a sunny d before. I pulled it off and looked as though it melted but has since bumped back. How long of a time frame did they melt?

the melting/demise was probably a 1-2 week period.

I think the astrina stars get wrongly accused as guilty parties. They come in and eat the dead tissue but I've never seen them actually kill a zoa... I do have a lot of astrena's in the tank.

 

[vetshep]

I wonder if disturbing your sand bed disturbed your parameters even a few months ago and then made your zoas more susceptible to infection. I guess if it was never very deep to begin with then that would not be a problem. But if it was pretty deep, you could have released pockets noxiousness or decreased your O2 level for awhile. Or, it could be totally unrelated. Anything new introduced to your tank lately?

 

[hiimsean]

Are other zoas affected or other corals? You have a pretty good mix of corals, correct? Could just be running lower nutrients with the BB and not enough to support the zoas?

 

[kirkwood]

vetshep;957797 wrote: I wonder if disturbing your sand bed disturbed your parameters even a few months ago and then made your zoas more susceptible to infection. I guess if it was never very deep to begin with then that would not be a problem. But if it was pretty deep, you could have released pockets noxiousness or decreased your O2 level for awhile. Or, it could be totally unrelated. Anything new introduced to your tank lately?

sandbed was never distrubed when moving livestock.. I got rid of all the sand and dirty water from the switch... no new livestock..

 

[kirkwood]

HiImSean;957798 wrote: Are other zoas affected or other corals? You have a pretty good mix of corals, correct? Could just be running lower nutrients with the BB and not enough to support the zoas?

other corals are good.. I lost a couple other zoas but one was a single polyp of jf bloodshot and the other was a few polyps of dark phoenix that got pissed the day I brought a cup of GFO online in the reactor... It could be nutrient related but I am trying to put in as much nutrients as possible without going overboard.. I also have the same fish list in the 60g tank as I did in the 120g, so I know its a stocked tank... I have been reading that BB tanks are far more effective at exporting nutrients than sandbeds so maybe it is nutrient related. I can barely notice trace NO3 on an ELOS low range test and Hannah egg is always 0 on PO4. I took GFO offline to see if PO4 will creep up.

i am running no optics on LED lights that are elevated 2-3 feet off the water... the tank is 60g frag style 4'x2'x1' so I was worried about too much light. But I have a total of 170 3w LEDs in 2MM boxes and 1 eshine unit so it is a lot of light, but maybe PAR is low with the distance from water surface and lack of optics. But I think that would be more of an SPS concern and shouldn't be an issue for zoas.

 

[gacolt]

i have a bb tank and i had to get rid of all my crabs out of my tank cause they started to mess with my corals.i also had to get rid of my starfish they would get under my frag plugs or small rocks with corals and move them around the tank sometimes right next to other corals the corals would start fighting.now since i have starte my ulns im getting rid of my 3 cleaner shrimp as they are starting to bother corals mostly acros,anemones and zoas.all that i have in my DT is about 50 astraea snails everything else is in the sump.

 

[kirkwood]

gacolt;957950 wrote: all that i have in my DT is about 50 astraea snails everything else is in the sump.

i am seriously about to move all the hermits to the sump.