What killed corals?

[DiZASTiX]

Anyone know what killed the corals, or got them to be in near-death condition? (Discovered this way on Monday). LPS receded, SPS peeling, and zoas tightly closed. Watchman goby lacking things to watch, so is sad.

If you'd kindly provide a solid answer, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Prior, Unsure Date: Previously, an anthias, a fire shrimp, and a coral banded shrimp all died (only latter two bodies recovered days later). Anthias fish body was never found. This effected in a mini-cycle, but the corals that've been around seemed to be doing well (polyp extension and all). I dosed Seachem Prime and Dr Tim's One and Only.

Sunday 20th: The day before I dosed used bottle of Fritz Fritzzyme 9 from LFS. I noticed that there were black "bits" (almost like sushi seaweed) in the water all over the place.

Monday 21st: Nearly all corals -- some around for a few weeks, some obtained previous day -- bleached, peeled, or died suddenly Monday 21st, but unsure of the time. Dosed Dr Tim's and Seachem Prime.

Tuesday 22nd: Corals in worse condition. In response, dosed Seachem Prime, Dr Tims, Seachem Stability, Fritz Fritzyme--at this point to see what will stick.

Parameters as follows, measured at least once a week, some daily, some multiple times a day:

Total volume: 40 gal
Alkalinity: 6.7-7.7 (by dosing -- still attempting to determine dosage to counteract drop; measured by Hanna)
Ammonia: 0.2 ppm until 21st; after that, 0 ppm .. spikes of 0.5 ppm on 19th and 17th-18th (measured by RedSea; confirmed by API)
Calcium: 525 ppm (measured by AquaForest)
Copper: 0 ppm (measured by API)
Magnesium: 1440 ppm (measured by RedSea)
Nitrate: 160 ppm (measured by API; off charts on RedSea)
Nitrite: 2 ppm (unsure; measured by API)
Phosphate: 0-0.02 ppm (varies; measured by Hanna)
Salinity: 1.026 SG (measured by Milwaukee)
RODI TDS output: 0 ppm
pH: 7.58 (pH probe, calibrated today), 7.8 (API)
Temp: 27.0 C +/- 0.2 C (APEX-controlled with backup heater)

• Lighting schedule untampered with. APEX-controlled Kessil A360W
• Only thing changed is replaced sugar dosing with vinegar dosing.
• Dip: Providone, CoralRx, and Dr G's Marine Aquaculture -- 5-10 mins total (not each).

Nitrate & Phosphate:

Ammonia vs Nitrite, over 1 month:

Nitrite:

Ammonia:

Alkalinity:

Temperature:

pH:

Salinity:

 

[RobZilla04]

I'd point a finger toward the HUGE nitrates spike, increase in Po4, and dive in Alkalinity. The increased ammonia and following nitrite probably didn't help, but the first three major parameters took wild swings in the course of a few days.

 

[DiZASTiX]

I'd point a finger toward the HUGE nitrates spike, increase in Po4, and dive in Alkalinity. The increased ammonia and following nitrite probably didn't help, but the first three major parameters took wild swings in the course of a few days.

Thank you for the enlightening response. This is very helpful. I didn't think nitrate or alkalinity would be a coral killers. I would say this tank "traditionally" has had difficulty getting PO4: PO4 comes and goes, but nitrate has always been here to stay, and because of that, I first built a chaeto reactor, and now, installed an ATS as well. Unfortunately, having learnt from Randy Holmes-Farley that we require both nitrate and phosphate for algae to work well, I've resorted to carbon dosing--which he indicated to another reefer--would work in the case of being phosphate-limited. However, as I understand, nitrate will take some time to deplete, even thru carbon dosing. In the interim, what would you recommend? Avoid another fish death causing nitrate and PO4 spike, I presume?

The alkalinity decreased "naturally?" I believe. Originally, I had alkalinity levels of over 13 (perhaps 14, if I recall) due to an overdose (got the decimal point wrong sort of error). To counter the decline in alkalinity, I started (resumed) dosing just the alkalinity portion of the Balling three part solution from Aquaforest, but it's taken some tweaking (the math is of course infallible, except when alkalinity is affected by acidity due to mini-cycling).

 

[RobZilla04]

Whoa, a lot going on here ^. Let's start with this since you've got a 40g:

Large 20-25g water change
Next, pull off everything you are dosing with the exception of Alk & Cal (if this is needed to supplement for consumption).
If you do not have an algae issue, just let things be for a while.
Test every 4 or 5 days and log the results.

Basically everything needs to be settled. Nuisance nutrients need to be brought under control (Nitrites, Nitrates, & Phos) which the large water change will immediately cut in half. Next Alk, Cal, and Mg along with the many trace elements we don't have kits for, need to be stabilized. These two things can happen simultaneously with a large >50% WC. Finally you don't want to be adding anything (bacteria, carbon source, chemicals) that'll cause nutrient swings again. Keep an eye on coral and fish health. Don't look for growth to return, simply look for a pause/stop of deterioration/death. Reduce feeding to just what the fish need (no more than can be completely consumed in 2 minutes no more than twice a day).

Test these levels and understand there is a margin of error for each depending on which kit:
Alk
Cal
Nitrates
Phosphates
Salinity

As a general rule, stay away from dumping copious amounts of chemicals into the system in response to a problem. System volume dependent, water changes are the quickest and most efficient way to deal with an issue. This becomes a problem when you get above 100g or so since changing 50+ gallons of water starts to become impractical. In your case, 40g, a large change is easy.

 

[HB AL]

Pretty simple, the combo of the swings with ammonia, got you the results you experienced.

 

[chargingxray]

I would not rely on a Neptune salinity probe mine is way off. Are you double checking with a Refractometer?

 

[DiZASTiX]

I would not rely on a Neptune salinity probe mine is way off. Are you double checking with a Refractometer?

I was actually looking into investing in a Neptune salinity probe as an alert mechanism, but mine I'm using a Milwaukee refractometer. What do you think about it for such use--an email and push alert, possibly as a triple-check way to detect flooding or something else wrong?

Pretty simple, the combo of the swings with ammonia, got you the results you experienced.

What date range would you say the swings killed things?

Sunday 20th: The day before I dosed used bottle of Fritz Fritzzyme 9 from LFS. I noticed that there were black "bits" (almost like sushi seaweed) in the water all over the place.

Monday 21st: Nearly all corals -- some around for a few weeks, some obtained previous day -- bleached, peeled, or died suddenly Monday 21st, but unsure of the time. Dosed Dr Tim's and Seachem Prime.

My line of thinking is: logically if 2 corals were purchased on the 20th (I forgot to mention--I stayed up trying to research this), I would think that the worse of the problem occurred on and after the 20th.

 

[chargingxray]

I was actually looking into investing in a Neptune salinity probe as an alert mechanism, but mine I'm using a Milwaukee refractometer. What do you think about it for such use--an email and push alert, possibly as a triple-check way to detect flooding or something else wrong?
[/B]

That’s exactly what I use mine for. I know mine reads high on salinity so I just use it as a guide and set alarms according to its higher reading so when it goes outside that range I get a text and know something is wrong. There good to have for that added security but in my case I don’t use it to tell me my actual salinity, but other then that it’s nice to have IMO

 

[Porpoise Hork]

What Dr. Tim's product are you dosing? I have noticed that any time I use the First Defense product, all of my euphyllia and zoas will partially close up for about 2 days. Other corals like Paly's and acans show no sign of issue. There is something in that product they do not like at all.

Also with the spikes in ammonia, nitrites etc, that's likely going to be the anthias.

Id start daily 10-20% water changes for at least 5 days, add carbon or Purigen, and leave the skimmer (if equipped) on to pull out what ever toxins are in the water. If possible you might want to transfer the rock and corals to a holding tub to find what's left of the anthias and remove it. Otherwise you will be dealing with nutrient issues for a while until the remains of the fish are completely broken down by the CUP and bacteria colonies. The other thing to note is you will likely see another nutrient spike when the bacteria die off after they finish with the remains and do not have as much of a readily available food supply when the parameters fall back in line.

 

[HB AL]

I was actually looking into investing in a Neptune salinity probe as an alert mechanism, but mine I'm using a Milwaukee refractometer. What do you think about it for such use--an email and push alert, possibly as a triple-check way to detect flooding or something else wrong?




What date range would you say the swings killed things?



My line of thinking is: logically if 2 corals were purchased on the 20th (I forgot to mention--I stayed up trying to research this), I would think that the worse of the problem occurred on and after the 20th.

You say Monday may 21st all died, obviously something dramatic occurred to the water chemistry on the 20th to kill all the corals in 24 hours or less.

 

[DiZASTiX]

You say Monday may 21st all died, obviously something dramatic occurred to the water chemistry on the 20th to kill all the corals in 24 hours or less.

Right. That's exactly my rationale. Every data point was examined. Nothing was omitted, at least not intentionally, because clearly something was overlooked. The question is: what was overlooked?

As you can see from my Neptune Fusion charts, I perform many tests everyday, and even multiple times a day. Even if I had performed a test erroneously (e.g., the vial wasn't 5 mL), the law of big numbers would have corrected for that. I manual pipette every test (the thumb clicker thing, where you set a volume in mL, and can pipette volume like nobody's business precisely and accurately) except ones where a syringe was provided.

Some things come to mind:

• Change from sugar dosing to vinegar dosing
• Further drop in pH
• Although ammonia became undetectable, nitrate suddenly skyrocketed as a few before have pointed out
• If ammonia and alkalinity swings killed the corals, that's very possible for the older ones--but what about the ones that were introduced Sunday 20th in the evening?
• Sudden bacterial bloom causing anoxic seems unlikely from overpowered returns (ReefOctopus Varios-6 that's been turned down from 1720 gph), skimmer (Reef Octopus Regal 200SSSS), and powerhead TuThe return pump is a VarioS-6 at 100% (1720 gph), while the powerhead is a Tunze Turbelle Stream 6105 that varies in a bell-shaped pattern mimicking that of the lighting scheme (700-3400 gph).

What Dr. Tim's product are you dosing? I have noticed that any time I use the First Defense product, all of my euphyllia and zoas will partially close up for about 2 days. Other corals like Paly's and acans show no sign of issue. There is something in that product they do not like at all.

Also with the spikes in ammonia, nitrites etc, that's likely going to be the anthias.

Id start daily 10-20% water changes for at least 5 days, add carbon or Purigen, and leave the skimmer (if equipped) on to pull out what ever toxins are in the water. If possible you might want to transfer the rock and corals to a holding tub to find what's left of the anthias and remove it. Otherwise you will be dealing with nutrient issues for a while until the remains of the fish are completely broken down by the CUP and bacteria colonies. The other thing to note is you will likely see another nutrient spike when the bacteria die off after they finish with the remains and do not have as much of a readily available food supply when the parameters fall back in line.

I used Dr Tim's One and Only -- the nitrification bacteria one. I've not used First Defense before.

I agree that the death of the anthias precipitated all of this.

How big of a nutrient spike do you think I might be looking at, if I'm unable to recover the body?

 

[tankstudy]

I would point fingers at ammonia. It should be at 0 consistently before you stock any coral/fish. Some creatures are tolerant of low levels and some will live for a period of time in such low level ammonia conditions but once something kicks the bucket, reached the max amount of time tolerable or concentrations increase to unbearable, it starts a serious chain reaction.

Also, I'm not sure on how seachem prime exactly works but in my opinion, I wouldn't be dosing it a long with bacterial products like Dr. Tim's unless your 100% sure. I'm not sure if it alters the ammonia/nitrite in to a form that is still useable by bacteria or if it becomes totally unusable. You'd have to check with Randy Holmes on that one. For the most part, bacteria need the ammonia and nitrite to thrive in to populations that can stabilize your system. If your removing it or turning it in to a different compound of some sort that your bacteria can't use, that isn't going to work.

How old is this tank? Would like to see graphs from previous 2-3 months.

 

[tankstudy]

I would point fingers at ammonia. It should be at 0 consistently before you stock any coral/fish. Some creatures are tolerant of low levels and some will live for a period of time in such low level ammonia conditions but once something kicks the bucket, reached the max amount of time tolerable or concentrations increase to unbearable, it starts a serious chain reaction.

Also, I'm not sure on how seachem prime exactly works but in my opinion, I wouldn't be dosing it a long with bacterial products like Dr. Tim's unless your 100% sure. I'm not sure if it alters the ammonia/nitrite in to a form that is still useable by bacteria or if it becomes totally unusable. You'd have to check with Randy Holmes on that one. For the most part, bacteria need the ammonia and nitrite to thrive in to populations that can stabilize your system. If your removing it or turning it in to a different compound of some sort that your bacteria can't use, that isn't going to work.

How old is this tank? Would like to see graphs from previous 2-3 months.

 

[tankstudy]

I would point fingers at ammonia. It should be at 0 consistently before you stock any coral/fish. Some creatures are tolerant of low levels and some will live for a period of time in such low level ammonia conditions but once something kicks the bucket, reached the max amount of time tolerable or concentrations increase to unbearable, it starts a serious chain reaction.

Also, I'm not sure on how seachem prime exactly works but in my opinion, I wouldn't be dosing it a long with bacterial products like Dr. Tim's unless your 100% sure. I'm not sure if it alters the ammonia/nitrite in to a form that is still useable by bacteria or if it becomes totally unusable. You'd have to check with Randy Holmes on that one. For the most part, bacteria need the ammonia and nitrite to thrive in to populations that can stabilize your system. If your removing it or turning it in to a different compound of some sort that your bacteria can't use, that isn't going to work.

How old is this tank? Would like to see graphs from previous 2-3 months.

 

[tankstudy]

Triple posting...Not sure how that happened.

 

[DiZASTiX]

edited out picture by request (Randy)

 

[tankstudy]

It looks like your critters were sitting in ammonia for a long period of time. From your graphs, the ammonia levels also struggled to go down to zero for many days. Looks like your bacteria couldn't handle things for many many days.

Something after the 23rd of April snowballed you.

All the way from the 23rd of April to the 21st of May, we can see that bacteria were not able to keep up and keep ammonia in check consistently.

 

[tankstudy]

BTW, good record keeping. Comes in handy when things like this happen.

 

[DiZASTiX]

It looks like your critters were sitting in ammonia for a long period of time. From your graphs, the ammonia levels also struggled to go down to zero for many days. Looks like your bacteria couldn't handle things for many many days.

Something after the 23rd of April snowballed you.

All the way from the 23rd of April to the 21st of May, we can see that bacteria were not able to keep up and keep ammonia in check consistently.

On the 23rd, I went to a frag swap. From that time till now, I purchased around 10 each of scarlet hermit crabs and trochus snails, which have perished. A few hours ago I spotted an emerald crab, but I can't find a lot of other critters. In fact, the place looks fairly dead, and a snowball theory that you present along with the other theories would be pretty consistent and supported by these data.

In order to ensure stability of alkalinity, which I think I have locked in now, I'll need to avoid water changes if possible. My Hanna tests did uncover alkalinity increases arising from water changes. My goal alkalinity range is 7-8 ppm at 1.026 SG, but the salt I'm working with has a 11+ alkalinity at 1.026 SG.

Definitely with you all 100% on the ammonia. That needs to never happen again.

My thought would be to let the chaeto reactor and CW100 algae scrubber do their work. My concern however, is a lack of phosphates--perhaps the phosphates are produced irregularly from deaths:

It looks like your critters were sitting in ammonia for a long period of time. From your graphs, the ammonia levels also struggled to go down to zero for many days. Looks like your bacteria couldn't handle things for many many days.

My interpretation of the chart seems seems consistent with the data and your interpretation as well.


Is it that the tank cannot generate enough phosphate with the single yellow watchman goby who eats 5-10 PE Mysis pellets per day? Or, is it that nitrate is so off-the-charts (my recorded value for nitrate is the max value the test kit can read), that the chaeto reactor and ATS just need more time to consume the nitrate?

The other question to ask would be: can either chaeto or hair algae grow without phosphate, but with enormous amounts of nitrate?

Previously, @Whipples recommended this product, and if the case is that I should dose phosphate, then this route seems to make sense. I definitely don't want to turn my aquarium into a high nutrient tank (this is supposed to be an AquaForest Probiotic method / Zeovit method hybrid tank).

You may be, due to an extended period of time, be in a position where your dosing is getting used up much quicker as the system is taking it up after being without it for so long! As for quality products that you can mix and make to your preference (in terms of how much of a PPM boost per milliliter) check out Green Leaf Aquariums for dry "fertilizers" (planted tank term ). They sell food grade potassium nitrate and monopotassium sulphate inexpensively and come in slick containers. There are several calculators you can use to determine how many grams to add to RODI water for your desired levels

http://greenleafaquariums.com/aquarium-fertilizer.html

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

 

[Hans-Werner]

High nitrate and extremely low phosphate killed and kills your corals.

The cause why nitrate seemed to skyrocket after organic carbon dosing is: All nitrate test kits are also sensitive to nitrite, in fact much more sensitive to nitrite than to nitrate. Finally all nitrate test kits only measure nitrite after reduction of nitrate to nitrite. And that is what happened. Your organic carbon dosing reduced nitrate to ammonium, N2 and nitrite. What seems to skyrocket your nitrate concentration is in fact nitrite. Make a test for nitrite.

 

[DiZASTiX]

High nitrate and extremely low phosphate killed and kills your corals.

The cause why nitrate seemed to skyrocket after organic carbon dosing is: All nitrate test kits are also sensitive to nitrite, in fact much more sensitive to nitrite than to nitrate. Finally all nitrate test kits only measure nitrite after reduction of nitrate to nitrite. And that is what happened. Your organic carbon dosing reduced nitrate to ammonium, N2 and nitrite. What seems to skyrocket your nitrate concentration is in fact nitrite. Make a test for nitrite.

I hope this helps. If you have any more information on what you described, I'm fascinated. In a nutshell, I don't have nitrates, but instead, a lot of nitrites. It's an error?

 

[Hans-Werner]

You may have some nitrate left but what you describe above is impossible, that nitrate rises after organic carbon dosing. It´s an artifact caused by the nitrate test method. Most likely your nitrate (and also the sum nitrate + nitrite) has decreased but the rise in nitrite completely hides the decrease when testing for nitrate.