At this point do I just start over?

[Pistondog]

Hello R2R,

If you check my post history since around mid December I've had a series of crap circumstances lead to a wide scale meltdown of my tank. I have lost all of my coral accept my Torches, Hammer, Frogspawn, a button scoly, and zoanthids.

I have a 75 gallon display with a 20long sump, triton style with a refugium first then a skimmer. I have a carbon reactor that I use only in the case of yellow water and very infrequently run it (changing the carbon when I do so). The tank has been wet since August.

The tank was established with KP Aquatics live rock fresh from the keys shipped in water overnight, I ran the tank without anything in it for about 30 days before adding easy coral like trumpets and birdsnest. The tank ran fine for about three months until I had to remove a fish that caused me to rescape the tank a bit. Since then it's literally been all down hill. Prior to the catching and rehoming of the fish, my SPS was encrusting, I had Acropora shooting off new nubs and I was comfortable enough to pick up some more expensive corals.

I have had some mild ups and downs, but nothing that would lead to a large scale crash based on literally everything that I've read online. My levels never got out of control, the worst thing that happened was a heater breaking and throwing stray current which has since been resolved.

A couple things to note:

• My RODI water is zero TDS, I make all of my saltwater with redsea coral pro salt and mix to 1.026 ppm
• I run a lot of flow in the tank, just a notch below kicking up a sandstorm
• I wear latex gloves whenever putting my hands/arms in the tank
• All tools used in / for tank are cleaned with citric acid after use and are only used in the tank
• I ran a triton test that came back with slightly elevated tin which caused me to do a series of large water changes (Dinos appeared here)
• I have added bottled 'bacteria' to the tank
• I have a diverse and large population of micro/macro fauna (Pods / brittle stars / bristleworms / hermits / snails)

LEVELS (and ranges):

ALK / CA / NO4 tested with Hannah (verified w/ salifert)
MAG: Redsea
SG: Refractometer
PH: Apex Probe
PO4: Hannah and Salifert

ALK: 9.5-10.5 (Normally stays between 10 - 10.5 but it has dipped to 9.5 when I don't catch increased consumption)
CA: 400-450
MAG: 1300-1450
PH: 8.1 - 8.3 swing daily w/ lighting schedule
SG: 1.025-1.026 (crept up to 1.031 or so after an ATO incident but was resolved over 48 hours)
NO4: 2-8
PO4: .03-.04


I honestly feel like I take more care than most of the reefers I know to make sure that the tank is cared for properly, from wearing gloves to making sure that the RODI water is 0TDS. One of my good reef buddies doesn't even have a TDS meter and his tank looks worlds better than mine...

Is it possible that my tank is just doomed to not be successful? I realize that it is 'early' and it's only been up and running for under six months but it seems strange that I went from success to failure so quickly... If I only lost the acropora that'd be one thing but a wide scale meltdown like this feels like there's something I'm missing - do you guys see anything I've left out?

Lower your alk.
How and what are you dosing ?

 

[jorwill]

I disagree 100% on the refractometer. Mine is close to ten years old, is linear, and rarely needs calibration. what would you propose is more accurate and stable than a refractometer?

Hanna Salinity. I used a refractometer when i started the hobby, only to find out its reading of 1.026 was actually 1.022 and that was because it was busted.

 

[Creggers]

How often do you do water changes? When you do a water change, what percentage of water do you take out and replace with saltwater? I'm sorry, but I didn't see if you dose or not. Do you dose? If so, what and what brand? I agree with the majority on here that a tank less than 1 year old should not have acropora in it. You also need to ensure that you are not adding too much at once, your immature biological filtration cannot handle this. I wish you all the success in the world. Keep on keepin on and just slow down a bit to enjoy the beauty of the ecosystem you have already created.

I was doing monthly 30% water changes but stopped when I noticed my NO4 was dipping.

Couple things, you use a 20g sump yet you had an ATO incident that increased your SG? That is not possible unless you put saltwater in your ATO, if so then nvm on this one. But this would cause extreme disaster for a lot of corals at 1.031.

Next thing I would stop using a refractometer, they suck and if you don't religiously validate them to zero your salinity may always be bouncing, this can cause alk swings even 1dkh can cause major problems if it is in a short amount of time.

Are you able to lower your alk? anything above a 9 unless you are experienced I have heard is not a good idea to target. What salt are you using?

As another have mentioned what is your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate at? It is not uncommon for a young tank to have a few recycles happen. It did in mine at 4 months old(I don't stir my sandbed anymore).

I haven’t tested for ammonia nor nitrite, I’ll do this tonight to confirm it’s all zeroed out.

Biggest thing I learned was slow the F down. It's cool to see stuff go in the tank, sucks even more when they come out for the wrong reasons.

Yeah I’m not adding anything till the summer ..

Also, don't start over. If you still enjoy the hobby, continue with your tank and try to figure out what went wrong. Starting over just tosses everything you've already done in the garbage.

I’m not giving up on reefing, really just frustrated. By and large reading through comments is encouraging.

How and what are you dosing ?

I’m dosing triton through an auto doser

 

[Hermie]

Do you know why your corals died? That's important to figure out or at least have a working theory. Was it rapid ? Did the event affect all of your corals or only those that died? You said some survived, so were the survivors affected? How do they look...

I had more to say but without getting that figured out I'm at a loss.

 

[atlantean]

Glad to hear you’re working through it. I saw you had some posts about 30 gallon water changes. Did you test the water parameters to match alkalinity before adding it? Maybe your parameters were good overall, but instability occurred during the large water changes that stressed the corals. Just tossing out ideas.

Edit: I just noticed you run your alk a few DKH below what Red Sea Coral Pro mixes to. Question to the community: Would doing a 30% water change with new water mixed to 12dkh and tank water at 10dkh be enough to stress out the SPS?

 

[vsolovyev]

So just somthing from my experience - when my tank was about 7 months old, I also had an ATO issue, my salinity got up to 1.029, when I caught it, I started trying to lower it all the way back down right away, I knew better not to but I did it out of reaction. Some say that say dropping from 1.029 to 1.026 in a single day won’t cause issues, that wasn’t what happened in my case, all of my Sps browned out, and my more fragile Sps like my birdsnest, or my Encinitas, browned out then RTN. Luckily everything else recovered and I didn’t lose any major colonies. I learned not to always follow my instinct in a situation in regards to reef keeping. I’m not saying this is for sure what caused the death of your Sps, but it could have, and it is recoverable, just keep going, no point in restarting everything unless there is a real reason to do it. You learn and you keep going.

 

[Acros]

This exact thing happened to me. My 4 month reef was doing good and everything was happy. I moved around the scape and kicked up some sand trying to get a yellow coris wrasse out of the tank. Idk what happened, but everything died, including my snails.

I hit reset and went bare bottom. I couldn’t be happier. It’s 4 months into the cycle now. Still can’t support acros, but I have almost zero algae.

 

[Hermie]

Edit: I just noticed you run your alk a few DKH below what Red Sea Coral Pro mixes to. Question to the community: Would doing a 30% water change with new water mixed to 12dkh and tank water at 10dkh be enough to stress out the SPS?

probably not

 

[Shannon_Hill]

Hello R2R,

If you check my post history since around mid December I've had a series of crap circumstances lead to a wide scale meltdown of my tank. I have lost all of my coral accept my Torches, Hammer, Frogspawn, a button scoly, and zoanthids.

I have a 75 gallon display with a 20long sump, triton style with a refugium first then a skimmer. I have a carbon reactor that I use only in the case of yellow water and very infrequently run it (changing the carbon when I do so). The tank has been wet since August.

The tank was established with KP Aquatics live rock fresh from the keys shipped in water overnight, I ran the tank without anything in it for about 30 days before adding easy coral like trumpets and birdsnest. The tank ran fine for about three months until I had to remove a fish that caused me to rescape the tank a bit. Since then it's literally been all down hill. Prior to the catching and rehoming of the fish, my SPS was encrusting, I had Acropora shooting off new nubs and I was comfortable enough to pick up some more expensive corals.

I have had some mild ups and downs, but nothing that would lead to a large scale crash based on literally everything that I've read online. My levels never got out of control, the worst thing that happened was a heater breaking and throwing stray current which has since been resolved.

A couple things to note:

• My RODI water is zero TDS, I make all of my saltwater with redsea coral pro salt and mix to 1.026 ppm
• I run a lot of flow in the tank, just a notch below kicking up a sandstorm
• I wear latex gloves whenever putting my hands/arms in the tank
• All tools used in / for tank are cleaned with citric acid after use and are only used in the tank
• I ran a triton test that came back with slightly elevated tin which caused me to do a series of large water changes (Dinos appeared here)
• I have added bottled 'bacteria' to the tank
• I have a diverse and large population of micro/macro fauna (Pods / brittle stars / bristleworms / hermits / snails)

LEVELS (and ranges):

ALK / CA / NO4 tested with Hannah (verified w/ salifert)
MAG: Redsea
SG: Refractometer
PH: Apex Probe
PO4: Hannah and Salifert

ALK: 9.5-10.5 (Normally stays between 10 - 10.5 but it has dipped to 9.5 when I don't catch increased consumption)
CA: 400-450
MAG: 1300-1450
PH: 8.1 - 8.3 swing daily w/ lighting schedule
SG: 1.025-1.026 (crept up to 1.031 or so after an ATO incident but was resolved over 48 hours)
NO4: 2-8
PO4: .03-.04


I honestly feel like I take more care than most of the reefers I know to make sure that the tank is cared for properly, from wearing gloves to making sure that the RODI water is 0TDS. One of my good reef buddies doesn't even have a TDS meter and his tank looks worlds better than mine...

Is it possible that my tank is just doomed to not be successful? I realize that it is 'early' and it's only been up and running for under six months but it seems strange that I went from success to failure so quickly... If I only lost the acropora that'd be one thing but a wide scale meltdown like this feels like there's something I'm missing - do you guys see anything I've left out?

Sorry to hear about everything you’ve gone through. I have been in this hobby a very long time and have been in your shoes more than once. I even had a really bad experience years ago that led me to quit for a few years. It’s really tough, but in the end it’s all worth it when things are going good, the fish are happy and the corals are growing.
Like many things in life, you get knocked down and even knocked out sometimes, but if you get back up, it’s all worth the fight.
Let us know what we can do to help you back on your feet.

 

[00W]

Anyone who says they haven't been in your shoes is a liar. We've all been there. All of us. Probably more than once.
Threads like these are why I joined here.
I may be new here and honestly, it's a bit intimidating. I thought I knew a lot but realize I don't know crap.
Those beautiful tanks you speak of?
Not me.
I've been doing this reef or fish thing since 1989. I don't think I'll ever have that tank like I see on here but I joined because I love absolutely everything about this hobby and my tank means a lot to me. The lives of my guys and gals are important.
Just my two cents. Only good vibes.
Peace.
Joel

 

[robbyg]

So just somthing from my experience - when my tank was about 7 months old, I also had an ATO issue, my salinity got up to 1.029, when I caught it, I started trying to lower it all the way back down right away, I knew better not to but I did it out of reaction. Some say that say dropping from 1.029 to 1.026 in a single day won’t cause issues, that wasn’t what happened in my case, all of my Sps browned out, and my more fragile Sps like my birdsnest, or my Encinitas, browned out then RTN. Luckily everything else recovered and I didn’t lose any major colonies. I learned not to always follow my instinct in a situation in regards to reef keeping. I’m not saying this is for sure what caused the death of your Sps, but it could have, and it is recoverable, just keep going, no point in restarting everything unless there is a real reason to do it. You learn and you keep going.

When people tell you that you have to do things very slowly when dealing with a reef tank it's really hard to grasp just how slow the "slow" is. It took me almost 10 years to develop the patience to go slow consistently.

As your tank ages and the occupants grow they become a lot more tolerant to changes but every once in awhile you can hit some boundary and trigger a chain reaction that can be devastating.

Another thing that is hard to achieve is learning when to remove stuff that is still alive but dying. There is a point when you have to either amputate the hell out of corals or just remove them before the problem starts to domino.

As to the OPs problem, I would rather deal with rock that is already seeded than to start over again with dead rock.

 

[Deep]

Some great responses on this thread. I had a question. You used red sea coral pro salt which mixes at around 12dkh for 35 ppt. How did you manage to keep your alk at 9.5 after water changes?
personally i find it difficult to use this salt while wanting to keep lower alk levels.

 

[robbyg]

Some great responses on this thread. I had a question. You used red sea coral pro salt which mixes at around 12dkh for 35 ppt. How did you manage to keep your alk at 9.5 after water changes?
personally i find it difficult to use this salt while wanting to keep lower alk levels.

I stop dosing a day or two before a water change and then depending on the numbers after the change I may hold off another day or two on the dosing.
This is probably one of the times when an AWT really become handy. There is no one size fits all solution but changing the dosing is what works for me.

 

[Deep]

I stop dosing a day or two before a water change and then depending on the numbers after the change I may hold off another day or two on the dosing.
This is probably one of the times when an AWT really become handy. There is no one size fits all solution but changing the dosing is what works for me.

Okay got it. You drop the tank down to around 8 and then add new water at 12 so the final dkh settles at 9.5. Yeah that one I could never get right. Thats the reason I gave up on high alk salts.

 

[fryman]

What kinds of coral died? Sorry if I missed this but are we talking about deep water acros or NPS? There's a huge range of possibilities and all we know is that some LPS and soft coral are doing ok but many "others" died..

In a relatively young tank things change too much. That's really hard on a wide variety of coral. Stick to easy coral the first year, imho.

Alot of great responses, most I agree with primarily being the older the tank gets the more stable it gets the less unexpected death occurs. I don't pretend to know why.

 

[robbyg]

What kinds of coral died? Sorry if I missed this but are we talking about deep water acros or NPS? There's a huge range of possibilities and all we know is that some LPS and soft coral are doing ok but many "others" died..

In a relatively young tank things change too much. That's really hard on a wide variety of coral. Stick to easy coral the first year, imho.

Alot of great responses, most I agree with primarily being the older the tank gets the more stable it gets the less unexpected death occurs. I don't pretend to know why.

I can only tell you with certainty that fish that have spent years in a tank are super tough. I had an incident that took out 60% of my fish overnight. The only ones that were swimming around were the ones I had raised for five years. They just swam around like nothing was wrong.

 

[ReefBeta]

I have to disagree on the saying that 6 months old tank is too young and that's the reason for the problem. 6 months is long enough to have a stable environment, if the reefer know how to keep one from the beginning. After reefing for long enough that I lost count, I started two tank in the past 2 years, both stuffed with corals by 6 months mark. The latest build is haven't got wet for full 6 months yet.

The one that's lacking is the reefer. There are nuance that I now do without much thought, but definitely not picked up at my early years. An apparent one is when to test and how to dail in dosing. Test daily, learn the rhythm of the tank. Observe the corals and know sign of stress. I find it hard to detail them all, since I might not notice what I did was different.

Remember one thing, what you're keeping is the balance of an ecosystem, not a balance sheet of parameters. Those numbers are only tools, not the goal. So don't think "but my numbers are perfect". Those numbers never meant to show the hold picture. Look at your tank. How are the corals dying? Are all of them dying the same way or each have different symptoms. The more you look at how corals die, the better ideas you got about what the problem might be. It's a lot of trail and error.

To OP's initial question, start over will not be the good choice. Now is actually the meat of reefing. You got the basic of the basic down, like understanding what are those parameters mean. Now it's time for the advance of the basic, to know your corals. It's about you refining the husbandry and training your eyes. Restarting the tank will only postpone it to later. It's not about the maturity of your tank, is the maturity of your reefing.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Well you wouldn’t be starting over, you’d be starting from Experience. I’ve had times where it seemed a full reboot was in order and in fact it was. Tank crashes are a good time to re-evaluate imo.

 

[Creggers]

I have to disagree on the saying that 6 months old tank is too young and that's the reason for the problem. 6 months is long enough to have a stable environment, if the reefer know how to keep one from the beginning. After reefing for long enough that I lost count, I started two tank in the past 2 years, both stuffed with corals by 6 months mark. The latest build is haven't got wet for full 6 months yet.

The one that's lacking is the reefer. There are nuance that I now do without much thought, but definitely not picked up at my early years. An apparent one is when to test and how to dail in dosing. Test daily, learn the rhythm of the tank. Observe the corals and know sign of stress. I find it hard to detail them all, since I might not notice what I did was different.

Remember one thing, what you're keeping is the balance of an ecosystem, not a balance sheet of parameters. Those numbers are only tools, not the goal. So don't think "but my numbers are perfect". Those numbers never meant to show the hold picture. Look at your tank. How are the corals dying? Are all of them dying the same way or each have different symptoms. The more you look at how corals die, the better ideas you got about what the problem might be. It's a lot of trail and error.

To OP's initial question, start over will not be the good choice. Now is actually the meat of reefing. You got the basic of the basic down, like understanding what are those parameters mean. Now it's time for the advance of the basic, to know your corals. It's about you refining the husbandry and training your eyes. Restarting the tank will only postpone it to later. It's not about the maturity of your tank, is the maturity of your reefing.

I think my problem is I started planning this tank way back when the whole pandemic first started. I always wanted to get into reef keeping but never took the plunge. Extra money and time led me to do a lot of research before actually putting the tank together. I went through almost all of the BRS videos as well as some lesser known channels to really understand as much as I could. When I started the tank, I was overconfident and this led to me letting things slip when I saw some success. I was testing daily when I was dialing in my doser, once I got things stable I stopped and went to weekly testing. I think this is where things may have gotten off the road. I had originally planned on holding off on any advanced coral until I got a trident but my overconfidence got me thinking I was good to start ahead of time.

I also didn't do my due diligence when I rescaped the tank - there's a good chance this created a mini cycle which threw things off even further.


I think rather than a reset as many have said take this as an opportunity to get things right. Instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater I'm going to get back to basics and let my tank continue to mature.

To answer the question that a lot of people have been asking I lost all of my SPS through base up STN over the course of about 3 weeks. I also lost Acans, favias, encrusting montipora and chalices. All of these corals slowly lost tissue until there was essentially nothing left but skeleton and algae.

 

[robbyg]

A tank is not nearly stable enough in 6 months. That has been my experience and when I see places like Tidal Gardens waiting a year, it confirms it for me.

Please note the 1:20 Min mark.


It also took me around 12 months before I added Coral. SPS was at about the 14 month mark.