Major issues...help wanted

[Ross]

I am in need of some serious help from the sps gods!!!!

For the past 3 years my tank has been the definition of mediocore. Most stuff lives, a few frags die, and almost nothing grows like it should. I have recently started trying to get things back on track, and I am not having any success. 65g DSA, trigger systems sump. 1 mp40, 2 mp10's, mag 9 return. No biopellets, nothing special.

Nutrients

My nutrients have been undetectable for the longest time, and my corals always were very pale and showed no growth. I dabbled in dosing KNO3, but didn't like it. I recently began over feeding the heck out of my fish with Rods, Spectrum pellets, and mysis cubes. I now have nitrates between 10 and 25 (salifert) and phosphates around 0.05 (hanna ulr). I've been holding these levels for a couple weeks now. Phosphate just registered as '1' on hanna ulr.

Dosing

I have brs dosers for my calcium and alk. I am manually dosing magnesium, but should have another dosing pump to automate that today. I am using BRS brand for all 3 supplements. I have a bottle of acropower I have dosed on and off, dont notice any difference.

Lighting

Sun power 8x39w all ATI bulbs, runs for 9 hours a day. Light is about a foot off the top of the tank.

Current levels

I chased my alk around for about the past month, turns out I had a bad batch of hanna alk reagent. Since figuring that out about a week ago, my params have been very solid.

Levels as of today:

Alk 8.06 (hanna)
Calcium 450 (salifert)
Magnesium 1260 (salifert)
Nitrates about 15 (salifert)
Salinity 1.026 with refractomer.
Temp fluctuates less than 1 degree throughout the day. (78.9-79.0 with Apex probe)






I sent water off to Triton labs today for further testing.

Salt

I was using Reef crystals for a long time, recently switched to H2Ocean because it matched the alk I like to run in my tank better.

Problems

SPS do not grow almost at all. They show very pale colors. Over the past week, all my montis have died or almost died. I am at a complete loss, my parameters have been stable and I have been testing so much I'm not sure what could be the issue. I also have burnt tips and slow stn on a couple pieces. I would normally assume burnt tips = alk burn but my alk has been stable in the 7.8 range for a week and the tips are losing more tissue every day. I also get almost no PE, except at night on a few pieces.

Now for some pictures:

Notice the STN on this pieces (some type of stag). It has been stn'ing in this area for about a week. It use to have some PE, and now has none.



This piece has burnt tips that receede slowly every day. It also has grown extremely slowly over the past year or so and has gone from some PE at night, to none. It looks extremely stressed and ready to die.


This piece was really nice when I got it, always had polyps out. Now its completely colorless, never has PE.


Ths encrusting monti with blue polyps is barely hanging on, all the polyps are receeded far inside the tissue and it looks like its about to die.


This piece has grown absolutely none at all in over a year. It is slowly receding (notice the white around the base, stn)



This is a Jason fox mystic I think. Notice the white tissue, receeding all around it. The pocillopora in the background is about the only thing I have that is doing well.


Pro corals red rainbow acros is what this one is I believe. From the top town it looks pink but has no color from the side. That much growth is in over a year.


PLEASE HELP I need some experience opinions here. I am doing everything I think should be right, my ALK, calcium, and Mag are stable in good ranges, and things are only getting worse. I'm not sure if I'm missing something trace, if there could be something toxic in my water, etc. I am confident that flow, lighting, pests are not an issue. Why are all montiporas dying when everything seems solid?? I am about to run some carbon to see if that helps. Also, my refractomer has been calibrated with 35ppt solution and is dead on.

 

[Snoopeeyy]

I honestly have no idea, are you running Kalkwasser at all? I know if you do it wrong you can get burnt tips. My levels are:

Calcium: 460
Mag: 1480ish
Alk:10-11

These 3 levels are the ones you need to keep up with for sps'. I dose Calcium and Alkalinity daily with a dosing of magnesium every 3 days or so. I use Coral Pro salt (Comes in like a black bucket with sorta purple picture) and my sps' grow like mad. Ive had about 3 inches of growth on the monti in like 2 months. My acros grow more slowly but do grow pretty quick.

 

[acer]

When was the last time you changed your bulbs? shooting in the dark here-- so figured it was worth asking. What fish do you have? IS anything picking on the corals? Yes the ALK is a bit low at 8. PH is good I assume = above 7.9 ?

 

[Ross]

Thanks for the quick replies.

Snoopy, not dosing any kalk. I am using BRS dosing pumps to dose 2 part alk and calcium. I also add magnesium manually just like you, however i just got a third dosing pump.

Acer, haven't changed bulbs in close to a year, but things weren't growing even with new bulbs. Don't think thats an issue. My current fish are 2 clowns, 1 royal gramma, 1 midas blenny, 1 flame angel, 1 purple tang, and 1 sixline wrasse.

Here is a graph of my daily temp and ph swings. I just re calibrated my ph proble last week.

 

[jsker]

Trace elements, I started the balling system from Aquaforest and my tank came back to life. Then I changes my light and wow my tank is really coming to life.

 

[Diesel]

I had the same thing happening about 2 years ago.
It came so fast and Triton came out ok, water changes didn't help, no change in salt or dosing but all SPS was receding.
Lost quite a bit 90% and what was left were frags fro large colonies that I dipped and moved to the frag system.
Started all over by emptying the tank, cleaned the rock with MA and new sand.
Talked to many SPS guru's for what it could be but we were all in the dark.
Not that long ago it came up again with Michael Paletta and Tony Vargas as they were in Houston and they told me it could be a bacterial decease.
Of course we never know but it makes you wonder.

 

[Ross]

Trace elements, I started the balling system from Aquaforest and my tank came back to life. The I changes my light and wow my tank is really coming to life.

Is it considered the 'balling light' method? From what I understand its very similiar to just 2 part, but with trace added. I have considered going this route.

I had the same thing happening about 2 years ago.
It came so fast and Triton came out ok, water changes didn't help, no change in salt or dosing but all SPS was receding.
Lost quite a bit 90% and what was left were frags fro large colonies that I dipped and moved to the frag system.
Started all over by emptying the tank, cleaned the rock with MA and new sand.
Talked to many SPS guru's for what it could be but we were all in the dark.
Not that long ago it came up again with Michael Paletta and Tony Vargas as they were in Houston and they told me it could be a bacterial decease.
Of course we never know but it makes you wonder.

Thanks for the reply brother. I'm hoping to not have to restart everything as I would probably just give up the sticks and go fish only. Did those guys mention anyting to fight a bacterial disease? Or how to go about dealing with it.

 

[acer]

OK- well the basics are certainly covered. I will wait for others to chime in so I can learn. The BTA looks good....
maybe it is an infection that affect Corals and not Fish/Anemones.

.

In this pic the corals look crowded- maybe they are fighting each other at night. Some of my corals send out "fighter filaments" to sting other corals at night.

 

[MontiFanatic402]

Have you checked TDS on your RO/DI water? about 4 years ago, when I used to get my water from my lfs, I had a bunch of sps start to die on me....I checked all the basics, and finally found that the water I was getting had over 150TDS. I ordered my own unit and never got water from them again!!

 

[Diesel]

This coral has signs of a pest, most likely AEFW.

 

[Ross]

OK- well the basics are certainly covered. I will wait for others to chime in so I can learn. The BTA looks good....
maybe it is an infection that affect Corals and not Fish/Anemones.

In this pic the corals look crowded- maybe they are fighting each other at night. Some of my corals send out "fighter filaments" to sting other corals at night.

BTA's and fish are doing great. Clownfish regularly lay eggs, all fish are fully QT'd happy and healthy.

Have you checked TDS on your RO/DI water?

Not lately, but i change my filters all the time. This could be an issue but I'm leaning more toward something my RO isn't pulling out. I have it hooked up to a water hose, think the hose or metal fittings could be leaching into the water?

This coral has signs of a pest, most likely AEFW.

/QUOTE]

Agree, that piece looks like aefw. Everything has been fully QT'd though and that is the only piece that is losing tissue like that. I have looked and looked and looked some more for aefw, bite marks, eggs, and have never found any.

 

[Vaughn17]

Your nitrates are too high for sps, IME.

Also, I dose strontium. It's (strontium) in the Ca that I dose but testing revealed that it (evidently) gets used up quickly.

 

[Ross]

Your nitrates are too high for sps, IME.

Also, I dose strontium. It's (strontium) in the Ca that I dose but testing revealed that it (evidently) gets used up quickly.

I just recetly got them up, they were undetectable for the longest time. Lots of folks seem to run lots of sps with nitrates in the 10 range, but I'd rather them be around 2. I think one issue could be the imbalance between nitrates and phosphates. Nitrates tested pretty high today, while phosphates came in at basically 0.

 

[Vaughn17]

Your phosphates are 1.0? That is way too high, also. My QT tank is full of low light corals and one weird monti (that CC calls a habanero monti). Earlier today, a few plates and an ancanthophylia were looking unhappy (ironically, the monti was happy), so I tested NO3 and PO4 with Salifert kits and they were 10 ppm and 0.5, respectively. I put some GFO (in a bag) in the HOB for a couple hours and now the unhappy corals are happier.

 

[Ross]

Phosphates are basically 0, on my hanna ultra low range phosphorous it came back as a "1" which translate into basically 0.001 phosphates

 

[McMullen]

Seems you've changed what most call the critical stuff. Nutrients, minerals, alk, salt mix. Not sure what time frame you did all this though. I assume months since ongoing problem?

The acro you quarantined, have you dipped it? It looks very suspicious!
I changed salt mixes once and my Sps hated me! Changing multiple things may exacerbate whatever problem is going on. Could it be that initially, your issue was low nutrients? Then, your tank has never "liked" all the subsequent changes?

 

[Ross]

Seems you've changed what most call the critical stuff. Nutrients, minerals, alk, salt mix. Not sure what time frame you did all this though. I assume months since ongoing problem?

The acro you quarantined, have you dipped it? It looks very suspicious!
I changed salt mixes once and my Sps hated me! Changing multiple things may exacerbate whatever problem is going on. Could it be that initially, your issue was low nutrients? Then, your tank has never "liked" all the subsequent changes?

Thanks for the reply McMullen

The tank has been running for about 3 years. Things have never taken off and have always been pretty mediocre, I think it has been undetectable N and P for the most part. Every acro I have has been quarantined and dipped multiple times. That piece has been in the tank for about 2 years now and only within the past week has been STN'ing. Nothing new has been added to the tank in months. I think your on to something about it initially being the nutrients, and then since I've started intensively managing things, too many changes. I had an alk swing recently with a bad hanna reagent. Now that is squared away and stable, but nothing is recovering.

 

[Oceansize]

I was having the same issue, and my alk was also in the low 8's, same as the OP. All other params in the usual ranges. I went to a calcium reactor two weeks ago instead of dosing and my alk got as high as 12 while trying to dial in the reactor. I'm still not getting much PE, but my stn appears to be reversing and my coralline is spreading like mad, so at this point Alk in the low 8's has been proven to be too low. Since your tank is low nutrient, I'm assuming you'll want to be extra diligent about feeding your coral as well.

BTW I tried upping my nutrients, same as you into similar ranges, but that ended up being a dead end. Low alk was more the issue than low N and P.

Having said that, I doubt that's the only issue at play. In my case, that's why I'm upping my feedings. After a year I finally have the systems in place to keep N and P in the ULNS zone, I've now got my alk a little higher, so the next step is just to feed the buggers.

 

[hybridazn]

Have you checked your system for anything from that is rusting? Magnets from frag racks, split open impellers so on. Also any cheap stainless steel that rusts will leach other heavy metals into the tank that sps do not cope with.

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

You need to start with water man. Always the first place I start to troubleshoot.
can you tell us a little about your ro/di? How you use it, what your tap water is and what your tds tolerances are?

In my experience. poor rodi or improper use can lead to many of the problems people end up scratching their heads over.

At the very least it's always the first place I start when I trouble shoot.