I think my tank is dying

[saltnewb]

Not sure what’s going on with my tank. It’s been running over a year now and other than a couple minor issues, it’s been running great.

With that said, I noticed some corals acting out of the norm the last couple days.

My current setup is a 29g bowfront glass aquarium with a HOB refugium by CPR. I have a eshopps nano skimmer and heater in there with sea lettuce and GFO. My light is current led ramp timer pro and I’m using two nano koralia powerheads, alternating.

The fish seem fine, but the corals don’t. About 3 days ago my GSP decided it didn’t want to open anymore and then the finger leather coral didn’t want to stretch out anymore. Now all the zoas are staying closed and my rhodactus has shrunk to the point that I can hardly see them in the rock work. A week ago everything was open and happy. I haven’t changed anything with the tank so I’m baffled.

I know my nitrates are high, but much better since I started using NoPx and my all was low, but used fusion 2 to bring it up. My calcium has dropped down to 380, so I know that needs to go back up. I currently don’t have a magnesium test so don’t know what those levels are.

Could low calcium cause all my corals to act like that?

Any help is appreciated.

 

[saltnewb]

Oh and I don’t know if I should start with a water change or setup a QT and move all my frags over.

 

[Reef_monster]

If your cal is that low I would imagine your alk levels are really low also. I have a huge bio load and don’t really check mag. I would check alk and do a pretty hefty water change imo

 

[Fishfinder]

Any change any effect the coral. Post up all your parameters so we can do what's going on. But any change in alk or cal will make things upset

 

[saltnewb]

Levels are as follows:
Cal - 380
Phos - 0
NO3 - 40ppm (down from over 100 a few weeks ago)
Ammonia - 0
pH - 7.9
Nitrite - 0
KH - 7/125.3

 

[Fishfinder]

If I were to take a guess the low alk and cal, combined with the high change in NO3 made everything mad. Do a water change and keeps things stable for a few weeks

 

[saltnewb]

Oh and salinity is 1.026

 

[saltnewb]

Where should my all be? I thought it was in the right place. Oh man.

 

[saltnewb]

Alk not all

 

[Reef_monster]

Alk is a little low cal is a little low. Depending on your salt I would do a water change then do another one a few days after and keep it stable from there

 

[gobeach]

I would throw a bag of Carbon in just in case the issue is chemical in nature - it wont hurt.

 

[domination2580]

With higher nitrates you want a little higher alk as well... With 40 ppm of trates I would try to get it up to 11 or so. I kept mine at 12 when I had that much trates. I now keep mine at 8 but trates are at 2ppm.

 

[amazongb]

I’m thinking your phosphates are too low..

 

[domination2580]

I’m thinking your phosphates are too low..

I agree to this as well

 

[saltnewb]

Using Fritz salt.

Okay so I’ll do a water change today and pop the gfo out. I used flatworm exit a couple weeks ago, but I’ve running carbon to get it out. Possible FE could be a problem?

 

[Luno]

Firstly - calcium at 380 and alk at 7 I don't see an issue what so ever. There is nothing in those numbers that says it's low enough to cause an issue. If you can slowly raise your calcium to sit between 400 and 420 even better but IMO its not gonna be the issue that's causing this.

Secondly - phosphate at 0? What are you using to test phosphate? Most test kits cannot test low phosphate accurately at all best to use a Hanna. Chances are they aren't zero and maybe at something like 0.03 which is fine.

Thirdly - any chance contaminant such as a cleaning spray or anything may have been used around the tank? Do you run carbon? And if so when was it last changed. If you don't run carbon please do and see if there is something harmful entered in the system.

Lastly - when did you start using Nopx? About when this started being an issue? How are you dosing it? When something goes wrong look at the last thing you changed. If I remember what I read in your post it nitrate dropped from 100-40 in a week? That's a significant reduction, nothing good happens fast. I don't think that will be what's upsetting your tank but it could be part of it a drastic change in nutrients.

 

[brandon429]

Post full tank shot


I've learned to look at any tank that is small enough to be disassembly cleaned as a very separate entity from one that isn't

29 is

A parted, skip cycle cleaning means we clean the bed, all areas of the tank, free from clouding mess accumulation and put it back in a pristine condition


Which then enables you to spot feed and change water weekly for 3 months sustained

No gfo

Your pics aren't likely to show coral disease


Sight unseen, all you need is detritus cleaning, feeding and stepped up export. Polar opposite of how we got here, post pics. There's not a nano on the planet that won't reinstate, or make live forever. I guarantee you that to reinstate manual work will fix your tank, and that staving off work has caused the yet to be seen issues


I can tell by the use of gfo we either have an organic store to compensate, or there is a hands off mode where water changes aren't used in place of media binding

Any distress nano needs the old fashioned - clean, feed, change water - to rebound.

Gfo and other binders are required when in-tank breakdown of wastes occurs
And it often starves corals combined with the decreased feeding required by hands-off reefing.

We reverse all that easily in a nano. Many use gfo successfully, and have created running hands off nanos. Just don't do it in the stressed reef...how to unstress a reef is mighty simple. Sustain the big three for three months.

Change out that stripped water for all new. Keep all animals, skip cycle gold.

 

[brandon429]

with a nano can do this preemptively

Go through a least one or two phases each year where for three months we feed every mouth, change water more, and spot kill all algae without jacking water params. This is the beefing period...coral mass...starve em all rest of the year but give them bounty runs/coral health trick


Feeding is the issue, not a param here I bet. not quality of feed, the in/out system possibly. By now a year old sandbed should have some color and a few coralline dots on the glass portion if one is present here, this lets us see a nutrient history. Very white/clean is another detail, unless you have been keeping it tidy clean which some do

 

[NS Mike D]

what kit are you using to test NO3 and PO4? i found that API is not sufficiently sensitive for reef tanks.

do you run activated carbon ( not carbon dosing)? corals engage in chemical warfare from time to time and that too can cause the softies to close up for a day or two. Carbon can pull those out of the water before they do damage .


edit note: i see @Luno already mentioned it so +1 on his post

 

[Luno]

Also another thought in line with contaminants, how's your equipment? And equipment cleaning schedules? Not properly maintained pumps and wavemakers it is possible for corrosion and then more contaminants to be put into your system.

Must be smart minds thinking alike @NS Mike D