Corals continue to die slowly

[Alitoo_81]

Hi,

the problem is that now a days every one want to treat all tank as if they where only sps dominant. That is why you lost your LPS. They need more nutrients in the tank.

I am not really sure what type of tanks to you have but if its a mixed tank with more SPS, you need to go to the maximum Limits in nutrients for sps. Reise your no3 to 5-10 and po4 to max 0.04 ppm and you will see how you improve this issue.

Target feeding is good also. If you cant reise no3 and po4 by feeding, reduce any method you are using for nutrient control. If that is not enough, buy more fish or add nitrogen to reise no3. Normaly po4 go up easy with frozen food. If you are using something like rowa, change to 0.04 from fauna marin. It reduces the po4 only till 0.04 and not less. Or use less media.

Be carefull when adding nitrogen, po4 will go down. That is good when you have some po4 but when its 0 its bad. Try reising po4 first.

Hope that helps.

I know that because your sps are pale in color. If an sps is pale then your tank is bad for LPS and they will start deing first. People dont realize that they make there tanks deserts for corals to live in. Ultra low system tanks are maintained with a lot of coral aminos and food. Like Zeovit.

Regards

 

[75mixedreef]

With the improvements you have seen after increased feedings, spot feeding and your PO4 remover getting exhausted (take that out by the way so it doesn't leech back into your tank), I think you are seeing the problem and solution right there. Alitoo_81 said it really well. You need food for your corals. Most people don't feed directly but there is still food there in the water from the fish poop.

You might also want to check your lighting and see if you are getting too much or too little light. Too much light with low nutrients would cause this problem as well. Maybe lower corals and stick your chalice in the shade. If they respond well then you can lower your light output by a bit and see how it goes.

Bring your salinity back up to 1.026 slowly then give it time. It takes a while for the corals to respond. A sudden change, even if it corrects everything perfectly, can cause more problems than what you were trying to fix. So once you think things are better, just keep them the same and see what happens after a couple weeks or a month. Please report your success or failure here so others can find this post and the fix if they have the same issues.

 

[Alitoo_81]

Too much light with low nutrients would cause this problem as well.

Hi, 75mixedreef. Can you explain a little about this?

thanks

 

[75mixedreef]

It is pretty simple, the corals want to grow but do not have the nutrients to support the amount of light they are getting. You see the same thing with garden plants. A little fertilizer goes a long way when there is tons of light. If they don't have a good balance they can show signs of distress or might grow a little funny. With corals a bleached look is a symptom. The coral needs time to adapt to the light levels too, so if they are newer additions or had been moved or introduced to the light somehow then they could be getting too much light when they are adjusting.

 

[judah001]

Well your SG isn't off enough to cause these issues. Did this issue come up before or after you switched RO systems?

I did a second check on the salinity it was at 29ppt on my refractometer. I have been traveling for work so haven't been able to check until yesterday. I switched my ATO water to salt water at 35 ppt so I can slowly raise it over a few days.

 

[judah001]

Hi,

the problem is that now a days every one want to treat all tank as if they where only sps dominant. That is why you lost your LPS. They need more nutrients in the tank.

I am not really sure what type of tanks to you have but if its a mixed tank with more SPS, you need to go to the maximum Limits in nutrients for sps. Reise your no3 to 5-10 and po4 to max 0.04 ppm and you will see how you improve this issue.

Target feeding is good also. If you cant reise no3 and po4 by feeding, reduce any method you are using for nutrient control. If that is not enough, buy more fish or add nitrogen to reise no3. Normaly po4 go up easy with frozen food. If you are using something like rowa, change to 0.04 from fauna marin. It reduces the po4 only till 0.04 and not less. Or use less media.

Be carefull when adding nitrogen, po4 will go down. That is good when you have some po4 but when its 0 its bad. Try reising po4 first.

Hope that helps.

I know that because your sps are pale in color. If an sps is pale then your tank is bad for LPS and they will start deing first. People dont realize that they make there tanks deserts for corals to live in. Ultra low system tanks are maintained with a lot of coral aminos and food. Like Zeovit.

Regards

Thank you for the info. Yes the guy at the LFS said something similar that he expects all his tanks to be around 5 for nitrate. I plan to add some more fish to increase the nutrients as I really dont have many. the only nutirent control I am using is phosphate reactor with BRS media, carbon reacator, skimmer, and chaeto which seems to grow very well.

 

[judah001]

With the improvements you have seen after increased feedings, spot feeding and your PO4 remover getting exhausted (take that out by the way so it doesn't leech back into your tank), I think you are seeing the problem and solution right there. Alitoo_81 said it really well. You need food for your corals. Most people don't feed directly but there is still food there in the water from the fish poop.

You might also want to check your lighting and see if you are getting too much or too little light. Too much light with low nutrients would cause this problem as well. Maybe lower corals and stick your chalice in the shade. If they respond well then you can lower your light output by a bit and see how it goes.

Bring your salinity back up to 1.026 slowly then give it time. It takes a while for the corals to respond. A sudden change, even if it corrects everything perfectly, can cause more problems than what you were trying to fix. So once you think things are better, just keep them the same and see what happens after a couple weeks or a month. Please report your success or failure here so others can find this post and the fix if they have the same issues.

Fingers crossed things are looking up from here! I appreciate all the advise. I will post some updates later this week after I get the salinity back in line.

 

[MrDaniel]

Have you considered sending your water off to a lab for a full test? It's a relatively small investment and could point to a cultrate you're nor currently testing for.

 

[judah001]

Have you considered sending your water off to a lab for a full test? It's a relatively small investment and could point to a cultrate you're nor currently testing for.

It didn't know I could do that. Is it expensive to do so? Not really even sure where I would begin with that....

 

[organism]

It didn't know I could do that. Is it expensive to do so? Not really even sure where I would begin with that....

Look up Triton tests for a full spectrum, or Aqua Medic Water testing for a less full profile. Triton tells you pretty much everything and then some, I was having weird coral deaths and it ended up being from aluminum and vanadium leaching out of ceramic media in my sump.

 

[judah001]

Tank update

Tank update

I wanted to thank everyone for their input and advise on my post. My tank has recovered nicely and the culprit seems to be it was running to clean. To fix this issue I did daily feedings thawing frozen Mysis pouring the complete contents into the tank. Also I replaced my phosphate media a soon as it was exhausted to avoid any algae outbreaks. Alitoo_81 said it best when people try to run their tanks like deserts when in fact you cant. So hopefully if anyone else runs into this issue they will come across this thread.

 

[judah001]

I wanted to thank everyone for their input and advise on my post. My tank has recovered nicely and the culprit seems to be it was running to clean. To fix this issue I did daily feedings thawing frozen Mysis pouring the complete contents into the tank. Also I replaced my phosphate media a soon as it was exhausted to avoid any algae outbreaks. Alitoo_81 said it best when people try to run their tanks like deserts when in fact you cant. So hopefully if anyone else runs into this issue they will come across this thread.

And one last thing I did take away was to always use calibration fluid for your refractometer.

 

[frogspawn74]

I would cross check your magnesium test kit just to make sure.
Ive gone through 3 redsea kits and will no longer buy them for mag.
They always read in the 1300's for me. Don't know if they were bad batches or old.
Found out I was only 1100 for months. 1 switched to salifert

 

[judah001]

I would cross check your magnesium test kit just to make sure.
Ive gone through 3 redsea kits and will no longer buy them for mag.
They always read in the 1300's for me. Don't know if they were bad batches or old.
Found out I was only 1100 for months. 1 switched to salifert

I have been testing at 1460 on my mag and everything is looking good so far.