All LPS Slowly Dying

[Clownfishy]

I have now disconnected the NOPOX doser. I am going to see how high my phosphate now goes without dosing NOPOX. I will continue with water changes but maybe not every other day as I am doing at the moment!! I am really thinking this maybe it. What I cannot square away is that my phosphate will go to at least 0.3 - 0.4 but maybe thats what my corals like

 

[Lavey29]

Full tank shots for those that requested it. As you can see not all corals affected. My Monti is doing amazing!

Have you checked par? That's a wide tank for only 2 lights.

 

[Clownfishy]

Have you checked par? That's a wide tank for only 2 lights.

I do not have a par meter but what I can say, the corals on the edges and middle of the tank are doing well.

 

[Lavey29]

I do not have a par meter but what I can say, the corals on the edges and middle of the tank are doing well.

Your parameters are good so that leaves light and flow. You said all your LPS are slowly dying but softs ok. Softs don't need much light but LPS should be 100 to 250 par with moderate flow generally. Low par will cause them to slowly die off from the inside out.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Couple things to change right away is the lps closest to the sinularia at the end of the tank. Sinularia are great at toxic warfare and do bother many lps. Just for giggles, keep them all down at one end. Then, run carbon.

Make sure The lps is a bit further from that monti growing down on the bottom.

The tank looks very clean. The lps you have that are not doing well are the ones I tend to associate with needing more nitrate in the water and certainly more food available in the water. Phyto, zoo, etc.

The ones you are showing are also the ones that need lower light, so on the bottom is fine, IME. Make sure flow is not too high. Will cause them to close up more and recede.

Other option is to dip each piece in a lugols solution for 10-15 minutes. Could help with any posible bacteria issue.

I hope it settles down and they get healthy again for you. Tough one if it was a parameter to jump/drop too much and cannot track it back.

 

[Clownfishy]

Update on the water parameters after 5 x 40% water changes in just under a week.

In the last 24 hours, I have aligned my Alkalinity dosing to my Calcium dosing (5ml per day) and as expected, my Alkalinity is beginning to drop. Before I was dosing double the Alkalinity compared to Calcium just to maintain my Alkalinity at 9.0.

8.3 down from 9.3 in 24hrs

Interestingly, Calcium started dropping as well which I do not normally observe as my Calcium is generally stuck at 450

425 down from 450 in 24hrs

Magnesium has also dropped which again, I have never seen before as it has stayed at 1500 for some time. I am now beginning to wonder if my chemistry was a little out of wake and the large water changes may have reset things and the chemistry is now acting as expected. Too early to say but certainly seeing some different numbers.

1410 down from 1500 in 24 hours

NItrate is reducing down due to all the water changes I have performed

6.2 down from 18.7 in just under a week

Now although Phosphate has dropped, it has not dropped in line with Nitrate. Considering the water changes, it dropped on the days I water change but I always struggle to get phosphate down. Now I have stopped NOPOX dosing, I am expecting this to rise drastically. I will test this daily for the next few days to see what happens. I will now only water change either weekly or if Phosphate or Nitrate start rises too much too quickly.

0.19 down from 0.38 in just under a week

 

[Lavey29]

Water changes do not affect phosphate just lower nitrates and replenish elements.

 

[reefslugs]

It's not you're lighting or water chemistry. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw your full tank shot. Are the unhappy leather corals. When leather corals are unhappy. They will put off toxins. I'd run a reactor full of carbon and do water changes.

 

[Clownfishy]

After a week of not dosing NOPOX, there is no change to the corals and I have lost another 2 lps corals. Both my Phosphate and Nitrate shot up so I have again started to dose NOPOX but half of the dosage I previously did which is now 1ml per day rather than 2ml per day. I am also dosing Brightwell MicroBacter7 daily for 2 weeks and then I will reduce it depending on what my nutrient levels look like. I am now also considering changing salt from Fritz salt as I not happy with element levels in the salt
https://lab.faunamarin.de/en/share/analysis/21527

I also reduced my lighting down to 13 hours and reduced the white intensity from 25% to 20% with a very slow ramp of up. Again, this has changed nothing and in fact, I would say my last remaining lps corals look worse now than they did a week ago so I may increase the intensity back to where it was but keep it to a 13 hour lighting period.

Apart from a pest attacking my lps which I cannot see anything and a change in salt, I am at a loss as to what to do next and why I am losing all my lps corals. I will keep trying things but have resigned myself to losing all my lps but my sps and soft corals seem OK throughout this issue (that is a kiss of death!).

 

[Dburr1014]

You changed your lighting down to 13 hours?
How many hours was it before?
Most people are 12 or even less than that. Perhaps they're stressed from too much light.

 

[Lavey29]

You changed your lighting down to 13 hours?
How many hours was it before?
Most people are 12 or even less than that. Perhaps they're stressed from too much light.

Agreed I'm at 10 hours

 

[Clownfishy]

You changed your lighting down to 13 hours?
How many hours was it before?
Most people are 12 or even less than that. Perhaps they're stressed from too much light.

Possible although these corals have been used to this length of light period for years as I have always run them this long. One thing to consider is that for the first and last part of that lighting period (2-3 hours), the LEDs are running at 5-10% and only blue. I will knock it back to 12 hours

 

[Clownfishy]

Lost 2 more LPS corals this weeked. Here are my last few corals just hanging on in. I have swapped my salt mix from Fritz Reef Pro mix (blue bucket) to H2Ocean salt as I am a worried (maybe incorrectly) at the some of the low elements from the ICP tests on the Fritz salt. Will perform a few water changes using the H2Ocean salt over the next few weeks.
Also broadcast feeding frozen food to give the lps corals more chance of feeding.

 

[Clownfishy]

On the last few LPS corals now. No matter what I do, whatever it is, it is spreading through all of them. I can only think it is a bacterial infection

 

[Shirak]

On the last few LPS corals now. No matter what I do, whatever it is, it is spreading through all of them. I can only think it is a bacterial infection

Possibly... or swinging parameters or all kinds of other possibilities like a pest or who can say for sure. Do you have any antibiotics? Chemiclean is a broad spectrum antibiotic and might help if it's bacterial. Cipro is good too.

Acans are notorious for doing ok for a while and then slowly shrinking away to nothing. I have had the best luck with them in moderate flow under low light and target feeding meaty foods and pellets a few times a week.

 

[Clownfishy]

Possibly... or swinging parameters or all kinds of other possibilities like a pest or who can say for sure. Do you have any antibiotics? Chemiclean is a broad spectrum antibiotic and might help if it's bacterial. Cipro is good too.

Acans are notorious for doing ok for a while and then slowly shrinking away to nothing. I have had the best luck with them in moderate flow under low light and target feeding meaty foods and pellets a few times a week.

I dont have Chemiclean. I have dipped the coral in Lugols Iodine and since I have been doing that and dipping the corals in Red Sea dipx once a week, the STN has slowed. However, the corals look like they are just hanging on in and could die any minute. What is interesting is that my soft corals are not opening up as they used to, all my remaining LPS corals now have STN but my SPS corals are all fine and showing no signs of STN. This is why I originally asked if there was some specific LPS STN.
My Phosphate is now down to 0.12 and I should have that down to just under 0.1 in the next day or two. I just cannot seen to stop this spreading :-(

 

[Harold999]

Are you sure your salinity is 35ppt? I recently found out - after not calibrating my Hanna for a month or 2 - that the 35ppt it displayed was 36ppt in reality. I started to notice that my acans weren't happy so started searching and found out. Lowered salinity over a couple of days and they are happy again.

 

[zoaprince]

As others have mentioned, consider all those sinularia/nepthea that are in the tank. I have a Nepthea that killed all my hammers. Months later I added a new one and it almost died too. Finally I decided to remove the Nepthea and viola everything is good now and I have happy hammers in the tank.

 

[Shirak]

I do not have a par meter but what I can say, the corals on the edges and middle of the tank are doing well.

Those Zoas on the right are super stretching for light. I think you need more light for one. The Acans I find don't need a lot of light but they do like lower flow and frequent feeding IMO. Are you running carbon for possible soft coral toxin?

No I am not aware of an LPS STN. Usually if LPS are shrinking is from lack of nutrition either in food intake or light levels or a combination of both, or swinging parameters that is upsetting them.

 

[Clownfishy]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I really do appreciate it. I have answered some of the question below -

• I have tried highlight and and low light, long duration and shorter duration and nothing seemed to make a difference.
• Soft coral toxin does sound logical and maybe I could set up a spare tank somewhere and take them out to see if that makes any difference. The only thing I would say is that these same corals have been together for years albeit in a slightly bigger tank so I would have seen something earlier.
• I run carbon and I have tried very large water changes and smaller water changes which made no difference
• Salinity has been checked with a calibrated hanna and a Refractometer
• Water parameters are stable and I dose Calcium, Alk and Mineral salts (bailing method) every hour 24/7.
• I normally feed my fish just pellets and let the corals live off the waste from the fish and the bacteria which I dose and increase through carbon dosing. However, several weeks back, I have started to broadcast feed frozen food so the corals will also be taking up some nutrients from that food as well now.

The only thing that seems to have halted the deterioration is dipping them. This has led me to believe there is a bug, parasite or bacterial infection that I cannot see, but is being knocked back every time I dip them. What is really frustrating is that although the dipping seems to halt the deterioration, the corals do not look much better than before being dipped and it has spread to all my LPS corals. If I stop dipping, I am sure they will just die. I now dip them once a week. All my SPS corals are fine and growing like weeds and none of them have been dipped yet. Whatever it is, it is specific to LPS.

It is heartbreaking seeing all my LPS just die and there seems nothing I do that stops it. Down to my last 6 LPS corals, all showing signs of STN. All my other LPS have been lost :-(

Thanks again