SPS Dying Possibly due to Biopellets?

[Thesaltwater]

Hello everyone,
I have been running my 75 gallon reef for about 11 and a half months now and over half of my sps colonies have RTN'ed or STN'ed. Any frag I put in my system does fine for the first 2 months, good colour and growth. But after the 2 month mark their colour starts to fade and their growth just stops. Then at around the 4 month mark, the frag will either STN or RTN.For lighting I'm running a six bulb Ati sunpower, with 3 ati blue+, 2 ati coral+ and one ati purple+. My tank has a low bioload with 2 Banggai cardinalfish, one anthias and one clownfish. My filtration consists of a Vertex Omega 150 Skimmer, Carbon and GFO run through a reactor, 85 pounds of live rock and I am also running biopellets.

My Prams are:


I guess my question is... Is the low nutrients from running biopellets causing these issues with my system. Any Information would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks and Happy reefing,
Bryce

 

[kelrn98]

Personally, I wouldn't run biopellets or GFO unless there was a need such as PO4 or nitrates or algae problem. The corals do need some nutrients. Do you feed them? if so how much and how often. Are your parameters consistently in the range you posted above? how often do you test? could there be any copper in the system?

 

[Thesaltwater]

Personally, I wouldn't run biopellets or GFO unless there was a need such as PO4 or nitrates or algae problem. The corals do need some nutrients. Do you feed them? if so how much and how often. Are your parameters consistently in the range you posted above? how often do you test? could there be any copper in the system?

Currently, I am not feeding my corals. My parameters tend to stay relatively constant, they might swing +/- 5ppm a week. I am dosing BRS 2 part with there dosers. I test once a week using all salifert test kits. There shouldn't be any copper in my system, I use Ro/Di water with aquavitro Salinity for my water changes. Thanks For the quick reply

 

[CJBuckeyes]

I went a little overboard when I set up my current tank. I started with a huge skimmer, GFO, carbon dosing, cheato and fed sparingly. Zero PO4 and NO3. None of my sps died, but none of them did well. Eventually some started to RTN. I slowed down the carbon dosing and reduced the GFO. Things started to look a little better, so I kept tweaking. Over the next 6 months I reduced the carbon to zero, cut my GFO by 1/3, and started feeding like crazy. And my coral growth took off. I also noticed that with higher nutrients, I could crank my lighting more. I did experience some bouts with various nuisance algaes, but after some fine tuning I've been able to grow some healthy looking corals.

I would slowly start to ramp down the bio-pellets and GFO until you get some non-zero phosphates and nitrates. Tests are good, but they aren't always accurate. Monitor your coral health, and having to clean the front glass every 2-4 days is a good sign of nutrients.

 

[swk]

Puzzled by running bio pellets when you only have 4 fish?

Remove those and add more fish and feed them.

In my 75 I have:

Scopas tang
Tomini tang
Cherub angel
Algae blenny
6 line
3 bartlets anthias

And I still feel like my sps would like more fish poop to feed off

 

[ClearwaterUK]

Your running UNLS levels, your Kh needs to be between 7 and 8 or you will get stripping from the base and potential burnt tips over 8 dKh

UNLS tanks are also sensitive to Iodine if low, again burnt tips
Potassium depletion creates a loss of colours

Iodine 0.04 > 0.06 PPM (take care not to over shoot)
Potassium 380 > 400

The next thing to look at "Is your reef anorexic", google it you will find a lot of good information on the topic (no nutrients means you need to feed the corals)

 

[swk]

Puzzled by running bio pellets when you only have 4 fish?

Remove those and add more fish and feed them.

In my 75 I have:

Scopas tang
Tomini tang
Cherub angel
Algae blenny
6 line
3 bartlets anthias

And I still feel like my sps would like more fish poop to feed off

Oh yeah a clownfish too

 

[jkcoon]

Your running UNLS levels, your Kh needs to be between 7 and 8 or you will get stripping from the base and potential burnt tips over 8 dKh

UNLS tanks are also sensitive to Iodine if low, again burnt tips
Potassium depletion creates a loss of colours

Iodine 0.04 > 0.06 PPM (take care not to over shoot)
Potassium 380 > 400

The next thing to look at "Is your reef anorexic", google it you will find a lot of good information on the topic (no nutrients means you need to feed the corals)

This... Research ULNS, I had the same issue when I was running biopellets originally... Quit running them and did a ton of research and recently put them back online

 

[Thesaltwater]

I had no idea that having too low of nutrient levels in a system could actually starve the corals, Guess you learn something new every day Haha I guess didn't think that having to low of nutrient was the problem because I see all of these sps tanks have very clean water. So in a nutshell I Should be feeding my corals, and feed my fish more. Also I should get some fish for my system. I should reduce or stop running biopellets, and also reduce my GFO. Also what brand of coral food do you use?

 

[jda]

Don't use biopellets, any kind of organic carbon or GFO until/unless you really have a problem to solve. They can do more harm than good in reef tanks.

It is quite possible that you might never need them - I have never used either on any of my tanks for years and years. I would consider my water very clean with undetectable results for N and P on Salifert test kits.

I did use sugar in a FOWLR system that really helped keep the N and P down to reasonable levels.

 

[mr_bigl]

I wasn't having the RTN and STN problem your seeing but my corals were not happy with GFO and Bio-Pellets. I was talking with a well known hobbyist and he asked me why i was running GFO and Bio-pellets. His reasoning was bio-pellets consume nitrate and phosphate in a proportion, when you have GFO that proportion is not available and thus causes an imbalance. Once i took the GFO off line everything started looking so much better.

 

[ClearwaterUK]

I had no idea that having too low of nutrient levels in a system could actually starve the corals, Guess you learn something new every day Haha I guess didn't think that having to low of nutrient was the problem because I see all of these sps tanks have very clean water. So in a nutshell I Should be feeding my corals, and feed my fish more. Also I should get some fish for my system. I should reduce or stop running biopellets, and also reduce my GFO. Also what brand of coral food do you use?

Give Acro power a try

reduce the Bio Pellets by 50% volume

 

[vpaul79]

What kind of biopellet reactor do you use? If its not a recirculating one then I would mod it to one. IMO, based on what we know now of biopellets, all biopellet reactors should be recirculating. They can become too effective and strip your tank of nutrients so you need to control how much it strips to maintain some level of nutrients.

 

[AugustWest]

I ran biopellets for 8 months on my 70 gallon. In my case they were too efficient at removing Nitrates, I was starving my SPS even though I thought I was feeding heavily.

they were so good at removing the Nitrates that my Phosphate started creeping up on me. The biopellets Had been controlling both PO4 and Nitrates for the first 8 months. Nitrates tested at 0.

I decided to remove the biopellets and used a GFO reactor for a couple weeks to get my PO4 back down. I then removed the GFO reactor also.

I currently have Nitrates at 2 ppm and PO4 at 0.03 and my tank has never looked so good. Color and growth have increased dramatically. My SPS have never looked so good.

Not saying that the Biopellets were a bad thing, they actually did their job too well in my case. In fact I don't think I ever really needed them.

My advice to you is to pull the pellets and the GFO. Just keep an eye on your levels. I think you'll see improvement pretty quickly.

 

[sweet ride]

I had no idea that having too low of nutrient levels in a system could actually starve the corals, Guess you learn something new every day Haha I guess didn't think that having to low of nutrient was the problem because I see all of these sps tanks have very clean water. So in a nutshell I Should be feeding my corals, and feed my fish more. Also I should get some fish for my system. I should reduce or stop running biopellets, and also reduce my GFO. Also what brand of coral food do you use?

you have the right idea, however I would recommend that you do this in stages as drastic changes and SPS is never a good combo.

I've played around with most of the things that you have in your system and most of them have been removed at one point in time or another and never at the same time.

 

[mandarinfanatic]

sounds like you are starving your corals. feed a little of your choice of coral food twice a week and u won't have the problem.

 

[tkeracer619]

The water in my system before I moved it was very clean, crystal clear, almost undetectable po4 and nitrate. SPS grew like weeds.

I fed a lot and had a lot of fish. I didn't use GFO much after the biopellets took over. Before I needed quite a bit of it. It takes a long time to build your bio system up to these levels. Many people have trouble finding the right balance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1cg8gkR_1w&list=UUKnlzTNy1WD74pIlN7h2Ldw

 

[Av8bluewater]

What kind of biopellet reactor do you use? If its not a recirculating one then I would mod it to one. IMO, based on what we know now of biopellets, all biopellet reactors should be recirculating. They can become too effective and strip your tank of nutrients so you need to control how much it strips to maintain some level of nutrients.

This is exactly what I was going to say. I don't know why they still make non-recirculating reactors.
You need to control the effluent. In this case you could simply turn a knob down to a drip.
Also that could be a lot of light. I just got a PAR meter and found I had 515 PAR on middle sandbed with an 8bulb ATI 6" off surface/24" H tank. PAR in middle was 7-800 burning some corals. Go conservative and move fixture to 9-10 inches if not already. Lower with older bulbs.

 

[Thesaltwater]

What kind of biopellet reactor do you use? If its not a recirculating one then I would mod it to one. IMO, based on what we know now of biopellets, all biopellet reactors should be recirculating. They can become too effective and strip your tank of nutrients so you need to control how much it strips to maintain some level of nutrients.

I am using a Bulkreef Supply reactor at the moment.

 

[Thesaltwater]

All right every body, I reduced my bio pellets to about 25% last week, and im going to reduce the amount of GFO I use next time I change it out. I also increased how much I feed my tank and I must say things the looking WAY better then they were before. I also ordered some Coral frenzy coral food and some Acro power, cant wait to see what these will to for my corals. How often do you guys feed your tank? Do any of you have experience using Coral frenzy or Acro Power.
Thanks again, Bryce