Seeking Advice - SPS in decline

[JVJordan]

Greetings.

Some of my SPS are showing slow tissue recession while others are doing great and showing good PE and growth.

Specifically, my green plating cap and birdsnest (green and purple I believe) are both doing poorly. My orange encrusting something-or-other is showing the first signs of whatever struck the green plating cap.

The birdsnest (3 seperate mini colonies/frags) is showing loss of tissue from the base toward the tips, traveling at a rate of 1/4 to 1/2 centimeter/day.

The green plating cap browned out substantially, then began losing tissue from the edges inward. The orange encrusting something-or-other has also begun to brown some, and has shown the first tissue loss in the past 2 days.

All other SPS & misc soft/lps corals are doing fine.

Pictures (sorry for the bad photos, its the best I can do with our point and shoot camera):

Birdsnest with white base, some cyano on right side

Healthier green cap
<a href="http://s1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff365/johndoe076/240%20Gal%20Aquarium/?action=view&current=IMG_9018.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1232.photobucket.com/albums/ff365/johndoe076/240%20Gal%20Aquarium/IMG_9018.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Sickly green cap

Orange encrusting coral with start of problem shown by green cap (top center and right hand edge)

Some relevant info:

Temp 78-81 F
SG 35 PPT (IO Salt)
CA 400 PPM (dosing 2 part)
Alk 9 DKH (dosing 2 part)
Lighting 3x radium 250 watt (older bulbs) plus vho actinics on a std 240 gal tank
flow 3x tunze 6101 with controller
skimmer Orca 200
refugium with chaeto and live rock on Reverse daylight cycle
GFO & Carbon media reactor, changed about every 6-8 weeks

Bioload - 3 tangs, 1 angelfish, 2 dwarf angels, foxface, and numerous smaller fish, plus an anemone, some ricordea, a lot of sinularia leather, frogspawn, torch coral, and numerous smaller SPS mini colonies or frags. I feed about a half sheet of nori a day plus a pinch of flake or pellets. I feed frozen about once a week.

I haven't tested phosphate in a few weeks but last check it was ~.12 PPM.
I haven't checked nitrate in some time.

Lastly, I am having significant cyano appear on the bottom of the tank and where tissue loss occurs.


In the past few days I've siphoned the bottom of the tank of any detritus, cleaned out the sump/refugium including harvesting chaeto, changed out the carbon/GFO, and am preparing a 15% water change. I suspect the problem is too high of N or P but am open to suggestions.


Thanks!

 

[tmb22]

I would say lower that phosphate to 0.05 or so. What are you using to measure salinity? If you don't already have a refractometer, you should get one. If you have one, make sure to calibrate it with refractometer fluid (not RO water) and test salinity again. It seems to me like your salinity may be too high. Good luck!

 

[akaimal]

I have seen this effect
With high salinity..

 

[JVJordan]

Thanks for the feedback.

It is very possible that the 2 part dosing has driven up the salinity. I do have a refractometer but have never calibrated it. I ordered calibration solution last night and will see how it goes. In the meantime I'll make the water change H2O with lower salinity.

 

[stevedola]

2 part raising sg? ive never heard of that.

how about taking the water to be tested at a LFS. have them check the sg,alk,mag,calc,no3,po4. see what they say. atleast you can see how much your refractometer is off and adjust in the mean time until the solution arrives.

It looks to me like a high nutrient problem but if youre sg was super high then it wouldnt help. do your water changes and keep it up. I would honestly do a regiment of changes every couple of days. make sure if youre doing larger waterchanges to match the calc/alk/sg and temp to now stress your system even further.

 

[Amphiprion]

You get dissolved NaCl from the sodium in sodium bicarbonate/carbonate and chloride from calcium chloride. That's what geadually raises salinity in 2 part solutions.

 

[stevedola]

at what amount of dose would you see a significant raise in sg?

 

[Amphiprion]

It will depend on how often salinity is monitored and adjusted, as well as water change schedule. I'm not sure how large a dose would have to be in the absence of water changes to raise salinity to any significant extent.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Your Calcium is a bit low to keep SPS corals. It needs to be around 450 or so. You lights may also be the issue as I remember you staying they were older. How old are they?

 

[rogerwilco357]

i had these issues with low ph and with high phosphates

 

[rburns24]

Double or triple check you alkalinity and salinity. I had issues with both and once I started to get them where they should be, things improved. 400 CA might be a bit low, but it is not a cause of your problem. Hope this helps.

 

[JVJordan]

I've done a 15% water change, swapped out for fresh GFO & Carbon, and diluted the tank water some by replacing salt water with RO via the ATO.

Decline of the affected SPS is slow, but appears to continue.


Now I found new damage to a frogspawn colony shown here:

Note the white skeleton where the purple flesh simply peeled away. The flesh previously attached to the skeleton is just about flapping in the water currents. Any idea what might cause this?

 

[Bcamp]

You get this figured out?

 

[JVJordan]

Funny I see this thread when I randomly decided to read the SPS forum.

Yes it is a lot better now, though I can't be sure what the problem was. I checked my refractometer with calibration fluid and it was spot on, so my salinity was 35ppt as I thought.

It is possible the ionic balance was off due to dosing 2 part.

In any case, I did everything that had a very low chance of being the wrong course - 3x 13% water changes, about a 5% drop in salinity, swapped out for fresh carbon & GFO, cleaned the skimmer & powerheads, and harvested chaeto.

The most dramatic recoveries were some of the pieces shown above. The birdsnest regained all of its tissue and is growing new tips. The browned and dying green cap has regained its color and new growing rims formed at the edges of the live tissue.

That said, the purple rims of the green cap have never quite turned purple, but rather remain a light blue. Previously they went from purple to blue to white to death.

 

[JVJordan]

Just an update for anyone who may have the same problems some day. The green monti cap with the purple/blue edges is now a green monti cap with white edges. It is definitely the same symptoms as before, albiet at a less developed state.


I did another 13% WC and will see where it goes. I'd really like to isolate the problem instead of doing WC's.


EDIT: Continuing forum search leads me to this:


http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1729398&highlight=montipora+potassium

See post #13 & 14. That describes the problem I've been having.

 

[JVJordan]

Sorry for the thread necro, but this problem is still very much an issue in my tank...

Generally I feel my tank is pretty healthy. If the Acros or Millies are any guide, everything should be doing fine. Here are some tank photos:

 

[JVJordan]

However, I have recently lost two largish birdsnest colonies, and am now in the process of losing the same orange pavona pictured above along with a few colonies and frags of sunset montipora, purple haze montipora, and chilli pepper montipora. My true undata montipora has lost all of its color and I fear may be next (I lost a previous undata the same way, about the same time I started this thread).

The losses are occuring over the course of months, very slowly.

The Pavona started by losing tissue around its edge, basically just fading away and then becoming a substrate for algae. It has gone from a 6 inch diameter colony to near total loss over the course of 3 months. Here is a photo of it now.



The montipora colonies and frags similarly fade away, but generally on the whole piece at once. The colonization of algae is very much delayed, with the piece appearing nearly dead for weeks before finally giving way. Oddly, the same system has a large and health colony of sunset montipora, and several smaller frags of the same in different states.

Healthy Sunset Montipora:



Dying Sunset Montipora (fragged about a month ago because it wasn't looking good, its only gotten worse):



Dying Chilli Pepper Monti (2 equal sized colonies on their way out):



Browned out True Undata:



No photos of the birdsnest, but they looked similar to that earlier in the thread. They died off from the base up, over the course of 3-4 months.

 

[JVJordan]

Now about the system:

Tank is ~ 300 gallons, 4'x8'x15" deep. Build thread is here:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2415739

Main Tank Lighting: 2x 400 watt Aquamaxx MH (comprable to Radiums), plus 1x very old 250 watt Radium, plus 2x very old 160 watt UVL VHO Actinic T12 bulbs.
Main Tank Flow: 2x Vortech MP60 plus 1x Jebao RW20. These pumps run at about 50% capacity. Given the shape of the tank (shallow and broad) it is proving difficult to get good flow throughout without splashing water out of the tank.
Skimmer: Aquamaxx CONES CO-3
Ca/Alk: BRS 2 Part with dosing pumps
Mg: Manual Dosing
GFO & GAC via BRS reactor
Fuge with Chaeto lit 24/7 with a PAR30 form factor LED
Remote Deep Sand Bed (5 gal bucket)
Controller: Apex Jr
Heater, fan, & chiller for temp control - set points 76-81 F

Frag Tank: 40 Breeder
Frag Tank Lighting: 1x Maxpect Razor 16k
Frag Tank Flow: 1x MP10

Parameters:
Temp 76-81 (Digital Thermometer)
Salinity 35 PPT (Refractometer)
Ca+ ~ 410 PPM (Red Sea)
ALK ~ 7-8 DKH (Red Sea)
MG ~ 1350 PPM (Red Sea)
PO4 ~.07-.15 PPM (Hanna Checker)

 

[JVJordan]

Now the question... What is going on with these specific corals that is causing them to slowly die off when other sensitive species are thriving? This has been an ongoing, recurring problem for me, barely mitigated by water changes.

Candidates:

Low Mg+: I've read Montipora are sensitive to low Mg and will fade away or grey out. I've also read that the Red Sea test kit reads Mg higher than it really is. I manually dose it so I may not be keeping up with the demand indicated by my Ca/Alk use.

Low K+: I've read low K+ shows up in montipora as a faded coloration.

Excessive PAR: I recently built a new tank, upgraded lights, and re-aquascaped. Some corals are undoubtedly receiving more light than they used to. However, the problems I'm having predate the use of 400 watt bulbs.

High PO4: I know I consistently run with PO4 levels above the recommended 0.03 PPM. I find it challenging to get the levels down with such a large volume of water. Right now I am using BRS HC GFO recharged ~ monthly with Sodium Hydroxide solution.

Other???? I'm open to suggestions. :worried::worried2::sad1: Thanks for your feedback and ideas.

 

[JVJordan]

The Pavona and Chilli Pepper Monti are both nearly gone now... does anyone recognize what the problem might be?