A year of random mini-crashes..cant figure it out, about to give up.

[EnderG60]

Over the past year I have slowly lost about 80% of my corals and a few fish and I cant for the life of me figure out whats going on.

To start, my system is a 300g DD tank with a 100g fuge, two 40g frag tanks and a 50g sump. I run BRS 3 part dosing on dosing pumps, GFO and Carbon. I have a very large custom skimmer, and a 57w UV running at 300gph. I run 3x400w halides and 4x39w t5's on the display and a 400w halide on the frag tanks. Everything is run on a AC3. I use RODI water(TDS never over 4) and WAS using seachem salinity salt but now use IO. my rockwork is all dry lace rock and black pond foam.

The system has been up and running for 3 years now, and for the first 2 years never had any problem at all, corals and fish all grew and were happy.

throughout all of this my levels have been
Temp -72 in winter, 76 in fall/spring, 80-82 summer
Salinity - 1.023-1.026
PH - 7.9-8.2
Alk - 2.5-4 mg/L
Calc - 380-500
Mag - 1200-1500
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 1-5
Phosphate - 0.05-0.01

This all started about a year ago when I introduced a powder blue tang which started an ich outbreak in my tank causing me to loose about 40 fish. After that event has subsided(still have some ich on a few fish but they are all eating and otherwise fine) I noticed my Pink birdsnest(had always been brown) started to turn pink, and my plating monties started to lighten up. I thought all was well and went on with life.

A few weeks later I noticed the corals were still bleaching and getting worse and I was getting alot more brown algea on the sand. Checking my levels I didnt see anything wrong but slightly elevated nitrates and did a few large water changes.

Over the next 4-6 weeks I noticed that all my plating and branching monties died, all my birdsnests died, a few other SPS all STNed and some of my LPS began to recede. levels checked out couldnt figure it out, so I changed my bulbs and did some large water changes.

Everything was fine for a few months, then it started again. Same symptoms but now corals that were previously uneffected started showing the same signs of STN. I tried dippin, water changes but nothing. A friend recommend I check my sulphur denitrator. It was pretty nasty so I took it off line and cleaned it. Seeing no change I put it back online and eventually it stopped and all was fine again.

The third time it happened I switched salt from salinity to IO and did a 955 water change followed by a 20% change. And though that was the problem as all was well for a while.

I am now at the end of my 4th small crash. I have lost open brains, scolys, plate corals, acans, blastos, plating monti, monti digi, encrusting monti, stags, slimers, torts, validas, and clams to this problem.

I am at a total loss here. All my levels check out(and were double checked using different kits from different people) Bulbs were changed again just in case, 60% water changes, new RO filters and membrane and all.

Right now the death seems to have stopped again and my tank is covered in red cyano and brown algea. I recently tested my strontium levels and saw they were 0 so I am now dosing strontium but the amounts needed are amazing.

I do not know what else to do here, I cant buy new coral and my tank looks like crap. Whatever coral is left has crappy color.

Please help!

 

[jimsplace]

How much of the BRS are you dosing? Are you seeing precipatation on pumps, heaters ...? I had a similar problem and found out I was over-dosing the 2 part. I have spoke with others here on RC who have had the same problem. For some unexplained reason you CAN overdose with no rise in either your alk or calc numbers, I have an 8 month log to prove it.

 

[EnderG60]

I dont see any participation problems(as in when dosing in the water), but I do dose a ton of 2 part and I do get a get a decent amount of calc buildup on pumps.

Ill get the exact amounts when I get home and check my logs though.

Were you able to lower your dosing and still maintain levels? and were your problems similar to mine?

 

[jimsplace]

Yea, I was dosing something like 180ml/day cut in half and then another 30%... I went from dosing 6:30/hour to 3:30 to 2:30 and finally to 2:00 over a 2 month period on my BRS dosers and Apex 24/7. I am now at 2:10 with my alk at 8.12 and calc at 400. Now holding steady.

 

[EnderG60]

yeah my current rate is 108ml/day of alk and 240ml/day of calc.

guess ill cut both in half and see what happens

 

[jimsplace]

I think BRS reccommends 1-2ml/gal as a starting point, you might want to visit their site and check. Note, my numbers (2:10) is in minutes every hour.

 

[elegance coral]

How often do you do water changes? What % do you change? Do you clean the system when you do water changes?

Sounds to me like you have excessive nutrients and the system needs a good spring cleaning.

 

[Flippers4pups]

+1 on what's your water change schedule? how much?

 

[EnderG60]

Odd, then technically I should be dosing 4x as much alk and 2x as much calc...

I have a dosing pump system setup to change 2 gallons a day, and I have been doing 100g a month as well.

Every 6 months I clean out the fuge and give the tank and all equipment a good scrub down.

 

[freetareef]

the corals that are stn'ing, has this been seasonal at all? i notice your temp swings are kinda drastic, 10 degrees plus or minus? i keep my system within 2 degrees all year round.

also do you have any par readings? around the effected corals?

has your pond foam begun to degrade at all?

 

[freetareef]

the ocean is a very stable place, a little of this going wrong, and a little of that then temp swings to boot...might be the problem.

how did you cure the ich?

have you examined the corals for pests?

 

[EnderG60]

No its not seasonal at all. I have never had problems with the temp swings since they never happen fast. I let the tank heat up and cool down over 2 days when the temp change occurs. its not doing a 10 degree swing every day, temp is stable within 1 degree otherwise. Either way every single crash has never correlated with a temp change.

there is no rhyme or reason to which corals are affected. Corals that have been fine through the past 3 crashes died this time while others remain fine despite browning, and others show no signs of anything.

I have checked MANY times of parasites and found nothing. I did have red bugs a while back but that was easily a year before any of this happened and I treated them and havent seen them since.

I have not cured the ich, my system has never been ich free since my regal has had it on and off for the past 6 years. The problem occurred when I introduced a powder blue which in turn caused a BAD outbreak.

Pond foam is the black stuff and has not degraded at all.

 

[elegance coral]

I have lost open brains, scolys, plate corals, acans, blastos, plating monti, monti digi, encrusting monti, stags, slimers, torts, validas, and clams to this problem.

All of these animals rely on calcification for proper health and growth. Phosphate inhibits calcification.

I am at a total loss here. All my levels check out(and were double checked using different kits from different people)

Test results can be very misleading. There are organisms in our system that can strip nutrients, like nitrate and phosphate, from the water at a pace that leaves very little for our test kits to detect.

my tank is covered in red cyano and brown algea.

These organisms require high levels of nutrients in order to reach plaque populations. Their presence, in such high numbers, indicates that you have a nutrient issue. Regardless of what the test kits show.

Whatever coral is left has crappy color.

This is another problem that's common when nutrients are elevated. Zooxanthellae pigments and/or populations increase. This leads to corals that brown out. Like your pink birds nest that looks brown.

Please help!

IMHO, your water change and maintenance schedule should be sufficient to keep nutrients in check. That is IF you are running phosphate media, carbon, harvesting algae from the fuge, and removing as much detritus as you can when you do water changes. Your situation leads me to believe that you're collecting detritus somewhere in the system. When detritus rots, it dumps nutrients into the system that fuels cyanobacteria, and algae growth. It also leads to brown corals and STN. Are you running a DSB? Do you run filter socks, or other mechanical filtration? If so, how often do you change/clean it?

 

[EnderG60]

the cyano is not a plague proportions at all. Just have patches here and there.

the browning did not occur until the "event" started. Colors were fine as of a month ago, then the STN started, then browning and tip loss on the SPS.

I do run GFO and carbon changed monthly along with the water change. I do a major cleaning and strip the fuge and shake all the rocks off and suck all the detritus out every 6 months at least.

 

[spamreefnew]

maybe have some hydrogen sulphide building up? guess

 

[EnderG60]

had another local reefer say the same thing after the second crash. I removed and cleaned the denitrator and didnt put it back on till the 3rd crash occured when I switched salt brands.

 

[JohnnyB in SD]

I had same symptoms you described but they didn't come and go like yours. Wiped out all SPS & clams, LPS were declining, established tangs were coming down with ich, other fish twitched and behaved very unusual. Got to the point where I almost started a "Getting out of Hobby" post in the for sale forum.
Finally discovered a faulty heater leaking electrical current into the the sump. Maybe you have some electricity leaking into the system on an intermittent basis. Something to consider and check.

 

[freetareef]

could be stray current.

you said you lost close to 40 fish? do you think a body could be hiding? if you have cyno, you have nutrients.

 

[EnderG60]

could be, Ill check it with my multimeter tonight.

Fish loss was due to the ich outbreak. And it was well over 6 months ago so I doubt there is anything left to be causing excess nutrients. And I didnt loose enough coral this time around to warrant this kind of cyano/aglea in 420g of water.

 

[jimsplace]

How much circulation do you have? Internal flow; i.e. powerheads.