My corals dying?

[skhaw]

I am weird shredding on my two corals. I think brain coral is dying since I can see it’s skeleton underneath now. Tank is about 3 months old and water chemistry is all fine. Please help.

 

[sfin52]

I am weird shredding on my two corals. I think brain coral is dying since I can see it’s skeleton underneath now. Tank is about 3 months old and water chemistry is all fine. Please help.

Please post parameters. Also include light and flow.

 

[skhaw]

Following is my setup.
- 60 gallon tank with dimensions 48x18x18 inches
- Icecap 30 reef sump with 200 micron filter in one slot and de-nitrate pallets on another
- Coralife aqualight light fixture with 10000K day light and True Actinic 03 Blue compact fluorescent lamps 260 watts total
- 2 x eflux loop wave pump 1050 GPH at 80%
- Naptune COR-20 stand-alone hat 90%
- Aqua UV 15 watt (only 12 hours at night)
- Aquamaxx Cones Q-1
- Eheim Jager TruTemp 150 Watt
- Bio pallets reactor
- Carbon reactor
- GFO reactor

A few things to note
- the tank is running at avg temp 79-81 degree
- I run 10000K daylight and blue light combined for 7 hours a day. Then day light went off and blue light stays on. Then I turn off all the light at night time for about 7-8 hours. This lamp is old lamp I bought when I had reef tank like 12 year ago but could only keep it for like a year since life happened.
- I added GFO reactor about two days ago. Before that, I left that connection closed off since I do not see any phosphate in water tests. I added it because I saw a slight color change (one shade increase). That’s the only thing I remember changing recently.
- I do water tests about 4-5 times a week. All levels are good and I never had any issues since it was setup up 3 months ago.

 

[madlos123]

Might be helpful of what numbers for those "all levels are good" hehe ;Joyful

 

[Flippers4pups]

Still need your water parameters to help you.

 

[Pistondog]

How old is brain coral.
Try turning off gfo.

 

[skhaw]

I bought it about 2 months ago. It was not that much smaller when I bought it. It is too late to save anyway since all the soft part is gone. Should I still turn off GFO? What is in GFO that could cause this?

 

[Pistondog]

Did you rinse the gfo?

 

[skhaw]

Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 5 ppm
Ammonia - 0.25 ppm
PH - 8.2
Phosphate - 0.25ppm before GFO and now is 0
Calcium 440 ppm

 

[Pistondog]

Also, 0 phosphate maybe worse than 0.25.

 

[skhaw]

Did you rinse the gfo?

I did rinse GFO several times. But still I see some particles in the sump and also protein skimmer. I have not cleaned the protein skimmer since I added GFO. See images

 

[skhaw]

Here is another brain coral, a lot more expensive one, but seems to be ok for now. I would hate to lose it.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 5 ppm
Ammonia - 0.25 ppm
PH - 8.2
Phosphate - 0.25ppm before GFO and now is 0
Calcium 440 ppm

Ammonia is most likely a false positive.
0 P04 isn't good.

What's your source water?

 

[vetteguy53081]

You literally need no more than a table spoon of GFO FOR system
Temperature 77-79
Salinity. 1.025
CA. 450
Alk. 8-9
Phosphate .05

also, are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet ??

 

[skhaw]

My salinity is at 35. I set the tank up with water from osmosis system we have for drinking water. Took me 3 days to get like 80 gallons I needed. Impurity tester shows about 35ppm out of that osmosis tank. I still add water conditioner anyway to be safe. Never used direct tap water. Starting like three weeks ago, I went to local store to get RODI water.

I read the instructions about GFO and supposed to be about a cup. I added twice the amount thinking it would last longer. How zero phosphate could cause this? It was zero phosphate before I run the reactor anyway. I feel like the chemical in GFO particles is reacting with the coral. The color looks like rust color like GFO particles.

 

[skhaw]

Any idea on what happened to this brain coral? Is this caused by GFO reactor? I am not sure if I should turn it back on at all.

 

[madlos123]

Here's my take. When I add GFO even one tablespoon to my system. all my euphylia gets ticked off. If your system have already have low phosphates level, so after adding that much gfo and having zero phosphate levels afterwards may cause that bleaching/shrunk in. Maybe the coral was starving/stressed already then added gfo really kicked it lol. When my tank was new 1-6 months, i lost a couple heads of lps, idk why too lol.

Just remove the gfo and let your nutrients rise I only see one fishy thou unless their hiding? so nutrients might be already low.

Here's my receipt