Corals dying

[clown and friends]

Hi all,

My tank has gone in the crapper over the last two weeks. I will try to give as much info to make a clear picture as possible. The tank is an IM 25 lagoon, been up since february. It is a restart after moving apartments and some coral pieces and fish came with me in the move (stayed in a friends tank during the cycle). Tank looked great until about 2-3 weeks ago. Had a bout of dinos appear which I have battled before, blacked the tank out for a day about 2 weeks ago and raised the nutrients and they are gone again. Other than that no changes. Lighting has been the same Xr30 G4 running at about 45%, no changes in spectrum. For filtration there is only filter floss and a bag of chemipure elite changed every 3 months. Have a nero 5 in the tank running at about 20%. Perameters as of yesterday:
Salinity 1.026
Temp: 78.5
Ca: 420
DkH: 10.6
NO3: 5-10
PO4: 0.02

The only thing that still looks good is my clam which has put on like an inch of shell these last 6 mos but my stylo is dying, one of my 2 acans is bailing polyps out and my duncan and zoas look angry. I did a 25% water change saturday and changed my chemipure bag to no avail. Any advice is appreciated!

 

[Eleni18]

Hello! Sorry about this. Could you provide more info? Do you have a skimmer? Do you use RODI water? What are your mag/cal levels?

 

[clown and friends]

Hello! Sorry about this. Could you provide more info? Do you have a skimmer? Do you use RODI water? What are your mag/cal levels?

Sure! I do use RODI and it comes out at 0 TDS. I do not have a skimmer, last time I had one and my nutrients went to 0 and dinos exploded so i got rid of it.

 

[Eleni18]

Sure! I do use RODI and it comes out at 0 TDS. I do not have a skimmer, last time I had one and my nutrients went to 0 and dinos exploded so i got rid of it.

OK, how about flow?

 

[jt17]

It could be toxins from the Dinos. You may want to change your chem-pure. Your po4 are low too, which benefits Dinos, so you might consider using regular chemo pure or Rox 8.0 carbon. Do you know which Dino you have? A uv can be helpful with certain types.

 

[clown and friends]

OK, how about flow?

Have a return but I cant remember the GPH and also have a nero 5 running at 24% of its 3000gph capacity.

It could be toxins from the Dinos. You may want to change your chem-pure. Your po4 are low too, which benefits Dinos, so you might consider using regular chemo pure or Rox 8.0 carbon. Do you know which Dino you have? A uv can be helpful with certain types.

Changed chemipure on saturday cause I had the same thought and I run a UV on the tank already for the dinos. I do have a bag of rox carbon do you think it might be beneficial to put it in the tank too just in case? I've considered micro dosing PO4 cause I have trouble keeping up the levels naturally. What do you think about doing that?

 

[jt17]

Have a return but I cant remember the GPH and also have a nero 5 running at 24% of its 3000gph capacity.

Changed chemipure on saturday cause I had the same thought and I run a UV on the tank already for the dinos. I do have a bag of rox carbon do you think it might be beneficial to put it in the tank too just in case? I've considered micro dosing PO4 cause I have trouble keeping up the levels naturally. What do you think about doing that?

 

[jt17]

Maybe start by removing CP elite. If you have always been using CP elite then you may have enough Po4 going into the system and the CP elite was removing it. Still run carbon during a Dino outbreak.

 

[EMeyer]

DkH: 10.6

IMO theres your issue.

People sometimes disagree with me over this, but thats ok.

I've never seen a coral that was happy when the alkalinity got higher than 8 or so. I've seen lots of coral mortality during high alkalinity events, and basically none during normal (7) or low (<7) alkalinity.

I'd stop dosing any alk until it falls back to 7 or so, maintain stable levels there, then get a new tester coral to see how it does.

 

[clown and friends]

Maybe start by removing CP elite. If you have always been using CP elite then you may have enough Po4 going into the system and the CP elite was removing it. Still run carbon during a Dino outbreak.

Sounds good, I will give that a try and see how the nutrients respond!

IMO theres your issue.

People sometimes disagree with me over this, but thats ok.

I've never seen a coral that was happy when the alkalinity got higher than 8 or so. I've seen lots of coral mortality during high alkalinity events, and basically none during normal (7) or low (<7) alkalinity.

I'd stop dosing any alk until it falls back to 7 or so, maintain stable levels there, then get a new tester coral to see how it does.

My LFS is the one who recommended high alk system. I know there is debate about this but I don't know what else could be causing the issue so I am willing to try killing the dosing and letting the levels fall and see where we land when it reaches 7 or so. Thank you for the advice!