All sps are going STN after few days

[An ngo]

You need to stop changing things. A rapid drop in Phosphate, or swinging Phosphate, can cause all kinds of issues. Combined with unstable Alk and it's worse.

The number one lesson is that SPS hate change, so everything you change can potentially cause issues. PO4, NO3, lighting, carbon dosing, etc. Find a routine and stick to it for a few months, then evaluate.

In addition, test Alk at the same time every day for a few days in a row to make sure it's stable.

How are you maintaining Alk? Two part or Calcium Reactor?

I need to bring down my phospate because it too high now. My alk stay at 7.9-8.5 and it around that couple months. I use 2 part sodium bicarbonate and 2 part calcium chloride for calcium. Both alk and cal stay stable all the time but nitrate swing in couple days and phospate has a big swing from 0-019 to .09. I also use actived carbon and gfo. My parameter today is
Nitrate: 3
Phosphate: 0.061
Kh: 7.9
Here Are some pic and it still spread out. I can can not control it. Please help me out.

 

[BoomCorals]

Have you done a triton water test?

 

[markalot]

>I need to bring down my phospate because it too high now.

YOU ARE WRONG. Stop testing PO4, stop testing nitrate, let the tank settle down. If you keep worrying about PO4 and freak out when it's a little high YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED. Phosphate is not killing your corals. Sorry, not trying to be mean, but if you look at my thread and go back when I was having all kinds of problems ... I was where you are now. Testing PO4, lowering PO4 with GFO, killing corals. There is a tank on Reef Central that had PO4 over .2 and killer acro colors. High Phosphates is not that big of a deal and trying to correct it can easily do more harm than good.

Just stop testing, get your water stable, and let the tank settle down. You want help but you're not listening. Most of your corals are goners because you keep changing things. You only hope is to reduce testing to Alk only, make sure it stays stable, and do not change anything else.

One last thing. The only thing I've seen kill a green birdsnest like that is an Alk spike. You better make sure you are testing correctly.

 

[An ngo]

Have you done a triton water test?

I never uae triton test before

 

[An ngo]

>I need to bring down my phospate because it too high now.

YOU ARE WRONG. Stop testing PO4, stop testing nitrate, let the tank settle down. If you keep worrying about PO4 and freak out when it's a little high YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED. Phosphate is not killing your corals. Sorry, not trying to be mean, but if you look at my thread and go back when I was having all kinds of problems ... I was where you are now. Testing PO4, lowering PO4 with GFO, killing corals. There is a tank on Reef Central that had PO4 over .2 and killer acro colors. High Phosphates is not that big of a deal and trying to correct it can easily do more harm than good.

Just stop testing, get your water stable, and let the tank settle down. You want help but you're not listening. Most of your corals are goners because you keep changing things. You only hope is to reduce testing to Alk only, make sure it stays stable, and do not change anything else.

One last thing. The only thing I've seen kill a green birdsnest like that is an Alk spike. You better make sure you are testing correctly.

Yeah I check alk everyday since thus happens and it stay from 7.9-8.5. But my nitrate seem to go up and down in several days. I will let the tank settle down and see what happen next. Does flow effect this issue??

 

[markalot]

Yeah I check alk everyday since thus happens and it stay from 7.9-8.5. But my nitrate seem to go up and down in several days. I will let the tank settle down and see what happen next. Does flow effect this issue??

7.9 - 8.5 is not exactly stable. Flow should not have any effect. I think the bottom line is you are testing too much. You want to test at the same time every day and be careful not to test just after feeding or just after dosing the tank. Testing All daily is good to make sure it's stable, then once dosing is set slack of testing a bit but always try and test weekly. Since your corals are suffering Alk usage will be dropping.

Test Alk, set dosing of both parts 2 part to the Alk measurement.

As I mentioned before I would stop testing PO4 and Nitrate, they are not that important right now.

 

[An ngo]

7.9 - 8.5 is not exactly stable. Flow should not have any effect. I think the bottom line is you are testing too much. You want to test at the same time every day and be careful not to test just after feeding or just after dosing the tank. Testing All daily is good to make sure it's stable, then once dosing is set slack of testing a bit but always try and test weekly. Since your corals are suffering Alk usage will be dropping.

Test Alk, set dosing of both parts 2 part to the Alk measurement.

As I mentioned before I would stop testing PO4 and Nitrate, they are not that important right now.

Ok thanks for your advice. It help a lot. I always test before feeding and at the same time everyday. I will try to keep alk stable at this time and not borther nitrate and phosphate anymore.

 

[amazongb]

Yeah I check alk everyday since thus happens and it stay from 7.9-8.5. But my nitrate seem to go up and down in several days. I will let the tank settle down and see what happen next. Does flow effect this issue??

When I test my tank, typical nitrate reading is 2 ppm. All of a sudden, it spiked to 20 ppm.. the cause was my return pump was clogged a bit.. I cleaned it, got the flow back to normal and nitrate came back down.. how is your flow?

 

[An ngo]

When I test my tank, typical nitrate reading is 2 ppm. All of a sudden, it spiked to 20 ppm.. the cause was my return pump was clogged a bit.. I cleaned it, got the flow back to normal and nitrate came back down.. how is your flow?

My nitrate spiked because my dosing pump of nitrate didn't work in 2 days

 

[BantyRooster97]

I recently went through the same thing. I started to lose corals to STN. When I checked my phosphate it was .25. I dropped it too fast and it had terrible effects on my tank. I lost half my tank & it all started little by little like what you have pics of.

Like others have said. Let the tank settle. Keep ALK stable. Some corals will die, some will not... but the rapid changes are worse than the high numbers.

I lost several candy canes, montis, birds nests, all were due to the high Phosphate & rapid decline. Then I lost numerous acros, all due to the rapid up & down.

Be patient..... let the water settle slowly.

 

[An ngo]

I recently went through the same thing. I started to lose corals to STN. When I checked my phosphate it was .25. I dropped it too fast and it had terrible effects on my tank. I lost half my tank & it all started little by little like what you have pics of.

Like others have said. Let the tank settle. Keep ALK stable. Some corals will die, some will not... but the rapid changes are worse than the high numbers.

I lost several candy canes, montis, birds nests, all were due to the high Phosphate & rapid decline. Then I lost numerous acros, all due to the rapid up & down.

Be patient..... let the water settle slowly.

I know man. I will let my tank settle down and keep alk stable. Most of my acro stn and some lps also stress tho. Lost too much money into high end coral and it run out this issue.

 

[markalot]

I've been successful for almost 2 years now and I am still afraid to buy high end corals. I think the issue with me is that paying a lot for a coral makes me more stressed about tank health which leads to more testing which leads to more changes which leads to failure.

 

[An ngo]

I've been successful for almost 2 years now and I am still afraid to buy high end corals. I think the issue with me is that paying a lot for a coral makes me more stressed about tank health which leads to more testing which leads to more changes which leads to failure.

I know, the more testing make me more concern on them and try to balance those water parameter. This what i'm doing right now and kill all coral

 

[Daydream Corals]

How are you checking salinity ?

 

[An ngo]

How are you checking salinity ?

Salinity is 1.025

 

[An ngo]

My kh today is 7.3 and yesterday was 7.9. Is it a bid swing in 1 day. I only keep track kh now and don't mess to other stuff

 

[Javier Leon]

My tank currently 8 months old and start to play sps couple months ago. My sps went up and down through last month due to high nitrate and phosphate. But it start to grow and start healthy from last month. Until last week, my auto dosing doesn't dose vinegar which brought NO3 from 2 to 8-10. I notice it and some of me sps stn from the bottom and some on top. Most of them browning pretty quick. Phosphate before it happen was 0.02. After bring my nitrate down to 3 and all my sps stn from the bottom. Most of them don't extend polyp also. I check phospate again and it swing up to 0.09 after 3 days. Do you think my sps have chance to recover? Does phospate and nitrate swing cAuse my sps stn from the the bottom??????

What stands for STN, am new to the hobby and a lot of this short words are new for me. Thank you!

 

[Mattrg02]

I’ll bet your dkh isn’t dropping, I’ll bet it’s the testing that’s off. I have found, many times, that my testing practices causes inconsistent results. I once had dkh drop 0.5dkh in one day despite only having a few frags that weren’t growing, at all. I then dosed dkh. I tested again, now it’s too high. Water change with acid adjusted dkh, now it’s too low. Rinse and repeat.

Unless you have substantial sps colonies, I’d forget about dkh altogether. I’ve seen tanks drop down to 5-6dkh and look great.

As soon as you put something in that tank, you have a new chance of failure.

Just keep feedings up enough to have nutrients and leave it alone. Adding some unwashed mysis shrimp is a lot safer than dosing nitrates and phosphate.

Btw-stn is slow tissue necrosis. Rtn is rapid tissue necrosis.

 

[An ngo]

I’ll bet your dkh isn’t dropping, I’ll bet it’s the testing that’s off. I have found, many times, that my testing practices causes inconsistent results. I once had dkh drop 0.5dkh in one day despite only having a few frags that weren’t growing, at all. I then dosed dkh. I tested again, now it’s too high. Water change with acid adjusted dkh, now it’s too low. Rinse and repeat.

Unless you have substantial sps colonies, I’d forget about dkh altogether. I’ve seen tanks drop down to 5-6dkh and look great.

As soon as you put something in that tank, you have a new chance of failure.

Just keep feedings up enough to have nutrients and leave it alone. Adding some unwashed mysis shrimp is a lot safer than dosing nitrates and phosphate.

Btw-stn is slow tissue necrosis. Rtn is rapid tissue necrosis.

I never dose any nitrate or phosphate. All i do is feeding heavy if want to raise up. However, as matkalot said I don't want to borther nitrate and phosphate anymore and let the tank settle down. All i do right niw is keep track of kh. As I measure it swing 0.5 but it not high and i still have anemone and lps consume so I think it may be 7.4 if off. The thing isy sps still keep stn tho and i have no clue