Lost corals in matter of days

[roczero]

I recently moved into a new home and started over with a new custom reef tank. The tank cycled about 5 or 6 weeks ago. Over these last few weeks I have started stocking with fish and dialing in all my equipment (ie skimmer, carbon and GFO reactors, ATO, etc). I have been testing the parameters religiously and all fish are happy and healthy as can be (Lyretails, Bartletts, Yellow Eyed Kole, Potters Angel, Bluespot Jawfish).

Everything seemed perfect so I decided to get starting with some corals. I got several small colonies and frags over the last week and acclimated them into the tank. All SPS. For the first couple of days everything looked great. Good colors and polyp extension. Then all of a sudden all the corals went downhill fast. 2 days ago the poyp extension went away. Yesterday all the colors got really drab. And today half of the corals are gone with STN and the others are only a few hours behind them. I am sure that I have lost everything coral that I just got last week ($700 is what they added up to).

The only thing I did after adding the corals was I dripped a tiny amount of Mag and very small amount of Alk buffer through the night like I always have done in the past so that I could raise them both just a small amount. Mag came up about 80-100 points and Alk might have come up between 0.8-1.0 dkh in 12-15 hours. Is this too much to fast?

I have changed 15% of the water 3 times in the last 3 days and I have tested the water with 3 different kits. Even went out and bought a new set of Red Sea Kits just to make sure. My parameters are right where I want them to be.

Today's results.
Salinity 1.026
Alk 8.6 dkh
Cal 430
Mag 1350
PH 8.1
Temp 80
Nitrate <5
Ammonia 0

150 gal total volume. LED/T5 lighting.

What is going on? Did the drip screw everything up? That has never happened before. Did I add the corals too soon? Too many at once? Did I add too many fish too soon and the bio bacteria couldnt keep up? The ammonia and nitrate levels look great! Fish and all inverts still look great! Any help would be appreciated. I cannot afford to have this happen again.

 

[tkeracer619]

Do you have any corals that are doing fine? What kind of carbon are you using?

 

[roczero]

Bulk reef supply premium. ALL corals are in bad shape. Most dead other will be all the way gone soon.

 

[MARINECRITTERS]

RODI unit?

 

[FragIt Dan]

I have raised MG by more than 600ppm and dKh by 1 or 2 degrees in one dose (added in minutes) in a tank loaded with a variety of SPS with no problems. IMO I would say the rate or volume of which you raised your Mg and dKh is not the issue. I have also added large volumes of sps to tanks with similar volume as yours and not observed any issues; I would expect this would not be contributing either.
Given your situation and the info you have provided there is no real way to come up with an answer at this point. I could guess at a few possible causes, but they are really guesses...
1) corals were already in moderate to poor health and vulnerable to change (despite having good colors and polyp extension). They may have been transferred between a few different tanks in a short period of time prior to you getting them and were stressed out already.
2) change in lighting from their previous tank to yours added to the stress
3) one of the corals brought a disease in (red bugs, black bugs, virus? etc.) and infected the tank
4) there is an unexpected contaminant in your tank like copper (tkeracer619 was mentioning carbon due to a recall from an issue that resulted in similar symptoms in a slew of tanks across North America and possibly overseas).
5) Flow rates were too high/too low for the particular corals, but this would likely not cause all of them to die at the same time.

Sorry to say it, but you may never know . Your parameters all look good, although your temp seems a bit high to me (I have read articles that suggest optimum temp is 76 for some corals and 78 for others... I target for 78 and let it drift up to 80 or 81 during the light cycle). It probably goes without saying at this point, but perhaps start with a few smaller, less expensive corals next time. Not because more is harder on the tank, but as a test to see if your tank will support them. I always suggest to friends to start with a single cheap coral to 'test the waters'. There are just way too many things you can't see or test for that will do you in. I feel for you though. Good luck,
Dan

 

[roczero]

RODI unit?

You bet. 0 TDS.

 

[roczero]

I have raised MG by more than 600ppm and dKh by 1 or 2 degrees in one dose (added in minutes) in a tank loaded with a variety of SPS with no problems. IMO I would say the rate or volume of which you raised your Mg and dKh is not the issue. I have also added large volumes of sps to tanks with similar volume as yours and not observed any issues; I would expect this would not be contributing either.
Given your situation and the info you have provided there is no real way to come up with an answer at this point. I could guess at a few possible causes, but they are really guesses...
1) corals were already in moderate to poor health and vulnerable to change (despite having good colors and polyp extension). They may have been transferred between a few different tanks in a short period of time prior to you getting them and were stressed out already.
2) change in lighting from their previous tank to yours added to the stress
3) one of the corals brought a disease in (red bugs, black bugs, virus? etc.) and infected the tank
4) there is an unexpected contaminant in your tank like copper (tkeracer619 was mentioning carbon due to a recall from an issue that resulted in similar symptoms in a slew of tanks across North America and possibly overseas).
5) Flow rates were too high/too low for the particular corals, but this would likely not cause all of them to die at the same time.

Sorry to say it, but you may never know . Your parameters all look good, although your temp seems a bit high to me (I have read articles that suggest optimum temp is 76 for some corals and 78 for others... I target for 78 and let it drift up to 80 or 81 during the light cycle). It probably goes without saying at this point, but perhaps start with a few smaller, less expensive corals next time. Not because more is harder on the tank, but as a test to see if your tank will support them. I always suggest to friends to start with a single cheap coral to 'test the waters'. There are just way too many things you can't see or test for that will do you in. I feel for you though. Good luck,
Dan

Thanks for the response. I got the corals straight out of several different peoples tanks. I dont think they were all in poor health despite of all looking great. Change in lighting could be a problem. I dip all corals with Coral RX and Interceptor before adding. I think there could be another contaminant in the tank of some kind. Dont know how it got there. Should I turn off the reactors? I have 3 tunze 6055 on a wave cycle. I think the flow rate is pretty good. I have removed all of the dead corals and I even moved a handful of the frags that were still hanging on into a nano tank with LEDs in hopes that a couple may pull through. Its just a last ditch effort.

Any suggestions are how to go from here with the tank? Multiple water changes? Turn all reactors off? How long before I give another coral a shot?

 

[roczero]

It is looking like the rise in Mag was the problem. I am seeing several articles saying that Mag should not be raised more than 100ppm in a weeks time, or it will have detrimental effect on SPS. The Kent Marine website recommends an increase of 18.3ppm per 24 hours. I dosed 5 or 6 times this amount in half the time.

I am thinking that this, and, in conjuction with the rise in Alk are my problem. I guess my only course of action now is to do a couple more water changes and let the tank sit for a few weeks and try again.

 

[FragIt Dan]

May I suggest you start a thread asking people the max they have ever raised Mg in an SPS tank without having a problem? I expect the response will set your mind at ease that the Mg addition (and alk addition) was not the issue.
I really don't think shutting your reactors off or your flow pumps down will solve it either... they were just suggestions on contributors. The fact that you sourced corals from several places lends credibility to the cause of the problem being your system. Some sps will be more sensitive to the CoralRX dip. It is great that you dipped your corals first and I would say you should keep this practice up for sure, but I use a 2/3 or 1/2 concentration dip on more sensitive sps that I have visually inspected and not observed any parasites (but I still dip them). You could always try a single, less expensive and hardy frag now to see how it does. Otherwise, I would wait until you have done a few water changes or a couple of larger water changes until you add any more. Again, just ideas, not answers . Best of luck,
Dan

It is looking like the rise in Mag was the problem. I am seeing several articles saying that Mag should not be raised more than 100ppm in a weeks time, or it will have detrimental effect on SPS. The Kent Marine website recommends an increase of 18.3ppm per 24 hours. I dosed 5 or 6 times this amount in half the time.

I am thinking that this, and, in conjuction with the rise in Alk are my problem. I guess my only course of action now is to do a couple more water changes and let the tank sit for a few weeks and try again.