can phos. cause stn?

jjoos99

jjoos99

New member
My corals are slowly dying from stn. I have experienced it off and on for several years but it has gotten really bad. the reason I suspect phos levels being high is the forests of green hair algae that have taken over the tank. I am not sure if the issue causing the hair algae is also causing the corals problems also. My sps have lost their color, dont polyp out and are experiencing stn from the base up. Most of them are either totally gone or just have maybe 1 in still alive at the tips. Any input on my phos concern? I started a bio pellet reactor about a month or so back and every time I try gfo my stn gets worst, ( using about a cup of gfo in a tlf reactor).
thanks
Jeff
 
I think when a tank gets like that you should consider just breaking down the entire tank and redo the entire thing. There is most likely just too many waste products to try to combat by water changes.
 
Yes phosphates can very much affect corals. High shifts in phosphates can stress out corals. Such as if you have .20 in PO4 and use too much phosphate media and the next day it .1. Then yes that can cause severe problems in your tank. Thats why it's recommended not to strip too many phosphates from your tank at once.
 
sponger0 said:
Yes phosphates can very much affect corals. High shifts in phosphates can stress out corals. Such as if you have .20 in PO4 and use too much phosphate media and the next day it .1. Then yes that can cause severe problems in your tank. Thats why it's recommended not to strip too many phosphates from your tank at once.
Click to expand...

+1

With SPS, good things happen slowly while bad things happen quickly. Phosphates can cause STN when the phosphates are suddenly stripped from the water. Bringing down your phosphates to near undetectable levels can benefit color and health. I say near undetectable as some phosphate is healthy for SPS. Whenever I deprive my corals of phosphate for more then a couple days (reading of 0.00), the tissue recession begins to show at the base of the coral. I would test your water daily (at the same time) to monitor the drop in phosphate with the use of GFO. Along with the use of GFO, you will want to address any continued sources of phosphate. Feeding of certain foods (flake food, frozen food, etc.) can serve as a continued source of phosphate.

Warmest Regards,
James
 
tooth man may have a point. My last tank had been set up for over 10yrs, and at the end I was in a similar position, everything was dying except bubble algae and cyano was thriving, but nothing else.

I really did not like the idea of tearing the tank down and starting over with all new rock and everything, but after I did, I discovered that really was the best decision I could have made.
 
I have been considering tearing it down. I would need to find some local reefers who would host what is left of the corals I have. What can be done to stop the same situation in another 5 years. My corals were really getting to be nice in size, now I will be lucky to salvage some 1in frags. Did you guys actually toss the rock and start with new rock?
thanks
Jeff
 
I would leave the rock in the sun till they didn't smell any more then get a sand paper block and scrub off everything -then restart with the rock -
sad/hard road in front of you but if it's timE it's time-
 
Yes, high phosphates will cause STN. Based on what you wrote Im taking it you are eyeballing the growth of the algae bloom rather than testing. High phosphates will cause the bottom region to STN then work its way up. Either your feeding alot which tends to be the cause, so cut down if possible. Water changes, vodka dosing, GFO etc... will help. Suprised no one mention your feeding... Anyways, large changes and if you see alot of detritus manually suck it out. Good luck.
 
Don't know if the high phosphate is really the problem as much as over doing it with the carbon dosing, bio pellets, GFO, etc., to get rid of it.

Could be other contaminants building up as well. Nobody seems to know for sure.
 
Dont loose heart, I know the fustration you are feeling. Try and look at this as an opportunity to set up a better tank. Keep in mind, you may not have to find someone to hold your stuff. I set up a temporary 40g breeder and a rubbermaid sump to hold the corals that I had left. They stayed in that set up for about 9 months while i planned and built a new set up.

As for how you got here, I am guessing that between the CC substrate( I think thats what I read in your other thread) and the DSB in the sump, over the years they have been large sources of trapped detritus and P04. Your rock has slowly sucked up the constant p04, and now every time you change water, you change the equilibrium and more po4 leaches out of the rock. I suppose with enough water changes and GFO you could salvage what you have, but I would consider a complete reboot of the system.

If it were me I would take your rock out, put it in large trash cans or rubbermaids, with a skimmer and drip lanthium. Do a quick read on the lanthium, it works a lot quicker than cooking rock, and if your fish arent in there with it, you can get really aggressive with it and have those rocks cleaned out in just a few weeks.
 
I feed my fish only 2 frozen cubes a day, I wouldnt think that would be overfeeding. I have my mangroves listed on my local clubs site and hopefully someone will come and get them soon so I can pull the sand. I will look for more on lanthium, couldnt find much on it last night. Just found a product called phosbuster pro.
thanks
Jeff
 
jjoos99 said:
I feed my fish only 2 frozen cubes a day, I wouldnt think that would be overfeeding. I have my mangroves listed on my local clubs site and hopefully someone will come and get them soon so I can pull the sand. I will look for more on lanthium, couldnt find much on it last night. Just found a product called phosbuster pro.
thanks
Jeff
Click to expand...

Hi Jeff,

I'm not sure if you have made the decision to breakdown the tank, but I would really take another look at feeding the frozen cubes. If you are not rinsing the food prior to adding to your tank, you are adding quite a bit of nutrient to your water column. A couple weeks ago, I began feeding 1 small cube of frozen rotifers every other day. I did not rinse the food (difficult with the size of the food). A couple weeks went by and my phosphate went from .02 (normal for my tank) to .09. I have since gone back to just my zeo food and oyster feast.

James
 
IME phosphates will make a coral turn brown. It could be high phosphates that are causing your stn, although I would not assume that is the only thing. Look for parasites and make sure your light bulbs are up to date. I run 400w Radiums on my tanks and when I hit that 6 month mark I notice stn that is fixed when I put new bulbs in. Just a thought, good luck.
 
Remove your sand beds slowly and run BB until things are stable (you'd be surprised how much junk is in a SB), get new bulbs, make sure your lights arent too close or too bright, cut down in your photo periods, reduce feeding (it is not necessary to rinse frozen food, Randy published an article about this), do a couple of large water changes then continue with weekly 10% changes, go back to the basics and stop adding any supplements apart from Ca, Alk and Mg, remove what algae you can by hand, use a power head to blast your live rock just before a WC to clear built up debris, use GFO and Carbon but as others have said don't over do it.

All this helped me stop STN.

HTHs
 
Last edited:
I am running diy leds for my lighting for the last 2 years or so. I am going to start by removing the sand bed that is in my sump and continue with my weekly 20 gallon water changes. My bio pellets should be starting to work after being run for about a month now. I might look into using lanthanum chloride or alittle gfo started slowly.
Jeff
 
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