My sps's are dying

[alazo1]

Hello,
I'm in San jose ca. Several weeks ago we had some power outages. The longest went on for about 10 hours. I was at home and started almost immediately swooshing the water with a 1/2 gallon container to keep the water oxygenated. I went and purchased 2 battery operated airpumps. Kept doing the swooshing about every 1/2 hour. A few days after 3 of the corals had stn'd. Polyp extension was very poor on all except hydnophora. To this date corals are still stn/rtn. PE is zero on all acros. About 6 more corals are stn ng now and have no reason to doubt that more are on their way.

Since the outage I've changed water a few times (5 percent)
Been dosing aminos and kept feeding up.

Prior to that the tank was fine. I have not done anything different.

I knew I was not in the clear after the first few days.

SUGGESTIONS PLEASE.

Tank:
80 gallon
2 mh 400 xm 20 k (photoperiod has been reduced since outage)
Parameters stable KH 8 CA. 410 MAG about 1300

I've had the tank for years and do not feel that drastic changing is necessary due to that conditions really seem to have been done by power outage.

Whatta you think?.

thanks,
Albert

 

[twon8]

i would not change the photoperiod, maybe just stagger the lighting,
i would do a large 25%+ water change, reduce feeding, stop the aminos for a while, what is your skimmer doing?

do you have a sand bed?

 

[Bebo77]

how are your water parameters.. with the power out that long and only a 5% water change i would test and see where you are...

 

[alazo1]

Thanks for the reply.

The lighting has been staggered for a while.

I have been going easy on the aminos but will stop to see if any improvement. Reason I've been dosing has been to try to keep the color deep.

Skimmer is a ets 5-2. Got a new pump for it a few months ago. It's really not pulling much. I turned it off a few days ago due to that algea is building very slow in the front glass. Only need to clean about every week.

ORP is about what it used to be at (400). I do have a small refugium that dumps to main tank. It has about 10 lbs of Miracle Mud and a few inches of oolitic under it. I've only had the light on this one for about 4 hours a day (nothing changed). I do have to say that I did not pay much attention to the fuge when power went outl. I see very little amount of bugs in there. Chaeto is still alive.

Other things:
Stylophora and birds nest look white but alive.
For the most part corals are not light in color when stn'ng.
First water change was with Catalina water from Petco. Dkh, Ca. and Mag tested well. Second wc was with tm pro which I'm pretty much out of (bottom of 160 g bucket).

I'm going to go now and get IO/Oceanic and do a water change.
I've checked my ro/di water (tds 5). TDS in this area is about 250 out of tap water.

I'll take some pictures and post if anyone thinks it may help.

thanks much,
Albert

 

[Bebo77]

what are your water parameters? do you have test kits?

 

[alazo1]

Ok, so I just finished testing. Good thing because I recently got my co2 cylinder refilled and params are quite high.
Ca. 470 (average was around 410)
KH 10.5 (average was 8 -9)
Mag. 1620 (average was around 1300-1400).
These were taken with Salifert

Am, Nitrite, Nitrate all zero (red sea)

Obiously this is'nt helping the situation and is probably why corals are looking worse then they were a week after the outage. BTW the co2 refill was about a week after the outage.

WC being made now. Also have turned off CR, will test again in a few days.

Albert

 

[Acronana06]

WHY did you turn off your skimmer the excess nutrients may be playing a part

 

[alazo1]

Since the viewing glass is getting very little algea I thought the skimmer was not needed for the time being. It was producing very little skimmate before I turned it off which I take it as being low nutrient. Just took a phosphate test, read .03 (Hanna).

I'm also running carbon but wonder if I should put on a poly filter.

thanks,
Albert