Corals keep dying... What am I doing wrong?

[brilovescats]

I've found chaeto to be extremely effective with phosphate and nitrate removal all in its own. So effective that I have, in fact, removed every other type of filtration on my system. Took both then skimmer offline and the phosphate reactor down and chaeto is true workhorse at nutrient removal on my Ecosystem Miracle Mud refugium. Are you using it for nutrient removal primarily, or ph stability at night?

I would say pH stability with the added benefit of some nutrient removal. Also gives a place for the amphipods to do their little thing.

 

[brilovescats]

Just going to say you could experiment with eliminating one piece of filtration equipment at a time and see what your system really needs. I've found my system just doesn't need all the stuff I was running for nutrient removal. Took all that off and still have an ulns just with chaeto 24/7 illumination

Interesting! My chaeto doesn't tumble either, where it's on top of the cryptic sump/DSB. Have you run DSB? Would it cause problems to switch to mud; release stuff into the water column when I'm moving the sand?

 

[TravisParsley]

What harm does green colored tubing cause? My red sea reefer 170 came with green tubing for return.

http://www.reef2rainforest.com/2015/07/15/coral-excerpt-reefkeeping-101-all-about-plasticizers/

 

[Yojoe10]

I think that depends on the depth of your sand. I'm no dsb expert by any means so hopefully somebody else could comment there. Mine doesn't tumble either. Just sits like a huge, thick brick like mass that the water passes through almost like mechanical media. I'll try a pick of what mine looks like.

 

[Yojoe10]

I harvest chaeto once weekly every Saturday. I remove about a soccer ball sized mass every week so it grows like mad.

 

[Yojoe10]

http://www.reef2rainforest.com/2015/07/15/coral-excerpt-reefkeeping-101-all-about-plasticizers/

Wow. Looks like I'm gonna be replumbing my tank in the very near future. [emoji853]

 

[Rick.45cal]

You've got too many nutrient export methods all going at once. Probiotic salt, dosing a carbon source, adding their bacteria, utilizing zeolites to magnify the effects of denitrification. You can't run all of that and expect anything to be able to live in your tank (except algae and cyano bacteria, because that's what they specialize in). You need to stop using probiotic salt, and carbon dosing immediately. You've built a HUGE surplus of organic carbon in your tank because your bacteria colony have to have NO3 and PO4 to process it. Excess organic carbon in surplus causes rapid mortalitly in corals. Especially new ones. The flow rate of your zeolites must precisely match the actual system volume per hour, no more! Otherwise your SPS will have RTN caused by extreme starvation. Running GFO on top of everything, without ample testing and without the bioload to support it, is a guaranteed way to kill any coral you put in your tank. Turn off the GFO and leave it off.

Just my advice. Get off the ULNS kick, it ain't working for you. You need to stop all of the nutrient export methods and let your tank come into a sort of natural balance, then you need to apply ONLY the tools that are required to maintain it there. You will have much more success, it will be much easier on you, and you will have beautiful corals. All you have to do is let there be some detectable NO3 and PO4. (Get some better test kits too, and check them often, especially right now since you have no nutrients).

Yes the algae is gonna go a little crazy, we can fix that. The lesson to be learned here is that algae and cyano can exist in nutrient poor environments that nothing else can! You have to beat the algae in a different method, it is impossible to starve without starving all of your inhabitants long before the algae dies.

 

[TravisParsley]

Hi Travis - missed this post earlier apparently, sorry!

My Salifert test kits (kH/Ca/Mg) seem to be calibrated correctly and are in-date, and I measure temp with the Seneye, the heater and the backup heater which all have a thermometer. As above, API kit for ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. Haven't checked stray voltage if that's what you mean by conductivity probe. I use a refractometer for salinity and it seems to be accurate compared to the fancy version at my LFS.

My parameters don't seem to swing very much - there is a very small dip in pH at night before the chaeto starts working, so I try to keep it a little higher than I might normally choose. Right this second, for example, the Seneye says that the pH is 7.87. For PAR, depends on the place in the tank, but I light with Radion XR15 with all channels on for "coral radiance" setting with red turned off (in an attempt to help with algae, doesn't seem to change anything). I have been using RS Coral Pro salt for about two years now, and just changed about 1.5 weeks ago to AF Probiotic Reef salt - the Alk is noticeably lower quickly after just two water changes (good lower, 8.8 now vs 11 before).

All the equipment is pvc/plastic, nothing metal in the tank. No green tubing, all vinyl I think, the clear stuff with the mesh built into the hose for the return. No adhesives in any place that would get wet, and the kind that was supposedly safe for drinking water. RO/DI I do myself, 0 TDS, filters change when it creeps up to 1-2 TDS. I use white vinegar to clean the glass and everyone in this house knows cleaning chemicals are forbidden near the tank (lol). I wash my hands up to the elbows prior to putting my hands in the tank, and usually wear gloves.

As for pests, no signs of flatworms, nudibranch, anything - I'll regularly go and look with a flashlight in the middle of the night when I get up to use the bathroom to see if there's anything. There are lots of tiny little (1cm) bristleworms that come out more during the night and hide most of the day except when I am feeding fish. They all seem to leave everything alone though, and I rarely see any that are very big. I used to have a Banded Coral Shrimp who used to love to hunt the bristleworms but he died a couple weeks ago in the ice storm when we had a power cut for 3 days - only have battery backup for 1.5 days. (As an aside, these troubles have been ongoing for my whole reef experience thus far, so the sad deaths didn't affect any occupants, I have so very few corals in there right now, and they are all mushrooms plus two blasto that keep holding on somehow, just not growing at all, and they've been there a year)

Thoughts? As above, my next step is a Triton test.

If you are using flexible pvc with the mesh in it, I would switch it out for silicon versions.
I posted a link above for a more detailed explination. Plasticizers are a thing.

You mentioned the LFS has a fancy version of a refractometer. Theres no reason why you cant have a fancy version too (im asuming theirs has auto temp compensation). I would not trust any refractormeter that is second best. Personally, I use a conductivity probe to get my salinity levels. Its too important to not have the best testing equipment if the salinity could be off. I have seen refractometers off by 2. For example if it is supposed to read 35, and its off by 2, it will read 33. So we add salt until we get to the perceivd 35, but in reality we just raised our system to 37... I have seen corals melt from that high level of specific gravity.

My own experience with a seneye showed a Lighting PAR difference of 100 higher than my neptune sensor. I trusted the neptune par over the seneye, and went with its value instead.

The PH seems a little low. I believe that when PH drops below 7.8 ( say at night?) it can stress the tank a little. Calcification is harder also I think.

It could not hurt for you to get a " fancy refractometer, and run media that removes contaminates/ heavy metals... cupsorb comes to mind. Get a few poly filters and run them, see if they change color.

Change tubes to silicon, reduce the light a bit, and watch the alk swings during water changes. Alk swings of more than 1 in a 24 hr period (11 down to 8.8) tend to stress corals and some can bleach. I get nervous if my alk swings more that 0.5 in a 24 hr period.

I would not necessarliy equate lower alk levels as good and higher ones as bad. The key is stability as all of us old folk say. Some research shows if you have low nutirients/small feedings, then there is a benefit by keeping alk lower. The opposite is true with tanks with higher alk levels- they benefit from higher nutrients/heavy feedings. I am thinking your system may be on the heavy side of nutrients since you mentioned an algae problem. Or did I read that wrong, and you do not have an algae problem?

You mentioned a power outtage. Im almost certain that caused a swing in some parameters. Some of the damage from swings like that may take a week or two to manifest, so its hard to nail down causes when symptoms dont present themselves immediately.

 

[TravisParsley]

Interesting! My chaeto doesn't tumble either, where it's on top of the cryptic sump/DSB. Have you run DSB? Would it cause problems to switch to mud; release stuff into the water column when I'm moving the sand?

Stirring mud releases gases and concentrated nutrients.

 

[brilovescats]

You've got too many nutrient export methods all going at once. Probiotic salt, dosing a carbon source, adding their bacteria, utilizing zeolites to magnify the effects of denitrification. You can't run all of that and expect anything to be able to live in your tank (except algae and cyano bacteria, because that's what they specialize in). You need to stop using probiotic salt, and carbon dosing immediately. You've built a HUGE surplus of organic carbon in your tank because your bacteria colony have to have NO3 and PO4 to process it. Excess organic carbon in surplus causes rapid mortalitly in corals. Especially new ones. The flow rate of your zeolites must precisely match the actual system volume per hour, no more! Otherwise your SPS will have RTN caused by extreme starvation. Running GFO on top of everything, without ample testing and without the bioload to support it, is a guaranteed way to kill any coral you put in your tank. Turn off the GFO and leave it off.

Just my advice. Get off the ULNS kick, it ain't working for you. You need to stop all of the nutrient export methods and let your tank come into a sort of natural balance, then you need to apply ONLY the tools that are required to maintain it there. You will have much more success, it will be much easier on you, and you will have beautiful corals. All you have to do is let there be some detectable NO3 and PO4. (Get some better test kits too, and check them often, especially right now since you have no nutrients).

Yes the algae is gonna go a little crazy, we can fix that. The lesson to be learned here is that algae and cyano can exist in nutrient poor environments that nothing else can! You have to beat the algae in a different method, it is impossible to starve without starving all of your inhabitants long before the algae dies.

Hi Rick - Thanks for the advice, but I'm not sure if it's that easy, but you make very valid points.

Sadly, I've only been running Zeo, bacterial/carbon dosing, GFO and Probiotic salt for 1.5 weeks now. All of the corals deaths happened *before* I implemented those temporarily to clean up the tank after months of poor maintenance. The deaths also all happened *before* poor maintenance; I had lost all hope for making a beautiful tank of almost two years of running only live rock, Nopox, chaeto, skimming and 10% water changes with red sea coral pro like everyone has suggested.

Right now for corals living in my tank, I have some ricordia/Rhodactis which are all very very happy and are 3x the size of when I got them, and two tiny little blastomussae who have not grown at all in the last year. I feed them all a varied diet of AF Ricco food, Reef Energy A+B and whatever they can catch.

I feel like I tried what a lot of people were suggesting, but that it didn't work. What do you think? Any suggestions on algae control?

 

[brilovescats]

If you are using flexible pvc with the mesh in it, I would switch it out for silicon versions.
I posted a link above for a more detailed explination. Plasticizers are a thing.

You mentioned the LFS has a fancy version of a refractometer. Theres no reason why you cant have a fancy version too (im asuming theirs has auto temp compensation). I would not trust any refractormeter that is second best. Personally, I use a conductivity probe to get my salinity levels. Its too important to not have the best testing equipment if the salinity could be off. I have seen refractometers off by 2. For example if it is supposed to read 35, and its off by 2, it will read 33. So we add salt until we get to the perceivd 35, but in reality we just raised our system to 37... I have seen corals melt from that high level of specific gravity.

My own experience with a seneye showed a Lighting PAR difference of 100 higher than my neptune sensor. I trusted the neptune par over the seneye, and went with its value instead.

The PH seems a little low. I believe that when PH drops below 7.8 ( say at night?) it can stress the tank a little. Calcification is harder also I think.

It could not hurt for you to get a " fancy refractometer, and run media that removes contaminates/ heavy metals... cupsorb comes to mind. Get a few poly filters and run them, see if they change color.

Change tubes to silicon, reduce the light a bit, and watch the alk swings during water changes. Alk swings of more than 1 in a 24 hr period (11 down to 8.8) tend to stress corals and some can bleach. I get nervous if my alk swings more that 0.5 in a 24 hr period.

I would not necessarliy equate lower alk levels as good and higher ones as bad. The key is stability as all of us old folk say. Some research shows if you have low nutirients/small feedings, then there is a benefit by keeping alk lower. The opposite is true with tanks with higher alk levels- they benefit from higher nutrients/heavy feedings. I am thinking your system may be on the heavy side of nutrients since you mentioned an algae problem. Or did I read that wrong, and you do not have an algae problem?

You mentioned a power outtage. Im almost certain that caused a swing in some parameters. Some of the damage from swings like that may take a week or two to manifest, so its hard to nail down causes when symptoms dont present themselves immediately.

Thank you, I love this and it resonates with me a lot. Questions on the shopping list:
Refractometer - suggestions?
Silicone tubing - is there a way to test for plasticizers to see if this is the issue?
What are poly filters?
Cupsorb - would I stop zeo, carbon or GFO if I ran this?
I'll keep an eye out for swings, I've been testing like a hawk in the mean time.

 

[edosan]

Ok, I have read everything, I do not think you have ULNS. ULNS is only for experimented reefers IMO, ULNS is borderline to full tank crash, If you have algae then ULNS is not on your tank. I use to have ULNS and cero.cero algae then (not a rule, just my experience).
With softies and lps you do not need to do much (nutrient export) unless you have a specific problem. With SPS you can play with that a bit more.
Let your tank mature. IME briopsis and bubble algae are the one you want to fight, all the rest are eaten by tangs.

I believe you have metal poisoning of some type (or contamination), triton test will tell. Detox (triton) is amazing for that, and then water changes.
Be sure also to move at least 10x on the return pump. Do the triton ASAP.

Regarding test: I have try all (I think) and long story short. Salifert is my option and Hanna ULR Phosphorus

 

[brilovescats]

Ok, I have read everything, I do not think you have ULNS. ULNS is only for experimented reefers IMO, ULNS is borderline to full tank crash, If you have algae then ULNS is not on your tank. I use to have ULNS and cero.cero algae then (not a rule, just my experience).
With softies and lps you do not need to do much (nutrient export) unless you have a specific problem. With SPS you can play with that a bit more.
Let your tank mature. IME briopsis and bubble algae are the one you want to fight, all the rest are eaten by tangs.

I believe you have metal poisoning of some type (or contamination), triton test will tell. Detox (triton) is amazing for that, and then water changes.
Be sure also to move at least 10x on the return pump. Do the triton ASAP.

Regarding test: I have try all (I think) and long story short. Salifert is my option and Hanna ULR Phosphorus

Hi Edosan-

Thank you. Sounds like what's going on. I'll do triton and then we'll see where we're at.

B

 

[JP79]

Even though I agree with that the tank might be a little to clean. Corals won't die that quick. A birdsnest won't bleach over night. So there's something else going on in this tank.

 

[JEREMY82]

I know this post is couple days old,I didn't have time to read everything.but from what I read I would like to offer my advice.not to sure what salt mix your using .IME I have had some bad batches of salt mix were numbers were not correct. Kept losing sps corals do to this.another thing you can do is check for stray voltage in your tank.and maybe the corals your getting coming from different lighting and there getting light shock from the leds. I had to turn my leds way down for a while cause corals were being bleached from leds.temperature swings will do this also. I would also take time to look and see if you may have a pest that got in the system.hope u get stuff figured out gl

 

[cjd]

To many things are "online" . Go back to the basics and let your tank become a tank. Many people have wiped out a tank practically over night just by adding GFO to their system . Slow down and go back to a regular salt choice using a refractometer and not a swing arm to measure salinity . Add nothing but what is needed to maintain ALK and CAL and MAG. Those swing arms could be way off . Make sure if you run carbon add the appropriate amount . I have a 75 gallon and I would use a cup of carbon in my reactor thinking why not it will last longer , wont have to change as often. My corals suffered with pale colors almost pastel. I have about 65 gallons of water in my system with the displacement of rockwork and such . Using BRS calculator guide, it is recommended that I use 6tbsp of carbon . I ran that and in about 2 weeks colors are deep red on my monti caps like I remember when I first bought them. Less is more especially when adding GFO to a system. It is even recommended to add half or less of whatever the guide recommends to run when you start. Think about where you purchased your new corals . I doubt very much they are coming from a low nutrient system. Have you ever measured the nitrates from your LFS where you purchased these pieces. I have and was shocked at what I got for readings. So you get a frag from your local store and place it in your ultra clean tank ....... Good bye coral . Its the same as adding Gfo online in the beginning . You have to slowly pull the extra nutrients away over a period of months , not drip acclimate over a few hours. I had the same experience with one of my many tank upgrades . My old tank I was upgrading from could grow anything anywhere . It was ran on small bag of carbon for water clarity , small underrated protein skimmer and filter floss to grab any big chunks of debris. My 150 cube I started with Bio Pellets when they first came out .When I transferred everything over I lost things , a lot of nice pieces in a very short time a neon green birdsnest over night. The bio pellets stripped the tank clean , I used too much in the beginning . Like GFO I should have started well below the recommended amount and slowly built up over an extended period of time. Best of luck and go back to less is more approach .

 

[reeferfoxx]

Hi Rick - Thanks for the advice, but I'm not sure if it's that easy, but you make very valid points.

Sadly, I've only been running Zeo, bacterial/carbon dosing, GFO and Probiotic salt for 1.5 weeks now. All of the corals deaths happened *before* I implemented those temporarily to clean up the tank after months of poor maintenance. The deaths also all happened *before* poor maintenance; I had lost all hope for making a beautiful tank of almost two years of running only live rock, Nopox, chaeto, skimming and 10% water changes with red sea coral pro like everyone has suggested.

Right now for corals living in my tank, I have some ricordia/Rhodactis which are all very very happy and are 3x the size of when I got them, and two tiny little blastomussae who have not grown at all in the last year. I feed them all a varied diet of AF Ricco food, Reef Energy A+B and whatever they can catch.

I feel like I tried what a lot of people were suggesting, but that it didn't work. What do you think? Any suggestions on algae control?

I am confused at what prompted you to start a relatively expensive full AF system, considering a poor maintenance regimen. Were parameters taken before changing salt and adding every nutrient reduction product on the market? Typically folks switch to these systems to push colors out on coral not to reduce nutrients. You only have mushrooms.

 

[cb684]

Ok, here what I would do:
1. I would start using ROX carbon with low flow through the reactor (1 x the volume of your system per day).
2. I would order a Triton test
Once you have the results, I would re-evaluate. Until then, I would not change what you are doing. I do not believe you have ULNS or that Zeovit is dangerous. I also do think one can have a successful reef tank using the techniques you are using, but I also think your tank needs stability.
One of the common mistakes I see frequently is people trying to gauge if their changes corrected a problem looking at stressed corals. Stressed corals will take a long time to look better. If you want to see if your changes are working you need to add a new, healthy coral to your system. I am not saying you should add new corals now, I am saying that once you corrected the problems, new corals will show you better if your system is ok. Good luck.

 

[Fitzreefer]

I think I have experienced some of the same things here for maybe slightly different chronology of events, but same root cause....High alk combined with ULNS. I believe that we can be running our tanks cleaner (at least in the water column) than we all think. For now, I would focus on getting that dKH down to 7 - 8 range. The AF brand is a good start because it mixes up to ~7. I would switch to the basic AF Reef Salt w/o probiotic. Get it down to 7. Get rid of GFO. Cut back on NOPOX if you are dosing it...Anything that causes more severe nutrient reduction. I too, a few weeks ago, switched to AF Reef Salt, from RS Coral Pro. I came to the conclusion I was very much ULNS with way too high dKH ~12. It was so-so fine while I had a large fish bio-load. When I say so-so, I would observe issues with the corals from time to time, but generally healthy, some dark side recession, issues with tips, while Montis were growing like crazy. This was until I had a fish die off. Believe I introduced velvet maybe piggybacking on some snails I added, or whatever, still a mystery, but timing was very coincidental. All fish were fine and then they went down by the numbers. But that isn't the topic of discussion. As a result I believe my nutrients dropped off even further and in rapid order. I quickly noticed RTN and STN on SPS and LPS. Lost a beautiful Selago almost overnight. Green slimer experienced STN and so on. I almost immediately saw signs of staving this problem off when I began a succession of water changes over days to get dKH down in the 7 range. Some corals have bounced back fully, some are still recovering. The lesson I think I've learned here is that I was walking a tight rope with Alk up high in the 12s and ULNS. Also, that on-going issues related to this can go along seemingly just OK, but go south quick when parameters get too far out of whack, and can affect some corals at different rates than others. Current status:. My dKH is back up around 9 right now, and I can almost immediately see a slight decline in coral health. I run a Calc reactor and I think the rise is because I need to rebalance it to meet demand. So, I am currently working on this. I plan on some more water changes again to get it back down to 7s, and try to get this stable down in that range. I am also ghost feeding my nearly fallow tank to keep some nutrients in there. Just a 6 line(these suckers just don't die), cleaner shrimp, hermits and snails.

 

[themcnertney]

Seems as if you're still looking at additives to try to address the issue? I don't get why people choose to go this route. Like I mentioned, stop add additives, including gfo, zeo, ect. Go to the basics and do small frequent water changes and I am confident your tank will turn for the better.