Losing lps one by one over the last 36 hours

[silvernblackr35]

As the title says I have had rapid death of established lps coral in my tank. I lost 2 lobos(one is shedding most of it's tissue as we speak), 2 colonies of duncans, and a torch that had 5 or so heads. The lobo and duncans i've had for well over 2 years. The only surviving lps in my tank are a plate coral and a large frogspawn colony. I have multiple sps (acros included), nems, gorgs, shrooms and zoas all seemingly unaffected.
Display tank: 180gal
Sump: 40gal
Refugium: 29gal
Salinity(refractometer) 1.024
Temp 78-79
PH (API) 8.4
Ammonia (API) 0
Nitrate(Nyos) 25ppm
Alkalinity (Salifert) 8.9dkh
Calcium(Salifert) 500ppm+
Magnesium(Salifert) 1290ppm

No gfo or carbon dosing just a refugium, skimmer, and water changes for nutrient export. I do have a marinepure block in the sump as well.

After doing the testing I was alarmed by the fact that my calcium was off the Salifert charts, actually took 1.45ml of titration before I got a color change, so it's well over 500ppm. My furnace has been running quite a bit the last month which increases my topoff to about 10gal a week. I add kalkwasser to my topoff at 1.5tsp per gallon. I have stopped adding it at this time.

Has anyone had issues like this associated with 500ppm+ calcium? Or should I be looking elsewhere for the cause of these issues? I've been making water as fast as can to prepare for a large water change. Any input/advice is appreciated.

 

[Dono1990]

500 ppm is a little high. I would lower into the 410-440 range.

 

[miyags]

Could they have gotten stung by shrooms or nem? Those numbers aren't too bad. cal a little high and mag a little low.I read a thread this morning where someone had 578 cal. And Randy Holmes-Farley says that's not a huge problem and not to panic.When unknown things start happening I always start off with a water change.

 

[Zagreus]

Good plan on the water changes. What are your phosphates at? Do you see any bacterial issues or brown slime? Zag

 

[lion king]

You've included everything I would have asked except for phosphates. I'm not sure how high po4 would have to be before toxic and this sort of decline within a few days. Yes 500 is high, but again not sure it's in the toxic range which would cause this. Any fish or critter that is new or suddenly developed an interest in these corals. Another thing that stuck out is plate corals will sometimes be your canary before the others you mentioned. So you use no chemical media at all, no chemipure etc; I've seen certain corals react adversely quickly when changing certain types of media. Is that nitrate reading very recent, I've seen de-nitrating products like marine pure reach a sort of saturation and increase nitrates rapidly. I'm just spit balling sorry I couldn't be of real help.

 

[Pongo]

Any chance you've got a magnet or other metal object rusting?

 

[JEREMY82]

Just my 2 cents. Dont do a huge water change,do small ones,reason being i would go this route is corals are probably very stressed . And you will just add more stress by swinging the tank perimeters, my friend 1 time had made a kalk reactor and it brought his kh up way to high. What he did made a big batch of good saltwater did a emergency water change and boom more corals died in his tank. To much swing for them to handle .

 

[silvernblackr35]

My phosphates are 0 on a salifert kit, I know this isn't an accurate way to test but ever since I stopped running gfo and chasing phosphate I had better overall coral growth and color on my previous tank. I do have small amounts of gha and cyano in my fuge that don't really grow much or spread. I use a 6 inch sandbed in my fuge. I also forgot to mention I use a bag of rox carbon in-between a baffle in my sump for chemical filtration. This tank has been up since August 2016. About 50% of the live rock is well over 4 years old.

I'm really leaning towards a pH spike and calcium spike due to kalkwasser in the ato being the culprit. If my math is correct which it's probably not lol, according to the chart 1.45ml of titration would mean my calcium is over 700ppm. I have no fish that eat corals and suspect no chemical warfare, I have everything spaced out pretty well in their own space.

 

[silvernblackr35]

Will check all magnets tonight. I do have 2 mp40s

 

[Fishfinder]

Are you running any carbon?

 

[five.five-six]

Sounds like calcium burn. Cut your sample in 1/2 with RO/DI water and test for calcium again. Multiply the results by 2.

Water changes re the only way to fix that, large ones. It’s going to stress the heck out of everything.

Happy reefing and may the odds be ever in your favor!

 

[five.five-six]

Conversely, you could do a regular ca test and then draw a 2nd ml of part 3 then add tht result to 500.

 

[JEREMY82]

If you know anyone with a test, u could double check your numbers you will know if test stands correct. U could also try to dip some of the stuff taking a hit in some revive

 

[silvernblackr35]

Sounds like calcium burn. Cut your sample in 1/2 with RO/DI water and test for calcium again. Multiply the results by 2.

Water changes re the only way to fix that, large ones. It’s going to stress the heck out of everything.

Happy reefing and may the odds be ever in your favor!

So calcium burn is an actual thing? I've heard of high mag bothering some corals and high alk burning tips.

 

[five.five-six]

Yep, did it 2 weeks ago with CaCl2. I messed up the calculations. I did add 1/2 first and checked to see how everyone was doing 2 hrs later. Corals looked fine so I added the other 1/2 WITHOUT TESTING DOH!!!

1/2 hr. later everything was looking unhappy, I tested at 520. Mixed up a 25% WC and by morning everybody was looking good again. By morning Ca tested at 470, still high but not acutely so.


I have been using randy’s Calculator for over a decade and got cocky about it.

Lesson learned, always do partial adjustments and test along the way.

 

[five.five-six]

Raising mg to levels in excess of 3000 is an old time remedy for bryopsis. While most people treat at levels much lower than that, (in the just over 2,000 range) there are very few reports of negative impact on corals

 

[eatbreakfast]

What fish are in the tank?

 

[dieselkeeper]

Nitrates is high to me. I had a lobo losing flesh in high nitrates, put in a my frag tank. Which has some nitrates. It's doing much better now.

 

[beaslbob]

if mag is low increasing that will also help lower calcium

 

[DeniseAndy]

On another side, what gorg species do you have and what size? are the lps dying "down wind" or close to the gorg? How many gorgs and how long have you had them? Trust me when I ask these questions. I have a gorg specific system and have tried many experiments over the years of what works. Also, no gfo, but do you run carbon?