6 month cycle

pyton

pyton

New member
Hi everyone,

I am pretty new to the hobby but this tank has been up for about 2 years.

I bought a complete system and had it moved into my home about 6 months ago. the move was only a couple of miles away. All live stock was included.

Everything has been going great lots of SPS and growing very well.

Now over the last few weeks my SPS just turn white to brown. Some start at base some start up top some start in the middle.
I went to my local fish shop and he was stumped. So I called the old owner and he told me he had the same thing and it seemed to be a 6 to 9 month cycle. I tested the water and even had the local shop test it. Everything looked perfect, the local shop even said it is almost the same as his show tank and could not understand why it was happening.

Old owner said to do huge water change about 40% everything will go back to normal for another 6 to 9 months.

LPS, Softies are fine
Clams are fine
SOME SPS turn white in spots.
Couple fish died like pipefish, naso tang, blonde naso tang (all got removed right away)

I did notice at the local shop his show tank SPS had all their polyps out with great extension, Mine do not.

I did a 30% water change last week and it helped a lot, did a 10% this morning and everything is looking great, but no extensions yet. It looks normal.

Tank is 240 gallon with 43 to 46 times turn over for flow, depending on which power heads are running.
Sump
Closed Loop
ASM G4 skimmer
4 250 MH 15K bulbs
2 Icecap 660 with 240 Watts of Fiji Purple T5 bulbs
Controlled by a new Apex system Fans to keep iot cool and heater to keep it warm
CA Reactor
Kalk Reactor
ATO system

Should have everything to keep it running with hands off except for weekly water changes and sand vacuuming.


Anyone have any ideas?
 
Last edited:
Ca? Alk? Mg? Po4? salinity? Nitrates? Ammonia? Will need all these values to help.

Have you checked for pests on the sps? Did all the fish die at once? Do you know why they died?
 
Have these tests at home:
Alk 9.6 dKH
CA 450
Mag 1340
Phosphate 0
Salinity 1.025 / 1.026

These were tested by local shop but I did not get numbers. He said they were fine.
Nitrates
Ammonia

I do not know why the fish died, They all looked normal when I pulled them out of the tank but the dragon face pipefish, I found the pair in the sump within a few days of each other.

We did check for pests and nothing, we took out a couple of the affected coral and used a dip on them. Shaking them during the dip looking for anything to fall off.

I used Salifert test kits and they are almost out. Is there a better test kit out there I can buy?
 
I've used salifert for a long time.and just recently switched over to elos with way better results,the alk test on the elos is about 3dkh difference (higher) than salifert and my corals have good color and pe.
 
That's what they are now, but what's just is important is how stable they are. So if you are taking your water to your shop to test I'm guessing you aren't testing your self. If you want to keep SPS you are going to need your own test kits and you are going to need to make sure that your paramaters are stable. You should test a few times a week at first and try to make sure they are as close to being the same as possible each time.

For example

My alk could be acceptable (depending who you ask) any where between 7 and 11. But if Monday it was 7, and tuesday it was 10. You would have some serious stressed out corals, and nobody on the forum would be the wiser since when asked what your parameters are you you say 9 and that sounds perfect.
 
I do have the 4 I posted at the house. I tested and had local shop test to make sure my kits were not bad.

I am testing 2 to 3 times a week.

dKH is 9.2 to 9.6 every time I test.
The CA and MAG slowly move up or down but I use Kalk and NeoMag in the reactors to keep that stable.

the Alk flux came up before and that is why I bought the Apex and a new CO2 regulator. The regulator I got was the CarbonDoser Electronic Co2 Regulator so it would rule out the pressure factor of the traditional regulator.

Someone suggested to me that the Skimmer was not a good skimmer and not skimming enough so that is what is causing this. It builds up for several months and finally causes the crash.
Should I replace the skimmer?
 
I have the temp set up to 77.9 to 78.6

Lights are new in December / January / February

here is a picture
IMG_8527.jpg
 
RyanAlan said:
What is your temp doing?

Also, are you using a filter sock? If so, how are you cleaning it?
Click to expand...

No I have media tray that I can remove any time. When I use the filter I clean two or three times a week. If I remove it I still have same problem.

I clean my sump every other water change to suck the debris out.
 
any outside chemicals, wear cologne before you reached in tank...wife burn candles, windex on the glass, etc? That is some serious rtn.
 
Looks like something is eating the tissue, AEFW. Anyone want to chime in and shot me down or help me out. Not sure, when everything looks fine with the water tests I think pests. The other thing how are you testing SG?? Hydrometer or refractometer? If you are using a hydrometer get a refractometer. If you have a refractometer check the calibration. High SG can cause color issues.
 
allsps40 said:
Looks like something is eating the tissue, AEFW. Anyone want to chime in and shot me down or help me out. Not sure, when everything looks fine with the water tests I think pests. The other thing how are you testing SG?? Hydrometer or refractometer? If you are using a hydrometer get a refractometer. If you have a refractometer check the calibration. High SG can cause color issues.
Click to expand...

yea as soon as i saw that pic i thought hmm... parasite of some sort. especially the little spots where most of he other flesh of the coral looks ok.
 
I have a Hydrometer but when I take the water to the the local shop they say it is 1.025 or 1.026 with their refractometer.

What pest only comes out every 6 to 9 months does the damage and leaves only to come back in another 6 to 9 months?

Yesterday's Test
CA 420
Mag 1350
dKH 8.6

Testing for Today
CA 450
Mag 1260
dKH 9.0
 
So I read the other post about stray voltage and I had a bad 800W Heater.
Since the coral were only having issues at night and my heater only turned on at night you do you think it could have caused this?

Over the last month my GFI was tripping and I could not fiure out why until last week. I unplugged everything from the EB8 and plugged in the EB8 then one by one plugged things in. As soon as I got to the heater (and it was not on) it tripped the GFI.

Pulled the tube from the sump and found one of the ends exposed like it had blown off from a explosion on the inside of the tube. Amazing it was not blowing the fuses on the temp controller.

Come to this of it since I have pulled the heater out everything still looks stressed but the damage has not gotten worse.
 
your catch on the heater could very well have been the problem.
i will admit, based on that pic, never seeing anything quite like that in person.
 
I went out today to get some new test kits but everyone in this town only has Salifert. If I had time to wait for a couple days I would have ordered Elos. I also picked up a refactometer.

With the new test kits here is where I am at this after noon:

CA 490
Mag 1480
dKH 9.0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia <0.25
Phosphate 0
Salinity 1.026

Which leads me to believe parasite or heater. I guess we will have to wait a few weeks to see.

Yes my Mag and CA are a bit high but there are inline with each other enough not to freak out too much. I am sure they will come down in time.
 
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