Cannot keep SPS/LPS alive. Help please?

[Dan13]

I am having serious problems keeping certain SPS and LPS coral alive.

My tank is around 2 years old now, and I have had huge success in keeping soft corals and zoas, but any LPS or SPS coral that I get usually lose their flesh. Montis, Acros, Acans.....they all look great when they go into the tank, they are all acclimated properly, but within 1-4 weeks they either lose their flesh or start turning white.

My first lot of LPS/SPS that I got about a year ago, all perished other than a Caulastrea and Euphyllia Divisa, which are still looking great. I assumed it was maybe because my tank was not established enough. I recently purchased a new load of LPS/SPS, and the same thing is happening again. When my lights come on today, I will take some pictures and show you what my new corals looked like a week ago when I purchased them, compared to today.

Successful Coral
Duncan
Caulastrea
Euphyllia Divisa
Sarcophyton
GSP
Kenya Tree
Sinularia
Xenia
Anthelia
Zoanthids
Gorgonia
Ricordia
Rhodactis

Coral that Died
Various Acroporas
Hystrix
Stylophora
Montipora Digitata
Montipora Capricornis
Acan Lord
Favites Complanata
Favia Marshae
Chalice

Lighting Schedule
I have two bulbs turn on at 14:30pm. These remain turned on on their own for an hour until the remaining four bulbs turn on at 15:30. They all stay on until 21:30, when the four go off, leaving the remaining two bulbs on for another hour until 22:30 when it is lights out.

Feeding
I usually feed my fish 3 times a week, alternating between frozen mysis, frozen brine shrimp and Formula One pellets. I usually add coral food to the water at the same time (Microbe-Lift Coral Food Plus and Coral Food SPS), and tend to let the flow take the food around the tank - maybe this is the wrong thing to do?

Water Changes
Water changes are done weekly. I change 45L per week (12G), so roughly 10%. Tests are done weekly, and any reading that is off is double checked, and then dosed appropriately with Nyos elements (Magnesium, Calcium, Alkalinity etc). When doing the water changes, I also clean out the skimmer, clean the glass, and remove and clean the pumps.

360L (95G) DT
Tunze E-Jet 1605 Centrifugal Pump
2x Tunze Turbelle Nanostream 6045 Pumps
Giesemann Matrixx II Dimtex 6x39W Light

160L (42G) Sump
Aquarium Systems I.Ocean Skimmer 1600L
JBL ProTemp S300W Heater
Eheim Compact+ 2000 Pump
UV Filter
Media reactor with Active Carbon

Inhabitants
1 Peppermint Shrimp (moved to the sump through thoughts of maybe him eating the coral flesh)
2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Blood Red Fire Shrimp
1 Orange Tuxedo Urchin
1 Blue Tuxedo Urchin
6 Hermit Crabs
6 Trochus Snails
2 Ocellaris clownfish
2 Chromis
2 Yellow Tail Damselfish
1 Bi Colour Blenny
1 Firefish
1 Pacific Blue Tang
3 Rose Bubble Tip Anemone

Current Readings (from 2 days ago)
Salinity - 1.025
Temperature - 25 Degrees / 77 Fahrenheit
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5
Alkalinity - 8dkh
pH - 8.2
Phosphate - 0.1
Calcium - 420
Magnesium - 1400

I am thinking that maybe my flow is not good enough where I am sitting them on the sandbed when they are acclimating; seeing as the Duncan, Euphyllia and Caulastrea are in a higher area of flow and are doing great. Would this be the problem?

If anyone can see any indication of something that I am doing wrong, or something that is wrong with anything I have said, please, any help would be greatly appreciated. If I have missed anything out, just ask and I will send you more details.

Thanks.

 

[Arricefe]

I think it's time to summon the #reefsquad. That tag is supposed to alert the experts, I'm interested in the answer myself. Good luck!

 

[Jason mack]

I'm thinking maybe a trace element overdose of some sort of heavy metals ....I had something similar when I first started......have you done a API or Triton test on your water ...that would be my next step ....

 

[Bpainter3]

1. What fish do you have?

2. For sps and some lps if you are testing the water weekly that’s is a lot of time for alkalinity to swing and sps does not like that. What test kit are you using

3. Sps does like a lot of flow but not to be blasted constantly.

4 when is the last time you changed your bulb in your fixture?

5. Where do you get rodi water from?

6. Have you checked for electrical current in the tank

 

[NinnJinn]

In the very first post of this thread:

Inhabitants
1 Peppermint Shrimp (moved to the sump through thoughts of maybe him eating the coral flesh)
2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Blood Red Fire Shrimp
1 Orange Tuxedo Urchin
1 Blue Tuxedo Urchin
6 Hermit Crabs
6 Trochus Snails
2 Ocellaris clownfish
2 Chromis
2 Yellow Tail Damselfish
1 Bi Colour Blenny
1 Firefish
1 Pacific Blue Tang
3 Rose Bubble Tip Anemone

 

[Viking_Reefing]

Parameters look good. Like someone else asked, have you done a icp test to rule out any contaminants?

Light cycle seems a little bit short but it should kill anything outright.

The only obvious thing I can see that could potentially be killing of your coral is that blenny. They can start scraping the tissue of coral if you’re unlucky. Have you noticed anything like that?

 

[Ron Reefman]

I'm not going to be able to provide much specific answers to your concerns. Your tank should be mature enough at 2 years. Your water temp should be OK but bumpping it up a couple degrees might help.

Two comments/questions:

1) You twice mentioned, "...I recently purchased a new load of LPS/SPS...". What do you mean by "a load"? If I were having issues with some corals, I would be buying them one at a time and probably locally so I could be in personal contact with the seller.

2) I've been in the hobby for 15 years and one thing that is fairly common throughout the hobby is that not all corals will do well in a single tank. For example, I had a tank full of Acro and Monti corals along with some zoas and a couple of LPS like a hammer and a frogspawn. But I have never been able to keep Acans or Favites for more than a month or two. I've tried buying frags, small colonies and even a couple of large and expensive colonies, none survived. Yet my Acro and Monti corals were perfectly healthy and grew and had to be fragged to keep them under control.

Hopefully more Reef Squad members will also jump in and offer up other ideas.

Good luck and hang in there.

 

[Dan13]

Firstly, thank you to all of you so far for your replies (and for summoning the Reef Squad!).

I'm thinking maybe a trace element overdose of some sort of heavy metals ....I had something similar when I first started......have you done a API or Triton test on your water ...that would be my next step ....

I have not sent off my water anywhere yet. I see people mentioning this on the forums, but as I am in Austria I did not think it would be possible. Just Google'd it and there is a Triton place in Germany that I can send it to. This may be my next port of call.

1. What fish do you have?

2. For sps and some lps if you are testing the water weekly that’s is a lot of time for alkalinity to swing and sps does not like that. What test kit are you using

3. Sps does like a lot of flow but not to be blasted constantly.

4 when is the last time you changed your bulb in your fixture?

5. Where do you get rodi water from?

6. Have you checked for electrical current in the tank

1) Fish are all listed in the original post
2) I use Red Sea Foundation Pro for CA Mg KH, Red Sea Marine Care for NH3/NH4 NO3 NO2 pH, and a Red Sea PO4 test kit. I have a TDS meter which tells me the temperature, and a refractomter to measure the salinity
3) Not really a question, but maybe I will move them a bit
4) I change my bulbs every 9-12 months, but not all at the same time. Last one I changed was 2 weeks ago
5) My RO/DI unit that I bought when I wanted to start a reef tank produced 50L (13G) of RO/DI water in 12 hours. The flow in the apartment I live in is not that great, so I have always used Distilled Water from the start of my tank
6) I have not checked for electrical current. Is is possible that all of my fish, CUC, nems, and other coral are not affected by it (if there is some), but these certain ones are?

Parameters look good. Like someone else asked, have you done a icp test to rule out any contaminants?

Light cycle seems a little bit short but it should kill anything outright.

The only obvious thing I can see that could potentially be killing of your coral is that blenny. They can start scraping the tissue of coral if you’re unlucky. Have you noticed anything like that?

No test as of yet. Think I may do that next.
I reduced the lighting schedule in my tank about a year ago due to algae problems. You think I should increase it?
The Blenny stays around the complete other side of the tank and most of the time keeps himself hidden under the Euphyllia. He does not go near any of the SPS/LPS (unless he sneakily does it when the lights go out and noone is looking!)

 

[HotRocks]

Have you checked your par?

I agree the light cycle may not be long enough, it could especially be an issue if your par is not high enough + shortened cycle. Especially if you are placing them on the bottom of the tank.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

No test as of yet. Think I may do that next.
I reduced the lighting schedule in my tank about a year ago due to algae problems. You think I should increase it?
The Blenny stays around the complete other side of the tank and most of the time keeps himself hidden under the Euphyllia. He does not go near any of the SPS/LPS (unless he sneakily does it when the lights go out and noone is looking!)

Lighting is rarely the problem behind nuisance algae, it might be a catalyst if some other things are out of whack but it won’t be the root cause.
I would personally try to ramp it up a bit, very slowly over several weeks.

Can you see any white patches is your sps? That’s how I started to figure out that my blenny was to blame.

 

[BestMomEver]

Are they receding from the top down or the bottom up? In my experience, the ones that bleach from the top down are burning. The ones that bleach from the bottom up have something munching on them. If it’s random, look for water chemistry issues. Just my 0.02.

 

[revhtree]

How much does your ALK and Calcium fluctuate? I had the same issues and only until I kept those two parameters solid was I able to start being successful with acropora long term.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

An 8hr light cycle probably isn’t going to cut it.

In the tropics, typical light photoperiod is 12-13hrs...obviously not full intensity for that time, but some light. ‘Some light’ is all it takes for photosynthesis in coral zooxanthellae. Shorting 4-5hrs a day is 4-5hrs of no glucose production for the coral. When you are dealing with fast growing types that are not aggressive feeders, that can make a difference.

Re: water quality...that looks fine.

Feeding: You really should feed your fish more than 3x/wk. Smaller amounts every day. The corals will benefit from this as well. 0.1 PO4 isn’t the end of the world, but some stuff might be happier with <0.05. Smaller feedings more often might leave a little less waste (might).

Low flow and lower lighting during acclimation (how long is acclimation?) shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[RussiReef]

I would suggest to check quality of your RODI water.

 

[vetteguy53081]

WHAT IS bizarre is, the easy stuff is what died. . .??
I would start with the basics-
Brightness of lights
Water flow
Any chemical additions or changes

EQUIPMENT- ARE THE TESTS ACCURATE AS WELL AS ACCURACY OF SALINITY ??.
As a suggestion, take a large sample of water to a trusted LFS and have them test to compare with your readings. I suggest this often and many have replied indicating their test results were Way Off .

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Icp triton test your water. See if there are heavy metals, lack if elements, Lighting’s okay at 8 hr cycle. Get a doser. Dose a little at a time. No rapid corrections. I believe it counteracts stability.

 

[underwaterworld]

I would suggest that you look at you alk very closely more often than once a week until you stop getting die off of your corals. If or when I had a problem with dying corals I would test everyday or every other day to make sure the big 3 (Alk, Calcium and Magnesium) were stable and in check. I hope you can get everything worked out and thriving.

 

[underwaterworld]

I am having serious problems keeping certain SPS and LPS coral alive.


Water Changes
Water changes are done weekly. I change 45L per week (12G), so roughly 10%. Tests are done weekly, and any reading that is off is double checked, and then dosed appropriately with Nyos elements (Magnesium, Calcium, Alkalinity etc). When doing the water changes, I also clean out the skimmer, clean the glass, and remove and clean the pumps

Thanks.

I noticed here that you said that "if any reading is off, it is dosed". Are there large swings in parameters from first reading to the new reading after dosing? If so that maybe be your issue. Are you using a dosing pump or calcium reactor to administer your alk, calcium and magnesium? They are not a necessity but does aid in keeping your parameters stable. Hope this helps and Happy Reefing!

 

[stevieduk]

you only light your tank for 7 hours ????????, should be double that. Mine are on 15 hrs a day

 

[ChrisQ0904]

I noticed you said you used distilled water, I would personally try to source RODI water. I know you said you have poor floor at your home but its probably better making the trip to the LFS to buy RODI than to use distilled.