Calling all SPS experts! Cracking the case of the missing polyp extension and stalled growth!

bif24701 · Jan 13, 2017

diablomaster9045 said:
With an alk of 9 and 0.02ppm phosphates, I would personally shoot for 5 ppm Nitrates.

But with the sudden loss of flesh, makes me think either starving corals, LED burns, or a pest. One of your coral pics seems like it has bite marks on it( http://i.imgur.com/3noglzqr.jpg ).

So first step test nitrates. and keep an eye out for red bugs/ AEFW.

That does look like bite marks at the top. AEFW are almost impossible to see with the naked eye. They look just like the corals they are eating. Dip one of your struggling corals, blast it with a turkey baster and see what comes off.

Reefs anonymous · Jan 13, 2017

Assuming no pest, I would take a good look at the par from leds. I'd even go as far as putting back the old lens and using the same intensity when the tank was going good. Why did you change the lens anyways, especially when the corals were doing good and with two xr15's on that size tank you should have gotten good enough spread with the original lens.

Reefs anonymous · Jan 13, 2017

You might want to look at this calculator. I myself don't know how accurate it is, but see if you can determine your 10% increase in output is enough increase after changing out your lights.

http://www.aquaticlog.com/radion

WDKegge · Jan 14, 2017

Reefs anonymous said:
Assuming no pest, I would take a good look at the par from leds. I'd even go as far as putting back the old lens and using the same intensity when the tank was going good. Why did you change the lens anyways, especially when the corals were doing good and with two xr15's on that size tank you should have gotten good enough spread with the original lens.

I was trying to get a little more of an even spread over my entire tank, I had some things like my reef raft promethus that were bleaching at 60% with the narrow lesnes. I have things like rainbow monti that are growing like a weed all the way on the sand bed that have great color with the wide angle lenses.

WDKegge · Jan 14, 2017

Reefs anonymous said:
You might want to look at this calculator. I myself don't know how accurate it is, but see if you can determine your 10% increase in output is enough increase after changing out your lights.

http://www.aquaticlog.com/radion

Hmmm, you may actually be on to something, I am cross referencing dates on my phone when I told my friends on facebook that I would be swapping the wide angle lenses back on, and that's right around the time I started seeing a decline in my SPS. I think I may swap them back tonight and then put the lighting where it was before!

Mustbenuts · Jan 14, 2017

Your water return from the sump should be above the water level, to break the water surface for better gas exchange; try it, it won't cost you anything and I'll bet it will solve your problem in no time. Ten years of aquarium maintenance providing have given me that 'trick' !

WDKegge · Jan 14, 2017

Mustbenuts said:
Your water return from the sump should be above the water level, to break the water surface for better gas exchange; try it, it won't cost you anything and I'll bet it will solve your problem in no time. Ten years of aquarium maintenance providing have given me that 'trick' !

My powerheads are constantly breaking the water surface when the pumps collide.

WDKegge · Jan 14, 2017

Then again, I am currently getting vertical growth on a lot of my sps that I hadn't been getting beforehand.

ptpablo · Jan 14, 2017

I had a very similar issue with my tank at about the same age of tank. It wasn't until I dialed my radions way back that everything changed for the good. I moved them from about 60% back to 30%(only 8" off water due to canopy).
Those radions are no joke...that might be your culprit!?!? I also added T5 to supplement and to blend a bit.

Reefs anonymous · Jan 14, 2017

WDKegge said:
Hmmm, you may actually be on to something, I am cross referencing dates on my phone when I told my friends on facebook that I would be swapping the wide angle lenses back on, and that's right around the time I started seeing a decline in my SPS. I think I may swap them back tonight and then put the lighting where it was before!

I would ramp to the original intensity slowly because now some of the other corals are acclimated to the current level you are at now.

SamsReef · Jan 14, 2017

You can rule potentially rule out red bugs or AEFW since your stylo is also not doing well. None of these two pests will even come close to stylo.

In my opinion, you water chemistry is off.

Have you done a triton test. How is your flow?

Sam

Joeganja said:
It can always be a possible number of things. I would start from the beginning. 1. How old are your test kits, have you double checked by testing with other different brand test kits. 2. Is there anything disease or pest that may be bothering or killing them such as acropora eating flat worms or red bugs. It doesn't matter if you dip, eggs won't be killed. So that can also be the case. 3. You said you removed the sandbed, even at slow States you may still result in an ammonia spike which obviously most of us don't bother testing. You said that was after but maybe that may have also contributed to the problem. But for now I would do some good close up observations on the coral and see if there are any pests on them. That can be a big one if that is it. Check if there are any bite marks on the acros that are dying, any red little spots almost invisible to the human eye at until a couple of inches away. Just kind of go through and make sure your up to date.

ReeferMadness80G · Jan 14, 2017

Sorry if someone has already written this but just wanted to share my two cents.
I buy corals from Matt Simpson who owns a local reef store(Reef Addicted). He uses LEDs and T5s on his frag tanks, his frags have amazing PE and when I get them home to my tank where I'm running LEDs only, they look great for a few months and then begin to show less PE on the side in the shadows. It's not super noticeable bc of the shadow but when I hit them with a flashlight I can see obvious loss of PE. That doesn't exactly solve your problem with the STN, but I also experienced something like this before when me tank crashed because I changed out my substrate. I didn't like the look of my sand so I wanted to change to something finer. I did it in one night and it crashed my whole system( I know how stupid that was) but later I decided to go BB so I vacuumed out a small amount of sand each time I did a water change( maybe a few cups worth) I see you converted to BB and was curious how fast you removed your sandbed and if changes occurred around that time.

+1 on the checking of nitrates, I constantly struggle with keeping my nitrates up and I have 5 fish in a 14 gallon cube. But I know it's very important to keep nitrates around 10-15 ppm for SPS dominated tanks.
Stability- however if you can check your logs of parameters from the thriving periods and compare to now you may find the culprit. It's crazy how tanks differ from each other and everyone's tank can thrive with varying parameters. Stability is key. And if you do make changes, make them slow over the course of weeks not days.
I wish you the best of luck and I'm sorry for your losses.
Ps. The no namer looks like WWC Grizzly Adams

Edit: Disregard Sandbed removal, just reread and it shows you did remove it slowly. Sorry!

rovster · Jan 14, 2017

I'll give my 2. This looks to be a chemistry issue. This doesn't smell of pests IMHO. Like mentioned before check nitrate it may be high or low. Removing the sand greatly compromises the ability for tank to process nitrates believe it or not. The other thing is you made 2 significant changes and test weekly. You could possibly have had an undiagnosed alk spike. Whenever you make a change it's common for corals to stall out and if you don't modify your dosing you can get an alk spike. Voila, buckle up, rollercoaster time.

The odd things to look at are RO, bad test kits and a rusted magnet or faulty heater.

Best course of action is check everything twice, and if everything is good try and keep tank stable and monitor alk 3-4 x per week until you know it's stable. Trust me if your corals look like that and you say coralline stopped your tank is not consuming that much alk, at least not as much as before.

Also you need to accept the fact that it may take a month to see the smallest hint of improvement and up to 6 months for recovery. The whole time you'll be second guessing yourself and wanting to "do something" when all the while all you need to do is trust your methods and be patient.

In my experience alk 7.5 or below is best for these situations.....HTH

wranodj · Jan 14, 2017

LED's, higher alk (>8), and low nitrate and phos are a bad combination for SPS. We have a nitrate dosing thread on R2R that may help. 0 nitrates and 0 phos were a problem for me.