Corals bleaching and dying off

[visiontech4x4]

Not new to the hobby but this is a new issue for me.

Tank perameters
Salinity 1.023
temp 78 deg
amonia 0
nitrate 0
nitrite 5
alk 10 dkh
calcium 450ppm
58g with 20g sump, sea urchin skimmer, outer orbit single 150w halide with two 96w actinics. Tank has been settup for 2 months.

So the story. I had a fellow reefer taking down his 135g tank. I purchased 50lbs of live rock from him. He gave me the follwing.
medium sailfin tang
large scroll coral
large frogspawn
large 12-14" green monti
candy cane coral
some paly's
a pink monti
small green polyp acro
a brown colored coral maybe some sort of monti

Everything was drip aclimated for a couple of hours before placing in the tank. It has been 2 weeks now. Brown monti, the pink monti and the acro all faded and them melted away. The yellow scroll has faded to a pink color, the green monti has faded to a light yellow and only about a 3" piece is living. Palys have closed and not opened for several days. The frogspawn lost 8 of its 10 full heads. It has about 10 baby heads that along with the ramaining two have faded to a light mint color but seem to be doing well otherwise.

I had a sevently five gallon reef for years with no major issues. I am really not sure what happened here.

 

[steelhead77]

Well, that's a lot to add to a two month old tank all at once. Generally it is recommended to go slow and add only a few things at a time. I think you just overloaded the new bio-system too quickly. 58 gallons is not a large system and bad things can happen very quickly that would not affect a larger system.

 

[visiontech4x4]

Do the corals produce much of a bio load? I know fish should be added slowly as they have a lot of waste I didn't think the corals would have the same effect.

 

[lisafoster]

I am wondering if when you added the new rock it caused a mini spike maybe ammonia maybe there was some die off on the rocks . I had a mini ammonia spike when I moved rock around in my tank it melted my lps and turned monti brown. The tank was new but things like the palys and frog spawn should not be bothered by that however the acros and monti are a little more sensitive.

 

[stingythingy45]

+1
To what steel and Lisa said.
But,just to add one more thing.I think you might have a rough time keeping acro in that 58 gallon with that lighting.

 

[TripleT]

nitrite 5

Nitrites are toxic and should always be undetectable.

Is they haven't moved by now I would consider a large water change.

 

[robs.mark]

Nitrites are toxic and should always be undetectable.

Is they haven't moved by now I would consider a large water change.

Lots of successful sps keepers have nitrates around 3ppm..

 

[Chris27]

Nitrites are toxic and should always be undetectable.

Is they haven't moved by now I would consider a large water change.

Nitrites really aren't toxic in a marine aquarium FYI....but if you do have some present, it typically means that your filter is a little immature for the current state of your system.

 

[drew1]

I've always been taught that nitrites are toxic. Nitrates, not so much, but nitrites yes. But the only time I have ever seen nitrite levels above 0 is during the cycle (its the product of ammonia breakdown), which would lead me to believe that not too long ago there was an ammonia spike, which would have been highly toxic and may be responsible for much of the loss.

 

[Jason S]

Provided you did not add stock too quickly, a mature system should always have nitrites at zero. I am guessing that you had an ammonia spike which caused the die off.

 

[tahoe61]

I've always been taught that nitrites are toxic. Nitrates, not so much, but nitrites yes. But the only time I have ever seen nitrite levels above 0 is during the cycle (its the product of ammonia breakdown), which would lead me to believe that not too long ago there was an ammonia spike, which would have been highly toxic and may be responsible for much of the loss.

Bingo

Nitrates ok anything below 25 ppm, Nitrites no. You should be showing no detectable nitrites in a sps dominated tank.

I am thinking mini cycle as well, and some acclimation shock.

 

[Chris27]

From Reef Alchemy by Randy Holmes Farley....

"Nitrite
Aquarists' concerns about nitrite are usually imported from the freshwater hobby. Nitrite is far less toxic in seawater than in freshwater. Fish are typically able to survive in seawater with more than 100 ppm nitrite!17 Until future experiments show substantial nitrite toxicity to reef aquarium inhabitants, nitrite is not an important parameter for reef aquarists to monitor. Tracking nitrite in a new reef aquarium can nevertheless be instructive by showing the biochemical processes that are taking place. In most cases, I do not recommend that aquarists bother to measure nitrite in established aquaria."

With that said - there are a couple of different factors in coral health. From what was described, I can think of a couple of things that could have gone wrong.

1. Change in salinity - You keep your tank at 1.023, the corals could have been at 1.026, which is where most of us keep our tanks.

2. Ammonia Spike - moving 50 lbs of well cured rock into a tank usually can be done, however you could of had some die off during the move causing a small cycle.

3. Excess phosphate in the new tank - you didn't give us the measurement, so I can only assume the value isn't known. Without knowing that you run an absorption media or do large weekly changes, one can't be certain that the tank is phosphate free.

4. Lighting - did the previous tank have T5's maybe, or did it have halides and the coral was low in the tank - a rapid change in lighting can really p'off a coral.

 

[stingythingy45]

Personally,I never drip acclimate anything other than snails.
Especially 2 hours,that seems overkill.
And yes Chris,you are correct about Nitrite.
My guess would be the extremely fast stocking caused an ammonia spike.

 

[drew1]

Re-read the article. He states that Nitrites are more toxic to freshwater fish, but in several studies he sites (which he states may be flawed) deaths due to nitrites do result to the marine fish studied. He also stated that "One of the difficulties with interpreting toxicity issues, as related by hobbyists who claim to have seen nitrite toxicity in marine fish, is the possible presence of ammonia. In any aquarium with elevated nitrite, the ammonia level also may be elevated. Since ammonia is known to be very toxic to marine fish (LC50 value below 1 ppm), on the aquarist must ensure that the observations are not flawed by such contaminants." It may be debatable as to whether Nitrite is toxic, but clearly ammonia is and nitrite is a resultant of the ammonia breakdown.
I'm sticking with my original theory that there was an ammonia spike that caused the losses. The nitrite level is the only indicator left of the presense of ammonia.

 

[gweston]

I'd agree with what the others said... your params do look fine, but I wonder if you had an overnight ammonia spike there somewhere. Was the live rock out of water for a while after purchase?

For keeping corals, you may want to raise salinity a tad.. up to around 1.025. But I highly doubt salinity was a problem. I shoot for 1.025 in my reef tank, but it can fluctuate slightly +/- 0.001. Depending on evaporation/topoff. If fish only, you 1.023, or even 1.022 is fine.

 

[Floowid]

"My tank has been settup for 2 months"

I really didn't need to read any more than that.

 

[visiontech4x4]

My perameter above was backwards
nitrite 0
nitrate 5ppm

The rock was out of water for about 15 minutes.

I monitored the levels every other day for the first few days and did not notice a spike. Maybe I had a spike in there that I didn't catch. Everything that has survived to this point is looking better with the exception of the paly's.

None of the palys have opened in days.