Corals dying..

Mussin · Mar 10, 2016

I've been fighting a lot of coral loss for the last 2weeks. I have a 90g tank and a 30g sump. I did a 20g water change when I noticed the corals not opening up about 2 weeks ago. No change, did another 20g change, no change.... After a couple of days and all my hammer dying I did a massive water change (60 g ). I can't figure out what's going on here. Seems like all my brains had thier white stringy guts out, I've lost a couple nice wellsos, huge maze brain, Duncan's, hammers, zoas melting.

Ok got my test kits yesterday just tested the water. These are Salifert test kits.

Temp - 79
Salinity- 1.026
Mg - 1485
Cal - 500
Alk - 10.9

I tested with my api kits to compare the alk was 11 and the cal was 520. Anyone see anything jumping out at you?

I Just can't figure it out.

Jeremy

Wiz · Mar 10, 2016

Calcium is a bit high. What is nitrate level?

Mussin · Mar 10, 2016

I want to say .25 - 0

LetItReef · Mar 10, 2016

What type of Lighting do you have?
I'd check Phosphate level too.

FlyinBryan · Mar 10, 2016

A massive water change can actually kick off another cycle in the tank which could finish off everything.
Can you post a pic of your tank? Also a pic of your sump?
Thanks!

Triggreef · Mar 10, 2016

Rodi tds?

aaron23 · Mar 10, 2016

it would be nice to see a photo of the tank

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 10, 2016

FlyinBryan said:
A massive water change can actually kick off another cycle in the tank which could finish off everything.
Can you post a pic of your tank? Also a pic of your sump?
Thanks!

Why do you think a big water change would be a problem? The bacteria performing the nitrogen cycle are not generally suspended in the water.

Robthorn · Mar 10, 2016

Water changes would help not hurt in my opinion.

My question is what are you dosing? Vitamins,amino's, trace elements?

fry_school101 · Mar 10, 2016

Maybe one of your pumps or heaters is leaking a little electricity into the tank. I had a pump do that and it was killing things until I figured it out. . .

Mike in CT · Mar 10, 2016

Have you calibrated your refractor? I noticed my corals not looking happy and found out my salt was about 1.021 from a result of wet skimming and my refractometer being off. Slowly brought it up by using saltwater for top off water and things gradually started to improve.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 10, 2016

Are other inverts OK? Things like snails, shrimp, etc.?

Mussin · Mar 10, 2016

I don't have any way to check phosphate. My tds meter is reading 0, it's only like 8 going into the unit. I run a tek 6 bulb t5 set up, bulbs are 5-6 months old. I usually only change them once a year. I am not dosing anything at the moment. Not sure how to tell if electricity is in the water, I can't feel anything when my hands are in the tank. I had a friend test my water for salinity and it's dead on with mine. All of my snails look great as well as my clam, I only have 1 peppermint shrimp and he's fine. I'm stumped... I'll post pics in a bit, thanks

Mussin · Mar 10, 2016

Also all of my fish are fine, my clowns are laying eggs about every two weeks like clockwork. One wierd thing I noticed is my red and green brains have all turned the same color. All of the reddish ones are now dark maroon and the greens are dark metallic. And my nuclear green zoas are now brown ish. I also have a tiny sps frag, I think it's a bird nest and it's doing better than normal?

Kershaw · Mar 10, 2016

I don't really know what the problem is. But I had this same thing Happen a few years ago. My tank went from perfectly healthy to loosing 90% of all my lps. All other inverts and sps where fine. Lost about 900 in lps. Only think that lived was a Duncan. But it barely made it. I tested my water with 2 different kits and took water to two stores. All looked great. Only thing I can thing of is it was some type of bacteria that attacks lps. I hope you figure it out. I never did.