8 Year Old Reef tank Failing! What Do I do?

[odyssey350kc]

Hi Everyone,
This is my first post on this forum but I have been keeping reef tanks for the past 8 years. I have come here for help


To recap the past 4 years or so.

- Febuary of 2015 I fill my 40 breeder with the contents of my very successful 20 long I had in operation since august of 2012
The tank does ok but the coral never really grows like it did with the 20 Long.
By July of 2017 I have finally conceded that there is something wrong with my tank, many of the corals have died off and I am not getting any new growth.

I believe by the end of 2017 more than 75% of my corals and my clam I kept for over 4 years have died off. It is at this point I decided not to try finding the problem anymore and just enjoy the few corals I have that survive. My friend is dismantling his tank he hasn't done a water change in over 6 months and his coral is still doing great behind a wall of algae glass. It doesn't make sense.

At some point, probably winter of 2018 I call in a local reef tank maintenance guy to try and figure out my tank. He tests my water and finds that there is nothing way out of wack but to be positive I should send my water to germany and have a full labratory grade test done, which we do. Results come back and there is still nothing off with my water. His only idea is that I need to dose trace elements, which I do, but there is no change.

Defeated, I resign myself to the fact that I will never again enjoy a vibrant reef tank full of color and variety.

Fast forward to now - I have stared at this half hearted tank for too many years - It is time to make my reef tank great again!

The following are a list of possible problems and solutions I have tried over the course of more than 3 years:

Lighting - I have changed my lighting schedule, I have increased par and decreased par, I have changed between T5's and LEDs, I've run both.
Water changes - I have changed the water weekly, and biweekly for 3 or more months straight. I have tried not changing water for months at a time.
Temperature - I have fluctuated the temperature to almost every different opinion of the best temp online.
Calcium and alk levels - Tried everything under the sun at some point.
Changing salt mixes- tried 4 different brands.
Electrical leakage theory - thought i might be getting stray voltage in my tank, went down a rabbit hole of confusion on this one, never got a clear answer.
Water flow- Tried everything from 1 powerhead on low to upgrading return pumps and having 3 powerheads.
Feeding - Have tried feeding hardly anything , Ive tried feeding heavily every day for weeks at a time. I've added live phytoplankton and copepods
Gfo, carbon, chemipure, poly-filter, I've used them all.
Refugium - ran tank with one , ran tank without one.

The last few Ideas I have yet to try:

Water changes with nutri seawater - eliminates any possibility of the water i am using for water changes being the issue, but its a pricey experiment, how long do i try it for?

Siphoning out all of my sand - I remember hearing that old sand can be a problem. I really like my sand and am not a fan of bare bottom tanks, but this is the last thing i can think to do.

Do I need to Start over - I have a few friends who think I just need to start fresh, Get a new tank, fill it with fresh live rock, and all my problems will be solved.
I would really hate to start a whole new tank just to realize after investing $500-$1000 that I have the same issues as I do now.

Please let me know what you think. All I can think about is how to fix this tank, and I don't know the next step I should take.

Reef Tank Before Problems



Reef Tank After Problems

 

[USMA36]

What kind of corals? How are they dying? What lights? Do you have a par meter? I have faced many of the same struggles as you over the last 3 years. I’ve tried every additive under the sun to no avail I’ve changed lighting and equipment the same as you. I even removed leather corals thinking it was some kind of coral warfare. I can none of those things really helped but Recently my tank is doing much much better. I have no idea why....it just is. I change about 20% of my water every two weeks, I dose 2 part feed frozen once a day and pellets once a day. I use benepets coral food mixed with my frozen 2 or 3 times a week and lastly acropower once a week. I know this isn’t much help just letting you know you’re not the only one. Lots of us have been through this. I’d try some new easy to keep corals and see what happens from there.

 

[Pistondog]

Maybe you have a bad critter pest flatworm or other. Perhaps get a wrasse that won't bother your corals?
Or dose some carbon to build up bacteria Biota.
Leds do wear out, high quality 50k hours to 1/2 brightness. Lower quality ymmv.
Post your current parameters, someone might see something
Install a gfci, if there's significant current itll trip
Welcome, we will try to help

 

[Sm51498]

I would stick with a single theory of how to run your tank for 3 months to start with. You don't define what good parameters are but I assume it means approximately natural sea water levels with low to undetectable nutrients. Consider that even when you were feeding heavily, maybe your tank wasn't maintaining enough nitrate and phosphate to support your corals. I would change nothing else but start dosing nitrate and phosphate directly with the goal of maintaining a detectable level of each in the tank.

Make sure no air fresheners, scented candles or essential oil diffusers are being used near your tank. Those are known tank killers but other than that, I think you've eliminated most possible sources of contaminates so I think it's nutrients.

 

[Saltyreef]

In regards to the stray voltage, you should just add a ground probe to the sump and tank to rule that out. No rabbit hole needed

 

[Saltyreef]

OceanMagik

OceanMagik is a nutritious mixture of four Live Phytoplankton strains (Nano, Iso, Tet, and Thal) that is great for feeding copepods, corals, clams, and other filter-feeding inverts. OceanMagik is a hand-selected blend of the most nutritious Live Phytoplankton strains available.

www.algaebarn.com

 

[xxkenny90xx]

In regards to the stray voltage, you should just add a ground probe to the sump and tank to rule that out. No rabbit hole needed

Ground probe with gfci =great idea
Ground probe without gfci=not great idea

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Do you have a volt meter to test voltage?

The worst thing one can do to fix a reef tank is try too many fixes too fast, that'll just stress everything out (I do see you've been trying over a few yrs)

 

[Flippers4pups]

@odyssey350kc, we are here to help.

As you may have already known, we are going to ask questions.

Let’s start with water.

Now a ICP test will not show all contaminates that can be in your water. So with that said, what is your source water?
RO/DI ? RO only? Distilled? .....etc.

 

[odyssey350kc]

What kind of corals? How are they dying? What lights? Do you have a par meter? I have faced many of the same struggles as you over the last 3 years. I’ve tried every additive under the sun to no avail I’ve changed lighting and equipment the same as you. I even removed leather corals thinking it was some kind of coral warfare. I can none of those things really helped but Recently my tank is doing much much better. I have no idea why....it just is. I change about 20% of my water every two weeks, I dose 2 part feed frozen once a day and pellets once a day. I use benepets coral food mixed with my frozen 2 or 3 times a week and lastly acropower once a week. I know this isn’t much help just letting you know you’re not the only one. Lots of us have been through this. I’d try some new easy to keep corals and see what happens from there.

Most of the info is actually in the video, but Some of the corals that died are, Trumpet corals, zooanthids, ricordea, birdsnest, acros, montipora, dendros. Only survivors are frogspawn, rock flower anenome, toadstool, and a couple others. Most of the lps just seemed to retract and slowly over the course of a year or so they died off. The SPS bleached from the bottom up fairly quickly at the begining. zooanthids would stay closed all the time. Lights are the maxspect Razor 27" and a 2 bulb T5HO. I do not have a par meter.

 

[odyssey350kc]

Maybe you have a bad critter pest flatworm or other. Perhaps get a wrasse that won't bother your corals?
Or dose some carbon to build up bacteria Biota.
Leds do wear out, high quality 50k hours to 1/2 brightness. Lower quality ymmv.
Post your current parameters, someone might see something
Install a gfci, if there's significant current itll trip
Welcome, we will try to help

I had a melanarus wrasse for about 3 years during this whole thing, he just passed away a little over a year ago.
I have not tried carbon dosing- I will give it a try for sure - thanks
The LED is a maxspect razor, which was considered one of the best when I got it. Also why I added the T5- thinking that the leds might be wearing.
I do have gfci on everything plugged into the tank, and installed a grounding probe.

Thank you for your help

 

[odyssey350kc]

I would stick with a single theory of how to run your tank for 3 months to start with. You don't define what good parameters are but I assume it means approximately natural sea water levels with low to undetectable nutrients. Consider that even when you were feeding heavily, maybe your tank wasn't maintaining enough nitrate and phosphate to support your corals. I would change nothing else but start dosing nitrate and phosphate directly with the goal of maintaining a detectable level of each in the tank.

Make sure no air fresheners, scented candles or essential oil diffusers are being used near your tank. Those are known tank killers but other than that, I think you've eliminated most possible sources of contaminates so I think it's nutrients.

Yes, when trouble shooting in the past I have always tested one theory at a time usually running on that theory for at least 1 month, usually more. As for the test I had done last week I wasn't told the specifics on the exact parameters, but he said the only thing he said is my phosphates and nitrates were a little high, but not high enough to cause a problem. I know its stupid to say without posting the numbers which I will probably end up testing and posting myself over the next few weeks. I had worried about air pollutants as well, and completely banned all use of air freshners and candles in the main living room where the tank is, lol - never used essentiol oils.

 

[odyssey350kc]

In regards to the stray voltage, you should just add a ground probe to the sump and tank to rule that out. No rabbit hole needed

Yes I did install a grounding probe. The rabbit hole came about when I was testing with my meter. I made a video for everyone on another forum (nanoreef) and spent weeks trying to figure out why the meter would show voltage in the tank. $500 meter too not a cheapy.

 

[odyssey350kc]

@odyssey350kc, we are here to help.

As you may have already known, we are going to ask questions.

Let’s start with water.

Now a ICP test will not show all contaminates that can be in your water. So with that said, what is your source water?
RO/DI ? RO only? Distilled? .....etc.

I have well water, and a bulk reef supply rodi filter, I test the tds with a hand probe - not the one on the filter - comes out to 0 - I replace the filters and resin every year regardless of what the tds reads.

I think what I am going to do is create a Forum for my tank and just post everything that I do and my parameters every week so that I can narrow this down over the next few months.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[odyssey350kc]

Do you have a volt meter to test voltage?

The worst thing one can do to fix a reef tank is try too many fixes too fast, that'll just stress everything out (I do see you've been trying over a few yrs)

Yes I have a very expensive fluke volt meter from work. And whenever I tried a theory in the past I did so 1 at a time for at least a month.

Here is one of the electric videos if you care to watch.

 

[odyssey350kc]

OceanMagik

OceanMagik is a nutritious mixture of four Live Phytoplankton strains (Nano, Iso, Tet, and Thal) that is great for feeding copepods, corals, clams, and other filter-feeding inverts. OceanMagik is a hand-selected blend of the most nutritious Live Phytoplankton strains available.

www.algaebarn.com

This is actually the exact stuff I used in the past, really like algaebarn.

 

[USMA36]

I think your next steps should be to do your own ICP test and post results. If your last icp was within the last 3 months of ask the guy that sent it in for the full printout. Next I would say rent a par meter from BRS or buy a seneye for 200.00. LPS typically like lower light and dirtier water. If you don't already have them pick up good quality testers. Hanna Alk and Phosphate and a salifert or red sea nitrate kit. I use the red sea pro nitrate kit and it works very well. It has both high and low range test instructions. I went through the same exact problems. Almost every euphyillia I put in my tank lost its heads within a few months and my SPS stn'd As I said earlier I'm not sure what the issue was but I'm leaning towards my water being to clean. I used to run high capacity GFO 24/7. I switched to carbon dosing which is much easier to dial in and control nutrients up and down. Lastly make sure your flow isn't too little or too much.

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

IMO there maybe something not showing up on icp. Get an ati test if you haven’t used ati already. They will test your ro/di. Since you are on well water I have heard of some members here letting there ro water run in a container with a power head for a day day or two to Degas it of co2. Then they run it through the di resin. However this probably doesn’t apply to you as your other tank was great. This will raise the ph of the water before it hits the di. How is the ph in your tank? I would also try to run some cuprasorb in the system to absorb any toxic metals that could possibly be in the tank. Other than that I might consider feeding the fish more as long as no3 and po4 stay at exceptable levels.

 

[anthonygf]

Yes I have a very expensive fluke volt meter from work. And whenever I tried a theory in the past I did so 1 at a time for at least a month.

Here is one of the electric videos if you care to watch.

WOW! Very odd. We need an electrical engineer.

 

[Saltyreef]

WOW! Very odd. We need an electrical engineer.

@Brew12