My acans heads are falling off!!

O

obicanobi0

New member
I have an issue with my corals and I cant figure it out for the life of me. All my corals that have a skeleton are not doing well. My acans heads are falling off. I have an open brain that is receding and it very "loose" . I have one favia that has been fine for over a year that is almost dead.

My params are as follows:

Alk 2.6 7.2 dkh(its a little low and i have started using a buffer)
mag 1450
cal 500
trite-0
trate-0
phose-.25ish
ammonia-0
ph 8.5 at the end of my light cycle and 8.35ish in the morning.

I don't know if I'm not testing something or what but I just don't know what I'm doing wrong here.

Thanks Jeremy
 
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0.25 phosphate is very high. If that were the only thing wrong, you MIGHT get away with just having poor color/growth. Combining slightly low alk and pretty high pH with high phosphate is a recipe for stony coral stress for sure. You also don't mention your lighting or flowrate? Even slightly inadequate of either will only put more stress on stony corals. Also, what livestock do you have in the tank? Something may be nipping at them too, only causing further stress/damage. Are you SURE those are the chemistry values for the system? Have you had another aquarist or an LFS verify your results? Especially salinity which you didn't mention? And if that alk/pH turns out to be correct, how are you accomplishing such a high pH with a low alk? Are you dosing kalkwasser? That just seems kind of whacky to me.

More questions than answers, I know, but it's a complicated problem requiring lots of information to sort out
 
The display is 150 tall, I have a mag 12 return and an mp40, The flow seems pretty good as i have it on wave mode and everything movies in the tank with the flow. I have a 30 gal frag that is plumed into everything and the issues seem to take place in there as well.
I have 2 250 mh over the tank with a reefbrite strip.

Salinity is 1.026

I'm going to goto the lfs today and have them do a couple tests.

I have a very slight cyano issue in the frag tank. Don't see any in the display.
 
My solution to all problems is water change, water change WATER CHANGE! It became such a solution that all I do to take care of my tank is do a 30% change every two weeks. I don't even need to run a skimmer (I have very low bio load).

I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me and many aquarists like other methods than a huge water change but it works for me. Also I do generally run a good skimmer but my pump died and I haven't replaced it.

Good luck with the issue. Sounds scary.
 
Have you made any changes such as, salt brands, new equiptment ect? What test kits are you using, and are they expired?

Could it be brown jelly disease?
 
ITs been up about two years. Nothing new with the tank for some time. The only major event that I had a few months ago was I have to rid my tank of flat worms. I followed the directions very carefully and took a couple hours removing as many as i could before the treatment. Did a huge water change after and used extra carbon to remove toxins. That was many many water changes ago though.
 
What about salinity? Was that tested at the LFS? I know you "think" it's 1.026 but I've had two seperate experiences where my refractometer drifted out of calibration and killed corals in exactly this manner.

Also what about pH and alk, are you sure those are correct? Again, high pH and low alk is a recipe for stress (and hard to achieve)
 
Yes salinity was checked as well, was 1.025. Last water change must have been a tad weak. I used Kent Marine Superbuffer dKH to its specs and it raised the dkh to about 9.3.
I recalibrated my ph probe and it reading a bit lower now at 8.32.
 
Anyone in the cheektowaga area with knowledge on the subject have some free time and perhaps some tests that I can compare to? I have never had anyone look at my tank that knows whats right and whats wrong.
 
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There are a few possibilities:

predation from small crustaceans. A bath with interceptor if you can get it could help that if it's the case. Some folks use Bayer insectacides for dips but one of he active ingredients is very toxic to fish and other marine life at very low trace amounts. Add any new corals lately?

Possibly another predator. What fish do you keep? Shrimp?

The combination of low bouncing alk and high PO4 may be interfering with calcification. However, the high ph doesn't jibe with the low alk. What kind of buffer are you using.
Free heavy metal,( copper, zinc, nickel, etc) in the water, from equipment a metal fitting etc or some breakdown of organics binding metals. Maybe the FWE played into thatb ut it was months ago. A poly pad can help remove metals and will turn blue if copper is there. Cuprisorb is good too.

Testing glitches on anoter one or more parameters.

If you'd like me to test your water ,you could stop by and leave a sample.I'm in West Senecca. Since you have had it verified at the lfs it probably wouldn't make much difference at this point since it has changed from the condition when the trouble started particularly the alk withthe buffer dosing.
 
Could also be an infection such as a brown jelly infection. Lugols dips may help that.
 
A little update. I think things might have stabilized a bit. I got my alk up to a higher level around 9-10. mag droped to about 1350 ca to 450 and ph hovers around 8.1. I changed my bulbs as those might have been a bigger factor than I thought. The new ones are very bright! I did a couple extra water changes in between my normal scheduled ones. I also started a little note book of what and when I changed or tested things so I don't have to try and remember. Wish me luck, I don't want to loose anything else.
 
Lights may not have been the issue. Many crazy colors ones I've seen have done better under lower lighting.
 
nobody mentioned temperature yet?

nobody mentioned temperature yet?

it was an extremely hot and humid week.

Acans don't like it hot.

This would be my first suspect, but I don't know how the op maintains temperatures in this aquarium.

Many LPS come from deeper, more stable temperatures.

JMO: maintain alkalinity with a two part like B-ionic or (better yet) make your own using BRS materials. Kalkwasser and calcium reactor should also be considered. Definitely use kalk for topoff IMO.
 
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