SPS slowly dying

Alexandre Góes · Aug 8, 2023

Hi everyone,

I'm having a recurring problem with my reef tank. It has 300l in the display, with a total of 500l of water, including the sump and 2 frag tanks. It was set up about 3 years ago, and everything was fine until the corals started to die. The LPSs wouldn't open as before, the SPSs would start to lose tissue until they all died. When I did a total water change, the situation stabilized. With that, I figured it wasn't a problem with lighting or circulation since the total water change resolved it. After a few months, the situation repeated. I began to think that the old rocks and/or substrates might be leaking some heavy metal. I even made a new 100% water change, but then the problem occurred again.

In the meantime, there was an accident, and one of the aquarium glasses became unglued. So, I dismantled it and spent more than a year without it.

I decided to set it up again at the beginning of the year. Everything was fine until about a month ago, even though I was battling a problem with hair algae, when again the corals started to die. I am using a new substrate and other rocks to avoid the chance of it being a problem with leakage of some toxic substance from them.

I did a Triton test and saw, most critically, low iodine and also phosphate (which I already suspected because of the problem with the algae). Here's the link: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/193322

I corrected the iodine, raising it to 70µg/l, but it did not resolve. The SPSs continue dying, and some of the LPSs, like Euphillyas, are increasingly closed. Trumpets and acantastreas are doing well. Then I changed 30% of the water, but SPSs continue dying.

I have a refuge with chaetomorpha growing well; I believe this will help with phosphate levels. I am going to change the activated carbon today (which has been in the aquarium for quite some time and certainly no longer works) and will add GFO to help with phosphate removal.

What do you think could be the cause of the problem?

SPS2020 · Aug 8, 2023

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

I don't see anything in the ICP that leads me to believe you have an issue with water quality. The PO4 is high, but not enough to cause issues (as far as I am aware). Mine PO4 is around .1 and Acropora are thriving. Hopefully others will chime in. The tank is relatively new still.

Maybe some additional info about the tank:
Lighting\PAR
Alk
Dosing anything (other than Iodine)

Lavey29 · Aug 8, 2023

For some reason I can't view the test results. What are your current complete parameters? What is your light schedule and par? What is your flow set up?

You never want to do 100% water change. Multiple small changes are better. Do you do weekly water changes?

If you restarted the tank with new rocks and sand then your whole biome is starting over too which is why SPS fail. Typically people wait 10 months maybe a year to add SPS. Experienced reefers can do it sooner of course.

Alexandre Góes · Aug 8, 2023

SPS2020 and Lavey29, tyvm for your replies!

SPS2020,

Lighting is provided by 2 A7II Chinese 110W Kessil A360X clones. I've seen videos with comparable PAR between both. I've also checked with the Photone app, comparing with an AI Hydra 52.

13h photoperiod, started at noon.
blues/purple: 4h ramp 0 to 100, 5h 100, 4h ramp 100 to 0
white: 1h ramp 0 to 100, 1h 100, 1h ramp 100 to 0 (centered on the 13h above photoperiod)

As all SPS started to die at the same time, so I don't suspect much from the lighting. Some were for 2 months in the tank, growing. Some were for a week in the tank.

Alk is 9.4 dKH / 3.3mEq/l

Ca/Alk is mantained with kalkwasser (all topoff water is kalk, keeping pH always under 8.4). I don't supplement anything else and I had no water changes since I set it up.

Lavey29,

I have about 25y of reefing experience.

I've set up reefs and put SPS on day one, tridacnas after a week, etc. without any problem. My current tank have SPS growing for the last few weeks. And suddently many of them started to die at the same time. In the past, with the same tank, it happened too after a few months from the start. A 100% water change and the dying stops completelly. Corals began to grow again and after a few months it happened again.

From my observation, it really looked like something toxic was building up to a point where all SPS started to die OR something was being depleted to the same point. I was really hopping Tritan would show me some heavy metal poisoning OR some important nutrient depletion. When I saw the very low iodine, I thought: "I finnaly found it!". But unless the iodine potassium I bought is fake, it didn't help much, as SPS are still dying a week after raising it to 70µg/l. I just lost an entire M. setosa frag yesterday.

Lavey29 · Aug 8, 2023

Alexandre Góes said:
SPS2020 and Lavey29, tyvm for your replies!

SPS2020,

Lighting is provided by 2 A7II Chinese 110W Kessil A360X clones. I've seen videos with comparable PAR between both. I've also checked with the Photone app, comparing with an AI Hydra 52.

13h photoperiod, started at noon.
blues/purple: 4h ramp 0 to 100, 5h 100, 4h ramp 100 to 0
white: 1h ramp 0 to 100, 1h 100, 1h ramp 100 to 0 (centered on the 13h above photoperiod)

As all SPS started to die at the same time, so I don't suspect much from the lighting. Some were for 2 months in the tank, growing. Some were for a week in the tank.

Alk is 9.4 dKH / 3.3mEq/l

Ca/Alk is mantained with kalkwasser (all topoff water is kalk, keeping pH always under 8.4). I don't supplement anything else and I had no water changes since I set it up.

Lavey29,

I have about 25y of reefing experience. I've set up reefs and put SPS on day one, tridacnas after a week, etc. without any problem. My current tank have SPS growing for the last few weeks. And suddently many of them started to die at the same time. In the past, with the same tank, it happened too after a few months from the start. A 100% water change and the dying stops completelly. Corals began to grow again and after a few months it happened again.

From my observation, it really looked like something toxic was building up to a point where all SPS started to die OR something was being depleted to the same point. I was really hopping Tritan would show me some heavy metal poisoning OR some important nutrient depletion. When I saw the very low iodine, I thought: "I finnaly found it!". But unless the iodine potassium I bought is fake, it didn't help much, as SPS are still dying a week after raising it to 70µg/l. I just lost an entire M. setosa frag yesterday.

Personally. I think 13 hours is to long for light. I run a 10 period with hour ramp up and down.

Have you checked all equipment for rusty parts or broken magnets?

Lavey29 · Aug 8, 2023

I would also add that if it is just SPS failing and your other corals are doing OK then that leans more towards a stability and SPS specific parameter issue so perhaps the tank that you restarted is just not ready for SPS yet?

I tried a couple at 10 months that did not survive. At one year my tank went through a whole evolution and became much more stable and predictable. 38 SPS frags added after that with no losses.

Alexandre Góes · Aug 9, 2023

Lavey29 said:
Personally. I think 13 hours is to long for light. I run a 10 period with hour ramp up and down.

Have you checked all equipment for rusty parts or broken magnets?

Thank you again Lavey29. I haven't checked for rusty parts or broken magnets, but any metal contamination (one of my biggest guesses would be it) would appear at Triton tests, doesn't it? I put 100g of GFO (Rowaphos) and I´m thinking about putting some Phosguard (to help even further with phosphates) and Cuprisorb (to be extra sure about any metal contamination).

About photoperiod and tank parameter stability, I had frags thriving in the tank for various durations: 4 months, 3 months, 2 months, 1 month, and two weeks. All of them started to die at the same time. What´s the chance of me putting them in the reef in the exact order to match different amounts of times to die due to bad photoperiod? It must be something that happened that week, as it affected corals from very distinct introduction dates in the tank. I think it could be a single event (like a huge temperature variation, which didn´t happened) or a problem that was slowly growing and reached a deadly threshod.

Lavey29 · Aug 9, 2023

Alexandre Góes said:
Thank you again Lavey29. I haven't checked for rusty parts or broken magnets, but any metal contamination (one of my biggest guesses would be it) would appear at Triton tests, doesn't it? I put 100g of GFO (Rowaphos) and I´m thinking about putting some Phosguard (to help even further with phosphates) and Cuprisorb (to be extra sure about any metal contamination).

About photoperiod and tank parameter stability, I had frags thriving in the tank for various durations: 4 months, 3 months, 2 months, 1 month, and two weeks. All of them started to die at the same time. What´s the chance of me putting them in the reef in the exact order to match different amounts of times to die due to bad photoperiod? It must be something that happened that week, as it affected corals from very distinct introduction dates in the tank. I think it could be a single event (like a huge temperature variation, which didn´t happened) or a problem that was slowly growing and reached a deadly threshod.

Ok so you have different corals in the tank SPS, LPS and softs? Anywhere from a few weeks to 4 months in the tank and now all of the corals are dying suddenly not just the SPS? If so, then yes you are right something toxic has invaded your tank chemistry. Phosphates aren't the problem here. Bringing them down to fast can mess up SPS though. Cuprasorb might be wise to try if you suspect any metal contamination. Have you calibrated everything you use to test with and make salt water with?

If only your SPS are affected then that narrows the search for the problem and would not include toxic metals because your other corals do not show affects. If only SPS corals are affected then there may be a bacteria in the tank attacking them. You also just restarted the tank a few months back so perhaps your biome just isn't ready for SPS. With the various things you have said you added to try and correct the problem sometimes only makes things worse because of the swings in the parameters which of course SPS do not like.