Unknown Cause: SPS Crash

[mfollen]

Hello all,

I unfortunately am going through an absolute SPS crash, all SPS have receded and are almost all gone. This has has been an absolutely devastating loss time and financially. I need to identify this issue if I'm going to get back on my feet.

Can anyone please help me identify the issue? Each possible cause is a bolded question below.

Below is all the information I have now, broken out by area of focus. The tank never lost power or had equipment failure.

Tank information:

• 200 gallon waterbox. Been running for 6 months.
• Lit by radion xr15s.
• Skimmer, ATS are primary filtration.
• Kalkwasser and Carbo-calcium are Alk/CA dosing methods.

Parameters:

• Alk: 7.5
• Mag: 1400
• Ca: 450
• PH: 8.2
• Temp: 79.5-81
• Nutrients: Here's where there have been problems.

Background:
Po4 & No3 were very low, hitting zero. I started dosing both and adjusted my lights to fine-tune PAR. After, green turf algae exploded all over my rock and is awful now (I am going to begin Vibrant ASAP).
While the turf algae was exploding, it was so hard to dial in the Po4 & No3 dosing. At the time, most SPS were OK but some were suffering from the lack of nutrients. In order to not starve the acros, I needed to dose both. But unfortunately this fueled the green turf algae. As the turf algae grew, so did my need to dose to get detectable Po4 & No3.
The potential nutrient cause:
While trying to fine tune this dosage, nitrates stayed mostly consistent around 5 ppm but did spike 3-4 weeks ago to 20 ppm.
Phosphates though were extremely volatile, from 0 or an ideal .002 ppm fluctuating up to 0.05 ppm and twice getting up to 0.08-0.1ppm over the last month.
Would this swinging of phosphates be enough to trigger a tank-wide tissue recession event for all SPS? Montipora included.
Otherwise all parameters have been mostly stable.

PAR change
As I bumped up the intensity of my lights to increase PAR from an average of 250-300 to 300-350, I did this over a course of a week prior to dosing nutrients. Could this be too quick of a lighting intensity increase?

RODI filter change
I had to replace rodi filters. I flushed for 15 minutes after changing. This was the first time I changed my RODI filters.
Could there be an issue here? What should I test for if so?

Gyre magnet in-sump
I got an external gyre magnet encased in acrylic. This is inside my overflow box where the water is constantly flowing over.
Since this is encased in acrylic I shouldn't have any issues?

Changes in bacteria levels
My skimmer was shut down a month ago for a few weeks to allow for nutrients to hit detectable levels and bacteria to increase. I turned the skimmer back on last week. Could a swing in bacteria levels cause massive SPS tissue recession?

Thank you so much everyone. As mentioned before, this has has been an absolutely devastating loss both time-wise and financially.

 

[Tyler Bullock]

These are all wonderful questions. my 90 is ready for me to be in this situation as well. In my 13.5 I had a few sps that did the same thing most started to STN. Tested my water and my N03 was at 2. So I dosed it up to 5 slowly. P04 was high at .14 so I started reducing those. My SPS is healing and growing back now. You seem to have a way more advanced issue than I. I do look forward to hearing what others have to say so I can be better suited for when I get some of your issues.

 

[Cassian]

im definitely no expert, but I would think the nutrient swing would affect them the most out of all the possibilities you posted.

 

[Coralreefer1]

Sorry to hear...
I’m willing to bet that increasing lighting intensity too quickly and excessive nutrients are responsible for your issues.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Possible causes:
Water TOO clean
Lights TOO bright
False salinity
ALK swings
Bad water including RO water
Aerosols or other fumes entering tank
Dirty hands with foreign substance (food, oil, soap, etc)

 

[Whasmack]

Whats your clean up crew look like? (To deal with turd hair)
Yes - that's a pretty heavy swing in nutrients... But I'd suspect more of a brown out.
I run 2.5 n03 and 0.31 p04
Lights? I would expect to see the highest ones get burned if any. So I would say doubtful at that PAR level.
RODI - measure TDS exiting the filter.
A bacterial bloom can cause lots of issues, but I don't have experience with it & sps loss. Someone else can chime in, but it's not good.
Also - I've had mixed experiences with vibrant - 1st time it worked for me, 2nd time it started to kill my sps....

 

[melanotaenia]

I would echo what others have stated, fluctuations in parameters is one of the main reasons that SPS do this; lighting change and changes in your nutrient levels were likely the main contributing factors; doubtful on the R/O or Gyre causing issues.

 

[BeejReef]

You don't read much about low N or P causing die off. Usually that's a "slow growth," or "poor coloration" topic.

Guessing lights here, particularly with the par increase before the increase in nutrients.

Have you considered reducing the photoperiod to, or removing, your ATS instead of having to dose N and P?

 

[mfollen]

Possible causes:
Water TOO clean
Lights TOO bright
False salinity
ALK swings
Bad water including RO water
Aerosols or other fumes entering tank
Dirty hands with foreign substance (food, oil, soap, etc)

Seems like a consensus that the par increase in the one week timeframe and/or the phosphate spikes are the likely culprits? I also have LPS which are negatively impacted but alive. Zoanthids are A OK.

Salinity is spot on. 1.026. No alk swings during this time.
What would the bad RO water be? Chlorine? I'm getting 0 TDS.

No aerosols, fumes or food, oil or soap. I live alone and am really safe about this.

Clean up crew are trochus snails, emerald crab, pincushion urchins.

Once the recession began, I reduced lighting intensity - in particular white and red spectrum to help with algae, which hasn't done anything.

Next steps are ICP test, more water changes and then Vibrant to kill off the turf algae.

Could there be any other issue other than:
PAR spectrum increase in one week.
Phosphate volatility and spikes.

Thank you all, this has been absolutely devastating.

 

[mfollen]

One other possibility are filter sock contamination from detergent.

I am very careful and do a rinse after laundry with regular liquid detergent. I also do another rinse before washing my filter socks. Is there a possibility that detergent is getting into my filter socks?

 

[ScottB]

As long as you have a carbon stage in your RO/DI, it should be solving for chlorine. But are you saying the cartridge change happened just before your troubles began? That would give me pause. Honestly I have not paid much attention to my filter brands. I know they fit and produce 0 TDS.

I will admit to having used laundry detergent + bleach on my socks years ago, but now just bleach. I do a second rinse/spin with Prime to make sure the chlorine is not toxic. I don't recall noticing any difference before/after stopping the detergent. I am guessing you are safe there.

I agree your next steps. Having comfort with your nutrient levels is going to be a challenge now with turf algae. In your previous thread I was encouraging you to maintain solidly measurable NO3 and PO4. Job done there, but now the turf will be taking it up. Vibrant will also be bringing them down NO3 mostly. Take it slow on the Vibrant.

Again, sorry to hear things turned worse.

 

[melanotaenia]

I think the important point here is the swings in parameters, not that they are low or high; SPS respond poorly to drastic changes, even if the current conditions are not necessarily "ideal"

 

[bluprntguy]

• Kalkwasser and Carbo-calcium are Alk/CA dosing methods.

Why are you dosing both? I'd choose one or the other. If you can't keep up with alk demand using kalk, then I'd use carbo-calcium exclusively. Neither of those include trace minerals. You might be better off using All-For-Reef, which is basically the carbo-calcium with trace minerals added. If you don't want to go that route, you might want to consider adding Pohl's Extra Special or another "trace mineral" additive.

How are you dosing these? If the kalk is in the ATO, that could result in some alk swings during the day.

Also, carbo-calcium acts as a carbon source, which is probably why you can't keep nitrates and phosphates up.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

IMO it's a combination of new tank syndrome and swinging parameters. I think once tanks mature, acros are more understanding of swings. I wasn't able to reliably keep acros until the 1-1.5 year mark. Also, how many XR-15s are you running and what's the footprint? I personally did not have luck with acros and XR-15s, but some do with T5 supplementation. XR-15s by themselves have very limited spread.

 

[mfollen]

@DivingTheWorld Thank you. My acros were doing great before, encrusting and growing. So something happened. Lighting is 6 xr15's. 3 X 2 spread evenly.

@ScottB Thank you again so much. Yes the changes started occurring after the RODI change. But there were two other changes in nutrients and light intensity after this.

@bluprntguy Thank you this is very helpful. I'm dosing carbo calcium in addition to kalkwasser as the kalkwasser was not meeting demand. Kalkwaser is dosed via reactor and is independent of top-off. Carbo calcium was chosen as its a balanced dose for both Alk & CA.

Trace minerals are being supplemented via water changes. Elements that stood out in a recent ICP test are:
Br low: 13.00 mg/l compared to target 62
I very low: 0 μg/l compared to target 60
Li high: 309 μg/l compared to target 200

@bluprntguy Is the carbon dosing potentially hurting me any other way other than limiting the Po4 & N03?

All of your help is extremely appreciated to a humbled reefer...

 

[DivingTheWorld]

@DivingTheWorld Thank you. My acros were doing great before, encrusting and growing. So something happened. Lighting is 6 xr15's. 3 X 2 spread evenly.

Nice spread, lighting sounds good! I still think it sounds like a new tank type issue. 6 months is quick IMO for acros.

 

[bluprntguy]

@DivingTheWorld Thank you. My acros were doing great before, encrusting and growing. So something happened. Lighting is 6 xr15's. 3 X 2 spread evenly.

@ScottB Thank you again so much. Yes the changes started occurring after the RODI change. But there were two other changes in nutrients and light intensity after this.

@bluprntguy Thank you this is very helpful. I'm dosing carbo calcium in addition to kalkwasser as the kalkwasser was not meeting demand. Kalkwaser is dosed via reactor and is independent of top-off. Carbo calcium was chosen as its a balanced dose for both Alk & CA.

Trace minerals are being supplemented via water changes. Elements that stood out in a recent ICP test are:
Br low: 13.00 mg/l compared to target 62
I very low: 0 μg/l compared to target 60
Li high: 309 μg/l compared to target 200

@bluprntguy Is the carbon dosing potentially hurting me any other way other than limiting the Po4 & N03?

All of your help is extremely appreciated to a humbled reefer...

We may need @Randy Holmes-Farley to chime in on whether there is likely to be any unwanted chemical reaction from using calcium formate (carbo-calcium) and calcium hydroxide (kalk) simultaneously. I probably wouldn't do it, but that's just based on my gut and not any scientific facts.

IMO, if you need kalk and carbo-calcium to keep up with alk/ca consumption, you probably need additional trace mineral supplementation as well. I'd still recommend adding that supplementation in some form - either included in the all-for-reef or as a seperate additive.

 

[jaxredsoxfan]

Sorry for the loss, I too would be interested in what Randy would say about the Kalk and Calcium additions. In my head I keep going back to just a totality of the changes in a short amount of time.

 

[Flippers4pups]

It's been reported by many with issues similar to the OP's that low nutrients and sudden increases in light intensity stress corals. The duration of the stress lends to the decline to the point of the bad bacteria (Vibro) attacking their tissue. Infection sets in. Limited protozoa surrounding the coral now proliferate and consume the dieing tissue. Thus RTN. Once this happens, fragging the dying tissue off and removing it from the system aides in reducing this infection spread to near by healthy corals. In the case of a system wide event, total loss is highly likely. Correcting the conditions that caused the stress helps, but once infection sets in, it can take months to recover.

Mature systems seem, this is anecdotal, to fair better in these stress events. Healthy corals seem to handle stress events at first.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Seems like a consensus that the par increase in the one week timeframe and/or the phosphate spikes are the likely culprits? I also have LPS which are negatively impacted but alive. Zoanthids are A OK.

Salinity is spot on. 1.026. No alk swings during this time.
What would the bad RO water be? Chlorine? I'm getting 0 TDS.

No aerosols, fumes or food, oil or soap. I live alone and am really safe about this.

Clean up crew are trochus snails, emerald crab, pincushion urchins.

Once the recession began, I reduced lighting intensity - in particular white and red spectrum to help with algae, which hasn't done anything.

Next steps are ICP test, more water changes and then Vibrant to kill off the turf algae.

Could there be any other issue other than:
PAR spectrum increase in one week.
Phosphate volatility and spikes.

Thank you all, this has been absolutely devastating.

As suspected up front- Change in lighting and chemistry swing (yes phosphate qualifies).
I just installed new Orphek lighting and started at near lowest setting and will be gradually bring up intensity bi-weekly