Euphyllia Advice Sought....Please!!!

[mess7777]

This is basically a continuation of a previous thread:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2128773

I am including photos and a video here in hopes someone can come up with a good idea of what my problem is, and just as importantly....what is isn't.

Here is what i can tell you first about water parameters

Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 79
Phosphate - .03 on Salifert, .25 on API
Nitrates - 20-40 depending on the day
pH - 7.8 - 8.0
Ca - 400-440 on API, 485 on Salifert
Mg - 1100 on Red Sea, 1470 on Salifert
kH - 8
Ammonia - 0
dosing seachem calcium when reading was at 400ppm but have now stopped since Salifert tests at LFS showed much different levels. Also adding reef buffer(sea chem) in a failed attempt to bring up pH...it seems to always be 7.8 - 8.0

I have been using tap water for the past 9 months, and switched to RODI as of 2 weeks ago. Euphyllias deteriorated starting maybe 3 months ago, and have gotten worse and worse. I am using only RODI for top and doing 2 - 5 gallon water changes per week. This is as much as I have been able to do as time is limited to make RODI (Faucet adapter only at this point in the main bathroom).

I have bleaching and receding tissue.

photos to follow on the next post. I am hoping between photos and video that some problems will be pinpointed. Please ask any questions you have and I will do my best to answer.

Thanks to anyone willing to assist.

 

[mess7777]

Pictures

Pictures

Starting with Full Tank Shot to show placement

1)This one is on the left side about half to 3/4 up. It was placed there after an accidental frag last week.

2)Far right bottom, also an accidental frag made a couple months ago.

3)Front middle, bottom placement. This is the main colony.

4)Right Side near bottom. This was a once beautiful hammer which has nearly died in whatever is going on.

5)Torch, placement on bottom behind number 3. This one is doing well, no receding noticed, coloration has improved since starting RODI

6)Hammer, Right Side half way up. This one has been in different places and always does well, between this one and the torch in 5, they are two looking the best at this point.

7)Anchor, this one used to be full and round. This shows the bleaching well, but all in all compared to others it is doing ok. Placement is bottom left almost shaded by an overhanging rock

8)This is the coral in picture 3) later in the evening. It goes through phases during the day when it looks like this

Video will be on the next post.

 

[mess7777]

And the video. Sorry I am shaky and not too good at camera work it seems.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ckdXyfrCCQM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[mess7777]

anyone?

 

[Kryos]

First thing I noticed:
In your video, that angel of yours nipped at your nearly dead hammer in total of three times during that 1 minute video. Some of your euphyllias do seem to have the ends of their tentacles in poor shape. Seeing as most of them are inflated (trying to get some light) and your parameters do not seem to be too bad (maybe high Ca and Mg since you dosed), the angel may be the problem. If it is nipping at your Euphyllias, that should be the first thing you should fix.

Also, what light's are you using? Bleaching is usually caused by too much too little light. Seems like your lower ones can use a little more light if your upper ones aren't bleaching. But I'm not particularly sure on this point.

 

[mess7777]

That angel is actually a sailfin tang. It does seem to "nip" at the dying euphyllias, but I have watched it very closely. To my eyes, it never actually touches the coral. My best guess is that it is eating the zooxanthellate that is coming off the coral(s) as it bleaches. It never goes near the torch and hammer(the two most healthy).

As for the lighting, this is my biggest challenge. I don't know if it is too much or too little. Now that I have the new frogspawn frag up higher I will be able to see if it colors up or bleaches further compared with the one on the bottom. If it colors up I will assume too little light. If it bleaches more quickly, I'll need to reduce intensity. If both start doing better, well I won't complain and will assume it has to do with the RODI water not having impurities that were irritating to the euphyllias.

 

[~RuSh~]

Ok, I just went back through your original topic and read through. So you've got a 90g tank with a sump (what size?). You have been dosing Ca and using Reef buffer but have stopped?

The thing that jumps out at me the most is the Nitrates. 20-40ppm is pretty high, even for some fish. The RODI water should be nitrate free which means you are feeding the tank quite heavily. Perhaps cutting feeding back while catching up on water changes will help bring down nitrates to see if that is the issue.

To me, your flow looks good. Tissue is moving, but not violently. I personally don't think that is the issue. For what it's worth though, if you are looking for random/choatic flow, this can be achieved by aiming two powerheads at each other. Flow directed into flow will create chaotic flow patterns. I don't think this is the issue though.

For what it's worth I think most euphyllias do better in low - moderate flow. If they become sick or ill, I would lower that flow even more. Same goes for lighting. You shouldn't need to shade them but lowering them may help if you think the light is too strong.

Keep us updated, I know how you feel. It's gut wrenching loosing a coral that was once in prime condition in your hands.

 

[mess7777]

thanks. I just started using RODI about 2 weeks ago, and have only changed out 10 g so far + 2 weeks of top off so I would say around 15-20g of RODI water in the total volume. Sump is a 30 g about 2/3 full so 20g. Maxi-jet 1200 return which i would like to increase.

I have tried aiming the heads at each other but then it is too much. I am hoping an increased return flow will help to add some current against the current one to create a bit of randomness.

Things seem to be slowly improving, whether that is my wishful thinking or not remains to be seen!

I see you are in ND, I grew up in saskatchewan, so was in minot many many times in my day!

I quit dosing Ca and reef buffer due to conflicting tests and uncertainty surrounding that. I prefer to not dose than overdose.

 

[~RuSh~]

I agree with stopping the buffer and ca. Better to simplify things rather than complicate them.

The top-offs are irrelevant. Nitrates do not evaporate so you can only remove them via water changes. I think I would try to up the % of water you change per week. I do a 5g water change on my 29g tank once a week. It's not need for nitrates, but it helps keep Ca, Alk, and Mg more stable as these trace elements are in the salt mix I use (Reef crystals).

I really hope your corals are on the mend. I too am going through some problems with a frog. I wish you the best of luck with yours.

I grew up in MN, but have been to Minot several times in the past 5-6 years. It's a bit rough right now after the flooding this past spring and now with the oil industry booming west of Minot... brings in a lot of... riff raff IMO.

 

[mess7777]

I have done another 5 g water change, so 15g over the past 2.5 weeks. Will do another 5 tonight, and hopefully another 5 over the weekend. My kid, wife and me all fell ill so haven't had the energy to do more water changes in the last while.

I am really thinking using tap water was my biggest problem all along. The colours on some of my corals have really started popping since using RODI for changes and top offs. I had a chalice that was indistinguishable from the rock work that is now turning a nice pastel blue with bright pink "eyes". My GSP is starting to green up again.

I am still trying to determine if my lighting was too high. I really didn't think I had adequate lighting on my tank, but between the lower lighting and RODI things in general are looking better. It seems other tanks I have seen have much brighter lights, but I suppose it isn't necessarily the brightness to the human eye that the corals care about.

 

[mess7777]

Up to 25g of water changed now, and I believe I am starting to see some improvement slowly but surely. I'll try to take pictures to hopefully show a progression as they get better.

I started to feed them more aggressively, using LPS pellets(which mostly get stolen by fish and shrimp anyway), and Seachem Fuel which seems to get a good response.

Hopefully this trend continues and I can come back to post a huge success story.

 

[steyely]

Quite frankly I'm amazed that you didn't have more problems using tap water over the last 8 months! I don't know anyone with a sw setup that uses tap water for anything in their tank who doesn't have issues. Sounds like you are on the path to recovery though. With an rodi system you should start seeing signs of recovery as the water changes you do start to clear out all the junk that comes from tap water, along with lowering your nitrates.

I bought my tank off craigslist about 10 months ago. In my haste to get things running, I added 3-4 gallons of bottled water from costco so water would actually reach the overflow and the system would begin circulating. Well my nitrates went from 30ppm to 80ppm over the next few days. I began doing large water changes every week with saltwater from the lfs along with using rodi for topoff. It took several months for my nitrates to drop down to almost undetectable levels. I bought my frogspawn when my nitrates were around 30ppm and noticed it seemed much healthier as my water quality increased (though my xenias have since melted away.)

As mentioned earlier, lighting can play a big role. What kind of lights are you running and when were they last changed? I kept several lps under a t12 and metal halide for 3 months before upgrading my lighting to 4x54watt t5's. My frogspawn actually sits highest now (even above my sps) and loves it along with enough flow to gently sway it.

From reading other responses it seems that you have approx 110g of water in your system (90 dt + 20 sump). Doing anything less than a 10-15 gallon w/c every week is probably adding to your tank issues as well. I do a 10 gal w/c every week in my 90g system. If something goes wrong, like overdosing, I do 25 gal w/c ever other day for about 4 days then down to 10 gals as things start to stabilize again.

Cool rock work btw =)

 

[mess7777]

Lights are LED, they are DIY and not the best...but other light loving corals are doing alright such as a birdsnest and a montipora.

I am not so sure about nitrates and tap water, I did test my fresh saltwater using tap and there were no nitrates. Chorine and heavy metals....probably though!

Thanks for the advice and comments, as they always say good things don't happen fast no now I need to be patient.

Quite frankly I'm amazed that you didn't have more problems using tap water over the last 8 months! I don't know anyone with a sw setup that uses tap water for anything in their tank who doesn't have issues. Sounds like you are on the path to recovery though. With an rodi system you should start seeing signs of recovery as the water changes you do start to clear out all the junk that comes from tap water, along with lowering your nitrates.

I bought my tank off craigslist about 10 months ago. In my haste to get things running, I added 3-4 gallons of bottled water from costco so water would actually reach the overflow and the system would begin circulating. Well my nitrates went from 30ppm to 80ppm over the next few days. I began doing large water changes every week with saltwater from the lfs along with using rodi for topoff. It took several months for my nitrates to drop down to almost undetectable levels. I bought my frogspawn when my nitrates were around 30ppm and noticed it seemed much healthier as my water quality increased (though my xenias have since melted away.)

As mentioned earlier, lighting can play a big role. What kind of lights are you running and when were they last changed? I kept several lps under a t12 and metal halide for 3 months before upgrading my lighting to 4x54watt t5's. My frogspawn actually sits highest now (even above my sps) and loves it along with enough flow to gently sway it.

From reading other responses it seems that you have approx 110g of water in your system (90 dt + 20 sump). Doing anything less than a 10-15 gallon w/c every week is probably adding to your tank issues as well. I do a 10 gal w/c every week in my 90g system. If something goes wrong, like overdosing, I do 25 gal w/c ever other day for about 4 days then down to 10 gals as things start to stabilize again.

Cool rock work btw =)

 

[sqwat]

you have to get a zero on that phosphate.add some macro or a fuge that seems to help them out allot and naturaLLY get youre readings down also with some water changes.feed them also when they start to turn back and cut off the dead heads.i can only think of that right now

 

[mess7777]

you have to get a zero on that phosphate.add some macro or a fuge that seems to help them out allot and naturaLLY get youre readings down also with some water changes.feed them also when they start to turn back and cut off the dead heads.i can only think of that right now

Thanks. I do have cheato growing in my fuge and want to put in an ATS in the near future to help out with that as well. i don't feel i overfeed. I generally feed 1 frozen cube per day and every 2nd day I am feeding a cube of rotifers or coral food. I guess that works out to 1.5 cubes/day which I don't think is overfeeding considering I have 8 fish (3 chromis, 2 clown, 2 wrasse, and a small sailfin). I was doing flakes one day/cube the next, however have switched to almost solely frozen as my cleanup crew loves the mysis scraps a lot more than the flakes.

The euphyllias seem to recede about an hour prior to lights out. I decided to cut my photo period an extra hour again to see if I can avoid this. They do get a fair amount of natural light and something even sunlight through the windows in the early afternoon. At this point I prefer to go with too little rather than too much light.

I also added a polyfilter yesterday just in case there is funky metals or other toxins in my water.

 

[etannert]

Do you rinse and strain the frozen food before feeding? The preservatives in the water that the frozen food is frozen in will add a lot of phosphates to your tank. It's better to defrost the food ahead of time (many people will put a frozen cube in a shot glass the night before and let it defrost all day in the fridge) and strain and rinse it in a brine shrimp net before dumping the food in the tank.

 

[mess7777]

Well I think I was living in a world of hope. Looking at the pictures above, I think things are getting worse, especially the two frogspawn pieces.

I really need to get something better than API to test my phosphate levels. What a useless test kit. It's only use is telling you that "yes you have some phosphates" but as far as knowing how much the first number is .25 which is considered way too high.

Since I have done everything else in the world, it must be phosphates.

 

[steyely]

I'm not a fan of API kits, especially if you need to test things in very small concentrations (such as phosphate). I use Salifert for my important tests- Ca, Alk, Phos, Mg.

 

[mess7777]

I'm not a fan of API kits, especially if you need to test things in very small concentrations (such as phosphate). I use Salifert for my important tests- Ca, Alk, Phos, Mg.

I have used the Salifert phosphate test once and I don't like it either. Blue blue and more blue. I think I will go for the Hanna Checker once the budget decides to accomodate!

 

[etannert]

Ok... I am no expert... but 1) a water change never hurt; 2) how long have you been running your LEDs? A lot of people tend to run LEDs too high when they first switch over and you may be cooking the corals, especially if they deteriorate as the lighting period goes on. Since corals actually grow at night, you could safely do 2-3 days of lights out and see if things recover a bit; and 3) if the Salifert numbers you posted above are accurate, then your dKH is not in balance to your Mag and Ca numbers (420 Ca balances to 9 dKh, so if you're at 485 you are out of balance). I've generally found my LPS to be fairly sensitive to Alk so you might retest those numbers and try upping the Alk, 8 is on the low end anyway. Again, a water change never hurt! GFO, even run passively (in a mesh bag rather than in a reactor), will help with the phosphates.