SPS corals dieing, can you help me solve this multivariable problem?

[phenom5]

Honestly, I don't think this is a lighting issue at all. I'd keep the intensity of your lighting down for now, just to give your corals a break since they're obviously stressed.

Alk would be my vote. Get it stable, and go from there. If the recession continues, then look elsewhere.

Could the corals be starved? Maybe that's why they're lightening up, maybe the EcoBak pellets are working too well? I've found better colors with some NO3 in my tank. Not too much NO3, but some.

Mg is low, but I doubt this is causing these kinds of issues.
And FWIW, I get 3-5 degrees temp swings daily (depending on the time of year) without issue.

 

[StarF]

Hey, sorry dont want to start an argument or anything but VSV was designed to remove N along with P

close to how Zeovit works

of course, not pellets though ...

yes but, it removes n faster than p, so in some systems, the removal of p isent fast enough, and u would still need to use a po4 remover

as i said, it all depens on the bio load.

 

[StarF]

I've never been able to get a phosphate reading with my Salifert kit. I definitely have been wanting to get a Hanna photometer for phosphates for awhile, so this might move that purchase up the list a bit.

All the rocks in this tank have been in an established tank or kept wet for a full year before I set this tank up (they were shipped air freight in garbage bags with saltwater to keep them humid), and then the tank was running with rocks and sand only for two full months down here before I added my fish back in. It was then another month (we are now up to the beginning of September of this year) when I put my corals in. Everything really started going down hill in late November as my light intensity peaked and my alkalinity raised.

I was under the impression that biopellets did remove phosphates. In fact, Warner Marine advises against using GFO or other phosphate removers due to the fact that often phosphates are the limiting factor for bacterial growth. Since bacterial growth, incorporation of nitrates and phosphates, and subsequent removal of said bacteria by skimming was the entire principle of vodka/biopellet dosing this made a lot of sense to me.

usaly saliffers will show 0, and a hanna meter will shot 0,5.. they are really crappy (saliffers.. and most other) u really need a high precission test kit for that one.

and i said i had a similar problem, and my corals looked like yours, it was po4 that was the main isue..

but when youre at it, how about measuring silicates? how is your top off water?

 

[Taqpol]

Honestly, I don't think this is a lighting issue at all. I'd keep the intensity of your lighting down for now, just to give your corals a break since they're obviously stressed.

Alk would be my vote. Get it stable, and go from there. If the recession continues, then look elsewhere.

Could the corals be starved? Maybe that's why they're lightening up, maybe the EcoBak pellets are working too well? I've found better colors with some NO3 in my tank. Not too much NO3, but some.

Mg is low, but I doubt this is causing these kinds of issues.
And FWIW, I get 3-5 degrees temp swings daily (depending on the time of year) without issue.

I was wondering this myself as my biopellets were able to drop my nitrates from about 20ppm in the beginning of October (mini-cycle plus daily feedings of cyclopeeze to try and get some dang Anthias to eat) to 0ppm in two months. Some of the coral lightening was consistent with what I've seen on low nutrient dosing systems where the people did not add anything else.

I thought about dosing Amino Acids or just feeding more, but if my problem really is phosphates that will just exacerbate the problem...

usaly saliffers will show 0, and a hanna meter will shot 0,5.. they are really crappy (saliffers.. and most other) u really need a high precission test kit for that one.

and i said i had a similar problem, and my corals looked like yours, it was po4 that was the main isue..

but when youre at it, how about measuring silicates? how is your top off water?

I don't have a test for measuring silicates, but my top off water is RO/DI reading in at 0 TDS.

 

[overklok]

The push into 10-11 kh is what did you in, it does not matter if it was a gradual rise or not. Using a ULNS regimen in other than 7-8 kh is most likely the cause. I am struggling through this right now and have come to the conclusion that alkalinity is the only cause. My Ca is 430, my Mg 1450 my Salinity is 1025 the only thing out of whack is the alkalinity over 7-8 kh.

 

[MammothReefer]

I'm using WM biopellets. I also use GFO to keep my phosphates down, and I still fluctuate between 0 - .05 phosphate on my hanna.

 

[huskysglare1]

Alk at 10 is too high?

 

[Dejavu]

Alex, sorry to hear about your troubles. Here's my input. I don't think that it's one thing that is causing your problem, but more a combination of things. I first your tank is still pretty young. It wasn't to long ago that most were under the impression that you couldn't do SPS for a year after setting up a new tank.

With that said, I most have to believe that your bacteria diversity/population is on the low end. Have you dose any sort of bacteria since starting the tank?

None of the suggestion that have been made stand out as that underlining cause. As most of us have had swing alk, raised phosphate, ect .... and have been able to move pass it with little problems. I feel that in your case, have a fairly new tank, and new living condition for your coral. e.i. new lighting, flow, nutrient levels. That the combination of all have cause the decline in your corals healthy.

Look, I could be completely wrong in all of this. One thing i have learn, is that sometime we go on these "wild goose chases", looking for that one problem or the on solution, and we over look the big picture. You have been able to keep successful tank in the pass and there is no reason that you shouldn't be able to now. Go back to the basic and take it slow .

 

[huskysglare1]

+1 dejavu.

 

[flyin2jz]

junk the led lights and your problems will be gone, par isnt the only thing to think of with lighting, this happens in alot of led tanks but no one wants to believe it because they just spent 600 bux on lights that kill their coral. trust me on this. I have yet to see a sps tank with leds that have grown from frags into a beautiful tank. Most chuck corals in them and they look great for a couple months then crash.

 

[MammothReefer]

eh, I can't speak for LEDS, but I can speak for ALK swings. I had one a few weeks ago and it wrecked havoc. It took some very careful and slow adjusting to get things back and track, it's been a bout a fews now and things are starting to show signs of getting there colour back. I went from 8.5 to 6, the to 9+. I've since stabilized everything back at 8 for about 10 days now, and it's been a world of difference.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub...ZFhsTXBGTUFZellSWTZ3QkhiLVE&hl=en&output=html


For montis.. mag mag mag. Your mag drops below 1300 montis get weird.

 

[rogerwilco357]

wow i went thru the same thing and i couldnt find the problem till i got a turkey baster out and bamm aefw i lost most of my corals and still fighting the problem . hope it turns out to be a simple variance in your tank that can be fixed

 

[john rochon]

that is not a light issue, not an alk issue, that is a contaminated water issue.
be it from a cycle or pollution your water is posion right now to SPS. chances are you'll loose most of your sps. stop dosing everying, run carbon.
run your skimmer. something happened to cause a ammonia/nitrate spike somewere. Thats what SPS look like when they are dieing fast. If you have digitata spilling out its guts like than then theres a serious issue.

 

[Taqpol]

junk the led lights and your problems will be gone, par isnt the only thing to think of with lighting, this happens in alot of led tanks but no one wants to believe it because they just spent 600 bux on lights that kill their coral. trust me on this. I have yet to see a sps tank with leds that have grown from frags into a beautiful tank. Most chuck corals in them and they look great for a couple months then crash.

I'm sorry, but this is just false. LEDs are new and there have been problems but there are many people on this forum alone that have gone much longer then two months with LEDs and have gorgeous tanks. Here are some links for proof:

Soundwave's original tank Up and running two years with great colors before he took it down.

Santoki's build Running for a full year this month.

Sammy113 1.5 years with LEDs.

eh, I can't speak for LEDS, but I can speak for ALK swings. I had one a few weeks ago and it wrecked havoc. It took some very careful and slow adjusting to get things back and track, it's been a bout a fews now and things are starting to show signs of getting there colour back. I went from 8.5 to 6, the to 9+. I've since stabilized everything back at 8 for about 10 days now, and it's been a world of difference.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub...ZFhsTXBGTUFZellSWTZ3QkhiLVE&hl=en&output=html


For montis.. mag mag mag. Your mag drops below 1300 montis get weird.

I looked at your spreadsheet and your swings seemed about as bad as mine (which is to say, up to this point I wouldn't have thought of them as bad). It does seem to be pointing to alk being a major, but probably not the only, contribution to my problems.

Now that you mention it I do remember something specifically about Montis and Mag. I'll get that variable addressed as soon as possible without stressing the tank even more.

wow i went thru the same thing and i couldnt find the problem till i got a turkey baster out and bamm aefw i lost most of my corals and still fighting the problem . hope it turns out to be a simple variance in your tank that can be fixed

AEFW were one of the first things I was worried about, especially with that large patch of bare skin on the cali tort. But if it was AEFW, shouldn't I be able to see the little buggers or at least bite marks in my zoomed in pictures?

that is not a light issue, not an alk issue, that is a contaminated water issue.
be it from a cycle or pollution your water is posion right now to SPS. chances are you'll loose most of your sps. stop dosing everying, run carbon.
run your skimmer. something happened to cause a ammonia/nitrate spike somewere. Thats what SPS look like when they are dieing fast. If you have digitata spilling out its guts like than then theres a serious issue.

Can you go into a little more detail and what you think the contaminant might be? I haven't had a single ammonia/nitrite spike since starting the tank up, and I run activated carbon in a reactor that gets changed every two weeks as well as my skimmer this whole time.

 

[Taqpol]

Alex, sorry to hear about your troubles. Here's my input. I don't think that it's one thing that is causing your problem, but more a combination of things. I first your tank is still pretty young. It wasn't to long ago that most were under the impression that you couldn't do SPS for a year after setting up a new tank.

With that said, I most have to believe that your bacteria diversity/population is on the low end. Have you dose any sort of bacteria since starting the tank?

None of the suggestion that have been made stand out as that underlining cause. As most of us have had swing alk, raised phosphate, ect .... and have been able to move pass it with little problems. I feel that in your case, have a fairly new tank, and new living condition for your coral. e.i. new lighting, flow, nutrient levels. That the combination of all have cause the decline in your corals healthy.

Look, I could be completely wrong in all of this. One thing i have learn, is that sometime we go on these "wild goose chases", looking for that one problem or the on solution, and we over look the big picture. You have been able to keep successful tank in the pass and there is no reason that you shouldn't be able to now. Go back to the basic and take it slow .

Thanks for your input Brian!

I know this current iteration of the tank is young, I was just thinking (hoping?) that having all my rocks fully cycled in my old tank for over a year, keeping them wet during transportation, having them stored in saltwater at reef conditions, and finally put back in my tank for a full two months before I added in corals back in would have been long enough for their filtering capacity to get back up to full swing.

You're right though, I just have to take it slow while trying to give my animals the best living conditions possible. As a scientist I know that these problems are almost never cause by one factor alone, but I was seeing such rapid decline of certain corals I wanted to try and see if there was one "big ticket" item that was hurting them more then anything else, and if I could fix it right away without causing further stress. Since everything seems to be pointing towards alk swings being a major cause or a tipping point in my system, theres nothing more I can do besides maintain good alk levels and let the system recover.

 

[rigleautomotive]

Alex, sorry to hear about your troubles. Here's my input. I don't think that it's one thing that is causing your problem, but more a combination of things. I first your tank is still pretty young. It wasn't to long ago that most were under the impression that you couldn't do SPS for a year after setting up a new tank.

With that said, I most have to believe that your bacteria diversity/population is on the low end. Have you dose any sort of bacteria since starting the tank?

None of the suggestion that have been made stand out as that underlining cause. As most of us have had swing alk, raised phosphate, ect .... and have been able to move pass it with little problems. I feel that in your case, have a fairly new tank, and new living condition for your coral. e.i. new lighting, flow, nutrient levels. That the combination of all have cause the decline in your corals healthy.

Look, I could be completely wrong in all of this. One thing i have learn, is that sometime we go on these "wild goose chases", looking for that one problem or the on solution, and we over look the big picture. You have been able to keep successful tank in the pass and there is no reason that you shouldn't be able to now. Go back to the basic and take it slow .

Well said Brian.Too many changes and too many variables.Back to basics would be the cure.Water changes,gfo,and feed sparingly.normal photo period and keep the big three stable.It will pass on its own it you stick to the basics and remove all unproven parts from the equation

junk the led lights and your problems will be gone, par isnt the only thing to think of with lighting, this happens in alot of led tanks but no one wants to believe it because they just spent 600 bux on lights that kill their coral. trust me on this. I have yet to see a sps tank with leds that have grown from frags into a beautiful tank. Most chuck corals in them and they look great for a couple months then crash.

comment is a bit harsh but some truth in here.The corals trying to adjust to all these changes and then getting pounded by a light source they have never encountered would probably be the stressors.

that is not a light issue, not an alk issue, that is a contaminated water issue.
be it from a cycle or pollution your water is posion right now to SPS. chances are you'll loose most of your sps. stop dosing everying, run carbon.
run your skimmer. something happened to cause a ammonia/nitrate spike somewere. Thats what SPS look like when they are dieing fast. If you have digitata spilling out its guts like than then theres a serious issue.

I have to agree to some extent.The appearance of the sliming and gut puking corals scream water quality.To get a digi to do that and serataporas RTNing.These are some of the most resilient sps out there so you are quite a distance from a mature healthy and stable system that acroporas need to be happy.Going back to basics would be my suggestion and a few months of aging before you intro any sps.Hang in there.GL

 

[Reefphile]

Taqpol, this is very interesting...

+1 on your assessment of LEDs. I know of a number of people who are having relatively mid/long-term (1+ years) success with LEDs. From what I've noticed, in LED tanks that fail, SPS either initially bleach from the light intensity or brown out first, not polyp bailout.

Also, +1 on your AEFW assessment, I'm currently battling this and I agree that you should be able to see bite marks on your acros. Moreover, I believe AEFW only affect acros and not other sps.

I did have a situation similar to yours a couple years back where all my sps slowly died (over the course of a couple months) for what seemed to be no reason at the time. It took months to firgure out that my wife was cleaning the tank's wooden stand with spray wood polish. I think small amounts of the spray got into the tank and slowly contaminated the water (despite the carbon). I drained/restarted the tank, she stopped polishing the stand and I have not faced a similar situation again. Given my experience, you may want to consider external contamination issues, such as use of air freshener sprays to close to the tank, hand in tank with heavy hand lotion, etc.

Hope you id the issue. Best of luck,

 

[Urchinhead]

Sorry for your issue mate. You have what sounds like a cascading failure which means something has set off a chain reaction of problems that are feeding off each other and causing you problems.

Some quick advice:

1. Don't chase parameters.

This is important. It means that you must not start trying to dose things quickly back to where you want them or for that matter throw stuff in to bring things down. You will only lose and end up with large swings in your parameters.

Set a target for the levels you want to see such as 420 Ca 8-10 dKH and pH that stays between 8.2 and 8.4 with the lower value happening in the morning before lights on. Test several times a day and gradually add elements over several times a day to make sure you are not causing localized spikes and to even out the gradual rise in levels.

Keeping things steady at given levels with minor swings will help allot with the problem. Big swings in pH or dKH will only end up further stressing things out.

2. PO4 and NO3 slightly above 0 are not going to kill your corals.

SPS and other corals and for that matter clams use some PO4 and NO3 as "food" so having a trace amount in the tank will not kill things off. Generally it will just cause browning. High levels will cause problems though but it sounds like this is not a problem for you.

3. Something is in the water causing this to happen.

If you have soft corals or some LPS or for that matter some SPS you could have a chemical war going on that is either on purpose or as a byproduct of something else. This could be the cause of the problem. I say on purpose or as a byproduct in that one or more corals could be releasing toxins on purpose because of a reaction to another coral or as a byproduct of the tank move etc which is affecting other corals.

The primary way to address any pollutants in the water is going to be water changes of 15%+ over the course of several days until you get a 100% replacement. This doesn't mean massive 50% water changes all at once. That will lead to more parameter swings just as if you were dumping Mg et al into the tank.

4. When all else fails look into the possibility of electrical current running through the tank.

You can get a inexpensive voltage meter to test this. If you are seeing current in the tank then shut off all the electrical devices. At that point the tank should read close to zero current. You won't get absolute zero because there will be some conduction going on. Turn each electrical device (pump, powerhead, etc) on one at a time and test for current. Once you see a spike you will know what is causing the problem.

Good luck.

 

[Dejavu]

2. PO4 and NO3 slightly above 0 are not going to kill your corals.

I think it well documented that stand phosphate test kit are not very accurate on the low range. I would suggest a Hanna or if you have $$ one of the hach test kits .

 

[Urchinhead]

I think it well documented that stand phosphate test kit are not very accurate on the low range. I would suggest a Hanna or if you have $$ one of the hach test kits .

I agree completely. My point wasn't that he was testing zero. It was that a trace amount will not kill the corals.