Transfer from sick tank?

[Lalaallieu]

So I’ve somehow introduced something that’s killed a lot of my lps. I’m super upset. I’ve been doing good things were recovering, and then I noticed last night one acan beginning to retract again. I’ve had no losses for about a week plus. So I scrubbed the glass, changed the water and put in new. Looks way worse today. Anyways I’m getting ready to set up my 75, and I was planning to use my live rock and my sand to seed the tank but now I don’t know because I’m afraid of transferring whatever this is into my new tank. Advice? I got some new corals on Black Friday and one wasn’t doing well but things didn’t hit the fan until I added some new snails.

 

[HuduVudu]

Corals DO NOT like change. You must be careful in your husbandry in that the cure is not worse than the disease.

Do you feed your LPS?

 

[Lalaallieu]

Corals DO NOT like change. You must be careful in your husbandry in that the cure is not worse than the disease.

Do you feed your LPS?

I do feed reef roids, but I've been avoiding it. I've been nervous to make them retract at all with whatever is going on. I was afraid it'd kill them. All my zoas and things are fine and I'm running carbon. No idea what the issue actually is but the last time I posted about it we've come down to something in the tank that was introduced that's killing it.

 

[ScottB]

Lets start with parameters:
salinity (calibrated refractometer)
Alkalinity
NO3
PO4 (Hanna)
System age

Next, describe the dying process. Is there any brown jelly? (a soft, light brown, goopy stuff)

 

[Lalaallieu]

Lets start with parameters:
salinity (calibrated refractometer)
Alkalinity
NO3
PO4 (Hanna)
System age

Next, describe the dying process. Is there any brown jelly? (a soft, light brown, goopy stuff)

Salinity is 1.025, I haven't tested today because I had to leave first thing this morning, but this is following the same path as the others. No goopy stuff, just retracts and dies quickly. I've lost 4 euphyllia, 3 acans. I'll get numbers for you later tonight when I get home, but last time they were normal, 1.025, 8.3, 40 for nitrate (needed a water change) PO4 I didn't test for. Tank is 1.5 years old. Never had issues like this before. I had a huge 7 headed frogspawn I'd had since I got my tank cycled and it began retracting one evening and I just figured I needed a water change. I had to wait until my 2 and 3 year old went to nap and the 3 hours between the retraction and naptime half of it was dead and then once the lights went out the rest died. I'd recently added some corals I bought from black friday and the most recent addition was snails and that was when it all went bad for me.

 

[ScottB]

Hmmm.
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to rule out some of the basics.

Are you dosing 2-Part?
PO4 is important to have -- at least some trace of.

Such quick death gives me some concern about potential contaminants from faulty equipment, or external stuff. If you can grab a copper test kit, or send out a sample for ICP testing.

As to the transfer question... that process is going to stress the corals, so you probably want to wait until things settle. I am a huge proponent of "live rock" like you currently have. The only thing that would hold me back is if the rock/sand was contaminated with something like copper.

 

[Lalaallieu]

Hmmm.
Sorry for all the questions, just trying to rule out some of the basics.

Are you dosing 2-Part?
PO4 is important to have -- at least some trace of.

Such quick death gives me some concern about potential contaminants from faulty equipment, or external stuff. If you can grab a copper test kit, or send out a sample for ICP testing.

As to the transfer question... that process is going to stress the corals, so you probably want to wait until things settle. I am a huge proponent of "live rock" like you currently have. The only thing that would hold me back is if the rock/sand was contaminated with something like copper.

So do an ICP and if all goes well you'd transfer the rock/sand? You wouldn't be worried about whatever was killing the corals to transfer to the new tank? I'm going to also purchase some coral RX I think, do the ICP and see. I'm doing a negative space aquascape so I'm going to build it and then cure it, but it'd be nice to seed with my live rock that's covered in the coralline. I do have a small algae issue, I've had bubble algae, got it from the same place I got the snails about a year ago but it's isolated to one rock so I won't use it. But the other two should be fair game.

 

[ScottB]

So do an ICP and if all goes well you'd transfer the rock/sand? You wouldn't be worried about whatever was killing the corals to transfer to the new tank? I'm going to also purchase some coral RX I think, do the ICP and see. I'm doing a negative space aquascape so I'm going to build it and then cure it, but it'd be nice to seed with my live rock that's covered in the coralline. I do have a small algae issue, I've had bubble algae, got it from the same place I got the snails about a year ago but it's isolated to one rock so I won't use it. But the other two should be fair game.

Well it would be good to understand what is causing this mortality.
Parameters/nutrients/lack of PO4?
Contaminants?
Bacterial? (no apparent brown jelly infection)
Finally, pests.

I am not familiar with which LPS pests to look for.