All new corals keep dying.. help!

[125mph]

I've had a problem with introducing new corals for many years now.. Anything introduced dies within 1-21 days. I can't figure out what it is... strange thing is, all my fish are fine and my original corals are all doing great too.

Original Corals: Various zoas, frogspawn, gsp, xenias, etc.. .In fact, the xenias and gsp spread like weeds...

Fish: 7 antias, blue tang, pbt, purpletang, two clowns, and melanus wrasse, regal angel and potters angel

Tank: 180G

Parameters:
Salinity: 1.025 (RO water with 0 TDS)
Temp: 78.0
Lights: 4x T5 with three Ecotech XR15 G4pro turned at 40%
Alk: 8.5 dKH (Hanna Colorimeter);
Cal: 420 ppm (Red Sea)
NO3: undetectable (Salifert & confirmed with RedSea)
PO4: undetectable (Red Sea)
PH: 7.91 at night to 8.05 during the day

What I find strange is my nitrates and phosphates have always been undetectable. Even on heavy feeds, turning off skimmer, turning off refug.. its always undetectable.

Equipment:
- Calcium reactor keeping alk stable at about 8 dKH
- Chaeto reactor growing lots of chaeto
- BRS media reactor running BRS gfo
- Vertex skimmer
- Neptune apex monitor
- Two Ecotech MP40 for circuylatio, running at opposite end of the tank. I have them turned on maximum since its a 6 foot tank.


Problem: New corals, even the easiest stuff.. .dies or is very unhappy. I put in a duncan last month and it is closed off about 90% of the day... sometimes it peaks out but then closes back in. I put in a green birdsnest and its browning out and losing color.. I put in a chalice and turned white within 3 days.

Ideas? I've tried a lot of things, just dont know what else to try.. I was going to get another mp40 thinking maybe theres not enough flow but now I'm thinking maybe there's too much flow and I should dial it back. Parameters seem all okay?... Not sure why nitrates and phosphates always read zero.. I do see some algea in the tank and have to scrube the glasses once or twice a week... so I know theres nitrates there.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Have you considered removing the gfo and some of the chato?

And yea play with the flow.

Finding out how much par you have would probably be a good idea as well.
If your blasting with low nutints , that could be a problem.

 

[ycnibrc]

When phosphate and nitrate are zero it's not good either. U have angel so may be they picking at new coral when u introduce. Birdnest is not an easy sps to start with. They can be finicky. May be u can try to take your Chaeto refugium off for a week and test for phosphate and nitrate. Phosphate should be .03 to .08 and nitrate <10ppm then try to add coral again.

 

[zcedric]

Algea eat Phosphates.. thats cpuld be the reason for zero reading. Cheato should bring it close to 0 as well. If you have a lot.. it should eat all off so other algea have no chance.
Why your coral die.. dont know.. how old js the tank? are you treat them with something befor putting them in the show tank? do you keep them on the right hight from the light away? do you have copper or other metal in your water?

 

[125mph]

Have you considered removing the gfo and some of the chato?

And yea play with the flow.

Finding out how much par you have would probably be a good idea as well.
If your blasting with low nutints , that could be a problem.

The GFO is about 2 months new, the problem existed well before it.. I installed the GFO to see if that would help fix it, and it actually improved the colors on some of the corals but not helping with the new additions. I just emptied out all the chaeto and kept only a tiny golf ball size three weeks ago.. that didnt have any noticeable impact.

WHat do you mean if I'm blasting with low nutrients? Are you saying flow is bad if there's not enough nutrients?

As for par: It's pretty low.. I do have a par meter and most of the tank is in the 100-200 par. I can crank it up by turning up the XR15s but it seemed like the corals didnt like it so I turned it down for now. I've played with the lights for a long time to see if that was the issue and my conclusion is to leave it low for now.

 

[125mph]

When phosphate and nitrate are zero it's not good either. U have angel so may be they picking at new coral when u introduce. Birdnest is not an easy sps to start with. They can be finicky. May be u can try to take your Chaeto refugium off for a week and test for phosphate and nitrate. Phosphate should be .03 to .08 and nitrate <10ppm then try to add coral again.

Well thats the strange thing.. I've tried everything. I turned off the chaeto for over a month (and didnt run GFO) and still the nitrates/phosphates read zero. I also tried added nitrates into the tank using the tree stump mix.. It would increase nitrates to a level that was detectable but by the next morning it would be undetectable again..

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...d-i-dont-know-what-to-do.210035/#post-2401666

Light and nutints need to balance.

Chato and gfo strip nutints.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Many look into getting a second opinion on your tests.

 

[125mph]

Algea eat Phosphates.. thats cpuld be the reason for zero reading. Cheato should bring it close to 0 as well. If you have a lot.. it should eat all off so other algea have no chance.
Why your coral die.. dont know.. how old js the tank? are you treat them with something befor putting them in the show tank? do you keep them on the right hight from the light away? do you have copper or other metal in your water?

The 180 tank is about 1 year old, but before that I had a 120G tank that was 7 years old and it had the same issues.

I've altnerated the location of the corals, from bottom to middle , to top and also put them in various locations with more flow and less flow.. I've experimented with thousands of dollars of corals and alternating placement , but they all die after a few weeks. My latest addition was a green birdsnest that I broke into two pieces. I put one in the center of the tank and one at the edge of the tank.. The center has more light then the edge.. Interestingly, the edge piece is doing pretty good while the piece in the center has faded pretty badly.

I dip them all in coralx for about 15 minutes and put then in the tank,

 

[125mph]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/h...d-i-dont-know-what-to-do.210035/#post-2401666

Light and nutints need to balance.

Chato and gfo strip nutints.

So if nutrients are low, lights can't be high output or that'll cause problems?

? How do I add more nutrients? I'm feeding heavily two times a day and have so many fish in the tank.. In the past, I've turned off all nirate/phosphate systems to try to bring up nurients but it always undetectable. I can turn off the GFO and chaeto again but I doubt that will bring the nutrients up.

I've phsyically added No3 and about 30 minutes after adding, I can get the tests to detectable levels, but by the next day its back to zero! Also have used multiple test kits!

 

[125mph]

Also, I run dual filter socks.. those are suppose to be nitrate factories. I change them out once every 3-4 weeks. why are my nitrates still 0!!! lol..

I think I will try to dump some No3 into the tank every day for the next few weeks and see if that helps.. Unless you think therse something else I can try? According to that post saltyfilmfolks mentioned, that may help?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Gfo strips phosphates and chato strips phosphate and nitrates

Both are methods of excess nutint export.

If there's no excess , why export it.

I'd get a second opinion on the tests.

 

[zcedric]

The 180 tank is about 1 year old, but before that I had a 120G tank that was 7 years old and it had the same issues.

I've altnerated the location of the corals, from bottom to middle , to top and also put them in various locations with more flow and less flow.. I've experimented with thousands of dollars of corals and alternating placement , but they all die after a few weeks. My latest addition was a green birdsnest that I broke into two pieces. I put one in the center of the tank and one at the edge of the tank.. The center has more light then the edge.. Interestingly, the edge piece is doing pretty good while the piece in the center has faded pretty badly.

I dip them all in coralx for about 15 minutes and put then in the tank,

Oha.. same problem? I guess you are using RO/DI unit? Is the water still good?
Still weird because all other coral doing fine. Maybe there is something old corals get used to.. and new ones are ticked off.
Do you buy the coral from the same shop? maybe they have a major problem and give it to you befor they die at there place?

 

[bo0sted2g]

Also, I run dual filter socks.. those are suppose to be nitrate factories. I change them out once every 3-4 weeks. why are my nitrates still 0!!! lol..

I think I will try to dump some No3 into the tank every day for the next few weeks and see if that helps.. Unless you think therse something else I can try? According to that post saltyfilmfolks mentioned, that may help?

That's what I had to do. I couldn't get a nitrate reading to save my life! I would feed an insane amount to my 5 little fish 2x a day and still nothing. My rock bottom nutrients also led to a Dinoflagellate outbreak. I had to manually dose Potassium Nitrate and stop doing water changes in order to get a reading. Just start slow until you know how much to pour in.

 

[125mph]

That's what I had to do. I couldn't get a nitrate reading to save my life! I would feed an insane amount to my 5 little fish 2x a day and still nothing. My rock bottom nutrients also led to a Dinoflagellate outbreak. I had to manually dose Potassium Nitrate and stop doing water changes in order to get a reading. Just start slow until you know how much to pour in.

I used the calculator online.. I dumped nitrates yesterday a few times.. I think I got the reading to about 2PPM but it dropped again this morning.. So I dumped in some more..

Corals don't seem improved yet.. Will try to keep it around 2-5PPM for a week and see how they do.

 

[bo0sted2g]

I used the calculator online.. I dumped nitrates yesterday a few times.. I think I got the reading to about 2PPM but it dropped again this morning.. So I dumped in some more..

Corals don't seem improved yet.. Will try to keep it around 2-5PPM for a week and see how they do.

Yeah that's what I did too, used a calculated amount got nothing for a while. Then got lazy with testing for a week or so while still dosing it. Ended up with 30ppm haha.

That being said my zoas and Xenia never looked better than when it hit 30ppm. I did a water change and stopped dosing it for a few days now I'm back down to 5-10ppm

 

[125mph]

Very frustrating.. for the last week, I've added No3 and kept it at 4-5ppm... I added another birdsnest and a duncan.. they are both doing poorly!!! The birdsnest is starting to get burnt tips and fading color. The duncan's head has receded and it wont come back out. I am noticing more algea on the glass since I've been dosing No3. I also lowered the flow rate... And lastly, my xenias are out of control.. They are spreading like weeds. but I cant get any new corals to live ((

I also used the No3 sample (10ppm) that came with Salifert to compare the kit. I can definitely confirm both my No3 kits are working.

Any other ideas? I just checked levels today:

Everything is as before, rock solid stable.

Salinity: 1.025 (RO water with 0 TDS)
Temp: 78.0
Alk: 8.5 dKH (Hanna Colorimeter);
Cal: 420 ppm (Red Sea)
NO3: 4-5ppm (Salifert & confirmed with RedSea)
PO4: didn't test
PH: 7.91 at night to 8.05 during the day