sporadic RTN and STN poping up

[NVfishman]

I have a 750 gallon system having huge issues with acros Rtning and stn.

I added more carbon have ozone turned up and doing 55 gallon water changes every week. aquadelight been was growing nice poof 2 days entire colony gone. Toxic tort nice colony white death creaping up just chopped it. I have a 5 gallon bucket full of dead acros pretty sad. Tank is still full though. Just chopped everything that had white death on it. Most starting at base and moving up. Alk 8.5 good calicum 460 good. gonna check again tonight.

What would u do? I already asked the local expert and said to cut stuff and leave it alone.

will try to get pics up. I had a good size milli colony start to rtn in the middle of a branch took 50% of colony out in a night.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I'm going to hit you with a barage of questions to narrow down possibilities. What is your temp and salinity at? What's your alkalinity, magnesium, phosphate and nitrate levels?

How old is your tank? What type of lighting do you have?

Do you monitor any changes of your parameters throughout the day? Temperature swing as well as alkalinity will cause an unstable environment for your corals and possibly cause what you discribe.

If you have changed anything lately note that as well.

 

[NyReefNoob]

check alk

 

[Dog boy Dave]

Check the quality of your makeup water. The loss of tissue slowly from the bottom of a coral is often the result of chronic stress. Look at a long term water quality issue or makeup water issue.

 

[NVfishman]

loss of tissue on some is at the bottom some are green and some are white
alk was at 8 last night
calcium was low at 360
will check the rest of the stuff tonight

 

[sanchoy]

well i can tell you right now your alk/calc parameters are low.

I usually shoot for 10 on alk (in case it reads lower 8-10 range is perfect, sps likes a little higher alk for me).

Calc is definetly low..

Mag will be one of the key players here as well. make sure you test it.

Take water sample to LFS have them check to confirm results.

 

[NVfishman]

I always think its alk but it is usaully around 8-9alk
Re checked

temp 80-80.5 daily
alk 9.5 added over 24+ hour period
cal 400 added over 24+ hour period
ph 8.4 or higher hard to tell with api test kit
salinity .25
nitrates 0
phoshpates 0

tank is 3 year old changed to radium bulbs 3 months ago from 10k xms
No drastic changes of temp as I have a large water volume and stays pretty consistent

Tonight just changed calcium reactor media
tommorow will do 55 gallon water change

 

[JSeymour]

What test kits are you using for nitrate and phosphate? Are they expired/calibrated? Your corals look pretty browned out, especially for being under radiums with no detectable nutrients. Also the brown film algae growing says you have phosphates, IMO. Check your kits.

Although your calcium and alkalinity are lower that what most people keep their tanks at, your still within exceptable ranges, as long as they are stable.

 

[smokenax]

+on magnesium sounds like your all and ca are out of balance
also low nutrients could cause this they are probably starving.

 

[timmytank]

I would say the issues are chemical as above ..Alk , cal , mag. Are you feeding because i cant see many fish . This will cause stn and rtn and with unstable or low params can sometimes brown corals sps out. What are you using to measure salinity? What are you using to keep your levels up...balling or a reactor.

 

[ostrow]

You didn't use Interceptor of late did you? Just curious, because a couple of pieces of mine looked similar to what you describe and it was AEFW post-Interceptor. Sigh.

 

[Moser]

Dip them and look for flatworms...

Mo

 

[mil hse]

Had the same problem, couldn't see any signs of pest, all my par was good...then I looked closer at the under stide of the bases and found arco flat worms. Good luck

 

[rc4kinu]

I would check your magnesium levels from the looks of your bleached calc algae. Had a similar situation last year, low mag but high alk/calc. Calc algae bleached out and somehow frags started to stn/rtn. Lost big 3yr old colony also and the healthy ones stopped growing altogher. If low bring it to at least 1300 to keep everthing else in check. Somehow, my tank uses mag faster than everything else.

 

[NVfishman]

Thanks guys


will check mag
taking water to lfs tommorow

no interceptor for at least a year used

I have mild flat worms on some pieces but dipped these and shook nothing came off
Fried at least 100 frags in double strength revive for 10 min lost 1/2 of them
Didnt find any worms figured i would find some but nothing.

Some corals are dertorating to fast to be aefw in my opinion and it is all over the tank


Pics of tank are old with 10 k xm buls that is why it looks white my corals have alwys looked alittle brown

 

[reefkeeper2]

I have had this happen to me on more than one occasion and discovering what the problem is has been one of the most difficult reef mysteries I have had to deal with. What I have recently come up with is overuse of carbon. I always used Rox. But I noticed a pattern where 3 days after changing out the carbon I would have an stn event on some of my sps. This would happen with various degrees of severity over and over. So I switched to a less aggressive bitumous carbon. So far so good. It has only been a few weeks so I can't say problem solved but I'm hopeful.

 

[Gangous]

Check closely for aefw when I have sps rtn u could blow tissue off them with a turkey Baster that does not look like the case with ur pics seems like the non white parts r still healthy making me thing those flatt worms r going to town

 

[NVfishman]

Changed out calcium reactor media and I must not have set it bubble counter right
Alk was at 6.5 calcium was at 320

I have been dosing since yesterday and tryig to get calcium reactor working right. hoping thsi is the problem but will check level tommorow and corals as well for more rtn

 

[NVfishman]

checked alk and calcium last night now im at

alk 11 1/2
calcium 420

hope fluctuations like this dont kill stuff

 

[Reef_Matrix29]

The alk seems pretty high, is it normally kept at that level in your tank?