help with dying corals

[blazin'reefer]

Hey fellow reefers, I have had my tank setup for just about 2 years as fowlr, i have had many issues im dealing with already such as cyano or dynos, aiptasia, slow coraline growth, loosing 90% of fish from ich, dyno toxins, or overall bad water quality. I have since done several large water changes at around 20-30% over the last month and added new fish which all seem to be doing well except when i added the yellow tang i did see some white spots on him and have since been feeding garlic soaked nori and havent seen anymore signs on any of the fish since. i will also be adding a cheap uv sterilizer (only one i could afford) to hopefully help to combat the ich and dynos somewhat also. The main reason for my post though is i have tried adding about 10 cheap pieces of mostly lps coral about 1-2 weeks ago and already over half do not look healthy and or bleaching and not extending their polyps. I have only one led fixture over the 55 gallon tank right now as the other one is having issues. i just have it set on the preset "4 season mode" i previously had it on "coral acclimation" for a few days and then switched it to the mode im using now, however things seem to be looking worse everyday. I only have two 510 gallon powerheads running all times although i do have some timers i could use if varried flow is needed for lps dominant mixed tanks. My most recent parameters as of 5 days ago are 1.024 salinity, temp runs around 76-78 night to day, CA-400, ALK-10DKH, PHOS- 0-0.1ppm, Nitrate- 20-60ppm (hard to read as if i hold it right ontop of something white it looks like 60 yet if i hold it a inch infront of something white it looks more like 20) i have done a 20% water change since then and am about to do another 10-20% today or tomorrow. I have also removed gfo and just am running carbon alone as i thought i was too off balance between nitrate and phosphate. If anyone could help me solve the issue with my new corals so they all or atleast some do not die i would be very appreciative. i will post some pictures of the corals and more recent parameters later on aswell.

 

[blazin'reefer]

Here are some pictures of my tank and the sick looking corals. Any help is appreciated.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Looks more like water chemistry issue
If you haven’t had an ICP test- now is a good time to see what is occurring with each and every element in your tank
I’d also take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test the water for you and see what results they come up with

suggested:
Salinity. 1.025
Temp 77-79
Ph 8.2
Pho’s. < .05
Ammonia. < .03
Nitrate. <. .04
Alk. 8-9
CA. 450
Mag. 1300

 

[brmreefer]

Just going off the parameters provided I would start with the following listed and go from there once handled:

- I would aim for 1.025. This allows some room above and below when conpensating for evap and adding fresh water. Try and keep it stable.

- The temp swing is too much in my opinion. That would need to be addressed. Smaller swings are better if this can be achieved and adds to stability.

- Work on bringing NO3 down. Shoot for 5 ppm or slightly less. Just don't bottom out.

Keep working on it. It takes time, but go slow. As vetteguy53081 mentioned. It is not a bad idea to get parameters vailidated.

 

[blazin'reefer]

Looks more like water chemistry issue
If you haven’t had an ICP test- now is a good time to see what is occurring with each and every element in your tank
I’d also take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test the water for you and see what results they come up with

suggested:
Salinity. 1.025
Temp 77-79
Ph 8.2
Pho’s. < .05
Ammonia. < .03
Nitrate. <. .04
Alk. 8-9
CA. 450
Mag. 1300

Thanks vetteguy, I will be checking the parameters again after i do another 15-30% water change tomorrow morning and i will post the most recent ones, along with the aquaforrest levels they claim it mixes too. I also have another 5 in one test i will double check a couple of the elements with. As for triton testing i just looked into where i could get one in Canada and i already just made a order with the site that sells them a couple weeks ago so i probably wont order one until i need other supplies so i dont pay for shipping multiple times, i assume i wont send one away for atleast a month or couple months. I only have one saltwater lfs in my city and they dont practice the best procedure when it come to their livestock as i have seen aiptasia, ich, and blackspot in their tanks before. I may try to ask them to double check my water, not sure if they will want to perform multiple tests for me though as the one time i asked them they asked which element i wanted them to test only and didnt sound very happy about me asking. For now i will continue with large water changes every week and up the level of activated carbon in the fuge incase of contamination and i may get some polyfilter until i can do an icp test so it can tell me if i have a metal issue. i will also check all my gear to see if anything appears to have any rust or damage too, speaking of which i do have a grabber thing that i use every morning and night to feed my tang that i can see forsure has rust on the inside of it, it only is in the tank for like half a minute at a time 2 times a day. In your opinion could this rust dissolve in my tank in how short of a period i have it in the tank and could this be causing my issues? If so i will find another feeding option but its the most convenient as i have to take the hood off to get inside the tank and it always makes me nervous lifting it off myself.

 

[iamacat]

Agreed with above about water. I am weary of the lighting situation as well.

 

[iamacat]

Oh and another thing. When you were running as fowlr and had those issues I assuming you dosed treatments. I am also assuming the rock in your tank may be the same rock. I once had a copper issue from a metal fitting but had to deal with it for a year because it leached into my LR.
Did you ever treat with cupramine?

 

[blazin'reefer]

Just going off the parameters provided I would start with the following listed and go from there once handled:

- I would aim for 1.025. This allows some room above and below when conpensating for evap and adding fresh water. Try and keep it stable.

- The temp swing is too much in my opinion. That would need to be addressed. Smaller swings are better if this can be achieved and adds to stability.

- Work on bringing NO3 down. Shoot for 5 ppm or slightly less. Just don't bottom out.

Keep working on it. It takes time, but go slow. As vetteguy53081 mentioned. It is not a bad idea to get parameters vailidated.

Thanks brmreefer, I will try to raise the salinity and keep it stable at 1.025. As far as temperature im not to sure if i can make it anymore stable until i get a cheap heater controller eventually. I will keep an eye on the temp and see if it is a continual 2 degree nightly dip of if it was just colder in my house when i checked or something. The heater i am using is a 1 month old eheim jagger that is very slightly oversized because i ordered the wrong one, i will try to see if i can get a handle on the temperature though. I will be doing another 15-30% water change in the morning to bring nitrates down some more and posting more recent tests, i also have been dosing microbacter7 to hopefully bring the nitrate down under 5ppm aswell. I will try to find a way to double check my tests until i can send a triton test in. yeah I have started to realize how sensitive corals really are and how slow and stable you need to keep things. Thanks again.

 

[blazin'reefer]

Oh and another thing. When you were running as fowlr and had those issues I assuming you dosed treatments. I am also assuming the rock in your tank may be the same rock. I once had a copper issue from a metal fitting but had to deal with it for a year because it leached into my LR.
Did you ever treat with cupramine?

Thanks iamacat It is a cheaper chinese led light although it does say it is meant for corals and has a controller, it was like $350 canadian for 2 pannels and the controller although one fan broke due to salty humid air in the hood so it was heating up way to much and cooking the pannel so i took the one offline so i dont do more damage. I will post a link to the light so you can take a look if you have time. I never dosed with any meds other than chemiclean and garlic cause i didnt want to ruin my rock or kill my snails and crabs. I may have to fish all them out and make a hospital tank if i see more signs of ich it just makes me really nervous as i have never treated before and really dont want to kill my fish again, especially with a $100 yellow tang. Hopefully the uv and garlic everyday will help to keep me from having to play doctor lol.

 

[iamacat]

Thanks iamacat It is a cheaper chinese led light although it does say it is meant for corals and has a controller, it was like $350 canadian for 2 pannels and the controller although one fan broke due to salty humid air in the hood so it was heating up way to much and cooking the pannel so i took the one offline so i dont do more damage. I will post a link to the light so you can take a look if you have time. I never dosed with any meds other than chemiclean and garlic cause i didnt want to ruin my rock or kill my snails and crabs. I may have to fish all them out and make a hospital tank if i see more signs of ich it just makes me really nervous as i have never treated before and really dont want to kill my fish again, especially with a $100 yellow tang. Hopefully the uv and garlic everyday will help to keep me from having to play doctor lol.

I’m curious of an ICP test.
the lighting needs to be improved greatly I can already tell with your description so far. Maybe 2 of those lights will do it for some corals. Best is to rent or buy a par meter.

 

[blazin'reefer]

I’m curious of an ICP test.
the lighting needs to be improved greatly I can already tell with your description so far. Maybe 2 of those lights will do it for some corals. Best is to rent or buy a par meter.

yeah i am hoping to get an icp test in the not to distant future, might not be for a couple months though. Eventually i will look into a better light or i might add the 2 par38 leds i have on the sides or maybe a t5 and have a hybrid if im not able to fix the other panel, if needed. Probably wont purchase a par meter because they are really expensive for something that would be used only a couple times. I will try to see if there are any reasonable places in canada to rent one from but if not i may just purchase a lux meter instead as they are cheap and i have read that they can also be used (less accurately) if you cant measure par. Here is the link to the light too if you decide to look at it, its not like a typical blackbox led. i Have seen people with healthy reefs using this light, though they did have the 2 pannels though on a 90 gallon. Thanks again. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/DSunY-Led-A...hDarwoV3BBEV2b&_trksid=p2332490.c100935.m2460

 

[blazin'reefer]

dang IT! i did a water change this morning and right before when the light turned on i could see the yellow tang flashing on the rocks, i decided to inspect further and noticed the tang also shaking his head a bit and when he turned around i can see the one eye is slightly cloudy and has a white spot or couple on it, along with a couple white specs on his body again but not nearly as many, yesterday he looked perfectly fine and now this.. so now im thinking he either has ich and a secondary bacterial infection or injury, ich just on his eye thats making it look that way or possibly even flukes due to the head shaking/ twitching..? or is that common with ich aswell? Does anyone have any suggestions that wont cost a crazy amount if i did try and treat him that wont kill him in the process? and how would i treat for flukes or a bacteria infection along with ich? treat the bacteria or flukes or whatever it is first by himself in a ht and then treat them all for ich with hypo or copper after that? or treat them all for all of it? and how do i know if its just ich or something more like ich and flukes? or ich and secondary infection? i will post the water parameters in the next hour or 2. Again all help will be considered and is highly appreciated. Also those large spots in the pictures

are not on the fish, they are small snails on the glass. Thanks r2r members.

 

[iamacat]

Of you can catch him you can get him in a fresh water dip to see if it is flukes and rule that out

 

[ReefBeta]

dang IT! i did a water change this morning and right before when the light turned on i could see the yellow tang flashing on the rocks, i decided to inspect further and noticed the tang also shaking his head a bit and when he turned around i can see the one eye is slightly cloudy and has a white spot or couple on it, along with a couple white specs on his body again but not nearly as many, yesterday he looked perfectly fine and now this.. so now im thinking he either has ich and a secondary bacterial infection or injury, ich just on his eye thats making it look that way or possibly even flukes due to the head shaking/ twitching..? or is that common with ich aswell? Does anyone have any suggestions that wont cost a crazy amount if i did try and treat him that wont kill him in the process? and how would i treat for flukes or a bacteria infection along with ich? treat the bacteria or flukes or whatever it is first by himself in a ht and then treat them all for ich with hypo or copper after that? or treat them all for all of it? and how do i know if its just ich or something more like ich and flukes? or ich and secondary infection? i will post the water parameters in the next hour or 2. Again all help will be considered and is highly appreciated. Also those large spots in the pictures

are not on the fish, they are small snails on the glass. Thanks r2r members.

It would need to be transfer to a quarantine tank to effectively kill ich. Medication that can actually kill ich (copper) will also kill all kinds of invertebrate, including corals. Hydrogen Peroxide dip could help to some extend, maybe.

 

[ReefBeta]

Hey fellow reefers, I have had my tank setup for just about 2 years as fowlr, i have had many issues im dealing with already such as cyano or dynos, aiptasia, slow coraline growth, loosing 90% of fish from ich, dyno toxins, or overall bad water quality. I have since done several large water changes at around 20-30% over the last month and added new fish which all seem to be doing well except when i added the yellow tang i did see some white spots on him and have since been feeding garlic soaked nori and havent seen anymore signs on any of the fish since. i will also be adding a cheap uv sterilizer (only one i could afford) to hopefully help to combat the ich and dynos somewhat also. The main reason for my post though is i have tried adding about 10 cheap pieces of mostly lps coral about 1-2 weeks ago and already over half do not look healthy and or bleaching and not extending their polyps. I have only one led fixture over the 55 gallon tank right now as the other one is having issues. i just have it set on the preset "4 season mode" i previously had it on "coral acclimation" for a few days and then switched it to the mode im using now, however things seem to be looking worse everyday. I only have two 510 gallon powerheads running all times although i do have some timers i could use if varried flow is needed for lps dominant mixed tanks. My most recent parameters as of 5 days ago are 1.024 salinity, temp runs around 76-78 night to day, CA-400, ALK-10DKH, PHOS- 0-0.1ppm, Nitrate- 20-60ppm (hard to read as if i hold it right ontop of something white it looks like 60 yet if i hold it a inch infront of something white it looks more like 20) i have done a 20% water change since then and am about to do another 10-20% today or tomorrow. I have also removed gfo and just am running carbon alone as i thought i was too off balance between nitrate and phosphate. If anyone could help me solve the issue with my new corals so they all or atleast some do not die i would be very appreciative. i will post some pictures of the corals and more recent parameters later on aswell.

These parameters sound fine. If they're stable, especially alk, it won't be the cause of problem your coral. If it's indeed the water, it won't be those major parameters. It would be heavy metal or some sort of toxicity. My guess is the light and/or flow.

For flow, those two power head won't be enough to push the flow across 4 ft length of the tank. If you can't afford to add more, maybe put them lower so the flow get closer to the corals.

For light, it looks pretty spotlight like from you picture. It can be both too much light and too little light depends on placement of the coral. But without a PAR meter it's really hard to tell.

 

[blazin'reefer]

Of you can catch him you can get him in a fresh water dip to see if it is flukes and rule that out

thank you, looks like i am going fishing haha just hope me catching him doesnt cause a stress event and make things worse

 

[blazin'reefer]

It would need to be transfer to a quarantine tank to effectively kill ich. Medication that can actually kill ich (copper) will also kill all kinds of invertebrate, including corals. Hydrogen Peroxide dip could help to some extend, maybe.

thanks zsxking. If i do a peroxide dip to help with management and to rule out flukes as iamacat suggested would i do a fresh water peroxide dip then? and just try my best to make sure all parameters are the same except salinity obviously? and would i have to acclimate it or just dump him in the freshwater for 5 minutes? i do want to treat them all eventually just really dont want to make a fish cemetery while trying to make a hospital.

 

[blazin'reefer]

thank you, looks like i am going fishing haha just hope me catching him doesnt cause a stress event and make things worse

also do you suggest a freshwater peroxide dip or just freshwater?

 

[ReefBeta]

thanks zsxking. If i do a peroxide dip to help with management and to rule out flukes as iamacat suggested would i do a fresh water peroxide dip then? and just try my best to make sure all parameters are the same except salinity obviously? and would i have to acclimate it or just dump him in the freshwater for 5 minutes? i do want to treat them all eventually just really dont want to make a fish cemetery while trying to make a hospital.

Freshwater dip is for fluke. See humblefish's article for info and direction.

Peroxide dip is for ich/velvet control/relief, and it's done using saltwater. Again read the post in detail.

 

[blazin'reefer]

These parameters sound fine. If they're stable, especially alk, it won't be the cause of problem your coral. If it's indeed the water, it won't be those major parameters. It would be heavy metal or some sort of toxicity. My guess is the light and/or flow.

For flow, those two power head won't be enough to push the flow across 4 ft length of the tank. If you can't afford to add more, maybe put them lower so the flow get closer to the corals.

For light, it looks pretty spotlight like from you picture. It can be both too much light and too little light depends on placement of the coral. But without a PAR meter it's really hard to tell.

Alright thats what i was leaning towards about it being heavy metal contamination, i will likely try to get some polyfilter and i have also upped the activated carbon. In reguards to flow i also have a hob ac300 turned into a fuge which adds about 200gph flow and a hob skimmer which adds around another 200-300gph and when i get my uv it also has a pump that will be running around 200gph too, if you still think i will need more flow though i can up it, i do have a couple extra powerheads that i could add just was trying to avoid sand blowing around and multiple cords everywhere, if its neccesary then i will add more though. Yeah i really wish the one panel didnt break and i will try to upgrade lighting as soon as i am able to, for now i have only been placing most of the coral where it looks bright and if it looks like its bleaching i then move it to less light, but admittedly i may have been a little to rough with a couple of the corals by accident (knocking a couple over during water changes and mixing the sand. thanks again for your help.