Looking for input on loss of SPS in my large reef

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

Over the past 6-8 months most of my SPS are doing very poorly. Some seem to be doing well while most seem to be doing poorly. I will get a new frag and it will hold color and grow for the first month or two then it stops growing, loses color, and in time die. Most of these corals tend to be brown for months and slowly bleach and some stay bleached for months before finally dying. Its the same situation in the display tank as well as the frag tank that is online with the display.
Affected coral- Acros, plating and encrusting montipora.
Unaffected corals- Birdsnest, LPS, softies, zoas.
I have also noticed that I have lost a lot of snails over the last year.
Fish seem unaffected and look great.
I can not seen any pests and I have randomly dipped corals and found nothing.

Background: Display is 540G with an additional 500G in sump, refugium, frag (75G) tank etc. Tank is 13 months old. Started with 800lbs of Marco dry rock and 100lbs of uncured fiji. Sand was also dry sand.
Light 4x400w Radium in Lumenbrites on the display. 2x250 DE Phoenix on Frag tank.
Display flow 2x3/4HP VFD closed loops and 1 MP 60
Frag flow 1 MP60

NO4-0 salifert
CA- 430 salifert
ALK- 8.0 salifert ususally is at 8.6 but just mixed a new TO batch
MAG- 1290 salifert
SG .026
PO4- .08 Hanna Checker
Temp 77.9 to 78.9
PH- 8.25
ORP- 360

All the above parameters are very stable.

Things I have tried with no noticable results.
MB7 (current)
Heavy feeding with reefroids, oysterfeast, rotifeast. (current)
Less water changes
More water changes (Current)
Turning skimmer off for 8 hours. (current)
Heavy Carbon
Polypads
More flow
With corals in the display and frag tank seeming to have the same issues I feel that I can rule out flow and lighting and point at something in the water or missing in the water.

Hoping for some input! Thanks All.

 

[d3hree]

At a guess I would say you need more nitrogen in the system. I assume you mean nitrate when you say n04? Slowly bleaching over time sounds like they are starving. You say you are currently feeding heavy?...how long has that been happening for?...have you seen any difference in PE or colour? How often do you test your dkh to ensure you are not getting any swings?
With an orp of 360 have you got an mv controller or are you just using a timer?
Your tank is one of the greats so I hope you can get to the bottom of it!

 

[Boa1277]

Possible copper or maybe you have a dissimilar metal issue.

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

At a guess I would say you need more nitrogen in the system. I assume you mean nitrate when you say n04? Slowly bleaching over time sounds like they are starving. You say you are currently feeding heavy?...how long has that been happening for?...have you seen any difference in PE or colour? How often do you test your dkh to ensure you are not getting any swings?
With an orp of 360 have you got an mv controller or are you just using a timer?
Your tank is one of the greats so I hope you can get to the bottom of it!

Yes, 0 on the Salifert for nitrate. I have been feeding heavily for about 3 weeks. I have well over 50 fish in the tank so I feed a lot of fish food as well. I have poor color and PE. I test my tank about once per week. I feel very strongly the dkh is steady. Not sure what an mv controller is. My orp was around 320 but it has creeped up over the last 2 months.

Possible copper or maybe you have a dissimilar metal issue.

I thought this may be a possibility as well so I ran the polypads and they are just turning dark brown which means its not absorbing any heavy metals.....

 

[dahenley]

Hello!

i have 2 options for you to try. (that might help)
If you take a coral and give it to a friend, do they recover? (just curious)

Story.
I had a friend that started with all dry/dried rock, and dead sand. he took a scoop of my sand to seed. he had great coraline algae. and all parameters were perfect. (no matter who tested them) He broke down, and threw a few lbs of his rock out, and picked up some live from the LFS/and friends. his tank bounced back. (this was in a 90 gal by the way) we are just guessing that the tank was lacking some sort of bacteria or something that doesnt appear with just using dry rock. (if your frag tanks are seperate from the tank, this would be an easy thing to try. especially on a smaller scale. )

#2
talking about metals, since both the main and frag tanks are having problems, and they are connected, then there is a change it could be something in the water (or lack there of in the previous post) if they are seperate, then there is less of a chance of the same piece of equipment leaching metals in the water.

if you are worried about metals in the water. there is a product by seachem that will remove them, and is re-generative. you can look, and i will try to find it as well, but in the large build threads, there is a "900gal bennytheblenny" build. if you look a few pages back from the end, he had a Deltec pump explode in his sump, and he used this product to help remove the metals that leached in his tank. it worked well too. he was having the same problems with corals as you.

There is the possibility that you dont feed enough.
i know you are running your skimmer very little now, but Energy had the same problem for a while after getting his Volcano going. but there are so many variables.

i hope those two suggestions can help you out......

 

[dahenley]

(i had a few min, so here you go)

i think this is when he started having problems.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1810999&page=15

and page 16 he finds the pump, and 17 he finds this media. (i listed his explanation below)

Okay 24 hours after running 1L of Cuprisorb in a media reactor and I am seeing polyp extension on corals that haven't had any in weeks. I guess it must have either been copper or some other heavy metal that leached into the tank from the blown pump. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that this fixes the issue.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/CupriSorb.html

 

[Boa1277]

It is called Cuprisorb by SeaChem but you will need to find where the metal is coming from. We found brass fittings in my friends tank, the snails dying sure do point to metals, are you losing any other inverts. Do you have chalices and if so are they doing ok. Chalices showed the least exposure in my buddies tank. Good luck.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Are you having any PH swings at night? Also your PO4 seems to be a little high for an SPS tank has this always been elevated? Have you tried target feeding some of the affected corals to rule out the fact that they are starving? Coral Frenzy maybe a good food to use or Oyster Feast.

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

Thanks for everyones input! After this build taking 3 years to go thru this is pretty rough.

(i had a few min, so here you go)

i think this is when he started having problems.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1810999&page=15

and page 16 he finds the pump, and 17 he finds this media. (i listed his explanation below)

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/CupriSorb.html

I will try this stuff, cant hurt. I agree that it seems to be something missing in the water or something bad in it. Its possible that in the years of construction something fell in like some drywall dust or a screw. That is why I have been changing more water in hopes to flush the system. I did add about 100lbs of uncured LR when I first got the tank started so it was not all dry. I added a few lbs of live sand from the LFS a few weeks ago and strangly all my nass snails went right to that pile. I'm going to pick up a few more lbs.

It is called Cuprisorb by SeaChem but you will need to find where the metal is coming from. We found brass fittings in my friends tank, the snails dying sure do point to metals, are you losing any other inverts. Do you have chalices and if so are they doing ok. Chalices showed the least exposure in my buddies tank. Good luck.

I still have some snail and a few are ones that are a year old. Brittlestars, pods, hermits, and my 2 cucumbers seem fine. I did lose 2 star fish, that may be related or not. Chalices are doing good.

Are you having any PH swings at night? Also your PO4 seems to be a little high for an SPS tank has this always been elevated? Have you tried target feeding some of the affected corals to rule out the fact that they are starving? Coral Frenzy maybe a good food to use or Oyster Feast.

My PH stays pretty steady. In the last 3 days the higest was 8.35 and the lowest was 8.15 My PO4 was 0.00 for the first 6-8 months the tank had water. I thought the corals were losing color because they were starving so I have let the PO4 increase and I'm trying to keep them at .05 I'm currently using the oyster feast but not target feeding, the tank is too big to attempt this.

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

One thing to note besides the vortechs in the water I do not have any other intank pumps. I will pull the 3 external pumps apart and check them but they appear to be working fine.

 

[dahenley]

your iwaki's are not normal ones, so when you pull them, make sure they dont use a copper or brass thrust washer...... (i remember yours are 220 or something like that...)

you say uncure live rock. i was taking that meant "dry"

you didnt mention if the corals recoop if you put them in someone elses tank?

 

[dahenley]

Oh, one more thing.
you never mentioned if you tested for stray electricity......
if you have a multi meter, you can put it on AC V and place both probe tips in the tank. (i put them a little bit apart just because) this will let you know if your getting any current in the tank.
it could be slight, but it can still stress corals. (seen this one happen personally)

water is a conductor, so the problem could be outside, but effecting inside.
just throwing out some ideas

 

[dahenley]

another question...
you installed solar tubes. and have 400W radiums.
have you par tested? just to make sure? i know a while back a lot of people were frying their corals due to the tubes and excessive light...

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

Thanks for the ideas! I will test the water for stray voltage. I have not tried fragging any of the corals out until about 2 weeks ago. Those corals still look bad. Also I forgot to mention that I'm feed 1G of reef stew weekly as well so food should not be in short supply. I will also check the Iwaki's. Thanks!!

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

another question...
you installed solar tubes. and have 400W radiums.
have you par tested? just to make sure? i know a while back a lot of people were frying their corals due to the tubes and excessive light...

The tubes were not supplying enough light so I'm using the halides. I test PAR a while back and it was at about 250-300 on most of the SPS.

 

[rogerwilco357]

any changes lately ? what salt do you use and how often do you do the water changes? this didn't start when you upgraded to mp60?

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

any changes lately ? what salt do you use and how often do you do the water changes? this didn't start when you upgraded to mp60?

I keep a detailed log on any changes in the tank, items going in and out of the tank etc. When I look back I dont see anything that stands out. I use Instant Ocean and have from the start with the excpetion of the first filling of the tank which was from Catlina Water Co. No I added the MP 60 about a week ago.

Other things to note. About 3 months ago I used MB7 for about a month and did notice a slight imporvement. I stopped using it after a month as it was raising my PO4 faster than i had wanted it to. I started it again last week. One other item to note that may be an issue. My sumps are about 30 feet away from my display and the plumbing runs underground. I have 3 overflow pipes 2 of which are always in use. The other one was a safety overflow in case one of the 2 main ones gets clogged. In theory this was a good idea but since this goes 3 feet underground and then back up into the sump stale water gets trapped inside the 2" pipe for about 15 feet. I have a aqualifter pump moving a bit of water thru it so it does not go completely bad but I wonder if this is still an issue.

 

[dahenley]

On my 240. I have a siphon drain, along with a durso.
My durso is the emergency, but it has a small amount of flow going at all times, but is capable of a lot more.
You can try doing that... and seeing as your sump is outside you won't hear any noise.

I have not used MB7 personally, but how much were you dosing?
And were you running your skimmer 24-7 at that time? Or 8 hours like currently

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

I was dosing about 15ml-20ml a day, which on my size tank is about nothing I think. The skimmer was off for 6 hours then.

 

[landy]

The other one was a safety overflow in case one of the 2 main ones gets clogged. In theory this was a good idea but since this goes 3 feet underground and then back up into the sump stale water gets trapped inside the 2" pipe for about 15 feet. I have a aqualifter pump moving a bit of water thru it so it does not go completely bad but I wonder if this is still an issue.

This might be worth looking into. You say you run a small pump to keep water moving. If it's not enough, you are likely just adding a constant drip of nasty water to your system.

If possible, I would evacuate the water trapped in the line. NOT adding in back to the system. I bet it is some foul smelling stuff. Then change the plumping temporarily so that water cannot enter this line from either side.

you might consider permantly setting it up so tank water can only get in it JUST before the tank overflows. Then have it enter the sump above the water line so water cannot backflow.

I know that i have had dead spots in my plumbing before, and once you drain it, either back into the tank or out of the system, that is a smell that hangs around for a while. With that in mind, it CANT be good.

landy