Please Help me figure this out...keep losing corals

[jscarlata]

I haven't had luck with corals in a while, over a year, basically since i changed lights, T5 - LED. I've been trying different frags periodically with basically the same results, they look great on days 1-5 decent polyp extension on day 1 for transplants, but then they STN/RTN starting around week 2.
the last test was 3 sps frags, 2 millies and one acro bought July 2 , one millie starting shedding skin yesterday AM, this AM it was totally white, no flesh left. but on July 2-8 it looked really good, decent PE, messential fillaments came out at feeding time. i dont see any pests, but its totallt dead now, and hte other 2 show no PE at all.
when i had T5's, i could put brown corals in my tank and in a month have nice color, so i know the husbandry to a decent extent, no master by any means but im not a newbie either. I am stumped. Could it be too much UV, too much of one spectrum? too much all around power?
Alk? cal? i dont know what to do..being that my fresh salt water mixes with the alk closer to 10, should my alk be running that high in the display?


My parameters have been stable for many months, and i just did a full battery of tests:

Nitrate - 10 - Salifert
Phospate - .11 Hannah
Alk - 9 - hannah
Calcium - 490 Salifert
MAg - 1410 - Salifert
Salt - 35ppt

I also tested the alk of fresh water change water, and it was quite a bit higher at about 10.2. i use ESV salt and dosing products. I have 2 dosers running for alk and cal but very little dosing due to no corals.

i run a weak ATS off a secondary 3/4" return, it does ok.
I run 2 BRS reactors, 1 for Rox carbon the other for GFO.
i run a filter sock as well.

I have no algae problems in the display
I have a large gigantea that is doing very well despite the LED's.
all fish are healthy, clowns spawn regularly.

lights are pac sun triton S. 145w each, 2 pendants. right now at 50% total power and quite high off the water, one side is about 18" above surface the other (nem) is about 12" above surface. all channels are at 100% except amber and orange which are at 50%.

 

[jduck]

Nitrates and phosphates seem high. If it was too much light the corals would bleach. Do they rtn from tips or base?

 

[cal3v]

Is it rtn or stn from the base? Slow recession or sloughing of skin? What is your source water for your mixing? Your own RODI or store? How much GFO and carbon being ran?

 

[jscarlata]

All have been from the base up, most happen much slower than this past Millie. Most of the time it's a slow recession, this time it was overnight. With my lat few LPS, they would slowly shrink away till they were gone, my Duncan's all popped their tops off.
Source water is my own rodi, I recently changed the membrane as well as the carbon blocks.
I don't have an exact
Amt of carbon or gfo but suffice to sat it's no lore than 2-3" Of media in each.

I have a zoa frag that's been doing fine for about 8-9 weeks.

 

[Softhammer]

I have seen quite a few people new to LEDs kill all their coral because they are running them too low. The manufacturers make these claims to their power making everyone nervous about bleaching so they give too little light to their tank. I have been running LEDs for almost 6 years to no ill effect whatsoever. My advice would be don't go crazy chasing water parameters and crank up the lights. Another issue with LEDs is that you can tweak the spectrum of light so the corals colors look awesome while providing no useful light for the coral to thrive. Take it easy with the all blue spectrums and run that thing full out and try another frag.

 

[CHSUB]

i have run po4 at .11 and higher without problems. however, when no3 gets 5 ppm and higher i see problems with sps's.

 

[brad65ford]

hows your Coraline algae growing? Usually this is a great sign if it ain't growing nor will your sps's

 

[jackson6745]

I have seen quite a few people new to LEDs kill all their coral because they are running them too low. The manufacturers make these claims to their power making everyone nervous about bleaching so they give too little light to their tank. I have been running LEDs for almost 6 years to no ill effect whatsoever. My advice would be don't go crazy chasing water parameters and crank up the lights. Another issue with LEDs is that you can tweak the spectrum of light so the corals colors look awesome while providing no useful light for the coral to thrive. Take it easy with the all blue spectrums and run that thing full out and try another frag.

I have seen a few established tank able to run certain popular LED fixtures at 100% with good looking corals. This isn't true for most of less established reefs out there.

 

[jscarlata]

hows your Coraline algae growing? Usually this is a great sign if it ain't growing nor will your sps's

This is interesting...my coralline isn't growing...is this light related or chemistry? is alk low at 9..

As
For light power, I had done the conversion with a slow gradual progression in power all the way to 100% where eventually things started going bad. I'm. Not going to go up in power yet but I can try changing spectrum. The tank is not blue those are iPhone pics..

I was shocked at the nitrate number,
Going to retest. I figure w that high I'd halve
A lot of algae but I have almost none..

Thanks for the input so far

 

[rudyretama]

i also would suspect the LEDs. Get your hands on a PAR meter and you will see that because LEDs are optics, they are focused light, yet they have very low par values when compared to T5. simply not enough intensity for most sps.

 

[Nano sapiens]

i also would suspect the LEDs. Get your hands on a PAR meter and you will see that because LEDs are optics, they are focused light, yet they have very low par values when compared to T5. simply not enough intensity for most sps.

Please rethink this statement. Saying that LEDs do not have enough light intensity to keep SPS is just not true as evidenced by the hundreds of SPS dominated tank posts running LEDs only. The reality is that many aquarists do not understand that comparing PAR between completely different lighting systems is a very rough guide, at best, and as a result they fry their corals when switching over. Comparing between LED setups can be a bit more accurate, but not always.

PUR is what is important and drives photosynthesis. A typical LED fixture is high in PUR due to lots of 'blue' (photosynthetic peaks at ~430nm and ~465nm), but lower in PAR than T5s and MH since there's typically not as much green/yellow/orange/red spectra. It should be noted that peaks in the 'red' range also drive photosynthesis, but are relatively weakly represented in most reef lighting.

If you do a search of PAR values for different Acro species under different lighting you'll find something like "My Red Planet Acro does well with similar coloration at 220 PAR under LEDs whereas I had it under 350 with T5s before". Gives an idea of how different PAR can be for different lighting, yet the coral is behaving in a similar way since PUR in this example would be similar.

The Pacific Sun Triton S has 9 channels and uses no 'white' LEDs (WW, NW or CW). There's an amazing amount of customization and control available, but that can also be a challenge since one needs to know the channel intensity settings to achieve the total spectrum that one is trying to emulate. MH and T5s are much easier since the variables are much reduced (basically tried and true bulb selections plus how high to position the fixture).

 

[brad65ford]

This is interesting...my coralline isn't growing...is this light related or chemistry? is alk low at 9..

As
For light power, I had done the conversion with a slow gradual progression in power all the way to 100% where eventually things started going bad. I'm. Not going to go up in power yet but I can try changing spectrum. The tank is not blue those are iPhone pics..

I was shocked at the nitrate number,
Going to retest. I figure w that high I'd halve
A lot of algae but I have almost none..

Thanks for the input so far

Its just a timing thing, when all is going right and happy then coralline is normally growing. Been down this road over and over when setting up new tanks, always waiting for the first purple spot to appear on the rocks or glass or plastics. Dry rock is the worst if you don't like waiting to cycle. Again this has been my experience.

How old is your setup, and do you have dry rock?

 

[jscarlata]

It's several years old, all the rock is old now...only major change was going from t5 to led. Ever since then I can't seem to get back on track.

 

[brad65ford]

though leds are tricky for sure, mybe there is something else a miss. If all was doing well before with the T5's can you go back to them to see if its the led's?

 

[DV2027]

How stable is your ph? I had this exact same problem until I discovered my liter meter was overdosing kalk at night. I finally started testing and found it was all over the board for numbers. Once I stopped the doser and did several water changes over a few months everything stabilized.

 

[cal3v]

I wouldn't worry about the nitrate, although phosphate is a little high. What is your TDS after the DI on your RO? Reason I ask is because I was having STN problems a few months ago and the only thing I could trace it back to was not changing the DI often enough on my RO water maker.

 

[Reefer54]

I would gues alk swings. do you dose, topoff, or rely on water changes.....alk swings will demolish sps and lps if varied enough.

also, if you can keep your ph just a little lower, bio pellets will really help with the nitrate phosphate issue....but be careful, start at a quarter to half the reccomended dose or you will shock everything....if you go that route.

 

[krzyphsygy]

Nitrates are IMO not the issue. I have seen a great full blown sps tank with 25 ppm nitrates with no issues and tons of growth.

Your params to an extent seem fine and not the problem. I would look for something else. check equipment for problems. Copper maybe, something leaching in to the tank or from the water supply. RTN and STN in sps usually caused by swings in alk. But the heads popping off Duncans seems extreme.
Look closely at equipment your using: Bins, cans, buckets, rock, heater, pumps ect. Any copper fittings being used anywhere.....its something IMO but I don't think its the LEDS.

 

[Reefer54]

I keep multiple sps under kessil a150w leds. i bet you have alk swings....test repeatedly, especially overnite if that is when your corals seem to be rtn'ing.

 

[jscarlata]

wow, great traffic on this so far, i just caught up reading through all the suggestions.
I believe that the issue is alk as well. i decided to turn off my dosing pumps (there's no coral in the tank other than the 2 frags, just fish and gigantea, so why am i dosing???), and do some water changes while keeping track of my alk and calcium over the next few weeks till i can see a baseline of mag, cal and alk and once again try to reset the core 3 params.
i wish i knew someone local to me that had the meters i could use to measure that par/pur levels...