LobsterOfJustice
Recovering Detritophobe
Alright guys,
Over the past month I have lost, or am losing, every SPS in my tank. I am completely at a loss as to why this is happening. I just wanted to post to see if I am missing something that you all could catch. Here is the tank just before the losses (if you look hard enough you can see one dead frag).
The corals are not usually dying in the traditional STN sense. The ORA blue tort just looked terrible for about a month before it died. A lot of the corals have their mesenteries out for a few days before the dieoff starts. Some of the corals got patchy STN with bare skeleton underneath. Others have "tissue thinning", where it looks like the tissue just slowly sinks into the skeleton. But the weirdest way of dying which most of them have shown looks like abrasions - like sandpaper had been rubbed over the entire surface of the coral. I would like to know if anyone else has seen this before and can pinpoint it to a certian problem. Montis and Acros have been affected, and no new corals have been added in months.
This tank was moved and upgraded over the summer. For about a month after the move everything was doing great, and all the corals layed down new bases. I had a minor alk spike (9 -> 11) when the solenoid of my reactor stuck on. This is what I blamed the first few losses on, but that was maybe two months ago now, and this has slowly spread throughout the tank. The only other changes I can think of are that I started using ZeoMag in my reactor. I also put some sargassum in my frag tank, but that was after they started dying so I dont really blame it on that. I have however measured some nitrates for the first time recently. My tank has never had detectable nitrates, but measured 10 recently. I know its not ideal, but wouldnt think it is enough to kill all my SPS. I'm thinking the nitrates might be from the sargassum dying off, so I removed it.
So the basic tank information:
90g, 2 250w MH (XM 20K) and 2 220x VHO actinic (all bulbs changed in july)
2 Tunze 6000 on multicontroller
MRC-2 beckett skimmer modded to run wetter
Ca - 425 (Salifert)
Alk - usualy around 9, been at 10 since the spike a while back (LaMotte)
Mg - Used to be around 1200, 1350 recently (Salifert)
PO4 - 0 (Salifert)
Nitrates - 10 (usually 0) (Salifert)
Running carbon and phosban in separate reactors
Maintaining Alk/Ca/Mg with dual stage CaRx
All water change water and topoff made with 0 TDS RODI
Usually do a 30g waterchange every 2 weeks with a 50-50 mix of IO/Oceanic
Fish:
1 Majestic Angel
1 Lemonpeel Tang
1 Scribbled rabbitfish
5 Anthias
2 Ocellaris Clowns
1 YWG
Big mean Damsel and Dwarf Lion in the frag tank
I usually feed two cubes of frozen food every day, rinsed out in the sink first.
I guess thats all I can think of. Really, I am posting this as a last resort. I just want to know if anyone has ever seen this kind of death (mesenteries out, sanded appearance) and linked it to something. Or if there is something I am overlooking.
Over the past month I have lost, or am losing, every SPS in my tank. I am completely at a loss as to why this is happening. I just wanted to post to see if I am missing something that you all could catch. Here is the tank just before the losses (if you look hard enough you can see one dead frag).
The corals are not usually dying in the traditional STN sense. The ORA blue tort just looked terrible for about a month before it died. A lot of the corals have their mesenteries out for a few days before the dieoff starts. Some of the corals got patchy STN with bare skeleton underneath. Others have "tissue thinning", where it looks like the tissue just slowly sinks into the skeleton. But the weirdest way of dying which most of them have shown looks like abrasions - like sandpaper had been rubbed over the entire surface of the coral. I would like to know if anyone else has seen this before and can pinpoint it to a certian problem. Montis and Acros have been affected, and no new corals have been added in months.
This tank was moved and upgraded over the summer. For about a month after the move everything was doing great, and all the corals layed down new bases. I had a minor alk spike (9 -> 11) when the solenoid of my reactor stuck on. This is what I blamed the first few losses on, but that was maybe two months ago now, and this has slowly spread throughout the tank. The only other changes I can think of are that I started using ZeoMag in my reactor. I also put some sargassum in my frag tank, but that was after they started dying so I dont really blame it on that. I have however measured some nitrates for the first time recently. My tank has never had detectable nitrates, but measured 10 recently. I know its not ideal, but wouldnt think it is enough to kill all my SPS. I'm thinking the nitrates might be from the sargassum dying off, so I removed it.
So the basic tank information:
90g, 2 250w MH (XM 20K) and 2 220x VHO actinic (all bulbs changed in july)
2 Tunze 6000 on multicontroller
MRC-2 beckett skimmer modded to run wetter
Ca - 425 (Salifert)
Alk - usualy around 9, been at 10 since the spike a while back (LaMotte)
Mg - Used to be around 1200, 1350 recently (Salifert)
PO4 - 0 (Salifert)
Nitrates - 10 (usually 0) (Salifert)
Running carbon and phosban in separate reactors
Maintaining Alk/Ca/Mg with dual stage CaRx
All water change water and topoff made with 0 TDS RODI
Usually do a 30g waterchange every 2 weeks with a 50-50 mix of IO/Oceanic
Fish:
1 Majestic Angel
1 Lemonpeel Tang
1 Scribbled rabbitfish
5 Anthias
2 Ocellaris Clowns
1 YWG
Big mean Damsel and Dwarf Lion in the frag tank
I usually feed two cubes of frozen food every day, rinsed out in the sink first.
I guess thats all I can think of. Really, I am posting this as a last resort. I just want to know if anyone has ever seen this kind of death (mesenteries out, sanded appearance) and linked it to something. Or if there is something I am overlooking.
