Weird SPS issues

[Mike646]

hello everyone!

I am having issues with a few sps frags I have. Tank is about 9 months old and has the following test results:
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 5
Alk 11
PH 7.8
Calcium 480
Mag no way to test
Temperature is around 78.4-78.6
Fluval m90 system with 100 HOB reef octopus skimmer, eheim 4+ filter with clear max, carbon, and chempure elite blue, a cheto refuge in back?running 12 hour reverse lighting . I have the stock marine fluval LED that it come with and a extra fluval led light Bluetooth Aquasky.
Stock light on a timer 12HR at 100%, Aquasky runs blue at 80% and white at 5% for 4 hours.
I do 10% water changes weekly with Red Sea salt using RODI water.
Recently my birds nest has turned light brown and began bleaching at the tips. My smaller Ora birdsnest has turned a light brown and polyps have a long stretched look to them. My green Australian Acro doing well, a purple acro which has zero polyp extension and turned brown, a hammer coral which is open but very thin looking, frogspawn doing great, zoas doing well, monti cap doing better after a small bleaching event and a acan doing good. I am confused as to why my coloration is so bad on most sps and why I am randomly having bleaching issues. Acro placement is on top, monti on top, zoas middle, I moved one birdsnest down to bottom after bleaching, other is mid high. Any ideas on what’s going on would be greatly appreciated! I attached some pictures as well.

 

[Hitman]

Get a Salifert MG test kit it’s one of the best in my opinion.
You have Phosphate at 5 did you really me that? If so that will kill SPS. Phosphate needs to be below 0.1 best at 0.02 and Nitrates between 2-5 ppm in my limited experience.
Also doesn’t sound like you have powerful enough lighting. #reefsquad am I missing anything else?

 

[Mike646]

Thanks for the suggestion to test mag! I was using a API test kit to get that reading. I use the same kit to test everything else except my alk which I use a Hanna ppm alk test kit. I wondered at which level phosphate becomes deadly to coral.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Tanks too clean. As @Hitman stated, your corals are starving. Take the skimmer off line for a few days, increase feeding or dose nitrates.

Potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate.

Once nitrates are up, your phosphate should drop.

Reduce your light intensity for a few days to a week until you register some nitrate. Corals may take several weeks to recover once your nitrates are up. Be patient.

5-10ppm N03 and trace P04 at 0.02 is best.

 

[Mike646]

Tanks too clean. As @Hitman stated, your corals are starving. Take the skimmer off line for a few days, increase feeding or dose nitrates.

Potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate.

Once nitrates are up, your phosphate should drop.

Reduce your light intensity for a few days to a week until you register some nitrate. Corals may take several weeks to recover once your nitrates are up. Be patient.

5-10ppm N03 and trace P04 at 0.02 is best.

Ok I will give that a shot. I always thought nitrates were really bad to have. I have only been feeding Fish 2-3 times a week since I have lots of pods they feed off of and to keep nitrates down. Should I feed reef chili a few times a week also?

 

[Stickboy15]

yes IMO I had much more success with feeding sps and much less stn/rtn

 

[Flippers4pups]

Ok I will give that a shot. I always thought nitrates were really bad to have. I have only been feeding Fish 2-3 times a week since I have lots of pods they feed off of and to keep nitrates down. Should I feed reef chili a few times a week also?

My tank runs around 20ppm N03 and P04 at 0.10. Dkh at 10.5.

Corals need liquid nutrients.

Your corals are starving and it's worse with high dkh as with yours at 11.

 

[Softhammer]

Looking at the pictures, your tank is absolutely nowhere near ready for corals. That sand and rock looks days old. Wait until the blooms occur, they will, no potions can accelerate this, and give coralline a chance to grow. Only then will you have a chance. 99% of coral problems are from people rushing things. It takes time my friend, those corals aren’t cheap.

 

[Mike646]

Looking at the pictures, your tank is absolutely nowhere near ready for corals. That sand and rock looks days old. Wait until the blooms occur, they will, no potions can accelerate this, and give coralline a chance to grow. Only then will you have a chance. 99% of coral problems are from people rushing things. It takes time my friend, those corals aren’t cheap.

My tank unfortunately in the beginning had an issue where I knocked a entire bottle of alkalinity booster into it causing my alk to rise to 30. I lost almost all fish and it took months to lower back. I have coralline starting to grow quickly in my tank and I started with dry base rock off of bulk reef supply. That’s why it looks so barren. I added a piece of live rock to seed it in order to get coralline to grow. Even with it running 9 months is that still to soon? I figured after cycling it would be ok.

 

[Mike646]

My tank runs around 20ppm N03 and P04 at 0.10. Dkh at 10.5.

Corals need liquid nutrients.

Your corals are starving and it's worse with high dkh as with yours at 11.

Your tank is stunning! Because of my lack of nitrates are my corals experiencing alk burn?

 

[Flippers4pups]

My tank unfortunately in the beginning had an issue where I knocked a entire bottle of alkalinity booster into it causing my alk to rise to 30. I lost almost all fish and it took months to lower back. I have coralline starting to grow quickly in my tank and I started with dry base rock off of bulk reef supply. That’s why it looks so barren. I added a piece of live rock to seed it in order to get coralline to grow. Even with it running 9 months is that still to soon? I figured after cycling it would be ok.

People will tell you, including me, that your tank needs to mature around a year before SPS.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Your tank is stunning! Because of my lack of nitrates are my corals experiencing alk burn?

It's causing them stress. Lack of food is causing the zooxanthellae to die off.

 

[Mike646]

Yikes I had no idea. I will not add anymore until this issue is resolved and will hold off further until a year has passed.

 

[Brew12]

My tank unfortunately in the beginning had an issue where I knocked a entire bottle of alkalinity booster into it causing my alk to rise to 30. I lost almost all fish and it took months to lower back. I have coralline starting to grow quickly in my tank and I started with dry base rock off of bulk reef supply. That’s why it looks so barren. I added a piece of live rock to seed it in order to get coralline to grow. Even with it running 9 months is that still to soon? I figured after cycling it would be ok.

I have to agree with the others that something isn't right in your tank. You should have more algae or other growth. Your tank looks like it is chemically sterile. If your tank was a month old and looked like that, I'd think some easy SPS would be ok. For a 9 month old tank, even with an alk spike, your tank should look much different.

Do you use RODI for your water?

 

[Mike646]

I have to agree with the others that something isn't right in your tank. You should have more algae or other growth. Your tank looks like it is chemically sterile. If your tank was a month old and looked like that, I'd think some easy SPS would be ok. For a 9 month old tank, even with an alk spike, your tank should look much different.

Do you use RODI for your water?

Yes I have a 4 stage RODI from bulk reef supply that I use. I do have red slime on a small area of the sand but it gets turned over by my sand sifting star. I also have a recent algae bloom in my tank which I’m guessing is caused my the phosphate. Maybe my refug in the back is not helping? I have a huge amount of cheto in that area I tend to leave alone and remove small amounts every few months.

 

[Mike646]

I forgot to mention I have had super low nitrates for a while. I was using no pox for a few months before then tried zeovit. That’s when my phosphate climbed and I stopped that system after 1 month of using it. I did not restart no pox yet.

 

[Swoody]

As stated above... your nitrate and phosphate are totally out of sync.... Po4 ... you want to be low like .05 ish with that and No3... around 3-5ppm. At that point your alkalinity can be held around 7.5 to 8 and you should be safe. Get it Running and stable at those parameters and you can slightly increase your nitrate and even phosphate readings along with alkalinity as your consumption increases. And you wanna have your calcium running around 440 to 480 and your magnesium 1440 1460-ish .... But stability is the key. Of course all these numbers are different for everybody’s tank but they are fairly safe starting numbers and you can run them for a period of time and keep it stable and you will notice a marked improvement in your corals health.

 

[Mike646]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I will get to work on getting my nitrates up and getting things more stable.

 

[Hitman]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I will get to work on getting my nitrates up and getting things more stable.

Your very welcome! Welcome to R2R by the way. There is a ton of knowledge on these forums always willing to help. Best advice that can be giving in this hobby is slow and steady is key to success.

 

[Mike646]

Just a update on what’s been going on. I followed the steps and started dosing nitrates using the stump remover method mentioned on this site(1.5 is current level). I for the life of me could not get nitrates up without it. I stopped using nopox carbon dosing for now. I also used phosphate RX to get my levels back on line, and followed up with water changes. My acros have begone to color up and have polyp extension but it seems that birdsnest coral is doomed as it is having more tissue lost. Hammer coral seems to be a little happier but still looks shriveled. When should I begin ramping the lights up again and how long should I take to do that?