Coral dying in DT, but thriving in nearly identical QT

[Eclyps19]

Coral in my DT just... doesn’t seem to do great. It’s two years old, very stable in terms of parameters. I’m trying to figure out what I can test to pinpoint my problem. My corals grow GREAT in my QT. It pulls corals from the brink of death and gives them new life. Until they go back into my DT, that is...

My Display Tank:

• Total Volume: 139 gallons
• 1.026 specific gravity
• 9 alk
• 420ish calc
• 1350ish mag
• ~15 no3
• ~0.03 po4
• Lights: 2x Orphek Atlantik v4s
• Flow: 2x MP40 on reef rest
• Salt: HW Marinemix Reefer
• Sand: about 2” of Fiji pink
• ICP Analysis: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/114261

My Coral QT

• Total Volume: 30 gallons
• 1.026 specific gravity
• 9 alk
• 420ish calc
• 1350ish mag
• no3/po4: haven’t tested recently
• Lights: 1x Orphek Atlantik v4 Compact
• Flow: 1x MP10 on reef rest
• Salt: HW Marinemix Reefer
• Sand: Bare bottom
• Misc: some large rocks and a bunch of media that sat in my DT sump for a couple months.

In both tanks I dose alk/calc split up into 12 times per day to reduce spikes. Neither tank has any potentially harmful fish or CUC. In fact I recently got rid of my beloved coral beauty because I thought he must have be the culprit. Now I know that’s not the case...

So what’s different about the two setups?

• Sand. QT is bare bottom. I have what I consider excessive detritus buildup in my DT sandbed.
• Flow. I don’t really know how to match it perfectly because of the difference in tank size. I would say it's similar, though...
• Algae growth. My DT grows almost ZERO algae. I think this is because I have a tang and a foxface that are constantly grazing. My QT grows all kinds of crazy stuff.
• Age. My DT is 2 years old. My QT is about 4 months old, and seeded with rock/material from my DT.

So what happens to the corals in my DT? Well, for anything like favia or chalice, they start losing by losing all of their color. For SPS sticks, polyps go away and get replaced by small patches of brown hairy algae, usually at the tips. For euphyllia, it’s usually just a slow and gradual recession of polyps. The polyps also often look deflated. For acans, polyps usually get sucked in so far that they just look like dark skeletons, though they seem to survive this way for quite some time without losing flesh.

Really what I'm looking for at this point is a way to experiment/test to see what's causing my problem. I have two tanks that are very similar, so I should be able to change one thing at a time and see how my corals react over the span of a few weeks.

Thoughts on likely culprits? I'm thinking of ditching the sandbed all together for my DT... it just seems like there's way too much detritus for my bioload, and things that sit in the sand seem to do the worst (aside from mushrooms).

 

[ScottR]

Can you share pics? Might be easier to see what’s happening.

 

[Ashibashi]

A nearly identical problem was going on with another reefer recently. I'll pull up the thread. I believe the problem ultimately got resolved by adding a special filter that pulls out heavy metals and specifically copper. I'll go dig it up stand by

 

[Ashibashi]

Didn't realize this was such an old thread. Apologies. If the issue is still ongoing I hope this may be of some use.

About to Quit

I’m so glad it is helping! I just wish we could figure out what the source of the contamination was… but I’m pretty positive it was either the rocks or the sand at this point. Thank you for following along! Looking forward to seeing your build thread when you get started! In the interest of...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Eclyps19]

Hi all, thanks for checking in on me. Still struggling. Today I had a beautiful blacklight torch bail out on me. It was in there for about 2 months and I ASSUMED it was doing fine. Looked great, wonderful long polyps, never even considered it at risk, then *POP* off it flies right in front of my eyes.

I know that none of my ICP tests show anything concerning, but I just purchased another to triple check. I also purchased an N-DOC just for the heck of it to see if that gives me any useful info.

Pulling my hair out. This is such a beautiful tank, but I can't stand that I can't keep any corals alive in it. So incredibly depressing...

 

[Cell]

A nearly identical problem was going on with another reefer recently. I'll pull up the thread. I believe the problem ultimately got resolved by adding a special filter that pulls out heavy metals and specifically copper. I'll go dig it up stand by

Her problem was using metal connectors in the DT plumbing as detected by ICP. It seems metals are not the issue here.

 

[Eclyps19]

At this point I’m very much leaning towards something biological. I’m too consistent with everything else, and biological is something difficult to test for.
I’ll be hooking my UV back up this week and running it in my DT. I’m not convinced it will “solve” my issue, but maybe it will at least make things a little better?

 

[Eclyps19]

Finally got my new ICP results... once again, they look fine to me :'(

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

So disappointing. Been running my UV for the past 2 weeks, but continue losing coral. Still desperate. Would legitimately pay someone a decent chunk of money to figure this out for me, because I'm all out of ideas.

@Randy Holmes-Farley anything in this thread strike you as out of the ordinary?

N-DOC test results should be coming at some point in the near future...

And here are some full tank shots showing the setup, some corals that are doing well and some that are dead or in the process of dying.

 

[Eclyps19]

@Apollo7235 any advice given the success in your thread with similar issues? I know that our root problem is different, but maybe there’s something that you were recommended that I missed.

 

[LgTas]

At this point I’m very much leaning towards something biological. I’m too consistent with everything else, and biological is something difficult to test for.
I’ll be hooking my UV back up this week and running it in my DT. I’m not convinced it will “solve” my issue, but maybe it will at least make things a little better?

Initially I thought bacteria too but given you move rock and coral between your DT and QT you'd assume they'd have similar bacterial diversity.

I have a sinularia that hates my main DT. I've tried three times and each time it sulks to the point of starting to shrivel up. Move it to my nano and it loves life. I can't explain it so I've just let it be in the nano.

 

[DeniseAndy]

What it sounds like is you lose your lps? My guess is foxface. They can really like lps. Tangs I have never had issues with, but my foxface and CBB were always causing issues with any lps.
I do not see anything else that would be obvious. The current growing corals are softies and they can be quite mean to lps and sps, but usually not the ones you have currently.

 

[Eclyps19]

What it sounds like is you lose your lps? My guess is foxface. They can really like lps. Tangs I have never had issues with, but my foxface and CBB were always causing issues with any lps.
I do not see anything else that would be obvious. The current growing corals are softies and they can be quite mean to lps and sps, but usually not the ones you have currently.

It’s really anything more touchy than a mushroom or zoa. SPS won’t last more than a few days. I can confidently say that it’s not my Foxface, who is a model citizen and came from a previous tank with coral that never had this issue.

I do wonder if there could be some chemical warfare going on? Maybe some of these zoas are just constantly angry and releasing something nasty. I haven’t tried heavy/consistent activated carbon over a long period of time, but that might be a good thing to try next.

 

[MrNYCeGuy]

Hear me out and this might sound a bit crazy but it might be that your DT doesn’t have enough phosphate. It sounds to be like you might be starving your corals. Go back and test your QT tank and your DT. I have had similar issues in my tank when my phosphates are below .08. I don’t believe phosphates are the boogeyman everyone makes them out to be.

 

[Apollo7235]

@Apollo7235 any advice given the success in your thread with similar issues? I know that our root problem is different, but maybe there’s something that you were recommended that I missed.

I would give the ATI ICP test a shot. I think done Triton more than once, correct?

ATI tests for more and it might shed some more insight on potential contaminants the same way it did for me.

 

[Eclyps19]

I’ve done 3 tritons so far with no real differences. I wasn’t aware that different ICP tests could show different things, so I’m glad I tagged you! Just purchased an ATI kit to run ASAP. Thanks

 

[LgTas]

It’s really anything more touchy than a mushroom or zoa. SPS won’t last more than a few days. I can confidently say that it’s not my Foxface, who is a model citizen and came from a previous tank with coral that never had this issue.

I do wonder if there could be some chemical warfare going on? Maybe some of these zoas are just constantly angry and releasing something nasty. I haven’t tried heavy/consistent activated carbon over a long period of time, but that might be a good thing to try next.

My reef is mixed the sps, lps, and many softies (rhodactus, sinularia, nepthea, zoa etc.) But I run carbon consistently and change often. Only coral I've had an issue with was a red gorgonian frag.

Carbon could be a good option to try.

 

[Apollo7235]

I’ve done 3 tritons so far with no real differences. I wasn’t aware that different ICP tests could show different things, so I’m glad I tagged you! Just purchased an ATI kit to run ASAP. Thanks

Please tag me in your results! I would love to see them.
Good luck! Fingers crossed!

 

[kenbennedy]

OP how confident are you in having proper (not too much) lighting in your DT vs the QT? Did the corals ever thrive there?