Acros are dying

[dragon99]

Tell me if you heard this one before... but I'm running out of ideas and asking for help.

Most (though not all) of my acro's look brown and near death. This started probably a month ago, but has quickly gotten worse in the last week. Initially it was just a couple acros that didn't look quite right. It's now progressed to the majority of my acros looking brown and/or losing flesh at the base.

Tank background:
Setup in Nov 2019 dry rock, seeded with ceramic media from an established tank. SPS have been in the tank since March 2020 and doing mostly well.

Actions taken:
2 water changes last week, ~12% (24g), smaller WC yesterday ~10g.
Added 1/2 cup carbon (bad in media basket)
Added Panta Rhei lith before 2nd WC
Reduced kalk dosing to keep alk from climbing
Dosed Prodibio (biweekly schedule)

Tank Parameters:
Salinity - 35ppt (Milwaukee Digital and refractometer)
Temp - 77-79 (78.3 avg)
Alk - Hanna 8.7-9.9 (9.3 avg month), KH Director 8.1-8.4 (8.3 avg week)
Ca - 450
Mg - 1410
NO3 - 8
PO4 - .01
Aside from PO4 which was higher until recently, these parameters have been fairly steady all year. Alk has fluctuated some, but no major shifts over short periods.

Last ICP was beginning of Oct and came back pretty good.

Example of acro dying, This one is looking the worst so far.
Mid Sep

Mid Oct

Today

 

[Raptor777]

how’s your flow and lighting

 

[Abhishek]

Have you sent for ICP testing ? Any chance you could test for copper ? Or check for rusted metal parts in tank ?
Panta Lith should help .
Small WC won’t help dilute - I would start looking at 50% WC

 

[dragon99]

how’s your flow and lighting

ATI Powermodule Hybrid, PAR ~380 at the top of rocks, ~200 on the bottom
Flow - (2) MP40, (2) WAV, (2) Gyre XF350

I haven't made any changes other than cleaning to flow or lighting since late-summer when I increased LED intensity on the ATI by 10% at peak.

Have you sent for ICP testing ? Any chance you could test for copper ? Or check for rusted metal parts in tank ?
Panta Lith should help .
Small WC won’t help dilute - I would start looking at 50% WC

Sending a new sample tomorrow.
I've checked a few things like heaters, powerheads, and return pump. Haven't checked my skimmer or CArx though yet.
12-15% WC is the max I can do, limited to a 32g brute (tank is 200g).

 

[ReefBeta]

Maybe you have similar problem as mine. The observation of mine is, I have to do bi-weekly 20% water change, otherwise the acros start to decline, also acan shows stress for more than one week between water change. There was an occasion couple months ago that I didn't do WC for 3 weeks and closed windows for 2 weeks, leading lost of half of my acros.

In my ICP test, it showed that aluminum is at alerting high, 228 for the acro tank at time. The theory was the bio media (marine pure and brightwell bricks) was leaking aluminum out. So I removed all of those media out of my tanks. A month later now, the acro and acan are doing a lot better. Acan stopped to decline, couple frags that lost color or heads are starting to recover. Acros also stabilized, and overgrowing the previous dead and algae covered skeletons.

Your early Oct ICP test has aluminum at 162, which is pretty high already, and it probably continue to rise in the past month. You also mentioned you have ceramic media, which may also leaking aluminum.

So I will say, try remove the ceramic media.

 

[ReefBeta]

This is one of the colony that's STN, presumably because of elevated aluminum, and is recovering after removal of the bio media.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Mag and nitrates are high
What is your water change schedule and type of water you use?
What test kits other than alk are you using?

moderate light and water flow
Mag -1300
Nitrate - .03

 

[dragon99]

Maybe you have similar problem as mine. The observation of mine is, I have to do bi-weekly 20% water change, otherwise the acros start to decline, also acan shows stress for more than one week between water change. There was an occasion couple months ago that I didn't do WC for 3 weeks and closed windows for 2 weeks, leading lost of half of my acros.

In my ICP test, it showed that aluminum is at alerting high, 228 for the acro tank at time. The theory was the bio media (marine pure and brightwell bricks) was leaking aluminum out. So I removed all of those media out of my tanks. A month later now, the acro and acan are doing a lot better. Acan stopped to decline, couple frags that lost color or heads are starting to recover. Acros also stabilized, and overgrowing the previous dead and algae covered skeletons.

Your early Oct ICP test has aluminum at 162, which is pretty high already, and it probably continue to rise in the past month. You also mentioned you have ceramic media, which may also leaking aluminum.

So I will say, try remove the ceramic media.

I do weekly 10% WC changes currently. That might slide by a day two, but I haven't been skipping. I've never had an issue with Al in the past few years that I've been running marine pure/brightwell bricks, but it's certainly possible. My June ICP showed Al even higher though (186). I've got a brightwell brick and some siporax in the sump currently. The marine pure block that I used to seed the tank initially has been gone for awhile.

 

[dragon99]

Mag and nitrates are high
What is your water change schedule and type of water you use?
What test kits other than alk are you using?

moderate light and water flow
Mag -1300
Nitrate - .03

Mag seems to have increased some recently due to using Reef Crystals. Instant Ocean was out of stock for awhile which is my normal salt. Nitrate has always been high for me. It was as high as 20ppm earlier this year and has slowly been coming down. I'm perfectly happy with it at 8 though.

WC is weekly ~10% (22ish gal). RO-DI checked at 0 TDS

Testing with Hanna ULR PO4, Red Sea NO3, Aquaforest Ca and Mg.

 

[ReefBeta]

I do weekly 10% WC changes currently. That might slide by a day two, but I haven't been skipping. I've never had an issue with Al in the past few years that I've been running marine pure/brightwell bricks, but it's certainly possible. My June ICP showed Al even higher though (186). I've got a brightwell brick and some siporax in the sump currently. The marine pure block that I used to seed the tank initially has been gone for awhile.

I moved a year ago and rebuilt the tank. Before move the tank was running nicely for 5 years and marinepure block in the refug. The first year of the tank after rebuilt the tank is also doing pretty good, to allow the acro to grow to that colony from an inch frag. So I never even consider them to be any problem at all. But that tank was not started with marinepure block, it was added couple years later. The rebuilt is the first time I start a new tank with them, and bare bottom. Maybe somehow this contribute to the speed of the leak that makes a difference, or concentration? I don't know. There are many many tanks doing very well with those media, so it's definitively not 100% problematic. But in what circumstance they become problem is hard to narrow down. But I won't risk having them there after ICP test already showing elevated aluminum level and the tank is not doing well.

 

[jda]

Recalbriate all of your stuff - refractometer with fresh calibration fluid and temp probe using something with mercury in it.

Check for stray voltage with all of your equipment... leave nothing unchecked.

 

[dragon99]

Recalbriate all of your stuff - refractometer with fresh calibration fluid and temp probe using something with mercury in it.

Check for stray voltage with all of your equipment... leave nothing unchecked.

Salinity comes back 34ppt after calibration
No stray voltage, which is as expected since I'm using a titanium heater which acts as ground. Always a good idea to verify though.

 

[dragon99]

Removed the brightwell brick. Didn't look noticeably damaged, but it was softer than 10-ply TP. Just picking it up as lightly as possible, I could feel the brick disintegrating under my fingers.

Also added a poly filter pad.

 

[Bacon505]

Your 3rd photo look like it has worm or black bug

 

[dragon99]

Hopefully I found the source: rusty screw on the needle valve from CArx. Wish I had found it sooner. Lost my red dragon colony this weekend.

 

[Crashnt24]

With the removal of the disintegrating brick and the rusty screw, hopefully you see some positive changes. With stable parameters and good light/flow, it's almost always a foreign contaminant from my experience. Keep us posted on progress

 

[dragon99]

Triton results came back. Nothing obviously wrong here that I see. Al is down so that's good.

Triton Lab Showroom - Explore this water test results and click on the image above.

Someone wants to show you the water test results and shared this link to the evaluation. Click on the image above to explore the water test results.

www.triton-lab.de

Can't say that I'm seeing improvement yet, but nothing else has melted away least.

 

[dragon99]

Still seeing STN. Not sure if this is just continued fallout or if there's still an underlying problem I'm missing.

Mille that started to recede fairly rapidly in the past 3 days.

PC rainbow

Closer shots of the yellow tip posted above.

 

[dragon99]

So I'm not out of the woods yet. Still having things STN. What's strange is that my ALK consumption has gone back up to pre-rusty screw level and most acros are looking better. I see some growth tips on a few and color returning on others.

This ice fire enchinata decided to die last weekend. I left town Friday afternoon and it looked fine. Came back Sunday to find this and today I noticed the left frag was starting to STN.

 

[maksim serebro]

Following. Had a similar
Thing happen to me. Never figured out what happened