I REALLY NEED HELP GUYS!

[Louiemiller9]

so I have had my tank up and running for about 8 months now and just over the past month or so I have had almost all of my corals die or start to deteriorate. I understand that some corals are easier to care for than others but almost all of my soft corals have died out besides my zoas. It is a 70 gallon Waterbox with:
Octo Skimmer
Octo Reactor
2x kessil 160
Standard pose head to keep things moving.
Ammonia is 0 or close to it.
Salinity is 1.025
I do not currently dose but will post pictures of my water tests in order to give more info.
PLEASE HELP

 

[Doctorgori]

Hows your coralline growth and other signs of tank maturity? (rock colonization of sponges, bacterial/algae colonies, et)

 

[nickkohrn]

Have you made any recent changes? Have you checked for stray voltage in the tank? What about your heaters? Have you checked to make sure they are in good shape? Is there a possibility that metals, such as copper, have gotten into your water? Check the ceiling above the tank to make sure nothing from ducts has fallen into your water. There’s a lot of possibilities, so getting some test measurements will be valuable.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Ok Louie the first three things you need for corals are stable alk, calcium and magnesium. I recommend salifert test kits. Get these stable and corals will grow. Salinity is good. Make sure your refractometer is accurate.

 

[Louiemiller9]

Wow thanks a lot guys! I will be posting my water tests this morning so you guys can see.

 

[Louiemiller9]

Have you made any recent changes? Have you checked for stray voltage in the tank? What about your heaters? Have you checked to make sure they are in good shape? Is there a possibility that metals, such as copper, have gotten into your water? Check the ceiling above the tank to make sure nothing from ducts has fallen into your water. There’s a lot of possibilities, so getting some test measurements will be valuable.

My heaters seem to be doing fine. The only recent change I made to the tank was switching from instant ocean salt to Red Sea.

 

[Louiemiller9]

Hows your coralline growth and other signs of tank maturity? (rock colonization of sponges, bacterial/algae colonies, et)

I don’t have any coralline algae growth as of yet. As for algae growth I had a lot of the red slime algae, which is why I added the media reactor to lower my phosphates

 

[JoshO]

If you haven't been dosing anything there's a good chance your parameters have dropped below what corals need to live, water changes in smaller systems can usually cope with this however if you have a high number of stony corals you'll be unlikely to be able to keep numbers up with weekly changes alone. Like everyone has suggested, a quick test will let you know if this is the case!

 

[JoshO]

My heaters seem to be doing fine. The only recent change I made to the tank was switching from instant ocean salt to Red Sea.

What version of red sea did you switch to? Also was this change done with small amounts over a period of time or a big 50% change?

 

[Louiemiller9]

What version of red sea did you switch to? Also was this change done with small amounts over a period of time or a big 50% change?

 

[Louiemiller9]

Here are the test results from the reef master test kit:
Calcium - 280 ppm
Kh - 107.4 / 6dKH

 

[Louiemiller9]

Here are the test results from the reef master test kit:
Calcium - 280 ppm
Kh - 107.4 / 6dKH

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I would not trust api nitrate or po4 kits for reading low numbers whatsoever. If your calcium is 280 that’s way way to low.
Do you have a sump? No live rock? What are those tiny lights?

 

[paintman]

calcium should be in the 450 range
kh should be 8

 

[SMSREEF]

Hey Louie.
Your calcium and Alk are low.
it doesn’t look like you have many corals right now so water change may work. But not a big one because the coral pro salt has really high Alk level and it will swing up too high causing sudden change, Corals don’t like that at all.


You could start manually dosing to keep your calcium and Alk stable. I liked starting with manually dosing because it got me in a routine of testing and knowing what my corals needed. After about 6 months I got a doser and dosed Kalkwasser at night. When corals got bigger and kalk couldn’t keep up, I added a doser for calcium and one for Alk.

You have phosphates and nitrates, which don’t look out of control or too low, so that’s probably not your issue.

good luck and make any changes really slow.

 

[Louiemiller9]

I would not trust api nitrate or po4 kits for reading low numbers whatsoever. If your calcium is 280 that’s way way to low.
Do you have a sump? No live rock? What are those tiny lights?

Kessil 160s I do have like rock in the sump

 

[JoshO]

I'm echoing those above, the dKh and Calcium are too low, you're wanting to shoot for calcium of around 400 and dKh of 8 or slightly above

 

[Louiemiller9]

calcium should be in the 450 range
kh should be 8

How would u suggest raising those levels?

 

[Louiemiller9]

I'm echoing those above, the dKh and Calcium are too low, you're wanting to shoot for calcium of around 400 and dKh of 8 or slightly above

How can I increase those levels?

 

[Mrod]

If your just keeping soft corals and not many at first some water changes would be the easiest since Red Sea pro is already elevated in alk and in line for ca

you could does like others are saying but if not comfortable or wanting to spend extra you could try the water changes first.

i do think over time you may want to consider investing in some better testing methods.
a refractomer for salinity if you don’t have
Salifert good for alk and calcium
Hannah checker for phosphate, etc

with soft corals you will have much more tolerance once you get your water back to a normal level but over time if you get into lps or sps is when the parameters and dosing start to become more critical.