Fighting an Unknown Pathogen - Help Requested

Lavey29

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I agree with 60 reefer here. It is most likely nutrient deprivation and the corals are slowly dying off. They may not show signs for month and then all of a sudden they go downhill fast. Some corals may be more resilient then others or use more light for nourishment then actual food substance. Your ICP will help but you need to get nitrates to 10ppm and phosphate to .05 to .1 for an LPS tank.
 
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AZ1424

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Hey Reef2Reefers, I finally got an ICP test done and got the following results:

mad of recently if I put a new zoa in the tank it will melt within minutes. Lost a new acantho and a torch but other things are holding on. What might be causing my Woes?


I know the yellow icons needs to be dosed with a trace additive and the reds are high through the roof. Chlorine seems to indicate to me that RODI filter is not working. Let me know your thoughts!
 

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slythy

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I have a very very hard time believing you ahve 24000 ppm of chlorine in your aquarium. Pools are like 1-4ppm and id imagine fish would die at the .1ppm of chlorine.

what unit is that actually in?
 
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AZ1424

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Thats so weird, makes me think they mean chloride. Would that make sense? Seems like a really weird mistake for a legit ICP company to make. Thoughts?

95C9F161-07B8-4CD6-9471-D7710CC3763C.png
 

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AZ1424

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CULPRIT FOUND - NEON GREEN CABBAGE LEATHER CHEMICAL WARFARE.

Nearly a year later and today I finally found out what was causing my issue. A neon green cabbage leather was waging chemical warfare. As recently as 2 days ago a zoa that entered the tank would disappear immediately. I removed the leather along with some other suspects and I created an isolation chamber with a bucket. When I put the leather in alone with a zoa the zoa disappeared nearly immediately.

I can now keep zoanthids in my mixed reef! The neon green cabbage leather has been secreting toxins in my reef and killing and zoanthids, acans or Duncan’s that enter.. I have not been able to find much documentation of this issue. Excited to finally have found a culprit.
 

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Lavey29

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CULPRIT FOUND - NEON GREEN CABBAGE LEATHER CHEMICAL WARFARE.

Nearly a year later and today I finally found out what was causing my issue. A neon green cabbage leather was waging chemical warfare. As recently as 2 days ago a zoa that entered the tank would disappear immediately. I removed the leather along with some other suspects and I created an isolation chamber with a bucket. When I put the leather in alone with a zoa the zoa disappeared nearly immediately.

I can now keep zoanthids in my mixed reef! The neon green cabbage leather has been secreting toxins in my reef and killing and zoanthids, acans or Duncan’s that enter.. I have not been able to find much documentation of this issue. Excited to finally have found a culprit.
I'm glad you found and remedied the source of your problem. Do you run carbon all the time? I have multiple leathers in my tank and have not experienced issues. My zoas are growing all around them in harmony.
 
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AZ1424

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Scratch that.. I got over confident that I had found the culprit.. Just bought some palys to add to the tank and they melted immediately upon entry.... Zoas that were added yesterday are open and alright, sitting right next to the now zapped palys.. Back to square one...
 

Lavey29

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Scratch that.. I got over confident that I had found the culprit.. Just bought some palys to add to the tank and they melted immediately upon entry.... Zoas that were added yesterday are open and alright, sitting right next to the now zapped palys.. Back to square one...
Have you done a recent ICP to check everything? I know they say some trace elements can affect zoas like a lack of iodine or manganese. Have you checked for zoa spiders?
 
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AZ1424

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Have you done a recent ICP to check everything? I know they say some trace elements can affect zoas like a lack of iodine or manganese. Have you checked for zoa spiders?
I have checked for zoa spiders for sure! And have done multiple kinds of dips. I have just now ordered an ICP test again, in the past it was too much iodine and manganese was fine.

I am at a loss my issues persist, I added a duncan today and immediately upon entry it closes up and it tentacles won’t come out. Added a zoa today and it melted completely within hours.

My most recent hunch was that it was simply too much light with both T5s and LEDs. But with only LEDS on today the Duncan retracted and zoas melted.

I am now trying to go just T5s to see if the LEDs could be the issue.


My specs are as follows:

1.026 salt
8.3 alk
400 cal
1400 mag
.139 phosphate
2.7 nitrate
76 degrees

i can keep all sorts of sps and many kinds of LPS, but zoas melt nearly immediately when entering my tank. Some palys that initially nearly died when the issue first started happening are now happy and healthy although not growing at a very fast rate.

any insight would be appreciated
 

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Lavey29

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I have checked for zoa spiders for sure! And have done multiple kinds of dips. I have just now ordered an ICP test again, in the past it was too much iodine and manganese was fine.

I am at a loss my issues persist, I added a duncan today and immediately upon entry it closes up and it tentacles won’t come out. Added a zoa today and it melted completely within hours.

My most recent hunch was that it was simply too much light with both T5s and LEDs. But with only LEDS on today the Duncan retracted and zoas melted.

I am now trying to go just T5s to see if the LEDs could be the issue.


My specs are as follows:

1.026 salt
8.3 alk
400 cal
1400 mag
.139 phosphate
2.7 nitrate
76 degrees

i can keep all sorts of sps and many kinds of LPS, but zoas melt nearly immediately when entering my tank. Some palys that initially nearly died when the issue first started happening are now happy and healthy although not growing at a very fast rate.

any insight would be appreciated
Strange, your numbers are not bad although you want nitrates at 10 for corals. The ICP will be important because obviously there is an underlying problem. Have you checked par? You can use the photone app with your phone to get a ballpark par number at your water line. Every zoa frag I've ever tossed in my tank grew huge colonies. They even grow on my powerheads and I have no idea how they got there.
 

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AZ1424

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Strange, your numbers are not bad although you want nitrates at 10 for corals. The ICP will be important because obviously there is an underlying problem. Have you checked par? You can use the photone app with your phone to get a ballpark par number at your water line. Every zoa frag I've ever tossed in my tank grew huge colonies. They even grow on my powerheads and I have no idea how they got there.
I love when zoas grow like that and legitimately started another tank so I can grow zoas again.

Thank you for telling me about that app that is great! I will measure tomorrow.

My hunch now is that light is the only constant and it seems my issues are with all low light corals. Zoas, Blastos, Acans, Acanthos, Duncan, Cynarina ..

I agree that I think ICP will be telling. I will keep this thread notified.
 

Lavey29

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I love when zoas grow like that and legitimately started another tank so I can grow zoas again.

Thank you for telling me about that app that is great! I will measure tomorrow.

My hunch now is that light is the only constant and it seems my issues are with all low light corals. Zoas, Blastos, Acans, Acanthos, Duncan, Cynarina ..

I agree that I think ICP will be telling. I will keep this thread notified.
I hope you get it figured out but it sounds like an imbalance in your water chemistry or a par issue since you are running a pretty nice combo of T5 and led. I was actually shocked how low the par was on my XR15s when I used the app and then subsequently a par meter. I have them set at 100% intensity now on a 22 inch deep tank. Surprisingly the phone app was pretty accurate to the actual par meter number too. Some people put their phone in ziplock bags and measure par underwater to but I didn't go that far.
 
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AZ1424

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I will get Par readings today!

To add to the mystery the Duncan was open fine all night and has its polyps out this morning. I think that points to light being at issue.

I also ordered NeoNitro from Brightwell and will start dosing nitrate tomorrow to get to that .1:10 phosphate nitrogen ratio.
 
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