What should I do?

[Blue isles]

So, I've been having some pro lems lately. All of my sps have been doing really well, with decent growth. About a month ago, I noticed loss of color in many of the corals, and slow tissue loss, receding from the base. Some corals have rtn, and died overnight.

I have checked for pests, and see no red bugs or flat worms. This is not limited to acropora sp., even my setosa is doing poorly, which before was having very nice quick growth and color. Other corals are doing well. Chalices are growing nicely. One acan colony is open large and very fluffy, while another is never open for at least a couple weeks now, so o just don't know what this is all about.

Ph 8.3
Alk 10
Ca 440
Mg 1300
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Temp 80
Salinity 1.025

I upgraded the skimmer about 2 months ago, and upgraded to vortech about a month ago. No other recent changes.

Any advice as to what I should do or insight here would be very helpful.

 

[soccerbag]

A few question for you. What are your PO4 levels. You did not mention them above. What type of lighting do you have over your tank? How do you maintain Ca and Alk in yout system. Have there been / could there have been any alk swings lately?

 

[Blue isles]

My phosphates are at zero. Lighting is two 150 w halide with 4 54 w t5. I dose bright well aquatics calcion-p and alkalin 8.3 to keep my levels, and have been testing alk and ca daily for probably the past 5 or 6 months with no swings.

 

[soccerbag]

With no PO4 and zero Nitrates, you are likely starving your corals. Are you dosing any aminos or any other nutrients? Curious what your fish bioload is. What do you feed and how heavy? Not many corals can thrive with no nutrients to live off of. How are you maintaining such clean water? You must have a skimmer that is a bit overkill for your system perhaps. Or do you does vokda / biopellets?

 

[Blue isles]

My skimmer is overrated. It is for 500 gallons, and I run about 180 gallons. I was dosing coral amino, from bright well, because I had the idea the water was too clean and to help the corals out. But quit it because I was not sure if that was making the problem worse, as corals seemed to be doing worse after about 2 weeks of dosing it. There is not a heavy fish load in the system, 13 fish, all small, and they do not get fed often, once every couple days. No dosing vodka etc.

 

[soccerbag]

Wow. That is a big skimmer bud. I'm all for having an over-rated skimmer but that may be overkill for your water volume. It sounds like your skimmer is stripping every nutrient from the water. You can definitely feed more as the increased fish waste will benefit the corals. I doubt the brightwells is hurting anything as the main side effect from that would be a cyano bloom of some sort. Are you dosing the Brightwells at the recommended dose or did you back off of it a bit as to not over-do it? If you have gotten your water tested with a Hanna for PO4, have a reliable NO3 test kit, don't have alk swings, and your refractometer is calibrated, I would say that this (lack of nutrients) is probably the issue here.

I would feed more often. Perhaps turn off your skimmer for 1 day per week. And start again with the amino dosing. You can always start slow and ramp up to the directed amount. Your sandbed will tell you if you are overdoing it. Some others may have some other recommendations but that is my advice. Let me know if you have any other questions. A LOT of people lose sleep at night trying to get "clean" water in their system and you have achieved it with a BIG skimmer....lol. But my advice is to keep some NO3 in the tank. I try to keep mine around 5-10ppm as my corals look better. My PO4 stays very low but never goes above .3ppm.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

What kind of flow do you have?

 

[Joe Knows Reefs]

Ditto on the NO3 at 5 and PO4 of .03 or less. In this case poo is your friend

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

 

[Blue isles]

Wow. That is a big skimmer bud. I'm all for having an over-rated skimmer but that may be overkill for your water volume. It sounds like your skimmer is stripping every nutrient from the water. You can definitely feed more as the increased fish waste will benefit the corals. I doubt the brightwells is hurting anything as the main side effect from that would be a cyano bloom of some sort. Are you dosing the Brightwells at the recommended dose or did you back off of it a bit as to not over-do it? If you have gotten your water tested with a Hanna for PO4, have a reliable NO3 test kit, don't have alk swings, and your refractometer is calibrated, I would say that this (lack of nutrients) is probably the issue here.

I would feed more often. Perhaps turn off your skimmer for 1 day per week. And start again with the amino dosing. You can always start slow and ramp up to the directed amount. Your sandbed will tell you if you are overdoing it. Some others may have some other recommendations but that is my advice. Let me know if you have any other questions. A LOT of people lose sleep at night trying to get "clean" water in their system and you have achieved it with a BIG skimmer....lol. But my advice is to keep some NO3 in the tank. I try to keep mine around 5-10ppm as my corals look better. My PO4 stays very low but never goes above .3ppm.

Thanks for the advice that's what I will try, I have never heard of too clean of water before, that was the idea with the big skimmer, now I'm loosing sleep bc my water is too clean I will start dosing amino acids and feeding my fish more and invest in some more fish as well.

 

[Blue isles]

What kind of flow do you have?

I have a vortex 10w40 and some koralia power heads.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

I know that sps will stn from the bottom up when the flow is minimal.

 

[Blue isles]

I know that sps will stn from the bottom up when the flow is minimal.

I actually was feeling like the flow could be too high! I moved a couple corals, because the ones close to the vortech were loosing tissue where they were getting blown the hardest, and I turned the power head down a few days ago.

Is it possible for tissue to grow back, or is it best to frag what's left?

 

[Blue isles]

My bad man my vortech is mp40 I was thinking about oil

 

[nixer]

id say feed your tank good for the next couple days and see if it helps.
im in the same boat.

 

[Blue isles]

Thanks bro. Good luck with your tank.

 

[nixer]

Thanks bro. Good luck with your tank.

thanks. what kinda skimmer did you get?
it could also be bleached from clearer water make for more light.

im running an xp3000i and biopellets on my 180

 

[Blue isles]

Im running the bubble magus Mac 9

 

[VegasRick]

SPS can be finicky. And its hard to say whats wrong from descriptions. And you might be dealing with multiple problems. Slow loss of tissue from the bottom is more likely lack of flow or lighting issues while RTN is water parameter problems
Flow is pretty hard to define. You need to look at the water movement around them and make sure it moves quickly. Take a turkey baster and blow the rocks around them and see how much detritus blow off it. If there is a build up of detritus you probably don't have enough.
Your lighting, 2 150s and 4 t5s on a 180 I would say is at the minimal end. How old are the bulbs?
I would say its more likely to be too much nutrients than not enough. Despite test results you might have excess nutrients. I don't know of anyone with 13 fish in their system who is starving sps (who is not running some type of carbon dosing). LPS would starve first so I doubt if thats your problem
You say you are dosing daily, but it didn't sound like Brightwells 2 part system. I am not familiar with their product line but they have an A and a B 2 part that is designed for daily dosing. Thats what you should be using if your not.
What is your water change regime? Water changes are great. The solution to pollution is dilution

 

[Blue isles]

SPS can be finicky. And its hard to say whats wrong from descriptions. And you might be dealing with multiple problems. Slow loss of tissue from the bottom is more likely lack of flow or lighting issues while RTN is water parameter problems
Flow is pretty hard to define. You need to look at the water movement around them and make sure it moves quickly. Take a turkey baster and blow the rocks around them and see how much detritus blow off it. If there is a build up of detritus you probably don't have enough.
Your lighting, 2 150s and 4 t5s on a 180 I would say is at the minimal end. How old are the bulbs?
I would say its more likely to be too much nutrients than not enough. Despite test results you might have excess nutrients. I don't know of anyone with 13 fish in their system who is starving sps (who is not running some type of carbon dosing). LPS would starve first so I doubt if thats your problem
You say you are dosing daily, but it didn't sound like Brightwells 2 part system. I am not familiar with their product line but they have an A and a B 2 part that is designed for daily dosing. Thats what you should be using if your not.
What is your water change regime? Water changes are great. The solution to pollution is dilution

Our main tank is 100 gallons with the 2 100w mh and 4 54wt5, then we have a 40gallon sump then a 45 gallon frag tank hooked up to the main tank. I don't think we are using the 2 part britewell aquatics, I have actually been thinking about switching. My water changes are every 2 weeks, 20%. My MH bulbbis about 6 months old and t5 about 2 months old.

What do you recommend I do.

 

[spscrazy]

when I started with sps about a year ago I couldn't get them to color up first it was nitrates 10-20 got bio pellets after about a month things started to get some color (nitrate went to zero) but still not like they should have then read about dosing with mrs. wages on a drip system about 2 weeks into that I got LEDs after about another month things were really getting color & started growing faster. things were finally going good ran out of the mrs. wages but still had the kent 2 part so started using that again after about a month I noticed I was losing color again & around the base of some of the corals they were losing flesh went back to the mrs. wages on the drip & corals are colored up & growing again. when I used the 2 part system I didn't use the drip & just added the 2qts directly I really don't know if it is the mrs. wages or the slower but steady way of adding the top off but either way everything is much happier now with the mrs. wages slow & steady drip also now that the bio pellets keep the nitrates down & possibly the phos. (who can tell it always tests 0) I can now feed the fish several times a day vs 1 time a day before the bio pellets hope you can find your problem I know how irritating it is to see things going good then have a set back & not know why