Help Please! Slowly STNing and some RTNing

[psionicdragon]

Hello everyone.

I would like to ask for your assistance as I am stumped.

I recently had an alk spike from 10-13 a week or two ago and it has slowly dropped back down to its normal 10 range.

My alk drops 1 dkh per day and I dose to bring it back up on a daily basis. I recently set up a doser to break it up into 4 equal parts of dosing to maintain a more steady Alk parameter.

The issue I am having is that a lot of my corals went RTN after the spike and some colonies started to STN from the base up. PE has been really bad and I am assuming thats because of the nutrients.

The parameters have been pretty stable lately, but things that have STN are still continuing to STN and some are RTNing. Things that had STN but stopped in the past has not regrown over the STN part.

So I am not sure why things are still STNing and RTNing...any help and input would be great.

Heres my parameter:

Alk 10 DKH
Cal 430
Phosphate .05
Nitrate 5ppm (API)
Salinity 1.026
Temp: 78

 

[afamousjohnson]

It might just be playing itself out as its getting back to stable. Usually see signs a few weeks down the road from something that happened a few weeks previous it seems. I am dealing with this issue lately also and am contributing it to a low alk level. Everything was back to normal and fine and I was still dealing with the TN issues. On most pieces I had to remove from the base, dip, cut, etc or they would continue to TN. After removing though many pieces would stop and have thus far been saved, but what a hassle and now I have to do the whole placement thing again and start a lot of sps over. good luck

 

[jackson6745]

What are you using to get a .05 po4 reading?

 

[psionicdragon]

What are you using to get a .05 po4 reading?

Milwaukee.

I have cut and glue to try and save em, but they just RTN overnight. For example, I had two big colonies that was 1/3 STN'd. I fragged it all up. So from 7 inch colony, I was only able to save 1/2 cm of frag which is not doing well.

 

[Zack]

Hope you get it figured out man, defintley sucks to have tn issues.

Sincr you just started using a doser it may actually be still causing a spike and you might have not caught it again. Do you check alk same tine every day or are you checking multiple times?

 

[jackson6745]

How long does it take to get a diatom build up on the glass to the point where it impedes viewing?
Is there any green algae on glass close to sandbed?

 

[psionicdragon]

Hope you get it figured out man, defintley sucks to have tn issues.

Sincr you just started using a doser it may actually be still causing a spike and you might have not caught it again. Do you check alk same tine every day or are you checking multiple times?

Ya, I check alk on a daily basis. I had to adjust the doser a bit more as my alk does (for whatever reason) drops by 1 dkh a day.

 

[psionicdragon]

How long does it take to get a diatom build up on the glass to the point where it impedes viewing?
Is there any green algae on glass close to sandbed?

No green algae and no sandbed.

I believe before I put CUC, it would take 5-7 days. No real algae issues and such.

 

[cymaster007]

Are you running your tank w/ low nutrients or biopellets? When my alk gets to around 10 or above I start to see STN at the bases of the acros. I had to drop the alk back down and stabilize around 8

 

[jackson6745]

No green algae and no sandbed.

I believe before I put CUC, it would take 5-7 days. No real algae issues and such.

How old is the system? How large is the system? How much rock is in the tank? What are you running in the sump?

 

[Chameleon]

Well I lost most my acros to a similar incident. Really the only acros that survived the incident were ones in extremely high flow. I dont know why there was this correlation, but it was interesting. I have since put more redundancy in my ATO kalkwasser unit. Great thing is now I am really focusing on my favorites as I rebuild my collection instead of just having a hodgepodge of whatever I could find. I guess it was a blessing in disguise, but when you see your oregon tort and purple monster colonies STN/RTN before your eyes it sure is depressing at first. I think really as others mentioned some corals will continue to get worse or shown sign of STN or RTN beofre things get better. Best thing to due is make things as stable as possible for the ones who can pull through.
good luck saving what you can

 

[psionicdragon]

Are you running your tank w/ low nutrients or biopellets? When my alk gets to around 10 or above I start to see STN at the bases of the acros. I had to drop the alk back down and stabilize around 8

Originally my alk was at around 8ish-10ish (I forgot what it was prior to the spike) and the corals were doing fine, but with little stn at the base because i assume it was because my DKH dropped by 1.
I took the biopellets a few days after the spike in Alk because it stopped working where my Nitrate was hovering over 20ppm (API) and phosphate at .07 (milwakuee)

 

[psionicdragon]

How old is the system? How large is the system? How much rock is in the tank? What are you running in the sump?

I believe the tank is almost a year old. I transfered all my sps from another tank to this one.

THe tank is 75g Truvu and rocks are probably 100lbs or so. No Sand etc.

The sump has an ATI BM 160 with Chaeto, GFO, and heater/return going.

Before I moved stuff from my old tank to this new one, everything was doing fine and the colors were intense. SInce then things have been browning, stning, and rtning

I mean I am not new to the hobby, but never had great luck keeping SPS. I only moved forward after 6 months of success with the other tank. (longest I kept was a month or so.) I run a doser to keep alk stable and cal. I test daily for alk swings, cal swings, phosphate, salinity (milwaukee), and nitrate.

 

[psionicdragon]

Worst thing to happen...I left work an hour or two ago...my tank flooded and ATO was pumping in fresh water....so Salinity dropped .02. Cucumber got stuck in the overflow

 

[cymaster007]

Worst thing to happen...I left work an hour or two ago...my tank flooded and ATO was pumping in fresh water....so Salinity dropped .02. Cucumber got stuck in the overflow

Ouch!

 

[psionicdragon]

Well I lost most my acros to a similar incident. Really the only acros that survived the incident were ones in extremely high flow. I dont know why there was this correlation, but it was interesting. I have since put more redundancy in my ATO kalkwasser unit. Great thing is now I am really focusing on my favorites as I rebuild my collection instead of just having a hodgepodge of whatever I could find. I guess it was a blessing in disguise, but when you see your oregon tort and purple monster colonies STN/RTN before your eyes it sure is depressing at first. I think really as others mentioned some corals will continue to get worse or shown sign of STN or RTN beofre things get better. Best thing to due is make things as stable as possible for the ones who can pull through.
good luck saving what you can

So it basically sounds like whatever is going to make it, makes it and the rest is try to save it by fragging?

So far based on everyone's input (which I am grateful for the responses), things need to be stable (which just got unstable with the flood and ato pumping) and aforementioned of "if it lives, it lives"?

 

[afamousjohnson]

Yup-dont take the chance of losing the entire colony because "you like the way the coral looks there". That is what held me back in the beginning of the problem and I almost lost entire colonies before I gave in and started removing and fragging. The affected pieces in my tank were a wide range of sps all in different spots around the tank-some with high flow others less-some with high light others with less-etc,etc,etc. Most bases left to inspect after cutting didnt make it but the majority of healthy frags cut off have recovered. In the end I sufered no complete losses in coral-just a hurt ego on my stability capabilities and some large colonies now starting over as frags.
Another good aspect to look into when dealing with these problems would be pests-AEFW. No one likes to addmit their tank has an std, but worth looking into as it can cause what seems to be rtn over night or time. Search it and it is easy to spot if you know the signs to look for. I spent a month looking over this while removing and dipping problem corals with no signs-thank goodness. I wasnt going to take any chances anyways so I got some "FLATWORM STOP", not flatworm exit as it doesnt work on aefw. The way flatworm stop works is actually all in all beneficial for your sps either way. It builds the outer layer of the sps making the aefw incapable of munching the coral to nothing and in the end starving the buggers. It is a drug out process and without removal and dipping is usually inaffective as you could lose the piece before results show.

Chameleon: I would flip if I had to watch my(dont have it yet-been looking for some time now, but it is on the wish list) purple monster dying away before my eyes. Talk about pulling out your hair and contemplating throwing in the towel.lol

 

[psionicdragon]

Yup-dont take the chance of losing the entire colony because "you like the way the coral looks there". That is what held me back in the beginning of the problem and I almost lost entire colonies before I gave in and started removing and fragging. The affected pieces in my tank were a wide range of sps all in different spots around the tank-some with high flow others less-some with high light others with less-etc,etc,etc. Most bases left to inspect after cutting didnt make it but the majority of healthy frags cut off have recovered. In the end I sufered no complete losses in coral-just a hurt ego on my stability capabilities and some large colonies now starting over as frags.
Another good aspect to look into when dealing with these problems would be pests-AEFW. No one likes to addmit their tank has an std, but worth looking into as it can cause what seems to be rtn over night or time. Search it and it is easy to spot if you know the signs to look for. I spent a month looking over this while removing and dipping problem corals with no signs-thank goodness. I wasnt going to take any chances anyways so I got some "FLATWORM STOP", not flatworm exit as it doesnt work on aefw. The way flatworm stop works is actually all in all beneficial for your sps either way. It builds the outer layer of the sps making the aefw incapable of munching the coral to nothing and in the end starving the buggers. It is a drug out process and without removal and dipping is usually inaffective as you could lose the piece before results show.

Chameleon: I would flip if I had to watch my(dont have it yet-been looking for some time now, but it is on the wish list) purple monster dying away before my eyes. Talk about pulling out your hair and contemplating throwing in the towel.lol

I agree and I do frag, but the frags usually RTN overnight . I just think my corals are stressed out, but I cannot identify the stress factor as flow and other parameters are basically in check. I mean theres mishaps here and there, but it gets back to normal quick. I just lost another colony yesterday night which didn't show signs of rtn/stn or stress as PE was extended etc.

 

[islander84]

Do you have any LPS? If so whats there condition?

 

[TheReefKeeper]

Alk is too high as mentioned already the spike did not help one bit 7-8 is where I like mine.