Lost or losing all my SPS - still not sure why.

Wow so sorry to hear this for you. Let me know when things settle down. And I'll be glad to send you some birdsnests, slimmer, blue tip stag.
 
Thanks for the offers guys. I wont be shy on taking you up on it :lol: . I just did a 40g water change, which was about 50%. I matched pH, temp, SG and alkalinity, which is much more than I do on a standard water change.

At this point the angel is definantly doing some damage. But I just cant tell if he is nipping because they are unhealthy, or vice versa. Or if it is a combination, which I think is more likely. He probably used to nip some, but now that the corals are weakened it damages them more, and maybe he is nipping more as well. I don't believe it is only nipping because many pieces had uniform tissue thinning throughout the whole piece. It also showed up rather abruptly on multiple (10 or so) pieces in about 2 or 3 days. But now I am seeing a lot of patchyness and missing tips. Just watching the tank I can see him nipping a lot more than he used to. I think I am going to remove the tang, rabbit, and angel, and stick with extremely reef safe stuff. Even if he isn't the main cause, I dont like that every time something goes wrong there is that uncertianty that maybe its him, maybe its not.
 
There is a big difference between newly made synthetic saltwater and the water in an established tank. Bacteria etc.... are in the tank water. The water you put them in was stripped, however, if I was convinced it was my ONLY shot then I probably would have done the same, but its really hard for completely fresh and biologically stripped to handle this. I am sure the corals were releasing tons of compounds and what not. I am in Raleigh, if you have any ideas of how I could help you out let me know. Sorry for your losses brother...I hope I never have to be put in that position.
 
I have been reading your thread with great intrest and as with trueblackpercula, I agree its a bacterial infection. You will probably find that it will subside after large water changes, only to start back up and accelerate once again over time. Trust me I chased my tail with every possible cause from GFO to the "rusty screw/razor blade" mystery, Salifert low readings.....you name it.

The Yo-yo effect of parameters from changing and trying to eliminate every variable only compounded the problems, mystifying the problem further.

I have been fighting the same problem all summer, and just want to say......keep vigilant and watch your tips.......it has stopped and started three times now for me.

Currently I believe it was C-dosing that fed "bad" bacteria like vibro as well as the good bacteria. I noticed twice that when I restarted the sugar dosing, this and cyanobacteria started up. When stopped, they both subsided......twice.

In addition, I noticed the coloration of all the pieces got "dull" in appearance and not as "glossy" or "reflective" as usual with the lack of phosphorecent pigments present. Especially noticeable under actinic only lighting.
 
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Yuck. Not what I wanted to hear. But the thought of this being an infection is something that has crossed my mind. Not really sure where to go from here.

I guess I am going to do a few more 50% changes (everything seems to have reacted well to this last one) and slowly put the system back together. I REALLY don't want to have to remove the angel, rabbit, and/or tang. But I will if I have to...
 
Another idea came to mind today.

Although the tank gets plenty of flow, there is a slick on the surface of the water. This is because instead of the standard overflow, I have an upturned elbow and a strainer. Something about this setup just doesnt skim the surface, and a film develops. Is it possible that this film blocked enough light to kill off my corals?
 
I still had the motion through the sump, and I had the 30g breeder sump and 30g breeder frag tank surface area. Plus skimmer. I'm thinking if it was gas exchange fish would be the first to show signs as well.

It was worth a thought.
 
well, the overflow helps get the gunk down to the skimmer to do it's job.. I do not think this is causing the problems you are having, though it may be a contributing factor
 
Im thinking it could be the same thing as kip. And dots. And like was said, they beat everything idea to death and still happened. The only thing that seemed to help was the water changes and the lowering of the tank temp to prevent bacteria multiplication. I dont think the rusty screws things are valid. My magnets that hold the frags on the back wall have lost their coating and are rusting. The frags on the magnets look beautiful. I have gfo going and always have since starting sps and no problems there. My question though is why the elbow and cup for the external overflow?
 
Its not external. Basically I hate the AGA megaflow. There is no reason it needs to take up so much valuable tank space. And you cant scrape it to keep it clean. So My overflow is just a hole drilled in the back wall, with a upturned elbow, and a strainer in it. Something about the strainer does not skim the surface. Once I get the sump running again, I am going to take the strainer out and add a short length of PVC with some eggcrate glued on top. I am thinking that will fix it. You can see my overflow in this pic (upper left, the back of the tunzeis resting on it):

fromleft.jpg


Unfortunately, the tank doesnt look anything like that anymore :( .


As for it being the same thing (i.e. bacterial infection), the only thing that is keeping me from that conclusion is that mine progressed much faster: about 2 months from start to "finish" (finish as in there is nothing left to die).
 
Heard of cases where municipalities change ways of treating the water. Did Wilmington just start using chloramine or something? Or possibly run off? Contamination in your pipes your RO/DI couldn't handle?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11057527#post11057527 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LobsterOfJustice
I have no idea.

FWIW, the TDS is still 0 coming from the unit.
Click to expand...

What RO/DI unit do you use?

I am checking to see if Wilmington uses chloramine in their water source.
 
I spoke with the water treatment lab in Wilmington and they use "hypo chlorite" to treat their water which is a chlorine and not a chloramine.

Rule that one out.....at least one possibility is eliminate albeit it would be nice to know what caused your problem.
 
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