OK here goes, please bare with this post as it may turn out to be quite long but I will try and include as much info as possible in my description of my tank and the problem I am having with SPS corals.
Background and system
Tank - Acrylic construction and is almost a 2ft 6in cube with the exception of the width which is 2ft 11in aprox 425ltr after rock and sand displacement
Top off - Peristaltic fed auto top off via RO/DI
Live rock - aprox 45kg of new live rock mainly coral heads of heliopora. This is known as Bluestone rock due to its blue interior. Rock was so good that quite a bit of heliopora coral came back to life once in the tank!
In tank sand bed - about 2 inches of live aragonite sand is all around the rock work. Under the rock work was left clear to avoid detritus buildup. This seems to be full of life and nitrogen bubbles as you would normally expect.
Sump - under tank sump containing various pumps and equipment
Return - AquaMedic OR 3500 through reef safe pipe
Skimmer - V2skim 1200 venturi skimmer driven my Eheim 1260 pump. Skimmer rated to 1200ltrs
Calcium reactor - V2react 1000 running via ph probe to an IKS computer system to control reactor ph. Reactor is filled with coral branch media
Phosphate/carbon reactor. Carbon is usually run for a day every few weeks to polish the water but has been run continually in the past. Phosphate resin is not currently run as the phosphate level is very low but has been run in the past and will be put back on again soon.
Circulation - return from sump aprox 3000ltrs, 2 x 'stream' type pumps at about 5000ltrs each plus a further two at 5000ltrs each that turn on for about 5 mins every 25-30 mins to vary wtaer flow
Lighting - 1 x 400w 12k Reeflux, 1 x 24w T8 actinic, 2 x TMC Aquaray Reef Blue LED bars (currently not used)
Under Tank DSB - This 15inch x 12inch tank contained a 6inch DSB but that was removed recently as I was not happy that it was functioning well i.e not gas bubbles ever appeared in the sand, virtually no worm/pod/sponge life ever appeared in there.
Livestock - 7x squamipinnis anthias, 1 small powder blue tang, 1 small banana wrasse, 1 small maroon clown and 1 small cleaner wrasse. All this has been very slowly added over the last year.
Other - 1 large black cucumber and about 15 large snails that do a great job of keeping everything clean.
Corals - Various LPS including cataphyllia, acanthastrea, bubble coral, euphyllia, symphyllia, ricordia etc and SPS, green star polyp colony, small leather, sun corals and 4 clams (1 squamosa, 2 10cm maxima and one very large 12-14inch daresa)
I don't add any other products except for the occasional iodine dose and a magnesium additive to help keep the level up.
The system is controlled by an IKS computer which monitors temp, in tank ph, ca reactor ph and redox
Parameters
Salinity 1.026
Temp pretty stable at 27 degrees. Controlled via the computer to not vary more than about 1 degree
Tank ph swings from about 7.9 at night to 8.2-3 in the day
Reactor ph is set at 6.7 which keep up with the demands of the tank
redox 300-350 over the course of the day
Calcium aprox 460
DKH aprox 10.4
Magnesium aprox 1320
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
All above are measured with salifert kits (all well in date) except phosphate which is measured by a very high resolution D-D/Merck kit. All probes are regularly calibrated.
Whats the problem?
I set up the tank just over a year ago after stripping it down. As part of the setup process I decided to have everything from new. This includes all new water, live rock, sand and some new equipment. I changed the skimmer to a smaller unit than the one I had because it was vastly overpowered for this size of tank.
The few corals that I had left were mainly LPS and were held in a friends tank pending the settling of the new system. System was set up carefully and the newly imported rock was cured in the system, although it was very good rock when it came in and never actually needed curing as such it pretty much worked from day one.
Once corals were added everything appeared fine. There were no real algae problems as bio load was minimal with only a couple of anthias in the tank.
After a few months I started adding a few SPS frags and a couple of aquacultured colonies. However they showed no signs of growth and in fact within a day or two of adding them most polyp extension ceased. Most of the corals slowly stripped from the underside of branches and those that managed to hold their own showed no signs of growth. Slowly a very small amount of growth did occur on some of the corals but this growth is very strange in shape. The corals became thick and 'lumpy' or growth was contorted and deformed. The pics below will show better what I mean.
This particular small colony was growing fine in the local shop where I watched it for at least 6 weeks before I bought it. It was a basic purple/blue branching acropora that was growing in the normal way. Since coming into my tank at Christmas 2009 the only growth has been this strange flattening of the coralites but with no visible polyp extension. It has taken over 5 months to to this and initially much of the underside of the branches striped out.
This next one is again a normal branching SPS frag. Again growth in the 4 months I've had it has been minimal and deformed, you can make out the lumpy texture of what remains of the branches and possibly see the way the tiny growing tip has become twisted down on the end of one branch.
Another example here is what should be a salmon pink aquaculture millipora. Again no real growth and a lumpy stunted appearance. This coral is in a completely different part of the tank in different flow and lighting strength from the first two. Also a small patch of cyno appeared on a dead branch.
Here is a pic of a recently added frag so you can see the recession.
So there you can hopefully see what the problem is. LPS corals all seem to do ok in the tank, although I have noticed that the tentacles of each head of my duncanopsammia are curled over at the end and the hammers on the end of the tentacles of my euphyllia have deformed into a round lump rather then the original hammer shape. Most other LPS and clams are doing fine as are the fish, snails and cucumber etc. I have thought about just sticking with LPS and softies but SPS has always been my first love and I have kept several very sucessful SPS tanks over the years so lack of knowledge or skill on my part is not really an issue, but this has got me beat.
What I've done so far
Below I'll explain the steps I have taken over time to try and pin point or address the problem.
Water changes. I have done many regular water changes. I always use a good quality salt such as Tropic Marin. Recently I have been using natural sea water too. This is collected by a friend of mine who lives close. He has a very large system and has used natural sea water from day one. The sea water if left to settle and decanted from any sediment. It is tested, heated and used. Many will point the finger at this as a potential cause of the problem but I will explain that it is only quite recently that I have used this and the problem was very apparent long before I started using natural sea water. Also the guy who collects it has many corals in his tank that show no signs of any problems similar to mine. As far as I am concerned the water is good and you cannot ask for a better mix of the correct elements
Removed remote DSB. As I said earlier I felt that this was not working and I was worried that there was a danger that there could be some release of toxic hydrogen sulphide from a stagnant bed so I took the decision to remove it. I have seen no benefit or detriment to the overall system since doing this several weeks ago. The DSB was mainly kept dark.
Changed lighting. I have changed the bulbs several times and even changed the ballast from an Icecap electronic back to a normal magnetic ballast. I was worried that my ballast seemed to be rated at 60hz (not 50-60hz as is usual) so I replaced it. This again made no difference to the SPS problem and in fact a frag I added to the tank after changing back to the magnetic ballast has shown the same symptoms as the others before.
Interestingly I suspected the lighting because I noticed that coraline was only growing part the way up the back walls of the tank as you can see from this slightly older photo.
Caulerpa has been tried in the sump over the DSB but it showed little signs of growth probably due to the then current low nutrient levels in the tank. It has since been removed.
Carbon has been run in an attempt to remove any toxins.
Polyfilters have bee used again to remove any toxins, metals or other contaminants.
All pumps have been checked for rust or damage and the tank is earthed via a titanium rod to an earth.
All areas of the tank are constructed of reef safe materials and pipework is all the normal stuff you get from aquatic shops.
The only part of the system that has given me any cause for concern if that I had to pour some fiberglass resin into the bottom of the weir to try and stop a small seepage from the bulkhead connector. This should be inert once cured and is only a small amount at the bottom of the weir this is now covered with settled sediment but the weir is so small I can't really get my hand down there to do anything, this is why I used the resin, no glass matting just an inch of resin.
One of my main concerns is that this is some sort of infection. I would be prepared to treat the tank with some antibiotic or similar if I thought it would solve the problem. I could cope with the damage it would do to the balance of the tank if it were a means to an end but I'm not sure if this is what's causing the problem. To me it almost seems like there is something genetically wrong with the corals or some sort of toxin or poisoning on a low level but I would have tough carbon and polyfilters would have sorted that out.
That is pretty much it. I will post any after thoughts if I think of anything else.
I would be extremely grateful if someone could help me sort this problem out. I really want to have an SPS fest for a tank as that was my whole reason for setting it up in the first place. I have a reasonably good understanding of reef tanks and as you can see by my last tank I am reasonably accomplished at keeping SPS and reef tanks in general
Many thanks,
Cam.
Background and system
Tank - Acrylic construction and is almost a 2ft 6in cube with the exception of the width which is 2ft 11in aprox 425ltr after rock and sand displacement
Top off - Peristaltic fed auto top off via RO/DI
Live rock - aprox 45kg of new live rock mainly coral heads of heliopora. This is known as Bluestone rock due to its blue interior. Rock was so good that quite a bit of heliopora coral came back to life once in the tank!
In tank sand bed - about 2 inches of live aragonite sand is all around the rock work. Under the rock work was left clear to avoid detritus buildup. This seems to be full of life and nitrogen bubbles as you would normally expect.
Sump - under tank sump containing various pumps and equipment
Return - AquaMedic OR 3500 through reef safe pipe
Skimmer - V2skim 1200 venturi skimmer driven my Eheim 1260 pump. Skimmer rated to 1200ltrs
Calcium reactor - V2react 1000 running via ph probe to an IKS computer system to control reactor ph. Reactor is filled with coral branch media
Phosphate/carbon reactor. Carbon is usually run for a day every few weeks to polish the water but has been run continually in the past. Phosphate resin is not currently run as the phosphate level is very low but has been run in the past and will be put back on again soon.
Circulation - return from sump aprox 3000ltrs, 2 x 'stream' type pumps at about 5000ltrs each plus a further two at 5000ltrs each that turn on for about 5 mins every 25-30 mins to vary wtaer flow
Lighting - 1 x 400w 12k Reeflux, 1 x 24w T8 actinic, 2 x TMC Aquaray Reef Blue LED bars (currently not used)
Under Tank DSB - This 15inch x 12inch tank contained a 6inch DSB but that was removed recently as I was not happy that it was functioning well i.e not gas bubbles ever appeared in the sand, virtually no worm/pod/sponge life ever appeared in there.
Livestock - 7x squamipinnis anthias, 1 small powder blue tang, 1 small banana wrasse, 1 small maroon clown and 1 small cleaner wrasse. All this has been very slowly added over the last year.
Other - 1 large black cucumber and about 15 large snails that do a great job of keeping everything clean.
Corals - Various LPS including cataphyllia, acanthastrea, bubble coral, euphyllia, symphyllia, ricordia etc and SPS, green star polyp colony, small leather, sun corals and 4 clams (1 squamosa, 2 10cm maxima and one very large 12-14inch daresa)
I don't add any other products except for the occasional iodine dose and a magnesium additive to help keep the level up.
The system is controlled by an IKS computer which monitors temp, in tank ph, ca reactor ph and redox
Parameters
Salinity 1.026
Temp pretty stable at 27 degrees. Controlled via the computer to not vary more than about 1 degree
Tank ph swings from about 7.9 at night to 8.2-3 in the day
Reactor ph is set at 6.7 which keep up with the demands of the tank
redox 300-350 over the course of the day
Calcium aprox 460
DKH aprox 10.4
Magnesium aprox 1320
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
All above are measured with salifert kits (all well in date) except phosphate which is measured by a very high resolution D-D/Merck kit. All probes are regularly calibrated.
Whats the problem?
I set up the tank just over a year ago after stripping it down. As part of the setup process I decided to have everything from new. This includes all new water, live rock, sand and some new equipment. I changed the skimmer to a smaller unit than the one I had because it was vastly overpowered for this size of tank.
The few corals that I had left were mainly LPS and were held in a friends tank pending the settling of the new system. System was set up carefully and the newly imported rock was cured in the system, although it was very good rock when it came in and never actually needed curing as such it pretty much worked from day one.
Once corals were added everything appeared fine. There were no real algae problems as bio load was minimal with only a couple of anthias in the tank.
After a few months I started adding a few SPS frags and a couple of aquacultured colonies. However they showed no signs of growth and in fact within a day or two of adding them most polyp extension ceased. Most of the corals slowly stripped from the underside of branches and those that managed to hold their own showed no signs of growth. Slowly a very small amount of growth did occur on some of the corals but this growth is very strange in shape. The corals became thick and 'lumpy' or growth was contorted and deformed. The pics below will show better what I mean.
This particular small colony was growing fine in the local shop where I watched it for at least 6 weeks before I bought it. It was a basic purple/blue branching acropora that was growing in the normal way. Since coming into my tank at Christmas 2009 the only growth has been this strange flattening of the coralites but with no visible polyp extension. It has taken over 5 months to to this and initially much of the underside of the branches striped out.
This next one is again a normal branching SPS frag. Again growth in the 4 months I've had it has been minimal and deformed, you can make out the lumpy texture of what remains of the branches and possibly see the way the tiny growing tip has become twisted down on the end of one branch.
Another example here is what should be a salmon pink aquaculture millipora. Again no real growth and a lumpy stunted appearance. This coral is in a completely different part of the tank in different flow and lighting strength from the first two. Also a small patch of cyno appeared on a dead branch.
Here is a pic of a recently added frag so you can see the recession.
So there you can hopefully see what the problem is. LPS corals all seem to do ok in the tank, although I have noticed that the tentacles of each head of my duncanopsammia are curled over at the end and the hammers on the end of the tentacles of my euphyllia have deformed into a round lump rather then the original hammer shape. Most other LPS and clams are doing fine as are the fish, snails and cucumber etc. I have thought about just sticking with LPS and softies but SPS has always been my first love and I have kept several very sucessful SPS tanks over the years so lack of knowledge or skill on my part is not really an issue, but this has got me beat.
What I've done so far
Below I'll explain the steps I have taken over time to try and pin point or address the problem.
Water changes. I have done many regular water changes. I always use a good quality salt such as Tropic Marin. Recently I have been using natural sea water too. This is collected by a friend of mine who lives close. He has a very large system and has used natural sea water from day one. The sea water if left to settle and decanted from any sediment. It is tested, heated and used. Many will point the finger at this as a potential cause of the problem but I will explain that it is only quite recently that I have used this and the problem was very apparent long before I started using natural sea water. Also the guy who collects it has many corals in his tank that show no signs of any problems similar to mine. As far as I am concerned the water is good and you cannot ask for a better mix of the correct elements
Removed remote DSB. As I said earlier I felt that this was not working and I was worried that there was a danger that there could be some release of toxic hydrogen sulphide from a stagnant bed so I took the decision to remove it. I have seen no benefit or detriment to the overall system since doing this several weeks ago. The DSB was mainly kept dark.
Changed lighting. I have changed the bulbs several times and even changed the ballast from an Icecap electronic back to a normal magnetic ballast. I was worried that my ballast seemed to be rated at 60hz (not 50-60hz as is usual) so I replaced it. This again made no difference to the SPS problem and in fact a frag I added to the tank after changing back to the magnetic ballast has shown the same symptoms as the others before.
Interestingly I suspected the lighting because I noticed that coraline was only growing part the way up the back walls of the tank as you can see from this slightly older photo.
Caulerpa has been tried in the sump over the DSB but it showed little signs of growth probably due to the then current low nutrient levels in the tank. It has since been removed.
Carbon has been run in an attempt to remove any toxins.
Polyfilters have bee used again to remove any toxins, metals or other contaminants.
All pumps have been checked for rust or damage and the tank is earthed via a titanium rod to an earth.
All areas of the tank are constructed of reef safe materials and pipework is all the normal stuff you get from aquatic shops.
The only part of the system that has given me any cause for concern if that I had to pour some fiberglass resin into the bottom of the weir to try and stop a small seepage from the bulkhead connector. This should be inert once cured and is only a small amount at the bottom of the weir this is now covered with settled sediment but the weir is so small I can't really get my hand down there to do anything, this is why I used the resin, no glass matting just an inch of resin.
One of my main concerns is that this is some sort of infection. I would be prepared to treat the tank with some antibiotic or similar if I thought it would solve the problem. I could cope with the damage it would do to the balance of the tank if it were a means to an end but I'm not sure if this is what's causing the problem. To me it almost seems like there is something genetically wrong with the corals or some sort of toxin or poisoning on a low level but I would have tough carbon and polyfilters would have sorted that out.
That is pretty much it. I will post any after thoughts if I think of anything else.
I would be extremely grateful if someone could help me sort this problem out. I really want to have an SPS fest for a tank as that was my whole reason for setting it up in the first place. I have a reasonably good understanding of reef tanks and as you can see by my last tank I am reasonably accomplished at keeping SPS and reef tanks in general
Many thanks,
Cam.
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