Cant keep coral alive

[Mrcote1]

So my "reef" tank is about 9 months old now, has 3 anthias, a clown, and a blenny. And various sps frags as well as a very small rbta. Every single coral i put in the tank bleaches completely white almost after about 1 week. Then after about a month or 2 it starts to get color back slowly but is still very whitish. My rbta has practically no color left as well. Ive put 8 frags of sps in the tank. The first 3 frags didnt make it. Its a 75 gallon display with 2 reef radiance x1 genesis LEDs (165 watts each) and a 40 gallon sump. I also run carbon and gfo in reactors and only use RODI water from my own rodi filter.
Params are as follows:
Temp 78 degrees
Salinity. 1.025 ppm
Magnesium. 1420 ppm
Calcium 440 ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Ammonia 0ppm
Phosphate 0ppm
Kh 125ppm
Dkh 7
Ph 8.0
Copper 0.13 ppm

Any tips or suggestiojs would be appreciated because im sick of not being able to keep beautiful coral and scared to buy new stuff.

 

[zack801]

I don’t believe there should be any measurable amount of copper in your tank if you expect to keep anything other than fish. Did you treat your tank with copper or get sand/rock from a tank that did?

 

[Mrcote1]

No, i have a qt i treat with copper but am VERY careful about cross contamination. and i bought rock that was used in a previous reef tank and then bleached by a LFS. Then I bleached it for 1 month before setting up in my tank. Also all my sand was dry sand as I was very careful about introducing unwanted things. I read online a little copper is normal from salt? And im sure the test kit isnt 100% accurate either. Its a hanna copper checker

Also i have a sandsifting star and a cleaner shrimp that are both healthy. The shrimp molts every few weeks and is growing huge fast so the copper isnt affecting the shrimp if there is copper but i dont get how there could if its not normal to come in from salt mix

 

[Tastee]

How are you testing for Nitrates and Phosphates?

If they are really 0 then that would not help, you need a small amount of both for stony corals. I target 0.02 ppm Phosphate and 0.5-1 ppm Nitrate myself. You do need to get any algae issues under control first however. In my case I dose NOPOX to manage my nutrient levels, but only just enough to keep them down and still give me detectable levels.

 

[Scrubber_steve]

So my "reef" tank is about 9 months old now, has 3 anthias, a clown, and a blenny. And various sps frags as well as a very small rbta. Every single coral i put in the tank bleaches completely white almost after about 1 week. Then after about a month or 2 it starts to get color back slowly but is still very whitish. My rbta has practically no color left as well. Ive put 8 frags of sps in the tank. The first 3 frags didnt make it. Its a 75 gallon display with 2 reef radiance x1 genesis LEDs (165 watts each) and a 40 gallon sump. I also run carbon and gfo in reactors and only use RODI water from my own rodi filter.
Params are as follows:
Temp 78 degrees
Salinity. 1.025 ppm
Magnesium. 1420 ppm
Calcium 440 ppm
Nitrate 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Ammonia 0ppm
Phosphate 0ppm
Kh 125ppm
Dkh 7
Ph 8.0
Copper 0.13 ppm

Any tips or suggestiojs would be appreciated because im sick of not being able to keep beautiful coral and scared to buy new stuff.

Perhaps a Triton ICP test might be in order

 

[Skep18]

Dose Sodium Nitrate and Trisodium Phosphate to get measurable nutrients. You should see algae growth increase on your rock work.

Also start new frags on your sand bed and move them up slowly.

I had a similar situation to your and the above help me out a lot.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

its quite simple, they are starving.

 

[andyg1960]

What nitrate and phosphate tests are you using? If really zero, corals will fail. Lighting may be an issue as well. Are you starting the corals on the sand bed and using some sort of acclimation lighting mode? Stop the gfo to get some nutrients for those corals going.

 

[Mrcote1]

I use API test kit for phosphate and nitrate. But i have cyanobacteria growth on the back of my rocks as well. So get a better tesk kit for those and if still zero stop gfo?
And for flow rate i have roughly 4000 gph in my DT

 

[Mrcote1]

And also no I didnt start them on the sandbed, I thought sps were high demand light and i only have LEDs

 

[mtraylor]

Stop the GFO. Zero nitrates and phosphates is what you need to takle first. Feed the fish a bit more.

 

[Jmas4]

What's your par? It seems the light may be too strong. I always put the frags on the sand underneath shade, then move to sand with light, than slowly up my tank.

 

[John3]

Bleaching white after a week, I’m thinking too much white lighting. Or your rock was contaminated with copper.

 

[Mrcote1]

Not sure what the par is, i emailed reef radiance and he said 396 par at 30" depth. My tank is 21.5" deep and i have 2 lights so the center overlaps obviously. The lights are 7 inches off the water. If it is copper that is my issue what can I do besides completely restarting from scratch?

 

[John3]

Not sure what the par is, i emailed reef radiance and he said 396 par at 30" depth. My tank is 21.5" deep and i have 2 lights so the center overlaps obviously. The lights are 7 inches off the water. If it is copper that is my issue what can I do besides completely restarting from scratch?

So it looks like your getting 400 par on your sandbed. That is gonna be too much for most corals. I imagine your par is significantly higher up on your rock work as well.

Can you adjust the lights overall intensity?

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

come on people, its not one or the other..IT'S LIKELY BOTH.

high light can bleach sure, but you would see the bleaching pattern and not soo much bleaching in the shade.

low nutrients will cause LOTS of problems, fading and then STN being chief amoungst them.

Combine the two... high par and driving the corals to grow..when their is no food to grow, and bam...rapid loss of coloration and then death.

anytime your nitrate test comes back less then 1ppm you should start to worry. yes, there are people that run zeo tanks with trace nutrients but they are also dumping in tons of additives to keep them fed and alive.

 

[Mrcote1]

Alright, ill quit the gfo and stop rinsing the food i feed. The lights are pre programmed on a timer that dims and brightens as the day goes on so the only thing i could do is put like a sheet of paper under them to dim them. I also have reef roids, maybe ill start feeding that everyday? Whenever i feed reef roids though i never actually see the coral grab any

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Cu is bad for coral.