SPS Coral bleaching from bottom - STN ?

[roiy]

Hi all,

Some tank details - Total 500L of water (150 * 60 *60 cm).
The tank was transferred from a living one and has been up for 5 and a half months now (since may).
It is a SPS based reef with 20 different SPS corals - Monti's and acropora from different sp.
Most of the corals are looking fine and almost all of them are showing growth signs.
The problem is that some corals - blue montipora digi \ some acropora sp. are loosing some of the tissue of the coral starting from the bottom. the progress of the skin getting dead is slow and it is very hard to see its progress but it seems like to be consistent :sad2:
I am using Fauna marine system for nutrient control - zeolith , ultra bak , ultra min s for 8 months now.
ALL of my water parameters are monitored weekly and the current data is:

temp - 26c
salinity - 1.028
ph - 8.5
kh - 9
ca - 420
po4 - 0.001
no3 - 3

All the additives are added daily including 3 solutions - CA , MG , Sodium B Carbonate. the data is constant and has been since the aquarium has been set up.
lightning is :

2 * 250 W 10,000K + 4 * 54W actinic T5

Skimmer - Deltec APF600

Water movement - 2 * Koralia 10,500 l\h
1 * sunsun 12,000
1 * Aquarium Systems NeWave 6700 l\h
Return pump - tutton 4800 l\h

Total of water movement - 40,000 L\H (without the return pump).

I have read some posts on the subject but didn't find conclusive actions to be taken or certain steps to take\avoid.

any assistance will be greatly appreciated :reading:

 

[FishTruck]

I have gone through this and am still going through it. Consider getting the questionable corals out of there. I had a few frags do this... I just kind of watched and tinkered and hoped they would recover. I ended up losing all of my acros about six weeks later. I wish I would have just pulled and isolated or discarded all questionable corals right from the beginning.

Check for AEFW and redbugs.

Make sure your RO/DI water is O ppm.
Make sure your refractometer is calibrated correctly.
Make sure your test kits are not expired.
Make sure there are no nearby mucous producers, sweepers, nearby.

Hopefully, you will have better luck than me!

 

[obiwanthegoby]

Check your refractometer, with your water at 1.028 if its reading a little low... you could have salinity too high.

Otherwise I would do as fishtruck suggested and start QTing. RTN hasnt quite been understood yet. If it is bacterial or viral.... it could spread. Ive treated several frags in the past with a strong Iodine dip and then let them sit in revive,... Had some good luck and some bad...I think that is part of the hobby though....

Good luck to you..

Obi

 

[roiy]

I have gone through this and am still going through it. Consider getting the questionable corals out of there. I had a few frags do this... I just kind of watched and tinkered and hoped they would recover. I ended up losing all of my acros about six weeks later. I wish I would have just pulled and isolated or discarded all questionable corals right from the beginning.

Check for AEFW and redbugs.

Make sure your RO/DI water is O ppm.
Make sure your refractometer is calibrated correctly.
Make sure your test kits are not expired.
Make sure there are no nearby mucous producers, sweepers, nearby.

Hopefully, you will have better luck than me!

How long are you experiencing the STN on you're corals ? strating from bottom ? which kind of SPS ?
Did you loose all of you're SPS or just the ones you had STN'ing ?
Anything you found out about the chemistry of you're water that was wrong on that period ?

My RO\DI system is taking out 0-2 ppm water.
The reflectometer has been tested good and accurate.
Test kits - all good salifert test kits.

Make sure there are no nearby mucous producers, sweepers, nearby

what do you mean by that ?

I am using Fauna's 1-2-3 additives - Could STN be caused by a shortage of some trace elements ? overdosing one of the elements ?

Other assumptions ? Anyone else experienced this thing ? any other treatment someone used on his tank ?

thanks,

Roiy

 

[obiwanthegoby]

LPS, And softies. Softies produce mucous and they use allelopathy to ward off competetion. LPS use mucous and sweeper tentacles to sting, and kill encroaching tank mates. The sweepers on some coral can reach 6 -8", galaxia ive witnessed first hand at killing things you would think were well out of reach....

Obi

 

[roiy]

LPS, And softies. Softies produce mucous and they use allelopathy to ward off competetion. LPS use mucous and sweeper tentacles to sting, and kill encroaching tank mates. The sweepers on some coral can reach 6 -8", galaxia ive witnessed first hand at killing things you would think were well out of reach....

Obi

thanks for the explanation i didnt understand the meaning

actually - except one LPS scolymia i have no other in my system, only SPS.

 

[roiy]

I am using Fauna's 1-2-3 additives - Could STN be caused by a shortage of some trace elements ? overdosing one of the elements ?

Other assumptions ? Anyone else experienced this thing ? any other treatment someone used on his tank ?

thanks,

Roiy

 

[FishTruck]

I will tell you the whole story.

The event that I had occurred last January. I had about 20 colonies of various acroprora, mixed in with lots of LPS, clams, some montipora caps. One day, I noted some STN from the bottom up on one 5 inch table. It was very slow, and I figured I would just wait and see what happened. Everything else seemed fine... so I did some cursory tests which were o.k... and then just forgot about it. I pulled it out when it was about 75 % bleached. Meanwhile, I noted one or two other little tiny frags doing the same thing.

Then another, then another, then another. Various species of acros at first with initial sparing of montis, birdsnests, and some others.

Fast forward one month, now my biggest and best colonies are showing subtle blanching at the bases. Two weeks later, I am panic fragging, dipping in Iodine, setting up QT, but ultimately, lost 100% of all acros.

Also, I had a birdsnest expire and finally a couple of montiporas bleached and went down as a cyano outbreak occurred at the end of the major die off. My clams, fish, LPS all did fine. I put NO new SPS in the tank for about thre months.

Going over my tank... I found three things.

1. my effluent in my reactor was going up and down. I was using an aquacontroller to hold the pH steady... so the amount of "ALK" my reactor was putting in tank could vary wildly from one day to the next. So, I think there may have been some ALK swings, but, I never really caught or measured them. I have fixed that problem.

2. my RO unit was putting out 35 ppm water, which was chewing up my DI, and I was running topoff water that was 35 ppm into my tank for a period of time.

3. I thought my refractometer was calibrated properly (using RO/DI water), but, when I used calibration solution... found that I was off. What I thought was 1.024 in my tank was actually 1.021.

So, I am still scratching my head over the whole thing. The major regret I have is not pulling out that one colony that seemed to herald the whole event.

Now, 8 months later, I put in an established deep water acro from my LFS. It had nice shaggy polyps. I matched the placement in my tank with a light meter, optimized flow. It was great for three days, then pulled in the polyps, and died three weeks later.. STN again.

Pulling my hair out now, I rebuilt my RO unit again... (zero ppm from RO now... even before it gets to DI), did massive water changes, and ran a polyfilter.

I have five acro frags in the tank which are alive after five days with polyps extended nicely on three of them. This is probably my last try with acros in this tank.

 

[roiy]

Fish-Truck thanks for the detailed info :thumbsup:
In my case - I got a 5 cm blue millopora frag 5 months ago and grew it since than.
when i glued it to the rock i could see a few mm of dead tissue after some time.

29.05.2009

8.8.2009

10.10.2009

now 3 weeks after i can see that the white space has grown 1 cm more.

any other ideas will be great.

thanks for the help all :wave:

 

[FishTruck]

You have nice coralline in your tank... I think that's a good sign as far as your Mg, Alk, and Ca management.

I am not sure I can see the tissue loss at the base. Nice coral.

Do you have a tank you can put it into quarantine? Try dipping it in Revive and see if any flatworms fall off? Look for eggs on the base, or red bugs with magnification?

If your priority is to save the rest of the tank, I would get it out of there. The downside is that tinkering with that milli could make it worse.

 

[roiy]

Could STN be caused by a shortage of some trace elements ? overdosing one of the elements ?

Other assumptions ? Anyone else experienced this thing ? any other treatment someone used on his tank ?

thanks,

Roiy

 

[roiy]

:sad1:

 

[ump]

hey i had the same thing happen to me not to long ago it started at one then moved to more of them i had to frag all of them no dips worked but i added about 3000gph more flow to my tank and it all seemed to stop now i have about 5000 gph of random flow in my 75 and everyhing is doing fine for now.

 

[roiy]

hey i had the same thing happen to me not to long ago it started at one then moved to more of them i had to frag all of them no dips worked but i added about 3000gph more flow to my tank and it all seemed to stop now i have about 5000 gph of random flow in my 75 and everyhing is doing fine for now.

I have a total of 40,000 L\H streams running in the tank over 500L water in tank. X 8 times the tank. I dont think its a flow thing though i read some other people implying this could be it.
Yesterday I took out the blue milli - looked (eyes only) on the base and all overe the coral. Couldn't see any parasite or something unusual, Broke the coral into 2 pieces and put one piece back more or less same place the coral was before and the second piece was putted on the other side of the tank - High streams and high lightning. Second milli part was putted in a medium stream area with high lightning.

I have a third piece ( small one maybe 3 cm) which i will try to deliver to a friend so he can try and raise the frag over in his tank.

I really hope some part of the coral will survive.

any other ideas someone can come up with ?

guys, 3 people answered this post :sad2: WHERE ARE ALL the SPS people ?
No one else encountered this problem before ?

thanks,

Roiy

 

[firsthesitation]

Actually I'm having the EXACT same problem. I've been riddled scratching my head for the last 2 months or so. All my tests are coming out fine but my salinity was a little high (1.030). I'm slowly dropping it back to 1.025 with fresh water changes. I'm also using RODI but mine comes in around 2ppm. I thought maybe bulbs, my 250 halides are about 10 months old now just doesnt seem consistent with where the pieces are that are receeding. And my bubble king its pulling out nasty stuff as usual, running carbon and phosban and thats all been changed monthly as part of my maintenance schedule. I do about a 10 gallon water change once a week on mine. For a while there I was doing 20 gallons a week to try and re-establish my base elements again as my tank has been up for a while, it doesnt appear that helped at all cept burn through some salt.

I'm starting to loose some of my ORA's now so I'm really hoping this is something easy we're overlooking.

 

[roiy]

Actually I'm having the EXACT same problem. I've been riddled scratching my head for the last 2 months or so. All my tests are coming out fine but my salinity was a little high (1.030). I'm slowly dropping it back to 1.025 with fresh water changes. I'm also using RODI but mine comes in around 2ppm. I thought maybe bulbs, my 250 halides are about 10 months old now just doesnt seem consistent with where the pieces are that are receeding. And my bubble king its pulling out nasty stuff as usual, running carbon and phosban and thats all been changed monthly as part of my maintenance schedule. I do about a 10 gallon water change once a week on mine. For a while there I was doing 20 gallons a week to try and re-establish my base elements again as my tank has been up for a while, it doesnt appear that helped at all cept burn through some salt.

I'm starting to loose some of my ORA's now so I'm really hoping this is something easy we're overlooking.

Thanks for sharing you're info firsthesitation :thumbsup:

I do a weekly 10% water change with reef crystals salt at 1.027
My bulbs are 5.5 months old but i am thinking of replacing them to new ones to see if it can bee the cause for the problem though i doubt it.
firsthesitation - Have you tried looking at the base of one of the bad corals ? have you seen any parasite over there ? As i wrote before there where no parasite i could see with my eyes only on the milli coral so my guess is that its not a parasite thingy.

In this case - my guess is that it might be a case of overdosing \ missing some micro\macro element In this case i am not sure that regular 10% water changes can do the difference or help the problem.

Any ideas ?

:worried: :reading:

 

[eon]

actually the exact same thing has been happening to my tank everything was doing fine and all of a sudden all the sps went downhill and i started seeing RTN followed by STN unfortunately i had a mishap yesterday with some revive that wiped out about 95% of my SPS but i plan on getting some new ones in a couple months so i really would love to know what the cause of this is

 

[firsthesitation]

I too am using Reef Crystals. I've taken a few of them out and looked them over quite throughly with no evidence of any bugs or anything really abnormal. I'm just so confused why corals RIGHT next to the ones receeding are doing great....?

It shouldnt be a dosing issue, if our dKh and Ca are right....the one thing I didnt test for recently was Mg, but technically dKh and Ca would be out of wack.

 

[firsthesitation]

Oh forgot to add, I did another fresh water change last night so I should be getting back to closer to 1.026 for salinity so hopefully I'll know relatively shortly if that was it or not. I also have new bulbs on the way too T5's and Halides. Thinking about doing 15k XM's this time anyways but now I'm wondering if I should stay with the 14k's

 

[roiy]

firsthesitation - which kind of SPS are giving you the hard time ?
Do you have millopora's in you're tank ? If you do where are they (height \ light) ?