Eight months ago I added a 100gal sump in my basement and connected two aquariums into it with the thought of having a frag station in the sump and as the frags grew I could move them up to one of the tanks to show. I originally started out with mechanical filter soxs, protein skimmer, ozone, phosphate reactor, plenum (in sump), 2 400watt 15,000k metal halides over sump with 2 250 watt 10,000K on one main tank and a 250 watt 14,000k halide on the other. Over time the sps corals that I had lost color and just seemed to hang on. Frags have done OK - some species doing very well in the Frag states of the sump like stylophora, porites, star plolyps and a few species of acroes but surprisingly montipora species (easiest of the sps to grow) do poorly. I do not think that lighting is an issue as I have moved various frags around to all dfferent tanks. I am convinced that their is something chemical going on. I do run calcium with Dolomite for magnesium but other than that I do not add any other nutrients. I run Dolemite with my calcium reactor in my lps tank with no problems and great results. I have pulled the ozone from the system, removed the phosphate reactor and added a canister filter with carbon. My next steps will be to remove the dolomite from the calcium reactor and removal of the plenum from the sump. I am reluctant to remove the plenum because I am a fan of them and they have worked very well for me in the past but I am running out of options with this systme. I would welcome any suggestion on steps that I can take to further trouble shoot what is going on in this particular setup.
Can you post a picture of the sump? I wonder if corals are losing color due to nutrient rich water being dumped in around them? Thats weird though because it sounds like your system is very much like mine. My frag sysytem is doing great. I am really suprised you are having issues. What about heat? If I read it correclty you have two 400 watt MH bulbs over the sump. I too have some coloration issues in my frag tank, but I am convinced it due to the different kelvin bulbs on each set up. On my main tank I use Reeflux 12,000k and my frag tank has Ushio10,000Ks. I ordered to 175 Reeflux three days ago for my frag tank. That way the kelvin will be the same as I transition them from one tank to the other. I would continue using socks, but that is just me as I am a big fan of filter socks. Allot of folks are not. I use ozone and a UV sterilizer, filter socks, and Randy's two part solution. I also have a large media reactor pretty full of GFO and carbon to help get residual ozone out of the water that the skimmer does not blow off, and help with chemical warfare. Of course the GFO just handles excess phosphates. I am not really familiar with dolomite additives, so I can not offer any thing on that. I have read a little about dolomite on Reef Central and it seems everyone loves it that uses it. Have you checked your magnesium levels? Maybe you have too much dolomite in your reactor. On a side note about a year ago I set up a sulphur nitrate reactor that I blame for ruining my prize monti capricorn. It was due to lack of flow through the reactor I believe, and it was putting in to much sulphur into the tank water. Since I have got it dialed in though, my nitrates are always at zero. It actually impacted all of my cap corals. I would only make one change in week or so. I would start by adding a large amount of carbon to your system. Leaving ozone and everything else in place. Or you will not know which was the culprit in the end. Still would like to see detailed pics of yor sump area..
I'm no propagation expert but if'n it was me...I would have the frags in a pristine water quality area and leave the sump for equipment, additives, etc. Check out Calfo's coral propagation book for examples of prop tanks.
try probes in different levels/parts of system The Calfo book (I appeal only to higher authorities!) describes a tank that had water layering. The surface water and probe readouts were fine, but a permanent layer of low oxygen/low ph water had formed lower in the tank. All the corals did poorly within the lower band. Calfo was rather surprised since this event happened in a properly designed tank with good water movement for SPS, but nonetheless there were odd pockets of trouble. Your lower-light montis could be sitting in bands of bad water. To test for this layering, move your ph and oxygen probes to various problem areas of the sump. Should be easy. Just a thought from someone else.
I have got that book, but have never read it. That makes sense though. I always keep my probes at the bottom of my sump.
Well - thanks everyone for your suggestions and I investigated many of them. I can not come to any conclusion as to why the tanks did not preform. The sump being in an uncontrolled temp environment contributed, nothing could be done to correct this and the temp may have swung to much on a daily basis. The argonite substrate solidified and was obviously doing so do to low ph despite reading in the water column as within normal ranges - well above what would dissolve it. I was running a plenum in the sump where the worst of the substrate clumping occurred, but it also occurred in the 90 gallon that did not have a plenum but was tied in to the system. The odd thing is that the clam tank that was tied into the system as well did not experience any clumping. The frags that were set up in the sump as a whole did poorly and when they did grow were very washed out. I am convinced that there was something chemical afoul in the system - whether it was low ph layers or something else. It is frustrating to put so much effort into a large logistical setup only to have it fail but I have gotten rid of the 90 gallon and clam tank along with the 100 gal sump and have a single tank to take care of rather than the three under performers. I will start a new thread with this tank set up so that I can get some of the great suggestions that I got in trouble shooting my 300 gal central sump system.
