Lost..completely lost

[Reef Fever]

So recently I moved my SPS dominant tank to my new house. The move went pretty smooth, minimal casualties directly after the move.

The problem I am having now is that over the last few days I have lost, or am losing some of my acros. I seem to have noticed a trend in that majority of the affected acros are not particular species, but ones that have blue coloring in them; not all but most carry this characteristic. Many of my other acros display little to no PE during the day, and some at night as well. I can't directly link it to a water quality issue (will post parameters below).

I turned my LEDs down a bit to reduce any potential for burning.

Parameters are as follows:

Phosphate: 0
Nitrate: 0
Cal: 580
Alk: 8.5
Mag: 1100 (slightly low)
pH: 8.64 (on the high side, but shouldn't be threatening? I'm working on bringing it down)
SG: 1.025
Temp: 79-80F

I have recently increased feeding (both for fish and coral) as I am not a fan of ULNS'. I have noticed some acros have a significant ciliary response at random times during the day; I have been trying to target feed them in case it is a feeding response. I am feeding acropower, coral frenzy, and or dried phyto a few times a week now.


So is this...
Stress?
Starvation?
Parameter related?


Any help from fellow seasoned SPS keepers is appreciated, cause I'm lost!

 

[homegrowncoral88]

How long has the tank been moved. Did that calcium just jump up or has it been that high?

 

[Reef Fever]

tank move was about 4-ish weeks ago. Calcium has always been 500+, I've seen many people maintain it around 500 without issues. I have stopped dosing it as frequently to bring it down closer to 500 though

 

[Squamosa]

So recently I moved my SPS dominant tank to my new house. The move went pretty smooth, minimal casualties directly after the move.

The problem I am having now is that over the last few days I have lost, or am losing some of my acros. I seem to have noticed a trend in that majority of the affected acros are not particular species, but ones that have blue coloring in them; not all but most carry this characteristic. Many of my other acros display little to no PE during the day, and some at night as well. I can't directly link it to a water quality issue (will post parameters below).

I turned my LEDs down a bit to reduce any potential for burning.

Parameters are as follows:

Phosphate: 0
Nitrate: 0
Cal: 580
Alk: 8.5
Mag: 1100 (slightly low)
pH: 8.64 (on the high side, but shouldn't be threatening? I'm working on bringing it down)
SG: 1.025
Temp: 79-80F

I have recently increased feeding (both for fish and coral) as I am not a fan of ULNS'. I have noticed some acros have a significant ciliary response at random times during the day; I have been trying to target feed them in case it is a feeding response. I am feeding acropower, coral frenzy, and or dried phyto a few times a week now.


So is this...
Stress?
Starvation?
Parameter related?


Any help from fellow seasoned SPS keepers is appreciated, cause I'm lost!

Hey there.

I will share my experiences of moving house.

My move took the whole day and even though I tried to limit the stress and parameter swings put on my inhabitants, I was not able to keep the temperature steady (it was winter) and experienced a drop in temperature of 1 degree celsius. I also did not dose anything as my doser was offline and the skimmer too. so presumably there was a change in pH and a drop in elements with an increase in nutrients!

My acro's did not take kindly to this with ~10% showing bleaching 24 hours later and almost complete loss of colour to a washed out grey look!! I did not get RTN but bleaching.

This lasted for about a week and in that time I lost ~25% of my acros, but this all stopped once my parameters were back to what they were prior to the move and not swinging wildly.

I did not change the lighting time or intensity and it took a good 2 months for my acro's to colour up to what they were before the move and start growing again, in some species it is only the new growth that is colourful.

Acro's can react to stress in some instances a long time after the stress was applied (alk swings for instance) so get your system stable and they will come back.

You also have an imbalance of elements, high Ca and low Mg.

Good luck

 

[Reef Fever]

Hey there.

I will share my experiences of moving house.

My move took the whole day and even though I tried to limit the stress and parameter swings put on my inhabitants, I was not able to keep the temperature steady (it was winter) and experienced a drop in temperature of 1 degree celsius. I also did not dose anything as my doser was offline and the skimmer too. so presumably there was a change in pH and a drop in elements with an increase in nutrients!

My acro's did not take kindly to this with ~10% showing bleaching 24 hours later and almost complete loss of colour to a washed out grey look!! I did not get RTN but bleaching.

This lasted for about a week and in that time I lost ~25% of my acros, but this all stopped once my parameters were back to what they were prior to the move and not swinging wildly.

I did not change the lighting time or intensity and it took a good 2 months for my acro's to colour up to what they were before the move and start growing again, in some species it is only the new growth that is colourful.

Acro's can react to stress in some instances a long time after the stress was applied (alk swings for instance) so get your system stable and they will come back.

You also have an imbalance of elements, high Ca and low Mg.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply. Im working on getting things back into equilibrium. I changed carbon today and did a water change. I have noticed not only bleaching but necrosis to some degree as well. STN rather than RTN majority of the time. Im just hoping this slows down and completely stops before necrosis spreads throughout the tank.

 

[Squamosa]

Thanks for the reply. Im working on getting things back into equilibrium. I changed carbon today and did a water change. I have noticed not only bleaching but necrosis to some degree as well. STN rather than RTN majority of the time. Im just hoping this slows down and completely stops before necrosis spreads throughout the tank.

I would limit the use of GAC for now, particularly if you are using something like Rox or in a reactor. I have never had a positive response from my acro's to GAC, particularly if used in high quantities.

The only thing that worked for me in the past with STN or RTN, if unable to be stopped, was swift and aggressive fragging above the necrotic parts. Frags are then placed around the tank.
I have never lost a colony this way and been able to save some beautifully coloured species!

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

 

[Eienna]

It looks like you're fiddling with things too much; you mentioned trying to bring down pH and calcium, but my bet is you need to let things stabilize on their own. The changes are probably doing more harm than good right now.

PH is mainly controlled by alk,CO2, and calcium. Trying to deal with it as a separate component from those will also cause problems. Actually, as long as the others are balanced, you shouldn't really need to worry about pH.

 

[SamsReef]

hey man, first of all I am sorry for your loss. here are some things to look for.

- mini cycle: 4 week will be a perfect time for ammonia/nitrite spike from live rock die off. Check for ammonia/nitrite. either ways, prime can help.
- have you added any fish which might be contributing to it.
- PH can definitely do this. can you post a picture of your tank. wanted to see the angle of your flow.
- check for red bugs or aefw...what kind of corals are dying. can you list their names. aefw attacks millis/acros. red bugs eats anything with smooth skin...something like birdsnest is not affected by either..you can rule bugs based on this.

Sam

 

[Reef Fever]

I would limit the use of GAC for now, particularly if you are using something like Rox or in a reactor. I have never had a positive response from my acro's to GAC, particularly if used in high quantities.

The only thing that worked for me in the past with STN or RTN, if unable to be stopped, was swift and aggressive fragging above the necrotic parts. Frags are then placed around the tank.
I have never lost a colony this way and been able to save some beautifully coloured species!

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

I have always run carbon, but it is just in a small reactor. Mainly to help export any chemical potential from the LPS in the tank

It looks like you're fiddling with things too much; you mentioned trying to bring down pH and calcium, but my bet is you need to let things stabilize on their own. The changes are probably doing more harm than good right now.

PH is mainly controlled by alk,CO2, and calcium. Trying to deal with it as a separate component from those will also cause problems. Actually, as long as the others are balanced, you shouldn't really need to worry about pH.

I'm not necesarily changing anything by means of chemical manipulation. Calcium I just have stopped dosing as frequently in my top off, and pH I am trying to bring down via an additional powerhead in my sump.

hey man, first of all I am sorry for your loss. here are some things to look for.

- mini cycle: 4 week will be a perfect time for ammonia/nitrite spike from live rock die off. Check for ammonia/nitrite. either ways, prime can help.
- have you added any fish which might be contributing to it.
- PH can definitely do this. can you post a picture of your tank. wanted to see the angle of your flow.
- check for red bugs or aefw...what kind of corals are dying. can you list their names. aefw attacks millis/acros. red bugs eats anything with smooth skin...something like birdsnest is not affected by either..you can rule bugs based on this.

Sam

I will take a water sample into work and test it on the Dr5000 to see if there has been a spike. Though no rock was ever exposed to air (other than being lifted from the tank into the transport bin), and there wasnt any significant temperature spike or drop as far as i know (everything was in insulated, extremely thick Styrofoam boxes.

1 fish was added from my QT system but I would not attribute his addition to anything.

I will post a picture later this evening when I get home from work. There is, in addition to my return pump, 1 mp40 and 2 wp25 controlling flow. I have as much surface agitation as possible in the DT, where I think my high pH is coming from is the lack of air circulation in the stand under the DT. Therefore, as I previously mentioned I added a powerhead last night to hopefully aid this issue.

There should not be any pests for a few reason. 1 is that a wrasse is present in the system. 2 I did an interceptor Rx for red bugs about 3 months ago and completely eradicated what made it into my tank. 3 I have since switched my dip method to Bayer as the red bugs that were present in my system made it past coral Rx and revive; I have only added 3 new acro frags in the past month, all of which were bayer dipped a total of 3x and the no PE was present before their addition. AEFW there is no sign of bite marks on any coral and I have never had an issue with them in the past

 

[Reef Fever]

bump, any more suggestions? I was thinking maybe my TDS on my RO was bad since I broke my meter and hadn't tested in awhile, but I got an inline TDS today and am pushing 0 TDS on the clean end

 

[TheSaint216]

Only things I can think of are check your water and your RODI. You moved so Im assuming your water source is different. Cities use different things to clean up their water. Chlorine? Did you mount your lights the same distance you had them at before you moved?

What are you checking your Phosphates on a Hanna?

 

[Reef Fever]

Only things I can think of are check your water and your RODI. You moved so Im assuming your water source is different. Cities use different things to clean up their water. Chlorine? Did you mount your lights the same distance you had them at before you moved?

What are you checking your Phosphates on a Hanna?

I'm in te same city so there "shouldn't" be anything different in my water source. I will bring a sample into work and test for chlorine on the HACH DR5000, that should give me the most accurate reading I could possibly get. Lights are on a fixed mount so they are exactly the same height off the water.

Phosphates have unfortunately been tested on a crappy API kit. Though there is no nuisance algae growth in the display, I know that doesn't necessarily mean there are no phosphates as they are potentially being absorbed by my macro fast enough

 

[xtlosx]

I would limit the use of GAC for now, particularly if you are using something like Rox or in a reactor. I have never had a positive response from my acro's to GAC, particularly if used in high quantities.

The only thing that worked for me in the past with STN or RTN, if unable to be stopped, was swift and aggressive fragging above the necrotic parts. Frags are then placed around the tank.
I have never lost a colony this way and been able to save some beautifully coloured species!

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

I've always run Rox GAC in a reactor in my SPS system and never had any problems. Some of the issues that occur is if the water becomes too "clear" the intensity of your lights will affect the acros more, so something to consider. I don't think there's any correlation between GAC & negative effects on acros.. Not that I have seen at least.

 

[Reef Fever]

I've always run Rox GAC in a reactor in my SPS system and never had any problems. Some of the issues that occur is if the water becomes too "clear" the intensity of your lights will affect the acros more, so something to consider. I don't think there's any correlation between GAC & negative effects on acros.. Not that I have seen at least.

as have I, and that's exactly why I dimmed my lights a bit. I wanted to compensate for any potential water clarity improvement to reduce the chances of them getting burnt

 

[Chameleon]

Just out of curiosity, you mentioned the hach DR5000 several times. Unsure of what it was I looked it up. How are you measuring chlorine and such with it? To my understanding it is a UV/VIS spectrophotometer with a nifty sampling mechanism.

 

[no1268]

WOW! cal be 420-450

 

[ShawnSaucier]

Only things I can think of are check your water and your RODI. You moved so Im assuming your water source is different. Cities use different things to clean up their water. Chlorine? Did you mount your lights the same distance you had them at before you moved?

What are you checking your Phosphates on a Hanna?

+1 on this. Just because it is the same city doesn't really mean the water is from the same exact "plant"
Also maybe older plumbing in the house or neighborhood. So many factor that could change . I was fighting something similar when I moved a few years back on my 75g. When I move next, I am taking water from this house for the first refill and slowly start with water from the new place. Not saying this is what you are going through, but I think it could be something that can get overlooked.

 

[ShawnSaucier]

Btw, I wish you luck in a full recovery, and hope you enjoy your new place

 

[Eienna]

....you're using tap water? Really?

 

[Reef Fever]

Just out of curiosity, you mentioned the hach DR5000 several times. Unsure of what it was I looked it up. How are you measuring chlorine and such with it? To my understanding it is a UV/VIS spectrophotometer with a nifty sampling mechanism.

There is function on there for total DPD (to measure chlorine levels)

+1 on this. Just because it is the same city doesn't really mean the water is from the same exact "plant"
Also maybe older plumbing in the house or neighborhood. So many factor that could change . I was fighting something similar when I moved a few years back on my 75g. When I move next, I am taking water from this house for the first refill and slowly start with water from the new place. Not saying this is what you are going through, but I think it could be something that can get overlooked.

I moved into a newer area so plumbing shouldn't be old and the house was built in 2011, but that doesn't negate the fact that something could be different. Though all our water is ran through the same system I would be doubtful theres anything different to be honest. The las vegas valley water district is pretty stringent on standards, you never know though. Home depot has a free water testing program so i may send off some samples to see if theres anything I'm missing

....you're using tap water? Really?

where did you gather I'm using tap water?....Im using RO/DI, not once did i say i was using tap