SPS tank dying

[ocncheffy]

guess i'll try this,

I know you've said you did a PAR measurement and believe me, I did a Seneye measurement and an Apogee test as well. All was around 220-250 on top of my rocks. It still was too high of PAR for my tank chemistry it seems. I'm going to also rent a brand new Apogee meter to confirm my two tests are valid since the Seneye is unreliable and my Apogee is very old.

 

[SeeFu]

i haven't changed my light settings for almost 2 yrs now. i basically took brs intensity setting and just used that.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

i haven't changed my light settings for almost 2 yrs now. i basically took brs intensity setting and just used that.

Tank should be old enough. Seems like you have had the same light set up for a while, so I wouldn't think either of those are the issue.

Do you have a sand bed? If so, how deep and do you vacuum it?

Have you considered dosing a bacterial product such as Microbacter 7?

 

[Spare time]

If you think there might be some bacterial infection in the corals, maybe try and add some dr. tims eco balance

 

[Uncle99]

You post good parameters but no mention of stability?
What’s the flux on salinity, temp and alk?

 

[Sean Clark]

I know there is a lot of info to unpack in all of these post but this is what I got out of it:

1 The tank has been set up for about 3 years.
2 This is a recient problem.

I wouldn't try to change the way you run your tank because if, for example your lights were too high, the problem would have presented itself a lot sooner.

I would look at the situation with the focus being on finding what has changed in the last few months.

Hopefully you will get to the bottom of this.

 

[jda]

The ICP won't likely tell you anything and might even raise some false flags. If you are using a protein skimmer, and since you change water, the buildup of toxic metals is unlikey.

I would still like to know if you have a good amount of fish and are feeding them well. If so, then there is enough nitrogen and phosphorous.

Go back to basics and make sure that your refractometer is calibrated, temp is checked with something with mercury in it, test kits are accurate, and all of that.

 

[SeeFu]

Tank should be old enough. Seems like you have had the same light set up for a while, so I wouldn't think either of those are the issue.

Do you have a sand bed? If so, how deep and do you vacuum it?

Have you considered dosing a bacterial product such as Microbacter 7?

no sand bed, its a barebottom setup. i've started to dose microbacter 7 the past few days to see if that helps.

 

[SeeFu]

You post good parameters but no mention of stability?
What’s the flux on salinity, temp and alk?

i posted ranges of all my parameters. salinity doesn't fluctuate

 

[SeeFu]

The ICP won't likely tell you anything and might even raise some false flags. If you are using a protein skimmer, and since you change water, the buildup of toxic metals is unlikey.

I would still like to know if you have a good amount of fish and are feeding them well. If so, then there is enough nitrogen and phosphorous.

Go back to basics and make sure that your refractometer is calibrated, temp is checked with something with mercury in it, test kits are accurate, and all of that.

i'd say between 10-12 fish? 3 of them being tangs, the rest are anthias/wrasse. i feed dry food 2x a day and then frozen once a day at night.

 

[ScottB]

That real slow base recession is familiar to me. I had the same pattern in that it would die so slowly that it would actually get covered in coralline. It was VERY species specific. Mostly millis. I have two systems, and pieces of the same colony would slowly die like this in either tank while acres of other acros never missed a beat. My dips (KCl) didn't reveal anything visually obvious, but I was advised that it could be parasitic pods, and I should dose with Interceptor.

I did a test dip for 12 hours first, and did get some SUPER SMALL bugs off, not really visible to the naked eye. IIRC this photo was 250X. My son found it with a 10X lens and LED.

I went ahead with the standard protocol 3 times and things settled down afterwards. I can't say 100% this was the "cure" nor that this tiny bug was a culprit, but thought it worth sharing. It is a PITB killing off all your pods along with any crabs or shrimp you cannot catch.

 

[sculpin01]

If you’re unsure of the cause of coral demise in your tank, consider:

1) dipping the affected corals to look for parasites (black bugs notoriously present in this manner). I like potassium dips for this (e.g. Reef Primer).
2) taking scrapings at areas of tissue recession to evaluate microscopically (to eliminate Ostreopsis as a cause).
3) replace hardware that might be leaching heavy metals.
4) bump your phosphate to 0.10-0.15 (some corals prefer higher phosphate levels).
5) lastly, soak receding corals in a tank water bath of saturated amoxicillin, metronidazole, and doxycycline for 1-2 hours (I have found that this has stopped recession several times for me). Antibiotic choices are relatively broad spectrum antibacterial , anti-flagellates, and anti-atypicals (rickettsials specifically), respectively.

YMMV

 

[Uncle99]

i posted ranges of all my parameters. salinity doesn't fluctuate

.5dkh flux makes my sticks unhappy.

 

[MBruun]

I had a similar issue 2 - 3 year ago.
Tank was migrated from a smaller tank and everything was ok for like 12 months or so, but the slowely some corals died and new corals wouldn't make it for more than 2 months and coraline algeas slowely disappeared from the rockwork (not the glass).
After six mor months doing ICP tests and changing a lot of waster think I found the reason - I have been using a cheap PVC container (95 liter) for mixing saltwater before water change, made of black reused plastic, and when not having a powerhead in for like 30 minutes a grey oil-like film covered the water surface. It was not the salt (RS) because I tested it by mixing in a new hard-plastic container, and no film was to see here.
I used the opputunity to start all over with new custom build ceramic rock-work Looking at my sps dominated tank right now

Hope this is not the issue in your case. Just wanted to share the expirience

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Any updates @SeeFu ?

 

[SeeFu]

no black bugs, so i tried turning the lights down from 45% to 40%. I'm going to try moving some of the pumps around, maybe i've got some dead spots in the tank.

 

[Bnichols124]

Any bite marks, possible pest etc. Are you getting pylop extension at all durring the day?

 

[131696]

10 water changes @25% in 2 months wow. Not stable at all anymore you took out to much of the good stuff. hey I know someone else who did that clean sand bed and all he tell his story on YouTube his salt was bad low in potassium his name is Mark if your into reefing you know who I'm talking about on YouTube,look at your salt and measurements your potassium might be that.bad salt

 

[SeeFu]

Any bite marks, possible pest etc. Are you getting pylop extension at all durring the day?

no bit marks, PE is ok, not great. some acros are doing fantastic and some are just falling apart. its really to bad the first 2 i lost are SCOP's which is the entire reason i got into this hobby. lost a good 6" diameter colony and another 4" diameter colony

 

[SeeFu]

10 water changes @25% in 2 months wow. Not stable at all anymore you took out to much of the good stuff. hey I know someone else who did that clean sand bed and all he tell his story on YouTube his salt was bad low in potassium his name is Mark if your into reefing you know who I'm talking about on YouTube,look at your salt and measurements your potassium might be that.bad salt

i ddn'tknow if there was something in the tank so i was trying to remove all of it.