Help! Is my tank crashing for some reason?

[BBestvin]

Am hoping someone could help offer some advice or insight into what's going on. Since I know everyone is busy, I'll make a bulleted list of the history until now:

- Fluval EVO 13.5G, up and running roughly 18 months
- Everything was doing great, roughly 2 months ago, started getting cyano on sand, started with weekly water changes (instead of bi-weeklyish)
- 2 weeks ago, Dendro was closed up, acans looked bad. Did some testing, somehow salinity had jumped from 1.025 to nearly 1.028. Found "new" saltwater had a salinity of 1.030.
- Slowly removed some water and replaced with RODI to bring down.
- 1 week ago, the Dendro started recovering, looking half puffy again. Fed it some mysis. Decided to blow out the rock work. Found some pockets that had a bunch of "dust." Cue the acans and the dendro receding again. Other corals looked ok.
- Today, performed another water change, blowing out rock work first and siphoning the sand. After completing the water change, the tank looks worse 4 hours later.

The only change to the tank has been adding firework clove polyps that aren't doing great, but weren't doing good in my other tank either. Could I be dealing with some sort of coral warfare here? Couldn't be the firework cloves right? I have some palys that a few pieces broke off of and I know palys can be nasty...? Fish are doing good, but most corals are looking angry. Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

Please see my tank parameters below:
Salinity: 1.025
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: < 2.5
Temp: 78F

Filtration:
Matrix Carbon replaced in January
Purigen
Filter Floss
MarinePure Gems

 

[blaxsun]

Any idea what your phosphates, alkalinity, calcium and magnesium are?

 

[Lavey29]

Corals are starving. Nitrates should be 10 for LPS. What is you phosphate and magnesium and calcium?

 

[ADAM]

Corals are starving. Nitrates should be 10 for LPS. What is you phosphate and magnesium and calcium?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Before assuming your nutrients are low, what test kits are you using ?
Are there any fish in the tank ? If not, lack of feeding anything will lead to Low nutrients.
Are doing any dosing ?

 

[BBestvin]

Before assuming your nutrients are low, what test kits are you using ?
Are there any fish in the tank ? If not, lack of feeding anything will lead to Low nutrients.
Are doing any dosing ?

API for Ammonia and Nitrite, Salifert for Nitrate. There are 2 fish in the tank and I feed kind of sparingly. I have never done any dosing...I got advice from a long time fish owner that was try to keep it simple. I have mostly soft corals and some LPS, my thought is that weekly water changes should keep most of those parameters where they need to be...beside, I do feed the coral Reef Roids once a week or every other week as well. I get starvation, but that would take place over a longer period of time, and I don't think the corals would react so strongly so quickly

 

[vetteguy53081]

API for Ammonia and Nitrite, Salifert for Nitrate. There are 2 fish in the tank and I feed kind of sparingly. I have never done any dosing...I got advice from a long time fish owner that was try to keep it simple. I have mostly soft corals and some LPS, my thought is that weekly water changes should keep most of those parameters where they need to be...beside, I do feed the coral Reef Roids once a week or every other week as well. I get starvation, but that would take place over a longer period of time, and I don't think the corals would react so strongly so quickly

API is what I thought why the question
Before making any adjustments, take a water sample to a trusted LFS that does NOT use API kits and have them test your water and see what results they come up with for Ammonia-ph-nitrate-Phosphate.
Any dosing that youre doing such as calcium, alk, etc ?

 

[BBestvin]

API is what I thought why the question
Before making any adjustments, take a water sample to a trusted LFS that does NOT use API kits and have them test your water and see what results they come up with for Ammonia-ph-nitrate-Phosphate.
Any dosing that youre doing such as calcium, alk, etc ?

What would an acceptable test kit brand be? I currently do not dose as I mainly have softies and a few LPS. Doing a weekly water change should maintain the levels I need I think. What could cause such a drastic reaction with the corals? I've been doing weekly water changes for two months and everything has been looking great. Should I replace the carbon to filter out any potential toxins?

 

[Lavey29]

API for Ammonia and Nitrite, Salifert for Nitrate. There are 2 fish in the tank and I feed kind of sparingly. I have never done any dosing...I got advice from a long time fish owner that was try to keep it simple. I have mostly soft corals and some LPS, my thought is that weekly water changes should keep most of those parameters where they need to be...beside, I do feed the coral Reef Roids once a week or every other week as well. I get starvation, but that would take place over a longer period of time, and I don't think the corals would react so strongly so quickly

Starving corals can take months before the outward signs become clearly visible and then they deteriorate quickly. Reef roids alone does not sustain corals. What are you other parameters that you have not shared yet?

 

[BBestvin]

Starving corals can take months before the outward signs become clearly visible and then they deteriorate quickly. Reef roids alone does not sustain corals. What are you other parameters that you have not shared yet?

I haven't shared them yet because I don't test for them, haha. I don't even have the proper kits for all of those parameters, I have an API kit for Phosphate and Calcium. The Phosphate was roughly .25, it's hard to tell. I have not checked calcium recently, but I can. I just find it odd that this would be related to magnesium or calcium, while all of the corals in the tank have grown additional heads or polyps. Plus seeing this kind of reaction in all the corals at once would also be a really strange coincidence I think?

 

[BBestvin]

Starving corals can take months before the outward signs become clearly visible and then they deteriorate quickly. Reef roids alone does not sustain corals. What are you other parameters that you have not shared yet?

I read that the white stringy things on the Lobo are a type of filament that comes out when the coral is trying to protect itself. Is that true? Could Frogspawn or Torch corals release toxins?

 

[Lavey29]

I read that the white stringy things on the Lobo are a type of filament that comes out when the coral is trying to protect itself. Is that true? Could Frogspawn or Torch corals release toxins?

My trachys release those filaments sometimes as a defensive tool. Torches and frogspawn don't release toxin but leather corals can if you have one.

 

[Idech]

I don't even have the proper kits for all of those parameters, I have an API kit for Phosphate and Calcium.

There’s your problem. How can you expect growth from your corals if you don’t even know if they receive the adequate levels of nutrients they need ?

Get a Hanna High range nitrate checker, a Hanna ULR phosphate checker and a kit for testing alk, calc and mag. Red Sea is not expensive and works well.

Then you’ll probably observe that you need to dose, and that will solve your problem. Corals are okay until they are not.

 

[Lavey29]

I haven't shared them yet because I don't test for them, haha. I don't even have the proper kits for all of those parameters, I have an API kit for Phosphate and Calcium. The Phosphate was roughly .25, it's hard to tell. I have not checked calcium recently, but I can. I just find it odd that this would be related to magnesium or calcium, while all of the corals in the tank have grown additional heads or polyps. Plus seeing this kind of reaction in all the corals at once would also be a really strange coincidence I think?

Corals depend on nutrients and trace elements along with proper lighting and flow. If one or more of those 3 things are off corals will struggle. So far based on what you provided your nitrates are low and phosphate moderate high. You should invest in some Hanna checkers. Stability is critical with reef tanks.

 

[BBestvin]

There’s your problem. How can you expect growth from your corals if you don’t even know if they receive the adequate levels of nutrients they need ?

Get a Hanna High range nitrate checker, a Hanna ULR phosphate checker and a kit for testing alk, calc and mag. Red Sea is not expensive and works well.

Then you’ll probably observe that you need to dose, and that will solve your problem. Corals are okay until they are not.

I appreciate the advice. I will look into getting some additional test kits for those parameters. However...eliminating the numbers from the equation, have you ever seen every coral crash at the same time? Even if nutrients were off in some manner, what are the chances they'd all "go" at the same exact time? Is there any chance this could be a sort of chemical warfare happening in the tank?

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Red sea. Salifert. Elos. Or Hanna checkers.

Start with salinity and temp. 13.5g tank isn't hard to do a wc. Your tank isn't crashing. Lol. I don't believe in this term.
D

 

[vetteguy53081]

What would an acceptable test kit brand be? I currently do not dose as I mainly have softies and a few LPS. Doing a weekly water change should maintain the levels I need I think. What could cause such a drastic reaction with the corals? I've been doing weekly water changes for two months and everything has been looking great. Should I replace the carbon to filter out any potential toxins?

Hanna or Salifert test kits reliable.
Make your water changes Bi-weekly unless you suspect need for sooner.

 

[BBestvin]

Hanna or Salifert test kits reliable.
Make your water changes Bi-weekly unless you suspect need for sooner.

OK, I was doing biweekly until I started getting cyanobacteria on the sand. I'm not sure what happened, but regardless of the numbers, I think such a reaction from every coral is related to something majorly off. I guess I just have to find out what that is. I threw in another bag of carbon in attempts to filter out whatever could be in the water...

 

[vetteguy53081]

OK, I was doing biweekly until I started getting cyanobacteria on the sand. I'm not sure what happened, but regardless of the numbers, I think such a reaction from every coral is related to something majorly off. I guess I just have to find out what that is. I threw in another bag of carbon in attempts to filter out whatever could be in the water...

This is bizarre. With cyano, your nitrate and phosphate would be elevated
A possibility is if you have a mixed reef which is what I run, both lps and sps can release toxins and compete
In lieu of carbon, add chemipure blue or elite which will remove toxins and keep no3 and po4 in check

 

[BeMoto]

When doing a water change, how much water are you changing?