SPS bleaching after tank up-grade

[whotzler]

Old tank / New tank

Gal... 45 Pentagon 24 x 24 / 120 24 x 24 x 4' with 30 gal sump
Rock... 40 lbs / old tanks 40 lbs plus 80 new rock (reef saver dry)
Sand... 40 lbs DSB / 20 lbs. New sand
Temp... 78 / 78
S.G... 1.025 / 1.025
pH... 7.98 / 8
Nitrate... undetectable API / undetectable API
Calcium... 380 / 400
DKH... 8 / 11
Mag... 1150 / 1275
Light.... 1 Kessil 360 / 2 Kessil 360
Skimmer... small HOB / Skimz SM163
Feeding ... Reef Roids / Reef Roids

These are the numbers at the time of the tank switch, about a week ago. I have re-tested and numbers are about the same with exception to DKH dropped to 8 Nitrates up to 5, Iv been feeding lots of Roids. Some concerns I had right off the bat.. Difference in Mag and DKH between new and old tank.. Also loosing the Good Bacteria in the DSB, but I thought it was a reasonable trade by not bringing in all the bad with the old sand bed.. I planned on using the old water but was not able to pull it off, so its all NEW water in the switch. A large chunk of rock, the one with the problem also sat out of water for what was suppose to be 5 min but turned into 20. This rock had about 8 Acro's and a Monti on it. There is significant color loss on 4 of the Acros.. They do still have polyps some have color even on the base. The monti also has lightened in color quite a bit and its polyps lightened also.

Now today I have noticed my monti s that were not on the rock that sat out have lightened a bit and another that was looking great suddenly (within 24 hrs) has lost 3/4 of its tissue and is surely a gonner..

Take it easy on me I'm only a year into this, and I know that I have made some mistakes. Is there any advice out there on getting my SPS back to good. Im really worried, as in my Black Friday excitement I ordered 20 SPS from Unique Corals that are going to arrive in 2 days.. (Another rookie mistake.. inpatients)(but it was such a good deal)

I should also mention that these SPS have been doing great for the last 4 months with lots of growth in the old tank and that there are about 30 other LPS and softies that are not having any issue.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

could be some freaky Ph shifting I had that on a transfer once. add air to get it stable. had to pull ALL the acros and get them in my other tank.(everybody makes mistakes.)
do you have a par or lux meter? turn down the lights and feed the tank a bit for a while.
zeroes are bad. o the no and the po.
was the new rock dry?
was the sand dry?

 

[whotzler]

could be some freaky Ph shifting I had that on a transfer once. add air to get it stable. had to pull ALL the acros and get them in my other tank.(everybody makes mistakes.)
do you have a par or lux meter? turn down the lights and feed the tank a bit for a while.
zeroes are bad. o the no and the po.
was the new rock dry?
was the sand dry?

No par meter.. Even though i dont know the par it should be about identical to what it was previously, same depth tanks lights about same height
My po has usually always been undetectable with a API test kit anyway. I use Phos guard. Same with no. usually 0 to 10, again with API test kit.

Maybe a Hanna tester for po would be a better rout if I were to attempt to raise it and leave it at a specific level. What would be a good level to have it at if zero is not?

 

[whotzler]

could be some freaky Ph shifting I had that on a transfer once. add air to get it stable. had to pull ALL the acros and get them in my other tank.(everybody makes mistakes.)
do you have a par or lux meter? turn down the lights and feed the tank a bit for a while.
zeroes are bad. o the no and the po.
was the new rock dry?
was the sand dry?

pH is pretty stable been monitoring with APEX, I did add 2 Tsp of Kalk to 5 gallons off Top off water to slowly (over 2 days) raise it to 8.2 where it staying for the most part. About a 0.1 shift day to night.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

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

pull the phos guard IMO.
I have api btw. i usually test three times LOL.

one theory on lowering the light is to slow the coral metabolism. that equals PH changes due to Photosynth and lower nutrient uptake etc. stressed coral.
was all the water fresh mixed and brand new when the corals went in?
and was the rock and sand dry?

 

[whotzler]

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

pull the phos guard IMO.
I have api btw. i usually test three times LOL.

one theory on lowering the light is to slow the coral metabolism. that equals PH changes due to Photosynth and lower nutrient uptake etc. stressed coral.
was all the water fresh mixed and brand new when the corals went in?
and was the rock and sand dry?

Okay, I will pull the phos guard to bring up po and lower lights 50 to slow metabolism.

The rock was reef saver dry rock. I did half a** cycle it for about 3 weeks with some biraspira and fish food to give it a bit of a jump start. My theory was sense I was not adding or reducing bio-load VS bacteria in the overall system that there should be no ammonia spike by just adding water volume and reef saver rock(that should have no organics on it). Of coarse I still have been checking ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates every day. The sand was Arag-Alive, that should also help with cycle issues. I have also been feeding slightly heavier and plan on adding a fish every week or two to slowly increase bacteria.

 

[whotzler]

Okay, I will pull the phos guard to bring up po and lower lights 50 to slow metabolism.

The rock was reef saver dry rock. I did half a** cycle it for about 3 weeks with some biraspira and fish food to give it a bit of a jump start. My theory was sense I was not adding or reducing bio-load VS bacteria in the overall system that there should be no ammonia spike by just adding water volume and reef saver rock(that should have no organics on it). Of coarse I still have been checking ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates every day. The sand was Arag-Alive, that should also help with cycle issues. I have also been feeding slightly heavier and plan on adding a fish every week or two to slowly increase bacteria.

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

pull the phos guard IMO.
I have api btw. i usually test three times LOL.

one theory on lowering the light is to slow the coral metabolism. that equals PH changes due to Photosynth and lower nutrient uptake etc. stressed coral.
was all the water fresh mixed and brand new when the corals went in?
and was the rock and sand dry?

Yes, the water was heated and mixed with powerheads for 1 week before corals went in. It was a 100% water change.. not so sure that was a good idea or not.

 

[DaveRaz]

I did a reboot last year with 100% new water and my corals went dormant for a few weeks and loner on others. Lesson learned.

 

[markalot]

Is this accurate?

DKH... 8 / 11

from 8 to 11? If so that would be it. Alk spikes can do damage that shows up for literally months, sometimes years. It's the very worst thing an SPS keeper can do and, unfortunately, part of the learning process. I've done it twice and now it's a religion for me. I would rather run low than too high and I aim for not enough dosing rather than too much. I've been tortured by Alk spikes too many times.

If your PO4 is near 0 in the new tank and Alk was high then double damage, unfortunately.

 

[whotzler]

Yes, I have every reason to believe that those number are correct. They were done with API test kits so +/- 1 I guess..

I have kept my old tank with steady DKH of 11 with no issue. But never a 8 to 11 spike.

I thought sense my pH was the same between new and old tank that the DKH would not have much effect, I was having trouble trying to get both pH and DKH to match, maybe my focus should of been DKH and not pH. This may be the smoking gun..... And yes PO4 of 0

 

[luke33]

So reading this you added 80 lbs of dry rock to the new tank and 40lbs live from your old tank for 120lbs total correct?

 

[whotzler]

So reading this you added 80 lbs of dry rock to the new tank and 40lbs live from your old tank for 120lbs total correct?

Yes that is correct. The new rock is reef saver rock.

 

[markalot]

For SPS, KH is THE param that matters. I've never cared about PH at all, though I suppose if it's a dramatic swing it may harm corals. There is so much BS that floats around it's hard for new SPS keepers to figure out what is important. KH is the key, followed by steady PO4 (low is better but a swing from high to low can do massive damage as well). My best results have been t keep KH around 7 and find a way to control PO4 so it remains very stable.

 

[luke33]

Yes that is correct. The new rock is reef saver rock.

If you didn't cure the rock and just rinsed it and added it in I imagine this is going to cause you problems. Dry rock readily leaches phosphates and causes instability in new tanks. It keeps your tank from maturing for an extended period of time vs live rock. In a dominant dry rock tank its going to take a good year to really stabilize and allow you to keep sps.

And like mentioned above alk needs to be stable.

Since you just added new sand and dry rock i would check on ammonia and trites as you may be experiencing another cycle.

And all of the above is just my opinion : ) hope you can get it straightened out!

 

[whotzler]

If you didn't cure the rock and just rinsed it and added it in I imagine this is going to cause you problems. Dry rock readily leaches phosphates and causes instability in new tanks. It keeps your tank from maturing for an extended period of time vs live rock. In a dominant dry rock tank its going to take a good year to really stabilize and allow you to keep sps.

And like mentioned above alk needs to be stable.

Since you just added new sand and dry rock i would check on ammonia and trites as you may be experiencing another cycle.

And all of the above is just my opinion : ) hope you can get it straightened out!

Po4 is undetectable with api test kit. have been using phos guard also.

The rock was reef saver dry rock. I did half a** cycle it for about 3 weeks with some biraspira and fish food to give it a bit of a jump start. My theory was sense I was not adding or reducing bio-load VS bacteria in the overall system that there should be no ammonia spike by just adding water volume and reef saver rock(that should have no organics on it). Of coarse I still have been checking ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates every day. The sand was Arag-Alive, that should also help with cycle issues. I have also been feeding slightly heavier and plan on adding a fish every week or two to slowly increase bacteria.

 

[markalot]

API kits are generally useless at this level. Calcium works, Alk can work but you really need a higher resolution test. I recommend Salifert for everything except PO4, in which case either the ELOS high rez (Expert Line) or Hanna ULR meter.

 

[httorihanzo]

The alk swing being the biggest factor I would say the 100% water change, new rock/sand and them being out of water so long probably combined to cause a problem. On a tank transfer I would trash all previous sand and start over with DRY sand. Bags of live sand probably have a lot of dead bacteria to go with the live and needs to be cycled. Just my thoughts.

 

[httorihanzo]

Something I've wondered while doing water changes (because my shallow reef shows a lot of SPS while changing water) is how long is too long for the SPS to be out of the water? Maybe someone can chime in here.

 

[gobeach]

Agree that the increase in the KH is likely your issue - stability is the key. You'll find reefers that are successful across the range (low --> high), but they all keep the value stable.

 

[BluewaterLa]

I would agree that the difference in alkalinity from old tank to the new one stressed your sps in a bad way.

New saltwater wouldn't cause this issue, the only thing would be lack of nutrients in the water would cause you to have to lower your light intensity for a while so the corals could adjust
I've done 100 percent water changes on a few tanks sps dominant during moves and for other emergency reasons without ever causing an issue.
Sure there are some stress factors to the total process you made during the transfer of corals, I would still say the cause would be the higher alkalinity then the drop in available dissolved organics helped stress them more.

I would lower your light intensity and keep your alk toward natural levels of 7-8 dkh and stable to hope for a rebound which can take months

As far as live rock and sps being out the water for 20 minutes, this isn't a factor at all.
The only thing that would hurt the sps corals out of the water is if the temperature is much colder than your tank

I keep my house at 73 year round and during regular water changes my sps all along the mid to top of my tank is out the water for 30 minutes to over an hour at a time until they get submerged when the tank gets refilled.
Sure they produce a little slime due to being out the water because this is how they stay moist even in nature on reefs when the tide goes out for hours leaving them exposed to the elements.
The beneficial bacteria on and within the rock would have to be dry for hours for enough to die off to cause a cycle in your tank.
Critters are more hardy than most are led to believe, be sure to keep your parameters stable and allow a long while for your corals to recover.

Remember when dealing with new saltwater for your tank during a move or water change, be sure the temperature and alkalinity match the conditions your reef is used to and you will avoid costly disasters

Good luck and happy reefing
BluewaterLa / Mike