Not sure what to do, reef in distress

PghReef · Dec 9, 2019

Johnny Stecchino said:
Letting the water settle for a week should help with chloramine a lot. so that may not be it. Alk still is a prime suspect though. Not just the level but the swing as well. Do you have an idea why it does swing so much and what timeframe?, Do you have the swing you reported one day to the other or after a water change and before the next? are you dosing 2 parts?

Yea all water is made and stored in food grade gallon camping jugs.
Maybe I should clarify my alk. I dont trust any single test so i test it weekly the day before WC eith 3 test. API and hanna checker usually run very close just the checker gives a decimal point. Red Sea seems to run about a point lower. I looked back about 2 months and my alk readings seemed always be between 8 and 9. Lowest was a RS 7.6 and highest was a 9.7 on the checker. The 9.7 correspond with an 8.4 on rS and the 7.6 RS was 8.1 on the checker.

anon9896 · Dec 9, 2019

How are your corals today ? Do you have any pictures ?

PghReef · Dec 21, 2019

So things have seemed to stop downward spiraling. I def have nutrients again with nitrates reading between 5 and 10 and phosphates at 16ppb. I've lowered the alk slowly to about 8 now and am getting constant film algae on the glass needing cleaned daily. A few corals are toast, a few totally unaffected, and a few took a good hit but I think will recover.
This encrusting monti is one of my favorite. Now and before pictures, I see good color still on the outer parameter and some PE, and maybe some color coming back in the center?

PghReef · Dec 21, 2019

Purple stylo, tissue lost from base up but seems to have stopped and I'm getting better PE on the top again. Birdsnest died tips down like alk burn so I broke of the dead tips. Seems to have lost skin but pe is coming back

PghReef · Dec 21, 2019

Hammers looking good, not as full as before but healthy and maybe splitting. The frogspawn is dead though

Purple and green frogs next to each other on the bottom. Green has recovered, purple is dead

Branching frogs and hammer moved to a qt. Hammers are fine but the frogs lost 3 outta 6 heads and the remaining ones still questionable

PghReef · Dec 21, 2019

Pretty sure these guys are toast. The one monti seems to still have polyps though

DSC reef · Dec 21, 2019

Sorry for the losses but hopefully your on the upswing. We've all been there bud. Keep those corals in there but blow off the cyano, you'd be surprised at what can come back. I still see polyps on the first montipora.

PghReef · Dec 21, 2019

And these guys never missed a beat

PghReef · Dec 21, 2019

DSC reef said:
Sorry for the losses but hopefully your on the upswing. We've all been there bud. Keep those corals in there but blow off the cyano, you'd be surprised at what can come back. I still see polyps on the first montipora.

Thanks, it sucks but yea hopefully on the upswing. I do see polyps on the first monti and I believe I see tissue in the center again starting to come back. Been just trying to keep em clean and hope. The 2 dead frogs were dead though, spelled like garbage when removed and tissue sloughing off. I think the acro and forest fire are gone but cant bring myself to give up hope yet

PghReef · Dec 22, 2019

Another week another round of testing today. Everything looking good test wise, nitrates seem to be holding at 5-10. Phosphates slightly lower at 8ppb, might have to bump them up. Alk continues to drop was only 6.5 so had to bump the doser back up a few minutes each day and bolesed 30ml to try and get back to 7. Hopefully everything continues to trend upward, have 3 fish in qt.

Sohal · May 7, 2020

Hello PghReef. How is your corals doing up to date? Is it getting any better? Did you ever find out the caused of the problem? I am experienced the same problem that you have. Everything was doing good at the beginning. All of the sudden, it took a turn and my Birdnest, Monti, Candycane and few other died as you described above. Looking forward to hear back from you.

PghReef · May 8, 2020

Sohal said:
Hello PghReef. How is your corals doing up to date? Is it getting any better? Did you ever find out the caused of the problem? I am experienced the same problem that you have. Everything was doing good at the beginning. All of the sudden, it took a turn and my Birdnest, Monti, Candycane and few other died as you described above. Looking forward to hear back from you.

The tank overall is better but still not where I feel like it should be. I still think there was something in the liveaquaria salt that I used that caused the issue. I stopped using it and did large water changes weekly with my coralife salt and things began to improve. Some corals were just gone but my encrusting monti came back from the dead as did my jackolantern leptoseris. Other corals are growing as well and my alk and ca consumption increased. Just having algae problems again but I'll take it over dead corals.
To test the theory on the salt I did a water change on my 29g frag tank with the liveaquaria salt, immediate downturn and lost every frag but mushrooms and a small hammer. My sps all rtn and lps stopped expanding and died. Something I cant test for but I'll never use their salt again. My new system is going to be run on redsea blue bucket, currently building the stand and collecting pieces for a 90g upgrade.