Help with Tips of all SPS bleaching (well what SPS is left)

[Snailpowered]

I have had a ongoing problem with my tank and it all started with when I upgraded my skimmer. I literally skimmed the life out of my tank in about 2 months time. I upgraded my skimmer because I was planning on getting more fish because my tank is barebottom and a benifit is getting to have alot of fish. But on to what has happened to my corals.

It started with my monti's and then moved to my acros, and then to my lps, everything just bleached out and/or started to die. I lost about 25 mini colonies lots of frags and 2 large colonies. I have been really on top of importing quality nutriants into my tank and its been about 10 weeks now and my LPS are looking great, and coraline algee is really starting to cover the rocks again so I added a small frag of Orange Digi and the same thing is happening, tips are starting to bleach followed by the encrusted base and continuing into the branches of the coral. I have looked for AEFW, redbugs, and monti eating FW and found nothing. The only oeice of SPS that hasnt been affected is a blue milli, its not growing but has great polyp extention and okay color.

I simplifed my system and pitched the cal reactor and started to drip kalk, added 4 t5's and turned my two 400watters down to 2 hours a day. Added a few more fish to imporrt nutirants.

Im just really wanting to get back in the game becasue it looks like a empty tank and thats no fun. Any thoughts would be great even if they are obvious because i just might not have thought of it.

My tant paramiters are
Cal: 410
Alk: 9.5
Mag: 1380
Nitrates: 0
Nitrites: 0
Phos: 0
Salinity 1.024-1.025
pH: 8.09-8.22 (aquacontrol jr.)

 

[palawan]

Take your water to a local LFS and verify your test kits. Then see if your salt mix or mixing container is contaminated. Any chance of copper contamination? Although your milli is okay that stumps me. Is your temp consistent? Equipment calibrated?

 

[Algae Growwer]

Check those test kits same thing happened to me !

 

[Snailpowered]

I have just recently replaced my Ph probe and recalibrated it. As for salt mix I just opened a new container of brightwell salt mix and tumbled it before opening it. As for the copper I would think that my cleaner and harliquin shrimp would show signs of stress. Onthinng that I have notice is when my Skimmer comes on it goes crazy for ten minutes and then goes flat, I only run my Skimmer for two hours a day an hour after my main feeding.

As for the water tests ill have those checked out tonight.

 

[Snailpowered]

Had my water checked at the LFS and everything matches my numbers. I still get an odd foam head from my Skimmer tho. The Bubbles are huge, close to an inch in diamiter at the bottom of the Skimmer neck.

 

[jhawkor]

Don't SPS corals often bleach when there is a lack of nutrients in the tank? How much are you feeding?

 

[Snailpowered]

I feed a ton and skim two hours a day with no phosphate.

 

[jjoos99]

Any time I have seen the tip bleaching on my coral the first thing I look at is the alk. You might try to let it settle down alittle and possible retest with another test kit to make sure yours is accurate.
Jeff

 

[luv4paws2]

I had the same Exact thing happen when I added a skimmer to a previously skimmerless tank. I started dosing esv 2-part and doing more water changes. I also use Restor from brightwell.

 

[soulsigma]

I had the same Exact thing happen when I added a skimmer to a previously skimmerless tank. I started dosing esv 2-part and doing more water changes. I also use Restor from brightwell.

+ 1 on the Restor ,what a wounderful friend.:wavehand:

 

[Snailpowered]

I picked up some restore and well go from there. Do you guys think that I should dose some kind of phosphate into my tank along with all these aminos to "dirty" up the tank?

 

[RickMartin]

No to adding phophates

 

[Rizup]

Fish food contains phosphate - Maybe feeding heavier would be the way to go.

I have been having very similar issues. My tank has pretty much crashed over the last month or so and I have lost almost all of my SPS. The pieces I haven't lost appear to be on their way out as well, with the exception of a blue mille! Funny how you said that one appears to be fine in your tank as well. I just wish I could pinpoint what has been causing the recession so that I can fix it. Parameters have been very stable, but I have noticed my nitrates seem to be up to almost 20 ppm! I have been thinking about starting to dose a carbon source to bring the Nitrates down.

 

[Snailpowered]

That's the thing all of my parameters are stable and where they need to be. Nitrates and nitrites are undetectable with the salifert kits, phosphate is zero, top off has zero pom. I'm getting quite frusrated to be honest and just might toto a fowlr system until me move (in the process of buying a house). I just feel like I'm throwing money at this tank with no improvements. I have a feeling that my tank is still sterile because I'm loosing my palys still, every few days another disapears in the drag tank.

 

[graveyardworm]

Wow, it sounds like you are doing alot of things at once. This will make it impossible to track down the problem. Have you had any major alk swings with removal of the Ca reactor? Where is your pH running now that you've switched to kalk/where was it before? I would get a routine going and stick to it. Start off with water changes. 2 hours of light daily to me sounds very short, and I suspect would initially result in loss of color and eventually death.

What size tank, and what livestock is currently in there.

I wouldnt add any more livestock until the dust has settled, and things are more stable. Perhaps a minimum of one month.

Get the skimmer running 24/7, and once you're comfortable with its performance then start turning it off a bit at a time so you can observe any effects.

I would hold off on any dosing of new products until things have stabilized. Restor is not a magic solution, and when you start things need to be stable so that you can judge what effect its having.

Would it be possible to summarize everything you are currently doing in one post. Include tank size, how long has it been set up, inhabitants, equipment, feeding routines, any media that you are running. Please include as much detail as possible.

 

[bluface]

I have the same thing happened to me. Did all kinds of water changes. Okay for a while then the same thing happens again. Until I changed my salt back to IO.
IO has low trace elements than most if not all.

 

[Snailpowered]

Okay first off let me say that my phone (what i usually use to post on here from work) likes to change words on me if it doesnt like the way that there used.

With that said, now to the tank:

200 gallon display 4'x3'x2' Bare Bottom
65 gallon sump (water volume not tank volume)
20L frag tank Bare Bottom

equiptment:
lighting- 4 54watt t5 (2 on icecap 2 on work horse) 2 for 8 hours 2 for 6 hours
2 400w halides (1 radium on icecap 1 20k reeflux on icecap) 2 hours
DIY 3watt LED for frag tank 6 hours a day
Pumps- 2 vortec mp20w
1 koralin 4
1 maxijet mod with white prop.
1 ocean runner (return pump 1400gallon/hr.)
Aqua lifter for kalk

Skimmer: Hurricone Cat2 Internal

Aqua control Jr. - controls- T5 lighting, LED lighting, fan, heater, kalk pump
options- pH, temp, serial port

Tank Params: past month low and high
Cal: 390 - 430 (salifert)
Alk: 8.5 - 9.0 (elos)
Mag 1270-1390 (salifert) dropped for some reason very quickly dosed for a few days and it was back to normal
Phos: undetectable (salifert)
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
pH: 8.07 - 8.27 (Kalk)
solid 8.28 (calcium reactor)

Tank Inhabitants:
Clown Tang
Powder Brown Tang
Kole Tang
Convict Tang
Sailfin Tang
Pair of Percs
7 Lyertail Antheis (sp.)
5 Green Reef Chromis
1 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Harliquin Shrimp
1 Radiant Wrasse
6 Fiji Turbo snails
1 Tuxido Urchin
Mics. hermits and snails
RBTA
Copperband Butterfly
Bellus Angel

Food: Roger's orignal
Rods Food Origanal
Mysis
Formula 1 & 2
(All food is fortified with Garlic, Vitamin C, and Amino Acids)

Okay well i orginally set this tank up with a Euro Reef RS250 and it did okay in the begining but i wanted to add more fish to my unit being bare bottom so i purchaced the CAT2. The CAT 2 skimmed about twice the amount of skimmate that the Euroreef did. About a month later i noticed that some of my acros started to turn white at the tips and slowly the base also started to turn white and soon after (about a month) the first colony was gone. I thought nothing of it just a case of STN.
A month later after this, all of my montis when from growing great to fadding in color and then bleaching out, all of them about 15 differnt peices. I started doing 30 gallon water changes with Brightwells salt weekly for 5 weeks. I started to get a bit worried about the tank so i started to look for advice from a LFS (world wide corals) about 4 months ago. I talked to Victor there and he said that it sounds like im starving my corals and i need to feed more and better food. So i did, and i continued to loose all of my corals except my blue milli that is currently a blueish green with brown polops. about 2 months later i took my calcuim reactor out of the system to simplify my system and added a kalk unit about a month after that. I have seen no improvement in my tank in the past 3 months.


Im sure there are other things that i a leaving out and i will keep adding to this post/thred.

 

[Bolo Tran]

Sorry to hijack the thread but I'm having the same thing plaguing my tank. What is Restor and how does it help? I'm losing the majority of my corals that have been thriving for 2 years and I'm also at my wits end.

 

[AquamanE]

I had a crash, lost all sps except birdsnests. After many months of large WC, changes in salt confirming pho4 with photometer, 3 differnt bulbs etc........

The culprit was my RO not getting enough pressure cause i had not turned it all the way up. I got o TDS after DI, yet was contaminating my tank with some unknown metal.....

Once I turned up RO/DI to max all started to come back.

 

[Snailpowered]

I will deffinatly be looking at that as soon as the sun comes up tomorrow. Do you remember what the metal was and how did you test for it so that i can run the same test for my tank?