Low nutrients, brown/dying SPS

[primoleo]

Need help here.

Kh 7.0
Ca 410
Mg 1200
NO3 2.5
PO4 0.018

XR30W SPS AB+ 250-350 PAR mostly
Lot of flow: 50/70x tank volume.
Full Triton method.

Some SPS are doing ok, some bleached, most are browning and receding from the base. Zero growth. No signs of parasites.

what the heck is going on?
Are they starving? - receding from the base-
Are they full of zooxantellae? -browning-

As of now I’m throwing whatever I can in the tank. Coral food, fish food, aminos, everything.

I’m clueless here.

 

[bar|none]

How old is the tank? I'd be careful riding your PO4 that close to 0. If it does actually hit zero for any period of time, your corals will let you know and you might also trigger Dinos.

You can reduce the photo period in your fuge to let nutrients rise a bit and see if it helps.

 

[primoleo]

How old is the tank? I'd be careful riding your PO4 that close to 0. If it does actually hit zero for any period of time, your corals will let you know and you might also trigger Dinos.

You can reduce the photo period in your fuge to let nutrients rise a bit and see if it helps.

It's unintentional, it's the way it runs. I reduced the photoperiod in the fuge (12h to 9h).
Phosphorus yesterday night was 15 ppb, this morning (fuge on overnight) was 6 ppb.
Tank is young. 4 months old. I have many corallines encrusting the pumps and growing on the back and bottom glass.

 

[ScottB]

How old is the system?
How big is it?
How long have the corals been in there? Were they previously hosted under significantly different water parameters?

Mg could be higher ~1350
Nutrients are a little too low for my comfort. You are within testing error of zero. (Unless you have some algae growing. If so you have plenty of nutrient.

 

[primoleo]

How old is the system?
How big is it?
How long have the corals been in there? Were they previously hosted under significantly different water parameters?

Mg could be higher ~1350
Nutrients are a little too low for my comfort. You are within testing error of zero. (Unless you have some algae growing. If so you have plenty of nutrient.

Young, 4 months old.
Small, 25 gallons.
Some for a couple of weeks, some for a month or more.
No, similar parameters.

Mg I know is little low, but I wouldn't blame it for what's going on.
Nutrients are too low for me as well, that's why Im feeding a lot now.
I have very few go algae growing in display, few green hairy in the fuge, compared to zero I used to have.

 

[ScottB]

Got it. A bit new for SPS, but you got coralline going so that is a big plus. If you can find some nice pineapple sponges growing in there you are golden.

Maybe you can share your acclimation/dipping regime? Could be acclimation shock. Over the years, I have gotten VERY particular about my acclimation dipping protocol and my stick losses have dropped dramatically. Goes like this:

a) temp acclimate in the bag in dark sump
b) visual inspection (for pests) and then into an LPS tank around 150 - 200 PAR
c) 3-5 days later, Bayer dip, visual inspection and back to LPS tank
d) 5 days later, dip/visual
e) 5 days later, dip/visual and then into SPS tank in a lower light section

Also, the vendors I buy from run very similar ALK & nutrients to mine so that helps a lot.

 

[bar|none]

I hit 0 P04 at about 4 months in as well after adding my first SPS. After a few days at 0, SPS went brown and one completely rtn'd in one night. It also triggered a dino outbreak and that was a nightmare, lost some of my SPS, some of the survivors are just now recovering months later. So I test PO4 every day now.

One thing I do is keep a bottle of Brightwell Neophos on hand, if I start getting too low readings, I can temporarily dose some of that to bring PO4 up until nutrients and fuge adjustments can take effect.

Now I try to keep PO4 0.05-0.1. If it goes higher, I don't sweat it.

Some ULNS folks might chime in here how they walk the razors edge that low, but it seems even harder to do so in small tank with a fuge.

 

[SPR1968]

Need help here.

Kh 7.0
Ca 410
Mg 1200


I’m clueless here.

To me those readings look barely adequate, and magnesium is to low and this can have an impact on the chemical interactions in the tank (been there) and it may well affect coral health.

The KH is at the bottom end of being adequate and taking into account test error could be either lower to make matters worse, or of course slightly higher

If it were me I’d bump of those parameters to something along the lines of this which you may have seen already

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

 

[UCF Alum]

Your nitrates and phosphates are too low for sps frags. Start feeding heavy. I had issues like you are having years ago and couldn’t figure it out. Turns out, those “recommended numbers” are nothing but a myth. My acros grow like nuts now with po4 at .1 and no3 at 30
Lots of light lots of flow.

Neophos is awful. Watered down. Get Seachem phosphate and add. I have mine hooked up to a dosing pump.

 

[SeaDweller]

What size tank do you have and how many fish do you have in there? Can you up your feedings more?

 

[Joelopez02]

yeah id have to agree with what others are saying as well, nutrients are too low. This happened to me as well and most of my sps started to recede. I started feeding a bit more and added a couple more fish. you could probably also shut your skimmer off for a couple days if its oversized maybe its pulling out too much from your water . hope this helps

 

[primoleo]

I hit 0 P04 at about 4 months in as well after adding my first SPS. After a few days at 0, SPS went brown and one completely rtn'd in one night. It also triggered a dino outbreak and that was a nightmare, lost some of my SPS, some of the survivors are just now recovering months later. So I test PO4 every day now.

One thing I do is keep a bottle of Brightwell Neophos on hand, if I start getting too low readings, I can temporarily dose some of that to bring PO4 up until nutrients and fuge adjustments can take effect.

Now I try to keep PO4 0.05-0.1. If it goes higher, I don't sweat it.

Some ULNS folks might chime in here how they walk the razors edge that low, but it seems even harder to do so in small tank with a fuge.

That might be my problem as well. It just didn't seem right browning and low nutrients, but I understand sometimes it is actually the case.

 

[primoleo]

To me those readings look barely adequate, and magnesium is to low and this can have an impact on the chemical interactions in the tank (been there) and it may well affect coral health.

The KH is at the bottom end of being adequate and taking into account test error could be either lower to make matters worse, or of course slightly higher

If it were me I’d bump of those parameters to something along the lines of this which you may have seen already

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

I'm running values according to Triton recommendation and those are close to NSW. Barely adequate? Come on! Maybe they were so 20 years ago, when all of us were running tanks at 10 KH.
I confirmed dKH 7.0 by Hanna photometer and Salifert. Mg low I do agree, but not to such an extent to kill my corals. You would agree on that.

 

[primoleo]

yeah id have to agree with what others are saying as well, nutrients are too low. This happened to me as well and most of my sps started to recede. I started feeding a bit more and added a couple more fish. you could probably also shut your skimmer off for a couple days if its oversized maybe its pulling out too much from your water . hope this helps

I have the same feeling that nutrients are too low. I just can't explain the browning, which it's usually a sign of too many nutrients. Even though, sometimes, it's just a sign of stress, like ultra low nutrients.

 

[primoleo]

What size tank do you have and how many fish do you have in there? Can you up your feedings more?

Yep I'm going up with feedings

 

[Acrofiend]

I’ve had problems with acropora when my magnesium was 1250. Not sure if that was the problem though.

 

[SPR1968]

I'm running values according to Triton recommendation and those are close to NSW. Barely adequate? Come on! Maybe they were so 20 years ago, when all of us were running tanks at 10 KH.
I confirmed dKH 7.0 by Hanna photometer and Salifert. Mg low I do agree, but not to such an extent to kill my corals. You would agree on that.

Without going into to much detail on Triton of which I’m fully aware, the Triton lab alkalinity recommendation is 8dKh not 7. The Hanna has a +/- error of 0.3 either way. So you could be 6.7 or 7.3 either way, on the low side.

TRITON Method

Standard Meta Beschreibung

www.triton-lab.de

Magnesium has an effect on the interaction of the other elements and is a vital part of the water chemistry and can and will affect coral health. I’ve been there myself

 

[RussiReef]

IMO you have to be a real pro to keep SPS corals in a 4 month old tank. I think your tank still too young for SPS corals.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I have the same feeling that nutrients are too low. I just can't explain the browning, which it's usually a sign of too many nutrients. Even though, sometimes, it's just a sign of stress, like ultra low nutrients.

Browning means stressed and or starved from a lack or light, fish poop or both. Now your lighting sounds more than perfect so you need more fish poop. How many fish and how much are you feeding? My 50 gallon sps tank gets about 3 cubes of frozen a cap zooplankton and 5 mls of bio enhance per day. You’re probably over stripping your water. Do you have a skimmer?

 

[bar|none]

Browning means stressed and or starved from a lack or light, fish poop or both. Now your lighting sounds more than perfect so you need more fish poop. How many fish and how much are you feeding? My 50 gallon sps tank gets about 3 cubes of frozen a cap zooplankton and 5 mls of bio enhance per day. You’re probably over stripping your water. Do you have a skimmer

Beautiful tank and corals! I'm curious, how many fish do you have in your 50 gallon?