Kenya Tree Not doing so well/dying

If you could..next time your ready to do a water change...test your new make up water for the following....Kh (alkalinity)~Ca (calcium)~Mag (magnesium) and PH.
I'm interested in knowing what these readings are as I've been using Reef Crystals for 3 years and have always had great levels from this salt. The usual calcium for RC is 400 which for your tank is fine as your not keeping any LPS nor SPS corals at the moment. Personally I'd stop dosing for calcium also. You don't need it

 

I agree.Stop dosing. Your tank does not need to be dosed. Just keep up with regular waterchanges.I believe either you mistyped or you are confused between Nitrite and Nitrate.Ammonia is turned into Nitrite then Nitrite is turned into Nitrate. The absence of Ammonia and Nitrite and the prescence of Nitrate mean your tank is cycled.Nitrates are then exported through water changes, biological, or chemical filtration.

 

First there is no need for dosing a new tank at all.

I have a pre filter for the house right after the water main. This helps a little and its cheap and fairly easy to do yourself and it make the water taste a little better and some of the filters can help lower the ammonia and chlorine in your tap water.

You can get away with tap water. I used tap for atleast 6 months when I first got into the hobby and worse thing I got as a response from it was brown diatoms on the sand bed every time I did a water change.

Lighting I would change the 6500k bulb to a 10k or 12k. 6500k bulbs are for plant growth so put that over your sump for your macro algae to grow.
Are these bulbs new or old? As they age their color spectrum can change and not be in the desired area's of spectrum.

I would try and do a 20-30% water change to help get things to where they should be.

 

That has me worried. Just cuz YOU had that experience, chances are he may not. RODI is the only water that should go in a reef tank, period. end of discussion

 

Just want to be absolutely clear that while you may get away with using tapwater. All tapwater is NOT created equal. Depending on where you live and your source of water there are huge variations in water quality and content.
Also the age of the tank has really no bearing on whether a tank needs to be dosed. It is the ammount/type of animals present that will impact the ammount you have to dose.

 

Good idea, I'll check these params of the new water before I dump it into the tank to get a baseline. I don't have a mag kit though, which I want to get soon.

Yes, that was a typo. I meant to say the ammonia and nitrites went to zero. I was, however, under the impression that nitrates should also reach zero in a reef tank. I could be wrong on this though.

Ok, so I won't dose anymore, and I'll work on keeping my params stable rather than ideal. I tend to be a perfectionist, so this could be a challange

Why do you guys suggest to use the 10,000K over the 6500K? Does it have any influence over coral growth? I originally had 1 actinic and 1 10000K bulb but the lighting was too blue for my taste, so I swapped out the 10000K for the 6500K to add in more warmth. Maybe I would do better with two 10000K bulbs, or 1 10000K and 1 6500K. Does the actinic have any significant role other than bringing out the fluorescence in certain corals?

 

Great idea! thats the best thing in this hobby, stability.

 

If you look at the wave lengths corals photosynthesize at it is basically from 400nm - 700nm. Corals can use any light between this spectrum to photosynthesize but at certain spectrums photosynthesis is increased or decreased. This is the spectrum known as PAR, which stands for photosynthetic active radiation. Corals do use actinic light which peaks at 420 for photosynthesis, the only problem is that most actinic bulbs have a low overall par because their spectrum is not broad. The newer “blue” bulbs like the ati blue plus have a broader blue spectrum with peaks at around 460nm and yes actinic spikes at 420nm as well which gives them a higher PAR. White bulbs are basically a very broad spectrum of light ranging from 400nm -700nm, they have blue, green, yellow, orange, and red covered. You can grow coral with variations all over the spectrum hence people having success with 20,000k, 15,000k, 10,000k and even 6,500k. Corals do not use green and yellow light as effectively as blue or red. This is why I am such a big fan of the newer bulbs with added red in their spectrum.

You will need to export Nitrates to lower them.

 

Thank you Vinnyboombatz, that was very informative. So a 10000K and an actinic or 2 10000K bulbs should give me the best growth for my corals.

I just did a water change and did some tests on my tap water mixed with Reef Crystals to a Specific Gravity of 1.025 using a refractometer.

pH: 8.0
KH: 14 DKH
Calcium: 380ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm

So my alkalinity is on the high side because my tap water is also adding in some alkalinity to the mix.

 

1 Actinic and 1 10k. You still need the actinic as this bulb peaks at the desired range for photosynthesis. While 2 10k's are a broader spectrum and do not peak at the necessary wavelength. You could keep the 6500k and 1 actinic but you may get unwanted algae growth from it.