Sps turning white

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

Hey guys, starting to get a lot of white and a few brown/dead sps only corals. I'll do a water test when I get time tonight, but no idea what's happening. Haven't changed anything on the tank except for feeding more due to a new copperband we added.

I do a once/week water change of probably 20-30%. Lights haven't changed anything. I went once with one water change over 2 weeks (death in the family, busy).

Tank is a 125 mixed reef. Any ideas before I can get my numbers?

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

Also have had a major aiptasia explosion

thatmanMIKEson · Jul 31, 2022

Aparker2005 said:
Hey guys, starting to get a lot of white and a few brown/dead sps only corals. I'll do a water test when I get time tonight, but no idea what's happening. Haven't changed anything on the tank except for feeding more due to a new copperband we added.

I do a once/week water change of probably 20-30%. Lights haven't changed anything. I went once with one water change over 2 weeks (death in the family, busy).

Tank is a 125 mixed reef. Any ideas before I can get my numbers?

No alkalinity spikes in the past 2 months? Or heat spikes?

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

thatmanMIKEson said:
No alkalinity spikes in the past 2 months? Or heat spikes?

Not that I recall. Last alk test was 440 or so

vetteguy53081 · Jul 31, 2022

Appears to be STN.
Some possible triggers of infection are:
- Alkalinity spike
- Temperature spike
- Salinity spike
- Low dissolved oxygen
- Poor water quality related with phosphate levels up to 5 ppm
- Change in water flow
- Additions of sand
- Changes in brand of salt
- Bad test kits giving faulty results
- Levels of minor elements such as Iodine, Potassium, Strontium
- Light intensity
- Changes in water flow
- Addition of new corals
- Pesticides
- Airborne Contaminants or sprays

thatmanMIKEson · Jul 31, 2022

^ what he said

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

I'd be willing to bet my phosphates have something to do with it. I've always struggled with getting them and keeping them low. I use 3 seachem tidal filters on our tank and weekly rinse the media (mechanical, seachem matrix, and chemi pure blue. May be time to replace the chemi pure...

thatmanMIKEson · Jul 31, 2022

The first acro was happy for a while at some point its encrusted to the rock.

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

thatmanMIKEson said:
The first acro was happy for a while at some point its encrusted to the rock.

I know! It's gotten super green (was pink when we got it) and now it's slowly turning white. I really don't want to lose that one, or any of them.

Can they recover from the white at all?

Uncle99 · Jul 31, 2022

Your feeding more, which increases nitrate for a short period.
If nitrate bounced up, that could be a contributor.

thatmanMIKEson · Jul 31, 2022

Aparker2005 said:
I know! It's gotten super green (was pink when we got it) and now it's slowly turning white. I really don't want to lose that one, or any of them.

Can they recover from the white at all?

Pink to green isn't as good as green to pink.. but still it was happy and was growing so maybe something recent happened

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

All of our lps except for one which has been retracted for a few days now, are doing great. Torches, frogs, zoas, and even a few other sps are bigger and growing faster than ever.

Here's one of our Torches which is getting huge

Derrick0580 · Jul 31, 2022

My guess is phosphates

vetteguy53081 · Jul 31, 2022

Aparker2005 said:
I'd be willing to bet my phosphates have something to do with it. I've always struggled with getting them and keeping them low. I use 3 seachem tidal filters on our tank and weekly rinse the media (mechanical, seachem matrix, and chemi pure blue. May be time to replace the chemi pure...

po4 is a very good possibility

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

Good grief. I just did a basic test with the api test. All numbers are good on pH, ammonia, and nitrite. Nitrate is at 160 according to this chart. Looks like a big water change is due and slack off the frozen foods. Geeze.

Just ordered new chemi pure as well.

Can the corals recover from this or are they goners?

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

Tested again and they're in the 80ish range. Still need a big water change tomorrow for sure

Aparker2005 · Jul 31, 2022

Phosphates are at 4 ppm according to this api test.

Trying to feed this copperband has absolutely wrecked this tank's levels. I'll start water changes tomorrow to get them down.

Copperband I've been trying all sorts of frozen food and it will only eat omega one bloodworms. Should I just feed those once or twice a day for a while and skip all the others for a bit?

I want it to eat other stuff, but I can't sacrifice the tank like this to keep trying.

tautog83 · Aug 1, 2022

If you have 3 hob filters and you have that much nitrate ,you're overfeeding or overstocked . Personally should take all 3 and put them in garbage but they'll "work" . Is there a reason why you're rinsing the matrix every week ? The good bacteria is what is living on there that breaks down your nitrates . I mean sure they can eventually get clogged up and a rinse and tank water will work. Invest in one good hob skimmer , throw the 3 tidal away or just keep one to run chemical media through

Aparker2005 · Aug 1, 2022

tautog83 said:
If you have 3 hob filters and you have that much nitrate ,you're overfeeding or overstocked . Personally should take all 3 and put them in garbage but they'll "work" . Is there a reason why you're rinsing the matrix every week ? The good bacteria is what is living on there that breaks down your nitrates . I mean sure they can eventually get clogged up and a rinse and tank water will work. Invest in one good hob skimmer , throw the 3 tidal away or just keep one to run chemical media through

Definitely overfeeding due to the copperband. I've never had levels this high in all my fish keeping. We're fairly lightly stocked with this tank.

When I say rinsing the media, I meant in some tank water during water changes. The bags just look like they could use a rinse.

I got a big batch of water made and will be doing a larger than usual wc today.

Koty · Aug 1, 2022

my 0.02 is that API is not the proper standard for accuracy if you have SPS.
Also, do you make sure that your WC does not introduce more instability via salinity changes?
IME (In light of all the posts of great-looking corals in high phosphate), low phosphates (below 0.1) are always associated with good-looking corals (I have mostly LPS and two small frags of Staghorn and M. Digitata).