SPS Issues; Help!

[reefsurfing]

So, I recently received some new frags, my excitement was quickly

dashed to pieces as the frags quickly lost color and RTN'd from the bottom

up. I suspect I fried them with my new AI vega maxing out at 50% over a 8

hour light cycle. Now I have been keeping track of all my parameters and

everything seemed rock solid:

alk 10.5 - 11 Hanna, Red sea Pro

cal 420 API- 460 Red Sea Pro

mag 1400 Red Sea Pro

Nitrate 3ppm Red Sea Pro, API undetectable

phos .04-.05 Red Sea Pro, API undetectable

Tank is a 60 cube and has flow from a tunze 6095 on wave mode.

Sand bed is 6 inches deep

(4) clowns, halichores yellow wrasse, mckoskers flasher wrasse and fire shrimp

with plenty of nassarius snails!

I have been intentionally elevating my phosphate and nitrate as part of the

Red Sea Program. The program states that for accelerated growth my target

params need to be elevated which includes nitrate (1-2ppm)and

phosphate (0.10ppm). My question is, do you think I fried them? Or should I

be looking into other issues. I dont dose anything but 1 drop elos amino acid

per day. I feed 1 cube of mysis and a few pellets throughout the day. water

change of 5 gallons every week.

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[dunc101]

How old is the tank? Did you try to acclimate the corals with your Vega? How high above the tank is your Vegas? Did all of your newly added corals RTN or just a few?
I would think the Vega's could have played a part in it as LED's are pretty powerful from my own experience. Also speaking from my personal experience, it took my tank a full year to mature before I saw any growth out of my SPS, however, I have heard others have great success from practically the beginning.

 

[gbru316]

what type of SPS?

 

[reefsurfing]

The Vega is about ~ 12" awl and the corals were added to the sand roughly 32 inches away from the light @ 40% max output. I was in the acclimation process, turning the LED s up 2% every fifth day, i noticed some loss of color like the sps were in shock. The effected corals were a smooth skin acro, 2 rainbow acros and a ora Roscoe which was the first to go. I felt light was the problem when the Roscoe went first.

It has always been my understanding that ORA corals require less light. The other coral, didn't show any signs of shock, they appear to be recovering. I know the Vega is powerful but, wow , that's a lot of distance between the light and corals at 50% which is what makes me so unsure.


I appreciate any feedback you have and i will update with the status of the corals. For now I will run a 5 hour cycle at 25%.

 

[reefsurfing]

P.S. tank is 7 months old but the rock is about 3 years old

 

[dankreef]

par meter.

 

[trueblackpercula]

Did you check for AEFW?

 

[deepseadan]

Looking at your parameters I would say lighting. But in the sps world it could be anything from my experience. Do you have other sps which are doing great under the Vega's? If not, (and I don't want to spark a led war) have you thought that your issue might not be intensity but lack of spectrum? I don't have any experience with the Vega's, but I did own the ai sols. My sps didn't like them one bit. If you determine that the vega's are to blame, just supplement them with some t5's. Or you can just do what I did and go mh radiums and you can rule out light as the possible problem. Oh, one last thing. I don't get where Red Sea gets off saying to elevate po4. I've always run zero on my Hanna po4 tester and my sps are great. I do agree that no3 should be above zero, for me preferably around 3-5ppm.

 

[reefsurfing]

Thank you all for the responses; everything that wasnt in shock is really

holding its' own for now.

par meter.

My club has one; I will have to get on the list for it, thank you!

Did you check for AEFW?

These are my first SPS in this tank and they are from a reliable source. That being said, I dip everything, I didnt notice any pests.

Looking at your parameters I would say lighting. But in the sps world it could be anything from my experience. Do you have other sps which are doing great under the Vega's? If not, (and I don't want to spark a led war) have you thought that your issue might not be intensity but lack of spectrum? I don't have any experience with the Vega's, but I did own the ai sols. My sps didn't like them one bit. If you determine that the vega's are to blame, just supplement them with some t5's. Or you can just do what I did and go mh radiums and you can rule out light as the possible problem. Oh, one last thing. I don't get where Red Sea gets off saying to elevate po4. I've always run zero on my Hanna po4 tester and my sps are great. I do agree that no3 should be above zero, for me preferably around 3-5ppm.

I was thinking the same thing but the sps get direct sunlight at 9 am every morning. To be sure I have actually ordered a sunpower. I will have to get the par meter from my club and make a comparisson when it finally comes in. The good news; its only on backorder for a month!!! With the Po4 I was nervous too; everything that survived is doing ok. which Tester do you have? I was thinking of getting the Ti736 ppb meter; any recommendations? I was thinking I would add a T I N Y amount of GFO and see what happened. My sps had polyps retracted and one smooth skin showed a little more recission at his base. I took the GFO Back off line after six hours and every one is happy again. Red Sea might really have something with the elevated nutrients at higher element levels. Makes sense their R & D department is a little bigger than mine. I am just used to always seeing these amazing tanks with near sterile conditions.

I will come back as soon as I can with an update and some pics

 

[Duc1098]

I would be careful with GFO. In my experience, I started dosing AA to raise PO4 to around .04ppm and overshot it and ended up around .08-.10ppm. Added to much GFO and had a lot of my SPS start to STN and bleach out especially if it was getting a ton of light from my 250w MH's. I've got a Blue Tort and a Cali Tort that everything I've read said loves a lot of light that is now on my sand bed recovering.

Also, .1ppm on PO4 seems really high. I have noticed better color on my SPS around .01-.04ppm, but .05ppm or higher I have noticed the coral is more sensitive to light (bleaching) and a significant decrease in growth rate.

 

[power boat jim]

P.S. tank is 7 months old but the rock is about 3 years old

Have you had any success growing sps or was the tank doing well with good results and things suddenly went wrong? If the latter is the case try undoing the changes.

I doubt you fried them at 50% and having them on the bottom. Light changes usually result in browining or fading colors.

 

[stevedola]

How did you acclimate these corals? how long did you dip? what did you dip? What was the alk measurement you were coming from?

if the corals are RTN/STN ing from the base up then its more likely water chemistry. Usually light will burn/fade or brown the coral not RTN. Its more likely youre alk is 11 (maybe higher with REDSEA testing) and the tank was 7-8 and you didnt adjust slow enough. Or possibly the redsea nutrient regiment youre using which Ive never heard of...not sure whats up with that process...why are you doing it? dosing schedules are a balancing act and IMO only lead to problems when human error comes into play and screws it up.

 

[reefsurfing]

First off, thank you for all the responses, I really appreciate your help.

Have you had any success growing sps or was the tank doing well with good results and things suddenly went wrong? If the latter is the case try undoing the changes.

I doubt you fried them at 50% and having them on the bottom. Light changes usually result in browining or fading colors.

Yes, I had plenty of SPS but in different tanks, this is the first time I have added sps to this particular tank. I didnt notice any browning but definitely some bleaching on the survivors. Yes, I am taking your advice and moving back to basics!!

How did you acclimate these corals? how long did you dip? what did you dip? What was the alk measurement you were coming from?

if the corals are RTN/STN ing from the base up then its more likely water chemistry. Usually light will burn/fade or brown the coral not RTN. Its more likely youre alk is 11 (maybe higher with REDSEA testing) and the tank was 7-8 and you didnt adjust slow enough. Or possibly the redsea nutrient regiment youre using which Ive never heard of...not sure whats up with that process...why are you doing it? dosing schedules are a balancing act and IMO only lead to problems when human error comes into play and screws it up.

I slow drip acclimated the corals for about an hour and dipped for 3 minutes in coral Rx. The Alk From the water I was received was at a DKH of 9 and the Red Sea coral Pro I am using has elevated DKH. When the Alk Mag and Cal levels are balanced at elevated levels the corals require more nitrate and phosphate to compensate for the over density of Zooxanthalle. I did think 0.10 was a little high, Red Sea has confirmed, those are the target parameters. Since these are my first sps in this tank I haven't needed to dose as of yet! When im out of Red Sea coral pro, I was planning to transition to the Red Sea salt, this is more inline with natural parameters.

P.s. I used a hanna checker to confirm the readings and it shows I am currently at 10.5 Dkh.

I would be careful with GFO. In my experience, I started dosing AA to raise PO4 to around .04ppm and overshot it and ended up around .08-.10ppm. Added to much GFO and had a lot of my SPS start to STN and bleach out especially if it was getting a ton of light from my 250w MH's. I've got a Blue Tort and a Cali Tort that everything I've read said loves a lot of light that is now on my sand bed recovering.

Also, .1ppm on PO4 seems really high. I have noticed better color on my SPS around .01-.04ppm, but .05ppm or higher I have noticed the coral is more sensitive to light (bleaching) and a significant decrease in growth rate.

Ya, I wasnt having a good experience with the gfo, its offline for now. What type of AA's were you dosing? how often? The corals I had problems with were the ones located DIRECTLY under the light; anything outside of say 6 inches survived, no problem. That was telling me I was pelting them with too much light but I wasnt 100%. There is so much experience here on RC I would rather open up the floor and let everyone help.


Everyone has made really good points and im just running basic berlin with a mesh filter sock and still dosing aminos. The lights are at their max power, now twenty five percent, everything looks a little better.

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[dave sullivan]

When your corals start to bleach from the bottom they generally will bleach all the way. Next time cut off approx. half and make sure you have all live tissue and remount them on another rock or whatever you have. Also, always start your new guys low and in moderate current. Have a great day!

 

[reefsurfing]

Today, I noticed on of my corals that RTn'd still had tissue on the back and it seems to be healing, I will keep you posted.

 

[Duc1098]

I was using Red Sea Reef Energy A/B but have since stopped. I am having a hard time keeping my PO4 under 0.1ppm on a Hanna even after adding 3/4 cup of GFO into a reactor. I'm slowing going to be raising the amount of GFO every four weeks to try to get it under control but I don't plan on exceeding 1.5 cups. I was having a lot of nasty RTN/STN on a lot of my SPS when I dumped in a large bag of GFO that has since stopped since it took that sock out and went to a reactor with a lot less GFO.

I've tried finding research on GFO use and what it can do if you overdose it, which I didn't think you could even do by the way. I haven't read anything concrete, nor can I prove it, but I believe my overdose of GFO caused my RTN/STN of my SPS not by stripping the water because my PO4 levels did not change drastically, but by some other means. I also did notice that my Alk levels started to get out of whack with the GFO and dropped from 8.4 to 7.0dkh overnight with no other changes. So from now on, I'm going with the small amounts, and even though my PO4 levels have not dropped any my corals are responding much better.

 

[Duc1098]

By the way, I wouldn't say you were pelting them with tom much light. I just think that maybe the conditions of your tank the amount/intensity of the light might have been to much at that time. Certain conditions can make the corals more sensitive to light which is what I experienced. So what I'm saying is, once you've figured out what your problems are don't think that you couldn't raise the intensity over 50%. I don't use LED's but I would think that most SPS if acclimated properly could handle 100% no problem. For example, The place I buy alot of my SPS has most of their SPS in a shallow tank directly under 400w MH's while in my tank they showed signs of bleaching at about the same distance under 250w MH's. It was do soley to the fact that the conditions in my tank made the corals more sensitive to light.

 

[reefsurfing]

Here's a few more shots of the survivors which really seem to be perking up!

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This is a pic of the RTN survivor which seems to be healing rather quickly!!

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[danil]

My guess it's combination of factors. Could be Alk shock yours is kinda on high end. Frags may come from a system with lower light intensity and lower Alk. Acclimation can help to some point but if differences are big it won't do. I would ask what were parameters in system you get your frags from. GL