Need Advice, Please Help - Corals Dying

H

Hind

New member
I have used ReefCentral for many tips over the years - this is the best community for the reef hobby. I am about to post a long plea for help regarding my tank which I feel I'm losing. I need some serious advisement to save my tank, if you have a moment please take a shot to help me. Thanks in advance!

Ok, over the past few months I've noticed some negative changes with my system and I cannot, to save my life, figure out what I am missing/ doing wrong. My tank currently has hair algae/ macro growing everywhere despite my weekly picking and hand removal - it just comes back stronger and more prolific. My corals have mostly recessed and do not open at all anymore. I scrape green algae off the glass everyday, my sand was white a week ago... to say it nicely - my tank looks like crap.

I have tested my water numerous times and all my numbers are great... yes they are perfect. I realize algae has an amazing ability to suck up the smallest amount of phosphate in the water, but below are my last results. I also brought my water to a local coral store (confirmed my results) and spoke with the owner for over an hour trying to pinpoint a potential problem. I left there still without a real goal... He seemed kind of puzzled also.
Temp: 79
Ammonia= 0 Nitrate = 0 Nitrites = 0 pH = 8.2
KH = 8 Salinity = 1.027 (refractometer) Phos = 0
Ca = 400

My usual regimen includes weekly 10-20% water changes. This past week I did a 50% water change and cleaned my sand-bed thinking maybe there was something in the water. Again my numbers are great so I can't say its filtration issue, my water is so damn clear but the corals are still dying.

Tank: 29g - Age 16 months
Lighting: 150w Metal Halide 14k (5hr runtime per day)
Filter: Aquaclear 50, foam, carbon media, Purigen, ROWA
20 lbs liverock, ~ 1" fine sandbed.
Heater (in-tank)
Vortech MP-10
Food: New Life Spectrum
Reef Food: Recently trying the RedSea Reef Energy A&B

Bulk Reef Supply R/O DI (foam-carbon-RO-DI) TDS = 0
Hose water is city after my water softener.
RedSeaMax Salt kept in a Brute bin.

Livestock:
Oc Clownfish x 2
6line Wrasse x 1
Nassarius and Turbo snails
Hermit crabs & 1 sand sifting starfish

Birdsnest coral = dead and gone
Galaxea = Dead and gone
Green star polyps = Thinned only a few left
Blastomussa = Closed and very small
Zoas = All closed prob dead
Pulsating Xenia = open but small
Kenya Tree = Open happy and Budding (***)
Blue Sympodium = Closed
Yellow polyps = Closed, thinned out prob dying
Torch = Closed very small
Duncans = Very receded and small

This problem, as far as I can assess any level of change, started around the time I installed my RODI system. I am now making my own water instead of buying it from the LFS. I had also removed a sailfin tang from the tank because he was getting too big (got him when he was just a baby...awww). I imagine the tang was eating any algae that popped up on the rocks keeping it under control. At that time the tank was great, all the corals were open everyday and spreading...

My current fish, crabs, snails, starfish seem fine and healthy.

I take steps to ensure a proper environment for my system, I enjoy this hobby and I love learning about how to improve my tank. I now feel helpless as I try to do everything that is empirically correct but... I'm losing my tank for reasons to which are overwhelmingly unclear. If anybody can think of any questions or recommendations to try, please respond. I have done hours of research online and in person... I am truly at a loss...

Josh
Tampa, FL

photo-10-1.jpg
 
Josh, i am a newbie also, and cant really offer you any sound advice, but i can offer encouragement. You seem intelligent, caring, and hellbent on doing the best you can which will get you far in this hobby. The picture is kind of blurry, but that looks like cyano on ur sandbed. Maybe more flow? Are u running a skimmer?
 
does your local water have chlorine or cloramines? Mine started adding the cloramines and I had to add another canaster. Just a thought. Couldn't think of anything else.
 
What strikes my mind is what if the Hair Algae is consuming the Phos or Nitrates to a level that is not detectable by tests? It would be my assumption that one of these has to be feeding it. The question would be what? Your light cycle is already low enough, maybe cutting it to 3hrs might help but I do not think it will get rid of it totally. You mentioned a food change am I correct?
 
Did you say when you last changed your ROWA material? Looks like that is a phosphate sponge material. Maybe it's exhausted?
 
camblonie said:
Did you say when you last changed your ROWA material? Looks like that is a phosphate sponge material. Maybe it's exhausted?
Click to expand...

This is a good thought. If that is the case then that could be whats feeding the algae enough to get it undetectable by tests.
 
Thanks for replies. Yes that cyano is only after a week on the sand bed.

I'm sure my water has chlorine of some kind, but it runs through my water softener (which has carbon media) and then through my RODI. Does chlorine or chloramines show up on TDS meters? I'm showing 0 after DI. What other chemicals could be so harmful to coral but not my livestock which my RODI does not remove? I'll add a few drops of chlorine remover to my tankwater just in case.

The hair seems to be eating up what ever tiny amount of phos is avail in the water, no doubt contributing to the lower detection levels. I try every week to pick it out and brush it out and suck it up.... I did try a few light avoidance techniques, but the corals don't seem to care about light anymore. They stay closed 24/7. I did try the coral food (redsea 2 part) because I thought perhaps they were starving. My galaxea bleached before they died, so I started using that product, didn't work.
 
If your corals aren't eating food do not feed. If they aren't eating it the break down would be helping feed the algae as well. So in short reduce feeding tremendously. Continue removing by hand. Phos would upset the corals like that I suppose.
 
BlindZide said:
This is a good thought. If that is the case then that could be whats feeding the algae enough to get it undetectable by tests.
Click to expand...

I purchased the ROWA due to my increasing algae problem about a month ago and put twice the recommended amount in the bag. The manufacture says it should last months. I have not changed it since installing it a month ago.

A saturated rowa (ferr ox) could def be a reason for sudden increase in phos (accel algae growth), but still my corals are dying... :crazy1:

Reef Food: Yea I figured I would just pollute the tank if they were all closed up, I haven't fed coral food in about 10 days.
 
Question, have you had your lights since you started 16 months ago? Are they the same bulbs? When t5 or mh start getting aged, especially after a year they begin to lose the spectrum they are intended to produce. With t5 this leads to the light spectrum becoming more yellow, this causes algae to grow much easier (to my knowledge) as well as affect animals which use photosynthesis to survive ie. your coral population.
 
Can you get a clear pic of the algae up close? If its green hair algae it could be lights or po4 or a lot of stuff. If its bryopsis......then its a completely different fight.
 
Tds will not show chloramines. Most municipal water systems will do 1-2 large chloramine flushes a year. The chloramine if I'm not mistaken will destroy the Di resin.This could be the issues. I would possibly look into getting a chloramine filter for the ro/di. I had a friend in Stuart loose most of his corals due to the chloramine issue. His LFS had a test for it.

Also maybe check for any possible cause of rust getting into the tank, from any metal fittings or clamps you might have.
 
I'm still at a loss for what caused my coral injury/ death. The K. Tree is open and happy, but everything else is closed. Perhaps still injured from whatever happened? I hate to think that my efforts have not corrected the issue; either that or these coral are hurt beyond recovery and my water is now ok?

BlindZide said:
Some of this stuff you have covered. It seems there is no overnight solution to this problem. I found this article. Have you tried any of this?

http://www.lareefs.com/index.php?chapter=0&id=14&main_page=page
Click to expand...

Thats some good information, but I have covered those topics in my attempts.



CoralReeForrest said:
Question, have you had your lights since you started 16 months ago? Are they the same bulbs? When t5 or mh start getting aged, especially after a year they begin to lose the spectrum they are intended to produce. With t5 this leads to the light spectrum becoming more yellow, this causes algae to grow much easier (to my knowledge) as well as affect animals which use photosynthesis to survive ie. your coral population.
Click to expand...


My tank is 16 months old, the MH bulb is 3 months old. I upgraded from t5 in august. I was past due for replacing the t5 bulbs anyway so I decided to use the $$ toward MH. The corals loved it for a few weeks until what-ever-"event" injured my tank.


criticalencore said:
Can you get a clear pic of the algae up close? If its green hair algae it could be lights or po4 or a lot of stuff. If its bryopsis......then its a completely different fight.
Click to expand...

I went to my LCS today (local coral store) and they think my algae is bryopsis. I'll include some close pictures. I bought Hydrat-Mg additive, a test kit, and ReVive coral cleaner. I'm going to slowly try to increase my Mg to around 1800 for a few weeks - this was the recommendation to treat bryopsis. I cleaned the few remaining corals which still looked like they had a chance for about 20min. I dosed RedSlime and covered the tank to block it from all light. I also tried picking out some of the macro algae (caulerpa), but they are very entangled within the rock. This bacteria/algae may be a consequential problem but I'm under the impression that bryopsis is toxic to coral if ingested?

I apologize for the poor quality pictures, my Nikon is in for service.

image-7.jpeg


image-10.jpeg


Small stem of zoas on the left - all closed up... :(
photo-10-2.jpg




LazRodriguez said:
Tds will not show chloramines. Most municipal water systems will do 1-2 large chloramine flushes a year. The chloramine if I'm not mistaken will destroy the Di resin.This could be the issues. I would possibly look into getting a chloramine filter for the ro/di. I had a friend in Stuart loose most of his corals due to the chloramine issue. His LFS had a test for it.

Also maybe check for any possible cause of rust getting into the tank, from any metal fittings or clamps you might have.
Click to expand...

I checked my local county water quality report. We do use chloramines and the report listed the sampled water at around 3.8ppm. The three LFS's in my area do not carry nor have the ability to test for chloramines. I went to lowes and walmart looking for any type of chlorine test kits but most were cheap strips (which I have already for my pool). I used one of my test strips from my pool which revealed no detectable chlorine (no surprise). Even the smallest amount of chloramines can have unpredictable & harmful impacts on marine life. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-11/rhf/feature/index.php

I do understand that I "should" be using catalytic carbon media in my RODI because regular (activated carbon) is not as effective at scrubbing all the chloramine, and when it does, it releases amonia. My DI should remove amonnia. Due to my current inability to measure the possibility of chloramines in my water, I proactively dosed my tank/fresh water with chlorine drops (which makes chlorine and chloramine water safe to use).

These are my yellow polyps:
image-8.jpeg
 
I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help to you but I am hoping you get it figured out. You seem to have a knack for this hobby and the willingness to go the extra mile to make sure all is well. Good Luck!
 
Ok. So after months of trying to pinpoint the problem, I think I found the source. Believe it or not - Red Sea Pro salt mix. Yup. The high quality brand of salt maker crashed my tank. I switched my old salt, dumped everything and now doing water changes with regular Red Sea salt (non-pro), and the few corals I have are coming back. It's hard to imagine a company not having either the proper R&D on its additives or hiccups in quality control, but the stuff crashed my tank. The algae has stopped spreading after I took out the rock and performed the H2O2 treatment and added a wedge sea hare to munch on the leftovers. I also installed a HoB protein skimmer. I have to say now my tank is turning around, water is super clear again.

My local coral store employee mentioned to me he recently lost $800 in sps coral and a massive algae growth with the use of Red Sea Pro salt. He switched back to regular and everything went back to normal. It's sad.

Just thought I'd share what I have discovered. Thanks everybody!
 
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