Please help, can't keep corals alive

[jscarlata]

My tank is/was a mixed reef. I now have a huge gigantea, 1 sps frag, a few dying Duncan colonies a zoo frag and 2 LPS frags.
Last summer I switched from 8bulb t5 to pacific sun triton led's.
Over the last 8-9 months all my corals died aloe deaths. I thought I narrowed down the issue to an out of calibration sea water refractometer, but I'm not so sure now. I have had my salinity corrected and stable for several months, but I still can't keep corals alive. Right now my Duncan Colonies are in polyp bail out mode dropping 1-2 a week. Sps frags look good for a few days or a week then slowly die off. LPS frag, 1 torch frag, was doing good, now it's slowly shrinking.
My only clue that something is right is that my gigantea looks fantastic, huge always open, hairy as can be for a brown/green variety.
I just did full tests:
Alk- 8.7 Hannah
Cal 450 salif
Mag 1500 salif
Phos .11 Hanna
Nit 10ppm salif
Salinity 35ppt
Ph 8.0-8.5

I run gfo, and use rodi water. I use esv salt and esv 2 part w dosers.
I also employ a DIY ATS off my return with marginal success. I get so-so growth on the screen, but nothing in he display..
No nuisance hair algae, Little cyano on one spot of sand.

I'm clueless...
Pics w iPhone under led

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You sure there are no exposed metal parts in the water anywhere?

The phosphate may be a bit high, but others can grow corals at even higher levels.

Do you use GAC or skim? Perhaps the gigantea is releasing substances that are irritating the corals. I have a big gigantea and don't apparently have this issue, but I do use GAC and skim.

 

[jscarlata]

Please help, can't keep corals alive

Interesting thought, thanks randy, I haven't considered that. offhand, I cant think of anything that I might have done to put metal somewhere. It's highly possible I did something stupid somewhere, so I need to look when I get home later.
Is there a commonly available aquarium test I can run to tell me if this is it?
I recently got two pest fish out, a coral nipping coral beauty and a snail eating mystery wrasse. Notice the green sps
Frag, it's tips were eaten by the angel, the rest of it looks ok, with polyps out.
I often thought something was attacking the coral. I used to run both gac and gfo at the same time, now i sometimes will put gac on for a few days in between gfo changes, perhaps I should go back to a dual setup and run both simultaneously, maybe the gig is doing somethig. It's huge, for reference this is a 90g.
One last thought. I can't figure out why my ph is so high, my alk dose is only about 5-10 seconds/drops per hour.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Is there a commonly available aquarium test I can run to tell me if this is it?

Not a test kit, but using a polyfilter for a few days and seeing if it turns bluish may be useful both for copper removal and as a diagnostic.

 

[jscarlata]

i looked through everything and could not find any stray metal. The only thing i had in the display (removed) that might have been an issue is a piranha float glass cleaner...otherwise, i found nothing else. i put a separate GFOP reactor online tonight, we'll see what happens. The green SPS frag, even though the tips were eaten, it seems like there is still life there. right now, lights off, and during feeding, i see this filamentous tissue streaming from all the tips, like the messentenial filaments on millis only much thinner, they go away after feeding is over or lights on...
i was thinking my ph or alk were issues, but they are pretty stable according to my testing, alk is almost always 8.5-8.7, i test at random times, before and after dosing.
ph graphs show the swing to be from
8.26-8.54

 

[Linkblaze]

Sounds like your problems started when you switched lighting, no?

Edit: On followup, I see Gigantea does well under very strong lighting conditions. It's doing quite well way down at the bottom of your tank. Perhaps you've got the LED's cranked too high?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I don't see any problems with the reported chemistry values.

 

[jscarlata]

Please help, can't keep corals alive

Sounds like your problems started when you switched lighting, no?

Edit: On followup, I see Gigantea does well under very strong lighting conditions. It's doing quite well way down at the bottom of your tank. Perhaps you've got the LED's cranked too high?

Fixture is at 85pct. I will try lowering it 10pct, this seems more hostile than just bleaching, but I don't know. If the light was too strong would Duncan polyps bailout?

I guess having the magnet cleaner in the tank isn't an issue? A piranha float...

My gac reactor was leaking so I had to shut jt down. Will investigate and fix tonight...

Thanks all, any other ideas please chime in..

 

[Linkblaze]

It seems from the specs that's a really strong light. The LPS and zoas can't be loving that much light. Might be a lot even for that SPS. I don't own an LED system, so see what others are running, but I thought I saw most people run their LED's somewhere between 35% and 60% power? Again, I'm far from an expert but that seems like way, way too much light.

 

[jscarlata]

Ok, thanks link...two votes for the light...I truly hope it's that simple...
Thing is, don't want to upset the nem , it's so happy...