Corals Keep Dying

[Wandering Albatross]

Good evening all, I’m having trouble growing almost any coral.

I have a recently struggling toadstool, and a browned out but extended gsp frag. Pulsing xenias are doing ok. Everything else, from green slimer stag to hammers and frogspawns, clear to brain corals. Things either brown out or go pale. Most are open for a couple days, then close up, and no increase or decrease in flow helps. Chaeto also melts, so far red macros dissolve as well, sea lettuce in fuge is unchanged so far.

Tank is about 10 months old now:
Salinity 1.026
Nitrate 10-25ppm (appears to lean high)
Phos .1-.12 (running gfo to bring down)
Temp 78.4
Cal 450
Mag 1200
Alk 9.3
Ph 8.6

Cyano and Dinos fight and will lightly cover anything new that goes in within hours, established rock does ok.
Running carbon reactor for potential toadstool toxin.
Have triton detox metal binder to use if needed.
2 maxspect gyres + 2 jeabao sow 20s opposite each other on pulse mode.
PAR ratings range from 80-250, at peak blue/violet 100% and white/red/green 40% for a 4 hour peak.
Running a decent skimmer, needs to be dumped every 3-5 days.
High bioload, high feed system.

Thoughts on what the problem might be?

 

[Mebbid]

Good evening all, I’m having trouble growing almost any coral.

I have a recently struggling toadstool, and a browned out but extended gsp frag. Pulsing xenias are doing ok. Everything else, from green slimer stag to hammers and frogspawns, clear to brain corals. Things either brown out or go pale. Most are open for a couple days, then close up, and no increase or decrease in flow helps. Chaeto also melts, so far red macros dissolve as well, sea lettuce in fuge is unchanged so far.

Tank is about 10 months old now:
Salinity 1.026
Nitrate 10-25ppm (appears to lean high)
Phos .1-.12 (running gfo to bring down)
Temp 78.4
Cal 450
Mag 1200
Alk 9.3
Ph 8.6

Cyano and Dinos fight and will lightly cover anything new that goes in within hours, established rock does ok.
Running carbon reactor for potential toadstool toxin.
Have triton detox metal binder to use if needed.
2 maxspect gyres + 2 jeabao sow 20s opposite each other on pulse mode.
PAR ratings range from 80-250, at peak blue/violet 100% and white/red/green 40% for a 4 hour peak.
Running a decent skimmer, needs to be dumped every 3-5 days.
High bioload, high feed system.

Thoughts on what the problem might be?

I saw on your tank thread that you run it as a minimal water change system.

What's your tank maintenance routine?
Have you ran an ICP test?

 

[Wandering Albatross]

I saw on your tank thread that you run it as a minimal water change system.

What's your tank maintenance routine?
Have you ran an ICP test?

No ICP test yet, but I’m seriously considering it at this point.

Skimmer now runs 24/7, emptied every 3-5 days or as needed. Carbon and gfo reactors are newer additions to be changed every 2 weeks or as needed. Filter socks cleaned once a week or as needed. Small water changes (20g roughly) 1-2x per month, water changed is drawn from sump detritus-buildup areas or down in the rocks and low flow areas of DT. Sifter goby manages sand very well, I do not need to turn it over or pull from it at this time. Glass needs scraping every 2-3 days, depending on if I want to let my snails get extra bites in. If either cyano or Dinos try choking a coral or otherwise annoy me, I’ll blow off the rocks with a turkey baster. Cyano sometimes clings to parts of the pumps and I’ll scrub those with a toothbrush as needed.

I have a dime-sized patch of coralline in one spot which considering its placement I find odd but oh well. I haven’t had any noticeable GHA on the rocks in quite some time, though small amounts do end up on the back glass if I don’t scrape often enough. The clowns like playing in it. There’s a couple tiny slow growing patches of bubble algae that I actually find cute at this point and am not bothered by.

I’m bothered by the struggle to get corals growing. I thought if it’s high nutrients macros would do great in the fuge, but they just get coated in Dinos and melt no matter what I do. I’m trying to avoid having to plumb in a UV, I’m not that handy. I tried high flow on sps frags thinking it’d help but they stayed retracted, and even that wouldn’t keep the Dinos off. Lower flow didn’t trigger a response either. I keep hearing that the best way to learn what good flow is is to see it, but if I can’t get a reaction either way, I’m flying nearly blind. All I can go on is some other reefer saying ‘high flow’.

I refuse to quit on the hobby, I love it too much. If all else fails I can drop corals for fowlr tanks, but the main draw for me was the idea of at least one bustling colorful reef…

 

[Mebbid]

No ICP test yet, but I’m seriously considering it at this point.

Skimmer now runs 24/7, emptied every 3-5 days or as needed. Carbon and gfo reactors are newer additions to be changed every 2 weeks or as needed. Filter socks cleaned once a week or as needed. Small water changes (20g roughly) 1-2x per month, water changed is drawn from sump detritus-buildup areas or down in the rocks and low flow areas of DT. Sifter goby manages sand very well, I do not need to turn it over or pull from it at this time. Glass needs scraping every 2-3 days, depending on if I want to let my snails get extra bites in. If either cyano or Dinos try choking a coral or otherwise annoy me, I’ll blow off the rocks with a turkey baster. Cyano sometimes clings to parts of the pumps and I’ll scrub those with a toothbrush as needed.

I have a dime-sized patch of coralline in one spot which considering its placement I find odd but oh well. I haven’t had any noticeable GHA on the rocks in quite some time, though small amounts do end up on the back glass if I don’t scrape often enough. The clowns like playing in it. There’s a couple tiny slow growing patches of bubble algae that I actually find cute at this point and am not bothered by.

I’m bothered by the struggle to get corals growing. I thought if it’s high nutrients macros would do great in the fuge, but they just get coated in Dinos and melt no matter what I do. I’m trying to avoid having to plumb in a UV, I’m not that handy. I tried high flow on sps frags thinking it’d help but they stayed retracted, and even that wouldn’t keep the Dinos off. Lower flow didn’t trigger a response either. I keep hearing that the best way to learn what good flow is is to see it, but if I can’t get a reaction either way, I’m flying nearly blind. All I can go on is some other reefer saying ‘high flow’.

I refuse to quit on the hobby, I love it too much. If all else fails I can drop corals for fowlr tanks, but the main draw for me was the idea of at least one bustling colorful reef…

If I were a betting man, Id put money on an ICP test showing what's wrong. On paper to me, it looks like you're doing everything properly. But the lack of coralline, inability to maintain corals, inability to grow macro algae, and the prevalence of dinos / cyano points to something being way off.

How are the inverts and the pod population doing?

 

[slingfox]

The question is are you willing to change how you run your tank or do you plan to do the same thing hoping for different results?

How large is your tank, what fish do you have, and what do you feed and how often? You really should take a look at nutrient import/export and brings those into a better balance (ie, cleaning the filter socks once a week leaves a lot of waste sitting in the tank leaching nutrients). I know it may seem daunting but to run a UV all you need is a UV unit and connect it to a pump. If you already run carbon and GFO reactors it does not need to be any different. Yes, it may be nice to plumb the UV into your return piping but that is by no means necessary.

I believe priority #1 in your situation is to get the Dino’s and cyano under control. If you have very limited coraline after 10 months that is a clear sign that the water quality is not great.

 

[CHSUB]

Nitrate 10-25ppm (appears to lean high

If either cyano or Dinos try choking a coral or otherwise annoy me, I’ll blow off the rocks with a turkey baster. Cyano sometimes clings to parts of the pumps and I’ll scrub those with a toothbrush as needed.

but they just get coated in Dinos

My take: when I see no3 that high, from vagueness could be 50 ppm? I think how does one get no3 that high? My reef tanks never even get to single digits on no3. There are a giant list of potential pollutants that we don’t test for that become no3. Organic pollutants being the most prevalent and are directly consumed by dinos and cyano. Corals grow in clean water, algae and cyano in polluted water. High fish population and heavy feeding requires excellent maintenance and export. Residual high no3 levels are the end product of an eutrophication of your reef system.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Please tell us what kind of light you have, how many watts, what intensity, what size is the tank? How did you measure your par? Corals not growing and browning out usually comes down to low lighting, most of these "why are my corals dying" threads often turn out to be low lighting.

Tank pictures also help, lets see how you get the tank set up!

 

[56longroof]

My take: when I see no3 that high, from vagueness could be 50 ppm? I think how does one get no3 that high? My reef tanks never even get to single digits on no3. There are a giant list of potential pollutants that we don’t test for that become no3. Organic pollutants being the most prevalent and are directly consumed by dinos and cyano. Corals grow in clean water, algae and cyano in polluted water. High fish population and heavy feeding requires excellent maintenance and export. Residual high no3 levels are the end product of an eutrophication of your reef system.

My tank runs around 15-20 ppm nitrate and .1 phosphate. The corals in my SPS heavy tank are growing great with no issues. Your assessment of what's the problem has been disproven many times. In fact alot of the set ups that are TOTM run higher nutrients. There is something else going on. I do agree the lack of maintenance is a problem though.

 

[Ryan - Serious Reefs]

This is how I would handle it in my own tank.

Most of the time when I see something like this it ends up being a water issue. Something in the water is irritating or toxic to the corals. In your case it appears to be affecting both the corals and the algae. Rather than chasing my tail trying to test for every possible contaminant, I usually go straight to the end game solution: remove the water I am concerned about and replace it with new water. Many times that solves the issue outright, and if it does not, it still rules out a huge number of potential causes and makes finding the real one much easier.

I would start with a 30 percent water change. If things look better later that day or by the next day, that is a strong indicator that something in the water needs to be removed. In that case, I would follow up with a 90 percent water change if I have enough heated saltwater ready. If not, I would do four more 30 percent water changes. That sequence will remove roughly 82 percent of what is currently in the tank.

You can use this calculator to see the effect that different sizes and numbers of water changes have on contaminants: https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/EffectOfWaterChanges.php

Since you mentioned dinos, that is another possible cause. If the first 30 percent water change does not produce any improvement, that would probably be the next path I would investigate.

Lighting can also cause similar issues if it is too intense 250 is certainly on the high end for a LPS tank. In an LPS tank I would turn the lights down to around 150 peak PAR. That is more than enough for most LPS and can even be on the high side for some. If things improve after lowering the light, that may be the culprit.

Finally, severely underfed systems can sometimes show symptoms like this and benefit from amino acid dosing. However, based on the nutrient levels you mentioned, that seems like a less likely cause.

 

[get-salty]

Hello there.
The main thing that stood out for me is your chaeto are melting. That is a tell-tale sign of a low nutrients system.
Chaeto will only grow if your system have enough nutrients - phosphate for example, and grow light OC.
Make you are getting an accurate test result on the po4 and nitrate as you dont want these two elements to bottom out.

That is the very first thing i'd address.

Good luck.

 

[Ryan - Serious Reefs]

Please tell us what kind of light you have, how many watts, what intensity, what size is the tank? How did you measure your par? Corals not growing and browning out usually comes down to low lighting, most of these "why are my corals dying" threads often turn out to be low lighting.

Tank pictures also help, lets see how you get the tank set up!

I have had a bit of a contrasting experience. In those I have helped previosuly about 90% of the time the issue ends up being too much light rather than too little. High PAR can overdrive photosynthesis and create excess oxidants that stress or kill corals.

Modern LEDs have made it very easy to push tanks into SPS ranges of 200 to 350 PAR or more. Without a PAR meter, it can be surprisingly difficult to tune lighting into the typical LPS range of about 50 to 150 PAR. In this case the range mentioned is 80 to 280, which is pretty wide and makes it harder to diagnose. The 280 could simply be a peak directly under a puck style light.

The observation that “things either brown out or go pale, and most are open for a couple days then close up” gives a few clues. Browning is excess zooxanthellae, which can happen with both too much and too little light. Pale corals are more commonly associated with poisoning the zooxanthellae with over lighting/excess oxidants, water toxins, or lack of nutrition. The pattern of opening for a couple days and then closing again could fit a light stress cycle, but it could also point to an irritant or toxin in the water.

A few clear pictures and a better understanding of the PAR distribution throughout the tank would go a long way toward narrowing down the diagnosis. I'd personally do the 30% water change today to help identify if water quality is the most likely culprit.

 

[BubbleAlgaeFarmer]

It would be great to see a pic of the tank to see what it looks like as well as what your dinos look like. If it were me, water changes as mentioned above and start dealing with the dinos asap. Dinos will destroy tank inhabitants, especially coral, in my experience.

Do you have a microscope? Looking at the dinos under a scope will let you know the type and what you need to do in order to get rid of them.

 

[centroradialis]

Any airborne pollutant in the room? My issue came from the chemicals from drying clothes in the same room. All values were stable and within range, multiple ICP tests came back showing no metal pollution. I started drying clothes in a different room and everything started opening up again after a few weeks. The problem could be anything like air refresheners, incense, cat litter etc.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I have had a bit of a contrasting experience. In those I have helped previosuly about 90% of the time the issue ends up being too much light rather than too little. High PAR can overdrive photosynthesis and create excess oxidants that stress or kill corals.

Modern LEDs have made it very easy to push tanks into SPS ranges of 200 to 350 PAR or more. Without a PAR meter, it can be surprisingly difficult to tune lighting into the typical LPS range of about 50 to 150 PAR. In this case the range mentioned is 80 to 280, which is pretty wide and makes it harder to diagnose. The 280 could simply be a peak directly under a puck style light.

The observation that “things either brown out or go pale, and most are open for a couple days then close up” gives a few clues. Browning is excess zooxanthellae, which can happen with both too much and too little light. Pale corals are more commonly associated with poisoning the zooxanthellae with over lighting/excess oxidants, water toxins, or lack of nutrition. The pattern of opening for a couple days and then closing again could fit a light stress cycle, but it could also point to an irritant or toxin in the water.

A few clear pictures and a better understanding of the PAR distribution throughout the tank would go a long way toward narrowing down the diagnosis. I'd personally do the 30% water change today to help identify if water quality is the most likely culprit.

Even if the lighting is ideal, he has only a 4 hour peak.

I see nothing in his parameters that would stop corals growing for a full year. The parameters are close to ideal, could use some tweeking but tweeking won't suddenly make the corals grow.

With that said, I do agree with water changes, I do them sometimes just as a form of relaxation.

respect to your opinion but I still feel its a lighting issue, wether low par or low peak or wrong spectrum

 

[Tahoe61]

You have multiple systems running correct, which tank are asking about? Did I miss the brand of fixture?
Providing an image can sometimes reveal an issue you may not have considered.

 

[Wandering Albatross]

The question is are you willing to change how you run your tank or do you plan to do the same thing hoping for different results?

How large is your tank, what fish do you have, and what do you feed and how often? You really should take a look at nutrient import/export and brings those into a better balance (ie, cleaning the filter socks once a week leaves a lot of waste sitting in the tank leaching nutrients). I know it may seem daunting but to run a UV all you need is a UV unit and connect it to a pump. If you already run carbon and GFO reactors it does not need to be any different. Yes, it may be nice to plumb the UV into your return piping but that is by no means necessary.

I believe priority #1 in your situation is to get the Dino’s and cyano under control. If you have very limited coraline after 10 months that is a clear sign that the water quality is not great.

I would need to know what to change in order to fix it, I've been changing and adding trying to fix the problem, but nothing I do seems to have any impact. Thought high nutrients first cause my few softies have done okayish and tests show high, so gfo and planting the fuge. But every macro dies after a short time of withering. I've been told to just let the tank mature, but the rock's brown now with areas of almost calcified green patches, especially near the tops where flow hits hardest, it looks like proper live rock now. It's not a 2 month old tank anymore. I've heard coralline is a good sign, but it's not on powerhead plastic like I've heard people say is a common starter place, and it's not on the glass, it picked a tiny spot in the lower center of my tank, where my lights are weaker. Cyano does have a presence, but it has toned down a lot since getting the sifter goby. It still pops up here and there, and favors powerheads and parts of the back wall. Dinos and cyano do most of their battle now on new or newly scrubbed gear, including new frags. If this were a smaller tank it'd be much easier to justify a water change for immediate nutrient reduction, but to make any real difference I'd have to dump 60+ gallons on a tank this size, and I've been trying to avoid that if at all possible. Ideally a full refreshing endeavor like that would only happen once every other year or so, if that. I know there are ways to keep the water in pretty good shape, but to do that the way I want, I need the macros to stop dying, which means something else is still the problem.

150g, 40g 1/2 full-running sump.
As of last headcount:
2 blue dartfish
1 disbar anthias
3 purple queen anthias
2 canarytop wrasse
2 ruby finned fairy wrasse
2 ornate wrasse
5 garden eels
2 yellow watchman
2 green clown gobies
1 royal gramma
1 CBB
5 blue/green chromis
2 clowns
1 diamond sand sifter (might have 1 hiding)
2 mandarins
1 spotted mandarin
2-3 porcelain crabs
1 cleaner shrimp
2-4 peppermint shrimp
assorted CUC

Because of the mandarins and anthias/chromis, I feed minimum 3x a day. Mostly frozen, but there are some nice high energy pellets I add at times that the anthias love. The pumps remain on during feeding to accommodate the garden eels, they still don't understand spot feeding. Unfortunately, the aiptasia love that too, and the CBB hasn't shown interest in them yet.

 

[Wandering Albatross]

I have had a bit of a contrasting experience. In those I have helped previosuly about 90% of the time the issue ends up being too much light rather than too little. High PAR can overdrive photosynthesis and create excess oxidants that stress or kill corals.

Modern LEDs have made it very easy to push tanks into SPS ranges of 200 to 350 PAR or more. Without a PAR meter, it can be surprisingly difficult to tune lighting into the typical LPS range of about 50 to 150 PAR. In this case the range mentioned is 80 to 280, which is pretty wide and makes it harder to diagnose. The 280 could simply be a peak directly under a puck style light.

The observation that “things either brown out or go pale, and most are open for a couple days then close up” gives a few clues. Browning is excess zooxanthellae, which can happen with both too much and too little light. Pale corals are more commonly associated with poisoning the zooxanthellae with over lighting/excess oxidants, water toxins, or lack of nutrition. The pattern of opening for a couple days and then closing again could fit a light stress cycle, but it could also point to an irritant or toxin in the water.

A few clear pictures and a better understanding of the PAR distribution throughout the tank would go a long way toward narrowing down the diagnosis. I'd personally do the 30% water change today to help identify if water quality is the most likely culprit.

PAR ranges are from the corners of the sand to the top of the rocks. These lights were meant to be strong, but running at peak with 100% blue/violet and 40% everything else, it still barely reaches 280ish at the top of the rocks, directly under the light. I'd rather lower the other colors for a slightly more blue look, but it drops my par. I've also heard mixed reviews on whites being damaging at high levels.

So, if browning can mean too much or not enough, and moving it up or down does nothing, how do I know which it is?

 

[Wandering Albatross]

It lets me know it’s glass scrape day when it starts to look cloudy from. The back walls get less attention and cyano does like to hang there sometimes. When I ramped up the flow it did blow some of my shallower sand areas, I have ordered some slightly larger grain for that particular area.

Here’s that one weird spot of coralline. It’s spreading slowly and is a nice pink color, just wish there was more of it. It’s in a lower random flow area with lower light. Middle of the tank.

Here’s a close up of what most of the rock looks like when clean, it’s got a calcified feel to it and is more green under whiter lights. Shows like this most on the tops where the flow is strong.

 

[Tahoe61]

PAR ranges are from the corners of the sand to the top of the rocks. These lights were meant to be strong, but running at peak with 100%.

What lighting fixture? I am sorry, am missing that information in your post? If so I sincerely apologize.
You're not providing enough of the necessary basics, we are just speculating.

 

[Wandering Albatross]

My take: when I see no3 that high, from vagueness could be 50 ppm? I think how does one get no3 that high? My reef tanks never even get to single digits on no3. There are a giant list of potential pollutants that we don’t test for that become no3. Organic pollutants being the most prevalent and are directly consumed by dinos and cyano. Corals grow in clean water, algae and cyano in polluted water. High fish population and heavy feeding requires excellent maintenance and export. Residual high no3 levels are the end product of an eutrophication of your reef system.

Vagueness is because it's color was between 10 and 20, couldn't decide which was closer.