need help...losing sps again

[SPotter]

I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I lost almost all of my sps in the beginning of the summer. I a few months and started adding back some pieces about 6 weeks ago. All of the pieces were doing great until a couple of days ago when a few pieces started to look pale and then the next day...gone. Tissue just dissolved right off and it is slowly happening to other pieces in my tank. It first started with my birds nest and stylo's and now its happening to my acros. Here are my params....

Alk 8.5 dkh
Ca 420
Mg 1350
SG 1.026
No3 2ppm
Po4 .009 hanna ulr checker
K 410 salifert

Im ready to give up on sps so any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ptyochromis]

what do you have for lighting, temp, and flow?

I'm quite new to SPS but I keep my KH between 10-12 to minimize the PH swings from lights on/off. Although I have never heard of day and night PH swings taking out entire colonies in a few days. My first guess would be temp or ammonia.

I have heard of tissue being wiped off from a consistent blast from a power head.

 

[SPotter]

temp ranges 77-78
Lighting is led/t5
flow is tunze 2 x 6055 and 2 x 6095.

I thought about too much flow but its happening to pieces that are not in the direct line of flow.

 

[Alex T.]

temp ranges 77-78
Lighting is led/t5
flow is tunze 2 x 6055 and 2 x 6095.

I thought about too much flow but its happening to pieces that are not in the direct line of flow.

I don't think it's your flow Steve. There seem to be some other peculiar threads on here about some odd things happening to SPS...especially Birdsnests and Stylos. Maybe these are coming from the same sources. It may be worth looking into.

 

[DNA]

You should look at your measurements over time and even do a graph and compare that with your SPS downhill periods.
Current parameters could be fine, but as you know swings are bad.

It's obvious your tank has problems, it's identifying them and correcting that's the difficult part.
I'd suggest tweaking the most likely culprits, wait a week and see if thing improve.

Posting pictures would help and being more thorough in your description as well.

 

[polywise]

do you have any leather coral in your tank?

 

[SPotter]

no leathers. I think the issue is coming from a drop in po4. for a while it was hanging at .03 and then it dropped to .009. that's the only thing I can think of.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

 

[sirreal63]

no leathers. I think the issue is coming from a drop in po4. for a while it was hanging at .03 and then it dropped to .009. that's the only thing I can think of.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

PO4 levels that low can be problematic, and the drop would be my guess as well. Let it rise back up to about .04 and don't try to get it lower, it won't hurt sps at that level.

 

[Finland]

That low of P04 could be the cause. Also, an outside source, such as cleaning solvents, air fresheners...., could cause a problem. Might not hurt to run some carbon and maybe a polyfilter.

 

[SPotter]

PO4 levels that low can be problematic, and the drop would be my guess as well. Let it rise back up to about .04 and don't try to get it lower, it won't hurt sps at that level.

is there any chance the sps will come back once the tissue has fallen off? besides feeding a little extra is there anytjing I can do to increase my po4?

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

 

[sirreal63]

It's possible, depends on far gone they are and how much tissue is left, if you are running GFO take it offline and watch the po4 levels. If you managed to pull the po4 that low, you are running too much GFO. My experience has been that when sps are stressed, it is helpful to run higher than normal nutrient levels to encourage growth of the zooxanthellae. I have had to do this recently after bleaching from going to 10k bulbs from 20k bulbs, and the increased par.

 

[EgmontKey]

PO4 levels that low can be problematic, and the drop would be my guess as well. Let it rise back up to about .04 and don't try to get it lower, it won't hurt sps at that level.

Sirreal is spot on. David Saxby's recommendation is phosphates at .03 - .05 and never lower. lower is more dangerous than higher. Most fish food is loaded with plenty of phosphates so just feed away and your phosphates will climb up. Good luck!

 

[SPotter]

It's possible, depends on far gone they are and how much tissue is left, if you are running GFO take it offline and watch the po4 levels. If you managed to pull the po4 that low, you are running too much GFO. My experience has been that when sps are stressed, it is helpful to run higher than normal nutrient levels to encourage growth of the zooxanthellae. I have had to do this recently after bleaching from going to 10k bulbs from 20k bulbs, and the increased par.

I will post some pictures of the pieces. I am using an algae turf scrubber and for the longest time my po4 was holding at .03 but it seems that when I increase my bio-load the scrubber works better at reducing po4. This is the same thing that happened earlier in the summer. I introduced a group of anthias to my tank and the po4 dropped significantly and then I lost a lot of corals.

I just added another group of fish a couple of weeks ago and now this happens again. I am thinking that the scrubber is not a friendly piece of equipment for what I want to be an sps dominant tank. I have not been able to find anyone in the sps forum or on the scrubber thread that keeps a lot of sps with the scrubber. I am wondering if its similar to running a zeovit system.

Sirreal is spot on. David Saxby's recommendation is phosphates at .03 - .05 and never lower. lower is more dangerous than higher. Most fish food is loaded with plenty of phosphates so just feed away and your phosphates will climb up. Good luck!

Thank you!!!! I have increased my frozen and pellet feedings, turned off my scrubber and turned down my skimmer a little.

 

[sirreal63]

Scrubbers work very well for some and not so well for others. I prefer GFO because it is easy to tune it's effectiveness.

 

[SPotter]

pics

pics

yesterday....

this morning....

 

[EgmontKey]

Keep us posted on your progress!

 

[SPotter]

Scrubbers work very well for some and not so well for others. I prefer GFO because it is easy to tune it's effectiveness.

It seems that the majority of the people that use them run fish only or lightly stocked coral systems. The scrubber is down and I will be getting a couple of reactors for gfo and gac.

Thanks again for everyones help.

 

[tmz]

Toxin ,led lighting or pests( redbugs/ aefw) are few guesses? What's the ph btw?

 

[SPotter]

ph ranges 7.9 to 8.15 daily. I've been looking very closely for pests and havent been able to see anything....but still a possibility.

 

[tmz]

Might try some poly filter in case some metal is in there somehow. I'd dip one or two of the specimens to see what falls off if anything.