I am at a loss with SPS corals. Please help.

[bigsink]

I have a 325g DT 84" x 30" x 30" with a 75 gallon sump, 50 gallon refugium, and a 50 gallon frag tank (curently with no frags). The tank has been setup since July 31, 2010. The tank has run very smoothly until about 6 weeks ago. Many of my SPS frags and colonies started to retract their polyps, fade in color, and die. This has happened over a few weeks and not over night. Several frags added recently have died pretty quickly in the same manner. However, some continue to flourish. Eventually, they start to grow algae on them and they end up in the garbage.

This tank was started with all dry rock and sand from BRS and then seeded with 100 lbs of live rock from my old system. I use ESV salt.

I will list tank chemistry, inhabitants, and equipment below. Please chime in and give your .02 cents. Any suggestions or constructive criticisms would be appreciated.

Water Chemistry: All Salifert test kits
Calcium- 480 ppm
Alk - 9.6-9.9 dKH
Mg - 1450 ppm
NO3 - 0 ppm
Phosphates - 0.02 (on Hanna Checker)
Salinity - 1.025
Tank temp maintained between 80-81 F

Equipment:
Skimmer- Bubble King Supermarin 250

Reactor -NextReef MR1 Monster Reactor (1 1lb of GFO per month) and 1/2 BRS Carbon per month

Return pump: Reeflo Super Dart Gold returned to tank via 3 SeaSwirl 3/4" units

Internal flow: 3 Vortech MP40Wes all run on Reef Crest and 1 Tunze 6105

Ca Reactor: MTC Procal with ARM Coarse

ATO runs through a Geo Kalk Reactor

Controller: Apex

Lighting: 1 400W Radium on a Galaxy ballast in the center and 2 250W Radiums on Galaxy Balasts on either side. Theses are supplemented by 2 72" VHO Actinic 03 bulbs. Lighting cycle for MH is 8 hours per day.

Chiller 3/4 HP Trade wind inline

Stocked with a lot of fish, chalices, palys, toadstool, acans, torches frogspawn, and hammer corals all doing well. I have a 2" deep sandbed with a huge clean-up crew. I also have 6 huge clams that are doing great and have been with me for a few years.

I perform a water change every 2 weeks of 50 gallons or 10%. I have never had any algae problems, but did battle cyano for a few weeks and used Special Blend.

Just want to get the SPS healthy and doing well.

AquaDelight doing Great

Tank right after water added

Top view of center portion of tank

Happy Clam

 

[OzarksReef]

That's an impressive system and equipment list. There's nothing in the params you list that are cause for concern. You mention problems with SPS - is this all SPS, or just acropora? Do you have any pics of colonies or frags that are having problems?

 

[RRaider]

i assume you have checked for pests with large photos, a magnifying glass, and dipping and blowing them off if possible?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

pH of system is ?

 

[Brian Chong]

ro/di and new coral acclimation including dip?

 

[evsalty]

Sounds like you got bugs. Check for red bugs and AEFW's.

 

[Gyr]

Threads like this scare me. You have a much better set up than I do and parameters that you list are all good, yet you are still are having coral loss.

What is the TDS of the water you are using for mixing salt water? I assume you have an RODI unit, but maybe the filters need changing. I imagine SPS would be the first to show signs of problems if the TDS is creeping up.

Have you thought of increasing the frequency of changing out your carbon? You mention your tank has a lot of palys, toadstools, etc and maybe there is some chemical warfare going on. I use BRS ROX carbon and the recommendation was to replace it every 2 weeks. If you are going 4 weeks between changing it, maybe you aren't removing some toxin the softies are producing.

 

[bigsink]

That's an impressive system and equipment list. There's nothing in the params you list that are cause for concern. You mention problems with SPS - is this all SPS, or just acropora? Do you have any pics of colonies or frags that are having problems?

I will work on some pics. However the problem persists in Monti caps, my Superman monti, and pocilliopora.

Gary Majchrzak: pH ranges from 8.3-8.5 throughout the day.

RRaider: All corals were dipped before introduction with TMPC dip, and flatworm exit. I myself have checked for bugs and have very knowledgable reefers check as well. All of the frags came from well established tanks that are pest free and were dipped. I only have SPS from 3 other peoples tanks. Their tanks have been established for years and all of the other corals came from my old system (none of them acros or SPS).

Brian Chong: RO/DI is 0 TDS (I check it constantly) and corals are dipped.

Gyr: Unfortunately the best equipment does not lead to the best success. I use ROX carbon as well. Some people have suggested changing every 2 weeks. Would 2 weeks with carbon on and 2 weeks of carbon off be OK? The tank has one colony of Nuclear green palys (about 50 polyps) and 1 Tyree Toadstool about 4" accross.

Thanks so much for your input.

 

[bigsink]

If you look at the Superman monti in the Aquadelight picture, you can see the blue color has vanished and the orange polyps have started to retract.

Would redbugs affect Monti caps? I thought these were unkillable?

 

[ChicagoReefOne]

Since this is a new tank is it possible that this is a result of too few nutrients? There have been similar posts with symptoms like this and that was the issue, but then again I know you list a "lot of fish" as being in there. Maybe other people can chime in, my experience with nutrients has been the opposite of "too few"....

 

[dentdominator]

On a side note, I would look into your lighting and photo-period/coral acclimation. I was constantly smoking all my new introduced sps and not realizing it wasn't my parameters but the light.

I cut back my lighting from 7 hours to 4 when I introduced any new sps and slowly made adjustments with the lighting. Actually, the all liked 4 hours better than the 7. They all colored up nicer and grew faster. Then, I learned to pay more visual attention my corals once I knew all parameters are in check and stable.

I've also noticed if your getting corals out of a lesser lit tank and your lighting is a lot stronger you can experience coral bleaching without proper acclamation.

 

[James983]

John, I know there are guys more in the know than me, but a PH of 8.5 seems high to me. I didn't even think it could get that high without purposely dosing. Are you dosing Kalk?

 

[cthedaytrader]

Sorry to hear that John,

Have you double checked all of your testing equipment? If not I would definetly double check, the temp ( i assume the Apex is your temp monitor, but I would check what you used to calibrate the APEX with), I would double check your ALK level for sure, it would seem very difficult to keep such a high ca, alk and Ph in that tank. Then I would check salinity which seems less likely in such a large system.

Too make a long story short, I had a similar problem in my first tank many years ago and I swore my paramters were fine. Turned out my salinity was off, and I was running my tank at 1.036 lol. Oops.

Your problem seems more alk related, I would check and double check it. Maybe even lower it some.

The other issue would be any type of alk or temp spike that you might have had which shocked the corals.

If everything checks out, RO/DI, then I would do some larger water changes, and change the carbon out more often maybe once a week for a month because it maybe an outside contiminate. I always worry about that with my tank, from paint fumes, to cooking to anything can see or smell in the air disolving into my tank .

As for the montis, the only thing I have ever seen bother my montis has been alk spikes, and temp spikes.

Good luck, let me know if you need any help.

 

[cthedaytrader]

One other thing, I have never used special blend and I dont know if the use in any way correlated to the problem. But from what little I do know about is it seems to act like an antiobiotic and kills bacteria. If thats the case you might want to put a couple of pieces of fresh live rock in the tank to help repopulate and diversify the bacteria population in the tank. I did that recently in my tank and in my old tank when dealing with cyano and while I have done other things at the same time it always seems to correlate with an improvment in my tank.

 

[bigsink]

On a side note, I would look into your lighting and photo-period/coral acclimation. I was constantly smoking all my new introduced sps and not realizing it wasn't my parameters but the light.

I cut back my lighting from 7 hours to 4 when I introduced any new sps and slowly made adjustments with the lighting. Actually, the all liked 4 hours better than the 7. They all colored up nicer and grew faster. Then, I learned to pay more visual attention my corals once I knew all parameters are in check and stable.

I've also noticed if your getting corals out of a lesser lit tank and your lighting is a lot stronger you can experience coral bleaching without proper acclamation.

I am cutting photoperiod back to 7 hours over the next 2 weeks. I am not sure this is my culprit because some SPS pieces are doing beautifully are from a VHO tank and 12" below my 400W radium. I also had problems with corals that came out of a tank with same bulb and ballast.

cthedaytrader: Hey Chris, I have 2 refractometers and a new ALK kit on the way tonight. I will recalibrate probes tonight. Never had an alk or temp spike. Even if my alk is off, it has never spiked. I have checked everyday for 6 weeks. I have not added Special blend in 3 weeks and problem persists (not that I am blaming SB).

James: I am looking into my pH probe. I went in and looked at my Apex pH. It goes from 8.25-8.45 solidly.

 

[bigsink]

If everything checks out, RO/DI, then I would do some larger water changes, and change the carbon out more often maybe once a week for a month because it maybe an outside contiminate. I always worry about that with my tank, from paint fumes, to cooking to anything can see or smell in the air disolving into my tank .

Nothing foreign in my fishroom except some of my BO.

 

[joe_dejesus]

July 31, 2010

System has been online only six months.... My tank took almost one year to settle and stabilize (for SPS). Just a thought.

 

[cdamiano]

If everything checks out, RO/DI, then I would do some larger water changes, and change the carbon out more often maybe once a week for a month because it maybe an outside contiminate. I always worry about that with my tank, from paint fumes, to cooking to anything can see or smell in the air disolving into my tank .

Nothing foreign in my fishroom except some of my BO.

That's definitely the problem...... That's some strong BO :lmao:

 

[bigsink]

System has been online only six months.... My tank took almost one year to settle and stabilize (for SPS). Just a thought.

Thanks Joe, this is at the back of my mind as well. Just bugs me that I lost Monti caps and Pocillopora and a Green Slimer, but an Icefire echinata and a Tubbs Pink Jade and other tough corals like that are doing great.

Also, some corals did great for months and then started to die out after encrusting and growing.



BTW, just put pH probe in calibration fluid 10 and it came up as 9.94. Then I put it in the 7.0 and pH came up as 7.34 on the Apex controller. I am going to get some new fluids and calibrate the apex tonight.

 

[cobra9]

Just as a side note I have more issues with monti's dieing off then slowly coming back only to die off again later then any of my acros.