Asking for help because I am at a complete loss

[KrisReef]

I didn't read the whole thread but would it be possible that you have a disgruntled wife/girlfriend? At this point you might want to think outside the box.

That’s a long way out of the box but It’s certainly possible. Ask me how I know and I won’t tell you what I have to deal with from my spouse
.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

You're right I think. I DO want it to be a bacterial issue but I think that comes more from desperation and the desire to put a name on the issue.

Stray voltage has been suggested a few times to me and I feel fairly confident in saying that is NOT the issue. I use a ground probe and also have tested and re-tested for voltage with a multimeter and found nothing but the usual readings of induced voltage from things like pumps. I was actually suspecting my return pump for a bit (not for voltage but for leaching something into the water). I ditched the Reeflo pump and got a nice BIG DC return pump (Red Dragon). No change in the tank though sadly.

Ill attach my most recent ICP (from ATI this time) here.

Par is in the 200-300 range (measured with a MQ-510) and the flow is pretty high. Its an 8 foot tank so I have 4 MP60s and 2 MP40s. I don't want to write off any suggestions or ideas here because I don't want to create a blind spot that I am over looking and I don't want to sound dismissive, but I feel pretty confident that the flow isn't the issue for a few reasons. Mainly that I have never changed the flow in this tank really and the corals did have a period after bleaching where they did fantastic. Good growth and coloration for about 2 months or so. I am not opposed to turning the flow down a bit just to see though.

I'll attach some recent pics tonight when I get off work

You're right I think. I DO want it to be a bacterial issue but I think that comes more from desperation and the desire to put a name on the issue.

Stray voltage has been suggested a few times to me and I feel fairly confident in saying that is NOT the issue. I use a ground probe and also have tested and re-tested for voltage with a multimeter and found nothing but the usual readings of induced voltage from things like pumps. I was actually suspecting my return pump for a bit (not for voltage but for leaching something into the water). I ditched the Reeflo pump and got a nice BIG DC return pump (Red Dragon). No change in the tank though sadly.

Ill attach my most recent ICP (from ATI this time) here.

Par is in the 200-300 range (measured with a MQ-510) and the flow is pretty high. Its an 8 foot tank so I have 4 MP60s and 2 MP40s. I don't want to write off any suggestions or ideas here because I don't want to create a blind spot that I am over looking and I don't want to sound dismissive, but I feel pretty confident that the flow isn't the issue for a few reasons. Mainly that I have never changed the flow in this tank really and the corals did have a period after bleaching where they did fantastic. Good growth and coloration for about 2 months or so. I am not opposed to turning the flow down a bit just to see though.

I'll attach some recent pics tonight when I get off work

Perhaps it’s worth solving every issue to eliminate things.
I would consider dosing a bit of iodine to bring it up. Some people reported coral issues when their iodine was low. Probably worth addressing while you look for other reasons.

Also, what type of fish do you have, how many, what do you feed them, how often?
How much do you feed?
Does your skimmer pull a substantial amount of crud or just some?
Do you have emeralds or hermits?
What were the last corals you’ve had in the tank that died. How did they die exactly?
How many days did it take?
Did you check for any fish nipping?
What is your daily PH?
What is your night time PH?
When was the probe calibrated?
Do corals die during the night or during the day?
Are you able to dose kalkwasser?

 

[fulltang]

Did you confirm your salinity using a glass hydrometer?

 

[IslandLifeReef]

You're right I think. I DO want it to be a bacterial issue but I think that comes more from desperation and the desire to put a name on the issue.

Stray voltage has been suggested a few times to me and I feel fairly confident in saying that is NOT the issue. I use a ground probe and also have tested and re-tested for voltage with a multimeter and found nothing but the usual readings of induced voltage from things like pumps. I was actually suspecting my return pump for a bit (not for voltage but for leaching something into the water). I ditched the Reeflo pump and got a nice BIG DC return pump (Red Dragon). No change in the tank though sadly.

Ill attach my most recent ICP (from ATI this time) here.

Par is in the 200-300 range (measured with a MQ-510) and the flow is pretty high. Its an 8 foot tank so I have 4 MP60s and 2 MP40s. I don't want to write off any suggestions or ideas here because I don't want to create a blind spot that I am over looking and I don't want to sound dismissive, but I feel pretty confident that the flow isn't the issue for a few reasons. Mainly that I have never changed the flow in this tank really and the corals did have a period after bleaching where they did fantastic. Good growth and coloration for about 2 months or so. I am not opposed to turning the flow down a bit just to see though.

I'll attach some recent pics tonight when I get off work

When was the last time you rented a PAR meter. I looked at your first post and you stated that the PAR was never over 310 in the tank. This sounds a lot like the issue I had when I wasn't running enough light. Not saying that is the problem, but if you haven't checked the PAR in a while, it might be worth a shot. Maybe some of the LED's aren't producing the same as when they were new.

 

[Hydrored]

When was the last time you rented a PAR meter. I looked at your first post and you stated that the PAR was never over 310 in the tank. This sounds a lot like the issue I had when I wasn't running enough light. Not saying that is the problem, but if you haven't checked the PAR in a while, it might be worth a shot. Maybe some of the LED's aren't producing the same as when they were new.

I agree with this, it’s worth a shot

Over the years I have been going higher and higher PAR wise and have noticed better growth and coloration. Like @jda says, the quality of light matters

I listened to @Charlie’s Frags a couple years ago and stopped chasing nutrients and will only intervene if way out of line.

I used to go after the 200-300 par and now roll with 350+ other than a couple smooth skins I have in the 200-250 range

Feeding the fish well, good light, high flow, and letting the tank roll and not reacting to algae or nutrients was the best thing that happened to me for reefing.

Nice setup and seems to me you have all the pieces to having a great tank, I hate to see issues like this.

 

[hubble]

Sounds like your doing everything right, this is weird. Almost like it's too sterile or something. Can't wait to find out what it is..........;Bored

 

[HWDylan]

Thanks for the update.
Only idea I have is that your microbes should be diverse now after restarting with live rock.
post #173 @MattW33 might be helpful- he was following your posting and identify with your results. Time and a few massive water changes is what he thought might have allowed his tank to turn around and grow coral. It’s a simple thing to try.
Thanks for the update. I’m sympathetic and still hoping we can figure out how to solve the mysterious situation

Yea this is an easy one to try so I will do this for sure. Worst case is that I waste a bunch of salt. Ive spent more money on dumber things before. HA!

Did you confirm your salinity using a glass hydrometer?

Yessir. I have the Tropic Marin one.

When was the last time you rented a PAR meter. I looked at your first post and you stated that the PAR was never over 310 in the tank. This sounds a lot like the issue I had when I wasn't running enough light. Not saying that is the problem, but if you haven't checked the PAR in a while, it might be worth a shot. Maybe some of the LED's aren't producing the same as when they were new.

It has certainly been a while since I rented a PAR meter. I could do that again. Its a fairly shallow tank so I dont have a TON of variation in PAR. I actually had the PAR higher before but most people recommended I turn the lights down a bit just incase since its way easier to burn corals with too much light than it is to starve them with not enough. Most places I have read say the 200-300 range is great for most corals to live in. You can certainly cook up some nicer colors o acros and such with higher PAR but I have a hard time believing that I am killing them with not enough light at the 200-300 range.

STILL, I am not opposed to it and maybe renting a meter and seeing where things are at this stage would be beneficial.

I agree with this, it’s worth a shot

Over the years I have been going higher and higher PAR wise and have noticed better growth and coloration. Like @jda says, the quality of light matters

I listened to @Charlie’s Frags a couple years ago and stopped chasing nutrients and will only intervene if way out of line.

I used to go after the 200-300 par and now roll with 350+ other than a couple smooth skins I have in the 200-250 range

Feeding the fish well, good light, high flow, and letting the tank roll and not reacting to algae or nutrients was the best thing that happened to me for reefing.

Nice setup and seems to me you have all the pieces to having a great tank, I hate to see issues like this.

I totally agree with the "stop chasing numbers" thing when it comes to nutrients. I have a few tanks at work that I manage and my PO4 is close to .5 in one of the tanks a lot of the time. Corals have always been fine (not an sps tank) and so I have never bothered chasing the numbers unless I see a visible issue.

I'll rent a PAR meter and see where things are these days.

Perhaps it’s worth solving every issue to eliminate things.
I would consider dosing a bit of iodine to bring it up. Some people reported coral issues when their iodine was low. Probably worth addressing while you look for other reasons.

Also, what type of fish do you have, how many, what do you feed them, how often?
How much do you feed?
Does your skimmer pull a substantial amount of crud or just some?
Do you have emeralds or hermits?
What were the last corals you’ve had in the tank that died. How did they die exactly?
How many days did it take?
Did you check for any fish nipping?
What is your daily PH?
What is your night time PH?
When was the probe calibrated?
Do corals die during the night or during the day?
Are you able to dose kalkwasser?

Dosing Iodine has always kind of scared me since the hobby test kits arent great and I know Iodine can be over-dosed fairly easily. If I go with the aggressive water change schedule discussed above that SHOULD remedy that issue. Ive also read many times that Iodine is almost always deficient in home aquaria and that it rarely has major impacts unless it is REALLY REALLY low. Maybe @Randy Holmes-Farley can speak to that more though.

Fish list is:
Fish are:
1x Blonde Naso Tang
1x Convict Tang
1x Tomini Tang
1x Purple Tang
1x Sailfin Tang
2x Bartletts Anthias
2x Bimac Anthias
1x Blue Hippo Tang
1x Yellow Tang
1x White Tail Kole Tang
2x Green Chromis
1x Black Cap Basslet
1x Royal Gramma
1x Orchid Dottyback
2x Black Clowns
1x Quoyi Parrot

People have pointed out before in this thread that the Parrot is clearly my issue but the Quoyi is generally considered reef safe and the way the corals very slowly lose color and recede is not really consistent with someone picking at them. Even the Zoas and stuff will either not spread or slowly kind of melt over time. I've had coral pickers in other tanks and what I am seeing here is not that I don't think. I spend a lot of time watching the tank and have never seen any of the fish pick at corals at all. At this point though I have been discussing moving the parrot to a different tank just to test.

I feed 2x a day. Once at 11am with pellets via an auto feeder and once in the evening Frozen food I make myself. I feed a decent sized chunk of food when I do since I have a lot of fish. I am a believer in the heavy in - heavy out method. Feed a lot and have good filtration to handle the excess.

Skimmer pulls out a nice thick dark green sludge that I clean about 2x a week.

I have a couple of emeralds that were added more recently when I saw some bubble algae start to show up. No hermits or other crabs.

Last corals that died were a piece of Green/Purple Cyphastrea and a small piece of encrusting favia. They died by first losing a lot of color and then having poor polyp extension followed by slow tissue recession.

It took a while to finally give up. Id say 2 months or so of gradual decline. Some of the other corals I still have in there are just kind of stuck in limbo it seems. No color and no polyp extension but just kind of existing. This has been going on for close to 8 months now. I think that is one of the oddest things about this. I have some corals that look fine (a large hammer from another tank) but in over a year have not grown even a single new head or anything. Same with a piece of Tyree Pink Lemonade Acro... I have had it in the tank for about a year now. It grew a bunch at first and then slowly just stopped growing. Still has good polyp extension and color but 0 growth in about 5 months. Very strange. I have never seen corals act like that.

I do not see any fish nipping or have an evidence of it happening when I am not watching.

pH (since the reset) has been about 7.9 in the day to 7.8 at night. Not a huge swing and I use CO2 absorbing media to try and drive the pH but no success. I've theorized in this thread that my high alk consumption and low pH is somehow linked to this issue. Not sure how but every other tank I have ever had had a pH closer to 8.1 and I have never dosed this much alkalinity. I am at almost 200ml a day of 2 part soda ash.

My pH probe is actually brand new and calibrated about 1 week ago. I try and change it out once a year regardless.

Cant say there is a correlation between day or night with coral death. Sometimes I notice it in the morning but I have also seen things give up mid day and go totally white.

I can dose kalk. I think I even have some that I was using for aiptasia control. Not a fan of it in the ATO just because I have a big 55 gal drum that I use for my reservoir and there isn't an easy way to clean out the sludge that forms from kalk. I could mix some up and dose by hand though. Where would you start with that? I have only ever used it in ATO reservoirs.

 

[Just John]

Total shot in the dark, but do you wash your hands with different soap when putting them in one tank vs the other? I wash my hands and obviously rinse them well before touching the tank, but one tank is near the kitchen and one near the bathroom, so I often use different soaps.

 

[HWDylan]

Total shot in the dark, but do you wash your hands with different soap when putting them in one tank vs the other? I wash my hands and obviously rinse them well before touching the tank, but one tank is near the kitchen and one near the bathroom, so I often use different soaps.

I do my best to not put my hands in the tank at all. I use regular dial soap to wash my hands though. Same soap for all tanks in this house since the sink is in the fish room

 

[terraincognita]

some current photos would be awesome.

Maybe some of when things were going well and now if you have any. (b'.')b

Include your sump system too if you can.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Yea this is an easy one to try so I will do this for sure. Worst case is that I waste a bunch of salt. Ive spent more money on dumber things before. HA!


Yessir. I have the Tropic Marin one.


It has certainly been a while since I rented a PAR meter. I could do that again. Its a fairly shallow tank so I dont have a TON of variation in PAR. I actually had the PAR higher before but most people recommended I turn the lights down a bit just incase since its way easier to burn corals with too much light than it is to starve them with not enough. Most places I have read say the 200-300 range is great for most corals to live in. You can certainly cook up some nicer colors o acros and such with higher PAR but I have a hard time believing that I am killing them with not enough light at the 200-300 range.

STILL, I am not opposed to it and maybe renting a meter and seeing where things are at this stage would be beneficial.


I totally agree with the "stop chasing numbers" thing when it comes to nutrients. I have a few tanks at work that I manage and my PO4 is close to .5 in one of the tanks a lot of the time. Corals have always been fine (not an sps tank) and so I have never bothered chasing the numbers unless I see a visible issue.

I'll rent a PAR meter and see where things are these days.

Dosing Iodine has always kind of scared me since the hobby test kits arent great and I know Iodine can be over-dosed fairly easily. If I go with the aggressive water change schedule discussed above that SHOULD remedy that issue. Ive also read many times that Iodine is almost always deficient in home aquaria and that it rarely has major impacts unless it is REALLY REALLY low. Maybe @Randy Holmes-Farley can speak to that more though.

Fish list is:
Fish are:
1x Blonde Naso Tang
1x Convict Tang
1x Tomini Tang
1x Purple Tang
1x Sailfin Tang
2x Bartletts Anthias
2x Bimac Anthias
1x Blue Hippo Tang
1x Yellow Tang
1x White Tail Kole Tang
2x Green Chromis
1x Black Cap Basslet
1x Royal Gramma
1x Orchid Dottyback
2x Black Clowns
1x Quoyi Parrot

People have pointed out before in this thread that the Parrot is clearly my issue but the Quoyi is generally considered reef safe and the way the corals very slowly lose color and recede is not really consistent with someone picking at them. Even the Zoas and stuff will either not spread or slowly kind of melt over time. I've had coral pickers in other tanks and what I am seeing here is not that I don't think. I spend a lot of time watching the tank and have never seen any of the fish pick at corals at all. At this point though I have been discussing moving the parrot to a different tank just to test.

I feed 2x a day. Once at 11am with pellets via an auto feeder and once in the evening Frozen food I make myself. I feed a decent sized chunk of food when I do since I have a lot of fish. I am a believer in the heavy in - heavy out method. Feed a lot and have good filtration to handle the excess.

Skimmer pulls out a nice thick dark green sludge that I clean about 2x a week.

I have a couple of emeralds that were added more recently when I saw some bubble algae start to show up. No hermits or other crabs.

Last corals that died were a piece of Green/Purple Cyphastrea and a small piece of encrusting favia. They died by first losing a lot of color and then having poor polyp extension followed by slow tissue recession.

It took a while to finally give up. Id say 2 months or so of gradual decline. Some of the other corals I still have in there are just kind of stuck in limbo it seems. No color and no polyp extension but just kind of existing. This has been going on for close to 8 months now. I think that is one of the oddest things about this. I have some corals that look fine (a large hammer from another tank) but in over a year have not grown even a single new head or anything. Same with a piece of Tyree Pink Lemonade Acro... I have had it in the tank for about a year now. It grew a bunch at first and then slowly just stopped growing. Still has good polyp extension and color but 0 growth in about 5 months. Very strange. I have never seen corals act like that.

I do not see any fish nipping or have an evidence of it happening when I am not watching.

pH (since the reset) has been about 7.9 in the day to 7.8 at night. Not a huge swing and I use CO2 absorbing media to try and drive the pH but no success. I've theorized in this thread that my high alk consumption and low pH is somehow linked to this issue. Not sure how but every other tank I have ever had had a pH closer to 8.1 and I have never dosed this much alkalinity. I am at almost 200ml a day of 2 part soda ash.

My pH probe is actually brand new and calibrated about 1 week ago. I try and change it out once a year regardless.

Cant say there is a correlation between day or night with coral death. Sometimes I notice it in the morning but I have also seen things give up mid day and go totally white.

I can dose kalk. I think I even have some that I was using for aiptasia control. Not a fan of it in the ATO just because I have a big 55 gal drum that I use for my reservoir and there isn't an easy way to clean out the sludge that forms from kalk. I could mix some up and dose by hand though. Where would you start with that? I have only ever used it in ATO reservoirs.

Reading this makes me think that unless you see some sort of bug in the tank, it may be a light issue. 200-300 PAR might be OK if the Acro's are mostly in areas the get more than 280 PAR, but if they are in areas that only get 250 PAR or less, you may be starving them. SPS can take a lot of light. They can survive in shallow water that gets full sun exposure. That is way more than the PAR we provide in a tank.

LED's can burn corals because of the spot intensity of the LED's. Since you have diffusers and great spacing on you units, "hot spots" are probably not much of an issue in your tank.

Rent a PAR meter and check out the tank again. Don't be afraid to raise the PAR over 350. Just do it slowly so you don't stress the other coral in your tank.

 

[zdrc]

I read through the whole thread, and I think you're right about the problem being biological. The odd AquaBiomics results tied with the unusual alkalinity uptake seemed to indicate this. I feel this was further validated when the bleach nuke worked for a while. The bleach probably dramatically reduced numbers of whatever microbe is causing this problem, but didn't eradicate it. Now it has managed to rebuild its numbers and the problem has gradually reappeared.

One thing that is strange is why the microbe was able to reestablish after the bleach. It sounds like you went to some lengths to restart with a healthy biome, but for whatever reason that didn't seem to work.

Did the alkalinity uptake change after the bleach nuke?

I think you should run the same experiment you did with the water from the main tank being used to grow coral in a test tank, but with some hardscape from the main tank. If this kills the coral, then you can definitely say that the problem is on the hardscape, especially if the coral rebounds after removing the rock.

Have you looked at the tank after dark much? Perhaps there is something larger than a microbe thats causing problems after dark?

You mentioned using UV. I'm no expert, but could this be destabilizing the biome? Sometimes a very sterile environment can be ideal conditions to grow certain bad bacteria. Perhaps a good example is fish TB. The bacteria species responsible for fish TB are very resistant to standard sterilization techniques. They grow slowly for bacteria, but in a sterilized environment with no competitors, they can really take over. This can be a real problem for fish breeders. I'm not sure if this is a great idea, but it is an idea.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

My shot at this, if the corals are bleaching out/losing tissue quickly after introduction, maybe the higher PAR levels you're running are too high for the initial acclimation. I've had that happen where corals are happy in the darker parts of my tank at first, then I gradually move them into the higher light areas if I think they need it. Just my two cents.

 

[terraincognita]

If he says his Zoa's and other Softies melt too though it is really hard to imagine it being a PAR thing accross his ENTIRE tank hmmm.... Asking for photos just so we can all see it, photos are worth 1,000 words thats for sure. As much as we've all read we can't figure out really what's going on. Super interesting with the same water in another tank that tank is fine.

I really suspect the tank he's using or the sump system is leaching something into the water source, maybe it's being eaten up or used somehow by something and therefore not remaining in the water column long enough to be traced but long enough to tick off his corals and kill everything.

sounds like possibly your real and only solution is to shut that system down, save everything you can in the other tank you have set up and restart with a new system? maybe we'll never figure out what it is tbh, but if you can see results in a completely different system, i'd chalk it up 100% to SOMETHING in your larger system is leaching and killing off everything. Despite us being able to figure out what it is.

If I were you i'd stop worrying at this point, it's been what 3 years now of headache? dump the system, get a new one, you've spent more in livestock and stress since I'm sure :-(

If a bleach out couldn't kill it, I doubt anything else you're going to do is gonna. I'd have been scared to even go through the bleach process you did! That's impressive. I personally would've dumped the system then :-/

With all that said I'm so sorry for everything man, it's such a disheartening situation. Enough to make one want to quit the hobby for sure, but at least you seeing corals brightening up in your other side system can be a silver lining in the very, very dark clouds you've had looming over you for the last few years.

 

[HWDylan]

some current photos would be awesome.

Maybe some of when things were going well and now if you have any. (b'.')b

Include your sump system too if you can.

attaching a few pics here from when things were good.

I have been out of town a lot the last week so most of the time I have been home the tank has been dark but I can get some current pics this evening.

Reading this makes me think that unless you see some sort of bug in the tank, it may be a light issue. 200-300 PAR might be OK if the Acro's are mostly in areas the get more than 280 PAR, but if they are in areas that only get 250 PAR or less, you may be starving them. SPS can take a lot of light. They can survive in shallow water that gets full sun exposure. That is way more than the PAR we provide in a tank.

LED's can burn corals because of the spot intensity of the LED's. Since you have diffusers and great spacing on you units, "hot spots" are probably not much of an issue in your tank.

Rent a PAR meter and check out the tank again. Don't be afraid to raise the PAR over 350. Just do it slowly so you don't stress the other coral in your tank.

I'll rent a meter if I can find one to rent... BRS apparently does not offer that anymore. Worst case Ill buy one.

I read through the whole thread, and I think you're right about the problem being biological. The odd AquaBiomics results tied with the unusual alkalinity uptake seemed to indicate this. I feel this was further validated when the bleach nuke worked for a while. The bleach probably dramatically reduced numbers of whatever microbe is causing this problem, but didn't eradicate it. Now it has managed to rebuild its numbers and the problem has gradually reappeared.

One thing that is strange is why the microbe was able to reestablish after the bleach. It sounds like you went to some lengths to restart with a healthy biome, but for whatever reason that didn't seem to work.

Did the alkalinity uptake change after the bleach nuke?

I think you should run the same experiment you did with the water from the main tank being used to grow coral in a test tank, but with some hardscape from the main tank. If this kills the coral, then you can definitely say that the problem is on the hardscape, especially if the coral rebounds after removing the rock.

Have you looked at the tank after dark much? Perhaps there is something larger than a microbe thats causing problems after dark?

You mentioned using UV. I'm no expert, but could this be destabilizing the biome? Sometimes a very sterile environment can be ideal conditions to grow certain bad bacteria. Perhaps a good example is fish TB. The bacteria species responsible for fish TB are very resistant to standard sterilization techniques. They grow slowly for bacteria, but in a sterilized environment with no competitors, they can really take over. This can be a real problem for fish breeders. I'm not sure if this is a great idea, but it is an idea.

I keep coming back to the biological question. Nothing shows up on ANY ICP test. Nothing is in the water column that transfers to the other tank even when using 100% bad tank water for water changes.

There almost HAS to be something on the surfaces that is causing the issues.

Alk uptake has been relatively high for the entire life of this tank both before and after the bleaching. It has certainly gone up as things have gotten worse though. I am at nearly 200ml a day with 0 coral growth that I can see.

I can put a piece of rock from the bad tank in there and see. Not a bad idea to try actually.

I do look at the tank at night a lot. Ive never seen anything out of the ordinary. I have quite a bit of experience with reef tanks (I do it for a living at a public institution) and know how to spot a lot of the common bad guys like nudis and stuff. I have never seen any sign of them. Only thing I see are brittle stars and amphipods mostly.

I do not actually use the UV anymore. When I rebooted the tank after the bleach I took it offline and never set it back up for exactly that reason.

My shot at this, if the corals are bleaching out/losing tissue quickly after introduction, maybe the higher PAR levels you're running are too high for the initial acclimation. I've had that happen where corals are happy in the darker parts of my tank at first, then I gradually move them into the higher light areas if I think they need it. Just my two cents.

Thats the thing. It isnt quickly. They will look stressed but hang on for months often times. There are some corals that have just looked bad but kept surviving for around 6 months.

If he says his Zoa's and other Softies melt too though it is really hard to imagine it being a PAR thing accross his ENTIRE tank hmmm.... Asking for photos just so we can all see it, photos are worth 1,000 words thats for sure. As much as we've all read we can't figure out really what's going on. Super interesting with the same water in another tank that tank is fine.

I really suspect the tank he's using or the sump system is leaching something into the water source, maybe it's being eaten up or used somehow by something and therefore not remaining in the water column long enough to be traced but long enough to tick off his corals and kill everything.

sounds like possibly your real and only solution is to shut that system down, save everything you can in the other tank you have set up and restart with a new system? maybe we'll never figure out what it is tbh, but if you can see results in a completely different system, i'd chalk it up 100% to SOMETHING in your larger system is leaching and killing off everything. Despite us being able to figure out what it is.

If I were you i'd stop worrying at this point, it's been what 3 years now of headache? dump the system, get a new one, you've spent more in livestock and stress since I'm sure :-(

If a bleach out couldn't kill it, I doubt anything else you're going to do is gonna. I'd have been scared to even go through the bleach process you did! That's impressive. I personally would've dumped the system then :-/

With all that said I'm so sorry for everything man, it's such a disheartening situation. Enough to make one want to quit the hobby for sure, but at least you seeing corals brightening up in your other side system can be a silver lining in the very, very dark clouds you've had looming over you for the last few years.

Mannnnnnn this bums me out because it is the thought I have constantly. Just quit.

I had this tank custom made for me by ReefSavvy. This was suppose to be the dream tank. I want to solve this so bad. There HAS to be something I am missing or just plain doing wrong here.

I keep having this fantasy of finding something PROFOUNDY dumb that I have been doing that is the clear issue but.. so far no luck. I know coral keeping is not easy but I have been in the reef keeping game both as a hobby and now professionally for 15+ years. I have NEVER seen anything like this. Its wild.

 

[HWDylan]

Here are a few pics of the sump room. Not a lot has changed since my original post but the UV is offline and the Return pump has changed.

I'll get some display pics when I get home and the lights are still on.

 

[HWDylan]

here are a few display pics of corals that have managed to hang on. These are either actively receding or just completely stagnant.

Its weird. Things like the war coral have lost all tissue except the green mouths but has been like that for months. No recovery and no death. Other things like that big hammer coral have just looked exactly the same for ages. There is another purple hammer a little below the big green one that has shrunk significantly.

The Zoas expanded a TON during the window where everything was goin good but then either completely stopped spreading or melted. I lost several different colonies to just melting away.

Please ignore the MASSIVE aiptasia problem currently. Its an ongoing fight. I have 50 peppermint shrimp, a file fish, and I added Berghias but the problem persists.

 

[terraincognita]

hmmm interesting. You do have a LOT of light for sure, and a lot of encrusting with little branching. I'm interested to see PAR results.

That's definitely where I'd go next. water is a little cloudy as well? maybe just photos? but cloudy water = bacterial blooming and spiking.

How much carbon are you running, and what brand? and hopefully it's not tumbling? Too much carbon can also be a bad thing.

 

[terraincognita]

Also did you bleach the sump out and all equipment?

Having working with sanitization units in hospitals before, I'm well aware it only takes a single bacterium to repopulate and cause havoc. Super Bugs in Endoscopes killing people was a hot topic for a few years due to improper washing, and storage, causing Bacteria to end up co-mingaling and creating "super bugs" which was insane.

 

[Lavey29]

This is tough to digest because you have been so diligent in your efforts to get your beautiful tank right. I honestly believe your par numbers are off too. I think your par is way low because you have the lights mounted high and running a lower intensity. I have XR15s mounted 8 inches up and I'm running 80% schedule AB plus and I still think I might be low for SPS. You have checked so many variables with your water I think your lights need to be par mapped again. I wish you best of luck.