Desperate for help, established tank dying

[highpockets]

So I have tried to figure out things on my own without posting for help, but I am now officially discouraged and do not know what to do. I will try to keep this brief while including all the important info needed. I know there are a lot of things involved here and you can't give a magic answer based on so many unknowns, but if everything has been the same for so long and then this happens is there something that strikes anyone as a possibility that could be causing such widespread death and decline of all my corals? I truly appreciate the help.

Again keep in mind that everything has been the same over the last 2 years with good results and then seemingly with no changes to any equipment or parameters everything starts dying.


10 year old 90 gallon tank
Consistently doing the same things for the last couple of years with pretty good growth and coloration with all types of SPS from favia,chalices, etc to softies, to acans to euphyllia and many other types in between.

Then about 3-4 months ago:


I started losing things one by one and what I have not lost is faded/bleached or receding and showing large amounts of the hard white calcium/bone structure of the coral. Hand full of fish I have are not being affected. First lost huge cyphastrea colony while another huge one is alive. Huge hollywood stunner chalice died. Yumas and several varieties shrooms are shrinking or puking white spirally looking meaty type substances, huge colonies of frogspawn and hammer coral, duncan coral with 30 heads plus are dying rapidly ( only about 30 % still alive ). I have tried small and large water changes with no improvement over the last 3-4 months. All of my parameters have been consistent over the last two years with no major changes. I have no stray voltage. My light schedule has been the same for 2 years ( 6 t5's with reef brite leds strips ). I have replaced my bulbs every 10 months. I have replaced my rodi filters every 10 months or when TDS meter shows 5-10. Below are my parameters and tank infne consistent thing I have been doing for a couple years is adding 5 ml of red sea reef energy part a/b every day.

10 year old 90 gallon tank
No filter socks used, simple sump with heater, return pump , and small tunze protein skimmer
small jebao powerhead in tank
dosing brs -alk, cal, mag solution
Salt 1.025-1.026
Alk 8.0-9
Calcium 400-450 ppm
Magnesium 1300-1400
nitrate less than 10ppm
phosphates pretty close to zero
temp 78
15% water changes every 2 weeks
instant ocean
feed every other day with RODS food

 

[Smokey Stover]

Start with the process of elimination, Do you have a GFCI outlet? Could the small Jeabo PH be leaking stray voltage? Don't reach in and grab it, Check with a grounding probe or unplug it, remove/replace it, Wait n see... That's my first best guess. It's a wear item and 2 years is about all you can expect from one.

Edit; oops 2 yrs was your light schedule, Check the PH anyways.

 

[highpockets]

Yes I have gfci and have alsways used a grounding probe. I have checked for stray voltage and do not have any ( checked with 2 different meters ), and right before everything started going downhill the jebao kicked the bucket and was replaced so I have checked that off the elimination list. Thanks for the thoughts!

 

[Sk8r]

Drop a small square of PolyFilter into the water stream: brown is an of-course: organics; but it can turn up contaminants like copper (blue), etc. Watch for color before the organics overwhelm it.

 

[tripdad]

Have you considered ICP testing to possibly identify a "bad" parameter, contaminant? It's not terribly expensive and can remove a lot of unknowns that may be distracting your search for the actual cause.

 

[CAPT_Dave]

+1 on the ICP testing. Triton kits are only $45 and you'll get results in about 10 days with very specific instructions on what to do about it. You don't have to use Triton mthod to benefit from the water test.

Do you have a deep sand bed? I've heard they can be time bombs around the 7-10 year point but don't have any direct experience or evidence. I've slowly allowed mine to vacuum out with water changes over the last year and am down to about 3 inches. Anyway, Triton will tell you if it's releasing something ugly like sulphur.



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[highpockets]

Thanks, gonna give Triton a try. My sand bed is about 1-2 inches. Seems like since so many different types of corals are dieing it has to be something major.

 

[Anemone]

Your current snapshot of water parameters is good, but it might be valuable to compare with the parameters a year ago. Do you keep past records? Your nitrate/phosphate numbers are less than ideal, but it's hard to tell without an actual phosphate number.

Kevin

 

[Lsufan]

A couple things u may want to consider is testing for ammonia & your water source. I had the same issues for months & couldn’t figure out what it was. I hadn’t tested for ammonia in years so I never thought to do it. After a few months of not being able to figure it out I finally checked the ammonia. Sure enough it was sky high. I didn’t lose any fish but I lost a few corals & all the coral that was still alive looked real bad. Only thing I can figure is a kid must have put something into the tank & it killed off my beneficial bacteria.

As far as source water, is it possible they started adding chloramines to your water & u don’t have a rodi that filters chloramines.

Being u already tested for stray voltage I would start by testing for ammonia & nitrite & get a polyfilter like sk8r mentioned. If that doesn’t show anything then call the water company & see if they may have done something different around the time u started having issues.

 

[tthouston]

I am not expert but I would like to throw something in here that may give you some hint.
1- Everything was the same except your salt mix, may be you get the bad bucket. Personally, I don't like Instant Ocean salt.
2- what is not effect to fish but it effect to coral? Cooper!!...

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[AboutToBeReefin]

didnt see rusting/leaching of some piece of gear listed yet so throwing it out there.

 

[LandenReefer]

You might have your LFS double check your parms. My salinity was 1.025 at home but the LFS using a calibrated refractometer found mine was actually 1.022.

 

[highpockets]

New Update: ICP Results Posted

New Update: ICP Results Posted

ICP-Analysis Results attached. I do not see anything that would cause so much massive coral death. Does anyone see something I am missing? Thanks

 

[OrionN]

ICP did not show.
Good luck with your tank

 

[Subsea]

You should consider “old tank syndrome”. Ken Feldman has peer reviewed articles on Advanced Aquaria dealing with skewed bacteria populations of frwwe swimming bacteria due to aggressive protein skimming.

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature#section-21

4. Conclusions
"The preliminary studies described herein document, for the first time, the modulation of water column bacteria population in reef tank water as a consequence of either (a) carbon source addition or (b) mechanical filtration (GAC, skimming). This information bears on the Carbon Dosing hypothesis for nutrient removal in marine aquaria."

"Aquaria subjected to active filtration via skimming present water column bacteria populations that are approximately 1/10 of those observed on natural reefs. The consequences of this disparity on the long-term health of the tank's livestock are not known. How do reef tank organisms adapt to such a bacteria-deficient environment? Is the whole food web in an aquarium perturbed, or are there compensatory mechanisms that maintain an appropriate energy transduction through all of the trophic levels? Is "old tank syndrome" related to possible nutritional deficiencies stemming from this bacteria "gap"? Alternatively, could "old tank syndrome" be symptomatic of a gradual decrease of bacterial diversity as a consequence of selective skimmer-based removal of only bubble-susceptible bacteria? At present, it is not possible to go beyond speculation on these points - further research is needed."

In reviewing some of your threads, I see you added a calcium reactor about one month ago. How is that working for you? Is reactor on same system?

 

[Bpb]

If the icp test is clear (I'm not fully convinced they're the gospel) I'd still go for a reset. If you can't figure out WHAT it is by going over the basics I'd start trying to reset. I've not had a 10 year old tank before. But I've had stuff die in mass unexplainably.

Go over every electrical device with a fine tooth comb. Check for any rust anywhere.

If you find it. Get it out

If not. Keep up what you're doing with fresh rodi and bulbs.

To reset I would buy a box or two of prodibio biodigest to load up on bacteria

Buy a couple packs of poly filter.

Start using or replace your carbon every 2 weeks

Buy a box of decent salt and begin a large water change regiment. Do 20-30% every 3-4 days for a couple weeks and really try to get most of the old water out. Consider vacuuming the sandbed in chunks

Run the poly filter for a week or so during all this. That with the carbon will help pull out a large amount of organics and any metals that may not have accurately shown on the icp test and the water changes will reset your elements. Never a bad idea to reload bacteria with it.

Couldn't hurt to order a pod pack or two as well.

Hope it works. This is what I've done in the past and it works for me. Just a big reset of everything without disturbing the rocks in the process


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[highpockets]

Subsea", have not ever had a calcium reactor on this tank. Thanks for the link to the article.

 

[highpockets]

Thanks Bpb, for the advice on resetting the tank. Seems like the logical direction to go.

 

[laverda]

I would defiantly check for chlorimines. You water supplier may have started adding them. Most do now.
I would also check every magnet in your tank. They fail often in my experience. Good luck.

 

[scuzy]

Desperate for help, established tank dying

If the icp test don't show any metal contamination I would check for total chlorine means chloramine in your tank. I had that happen corals would look good them wilt away until I caught it. So I added two brs chloramine monster Infront and never looked back.


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