Corals slowly dying / getting white spots water tests good

[dt90gt]

So been having a problem in my 90 gal the past few months. Water tests clean, but these spots keep coming on montipora and acros, color on some thing snot looking great, and I cannot find anything chemically that points to any issue. I even did a 60 percent water change a few weeks ago and still not getting better. Pictures attached.

RO water 0ppm
Reef Crystals salt
salinity 1.025/6
Temp 78
Alk 9.6
Calc 470
Mag 1410
Nitrate 2 ppm
Phosphate .04 ppm

Dosing BRS alk and mag, peladow pellets mixed for calcium, light is a XR30 Pro running the AB+ program about 8 hours of light a day

 

[griss]

My first guess would be Monitpora eating nudibranchs but, with it affecting Acros and Favites as well I'm not sure. Could you possibly have both Monti eating nudis and Acro eating flatworms or red bugs (Tegastes acroporanus)?

 

[griss]

Thinking further, have you introduced a new coral fairly recently? I think the likelihood of both AEFWs and Monti nudis at the same time is unlikely. I'm thinking this is more likely a bacterial infection of some other pathogen.

 

[griss]

 

[griss]

If it is a bacterial infection, you could try dipping the affected colonies in 20 drops of Lugol's solution in a half gallon of tank water (in a separate container) for 5-10 minutes.

 

[dt90gt]

I looked really close and have not seen anything on any of the corals, no new fish or coral introduced in at least a year either.

 

[griss]

@JCOLE @Reefing102 Any thoughts?

 

[dt90gt]

For reference, same corals in my 180, which has basically the same type of filtration system, live rock, skimmer, dosing similar 3 things.

 

[griss]

I'm really thinking bacterial infection but, scratching my head on how it got introduced. I tend to use minimal intervention in these situations so, unfortunately, I can't speak from experience...just from what I've heard over the years.

 

[Reefing102]

So I had to look up the peladow dosing and my initial thought was perhaps something got into the pellets (formula change or even something leaked onto them at the store), but if your using the same thing for your 180, with no ill effects, not certain that’s a cause.

My next thought is have you checked for “rusting” things. Such as a cracked magnet, wire, heater, etc.

Then possibly running an ICP test to check for elevated metals, again not sure if it’s a cause, but I had a broken magnet that spiked my iron and caused a few SPS to STN and a my LPS to shrink back.

If it is bacterial, you could try an Aquabiomics test to see if it detects anything “abnormal”. I believe @JCOLE had this issue.

Much beyond that, has the nem walked at all possibly stinging along the way?

Sorry not much help

 

[wvned]

Going on months. What happens to the spots? They seem to all be the same size. I would think something bacterial would make growing spots with older ones being much larger.
Same water in two tanks. That leaves lighting and flow. Both very important. I dont think flow could cause spots.
What kind of light is on the tank.

 

[dt90gt]

Thanks for the ideas, I'll go through all the power heads, heater, etc. and see if I can find anything that looks like it might be cracked or rusting.

I was thinking maybe something from the Peladow, but find that unlikely, nothing on the bag looked like it something could have leaked into it, and pellets all look normal bright white. But no, it is not being used in the 180, for that one I have way less coral so it does not use much calc, and I have some old A and B B-ionic gallons that I use on that tank.

Was planning to mail in water also to see if they can pinpoint something random that I can't test.

Anemone has not moved in over a year, also has not split, it is the biggest one of hundreds of clones I have had over the past 15 years.

90 gal tank with problems light is a XR30 Pro running the AB+ program about 8 hours of light a day, the 180 has a couple chinese LED marsaqua

 

[Reefing102]

Hmm I wonder if they changed the formula on the Peladow. I know back in the day, Dow (not to be confused with Peladow) changed their formula to include Bromide which people were saying wrecked havoc on their tank. I tried looking for the MSDS but all I could find was one from 2021 which didn’t appear to list anything “abnormal”

 

[wvned]

The current MSDS posted on their site is from 2021.

North America EN
PELADOW ™ PREMIER SNOW AND ICE MELTER CALCIUM CHLORIDE
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
SDS No.: M48005 Rev. Date: 24-Nov-2021
Supersedes Date: 2016-03-August
Component CAS Number Percent [%]
Calcium chloride 10043-52-4 > 90 - < 92
Water 7732-18-5 > 4 - < 6
Potassium Chloride 7447-40-7 > 2 - < 3
Sodium Chloride 7647-14-5 > 1 - < 2
Notes: Potassium chloride and sodium chloride are impurities from the naturally-occurring source material.
It says there may be small amounts of magnesium. Total Magnesium as MgCl2 (wt. %) 0.5 Max.

It would be accurate to the best of their knowledge.

 

[JCOLE]

I think sending in an ICP is your best option now. If the ICP comes back with nothing harmful then an Aquabiomics test would be helpful. If it's a bad bacteria/pathogen then it can be treated.

I found when dealing with these issues is not to make a lot of changes quick to fix the problem. Try to find the source and correct then take a step back and give the tank a couple of months to heal. It usually responds well with patience once the issue is resolved.

 

[dt90gt]

So today basically changed as much of the water as possible, around 75%. Noticed that multiple things were looking worse over the past week.
Everything that moved to my 180 looks significantly better over the past week.
Also removed all power heads and turned off doser.
I did have a pretty old heater being used, and also a chiller that is almost 20 years old.

Only 3 pumps are running right now, main return pump which is maybe a year old, powerhead in tank less than a year old, skimmer about 5 years old, and a different eheim jaeger heater which is 6 months old.

I am going to go through all the equipment tomorrow and backflush the chiller. My guess is something inside the chiller, nothing obvious on power heads or heater.

 

[griss]

That makes sense.

 

[dt90gt]

Appreciate the replies, I was reading a guys post about hair algae yesterday and trying to chase the cause, it can be so damn frustrating sometimes even when you have been doing this for 20+ years!

Anyway, everything looks better, as it should in basically new water. I did not see anything obvious on the older powerheads or even the heater that I removed. Same on inspection of the chiller, but it is hella old and I have probably not backwashed it in a decade. Nothing that I could see on the inlet or outlet lines looked suspect, some brown stuff, but that could just be normal detritus. Opened it up and backwashed, water came out brown, could be just regular waste, or could be some sort of metal leeching into the water. I plan to send in a sample of that brown water from the backwash along with some from the current tank and see what the results say.

Planning to let the tank chill for the next week and see how things go. Some pics attached.

 

[griss]

At this point, I'd suspect that chiller. But, honestly, I haven't used a chiller since the 1980 when I was still living at home with my parents and my Mother hated air conditioning so a chiller was a must in the hot, humid St. Louis summers.