After doing this for 7 years now I'd like to think I acquired the skills to fix my own problems, but things are getting bad and I'm getting desperate, so reaching out for help.
It started about a 6 weeks ago from my notes, some of my SPS started to lose color. I didn't think too much of it as I've seen it before and usually a couple extra water changes and time will perk things back up. But the thing that really caused alarm for me was about 2 weeks ago my alk started climbing and I hadn't touched any of the dosing.
I usually keep my alk around 8.4 dKH but every time I tested there was a 0.1 or 0.2 increase to where I got to 9.8 dKH. At that time I started to back off my 2 part dosing so much so I went from dosing 35ml a day to nothing. I stopped 2 part dosing completely and was only dosing kalk. I had to back kalk down from 3.6L a day to 2.1L per day before I could finally get alk down to 9 dKH where it's been holding for the past few days. Which is crazy, zero 2 part and half my kalk dose!
The problem seems to be exclusively with SPS, predominantly acropora. In fact most of the carnage is all acropora, bar some really beautiful juggernaut montipora. It's all very pale and the tips are turning brown. Now around some of the bases I'm seeing skeleton and little bits of algae starting to take hold. The acropora is all over the tank so not just isolated to one area.
Current parameters
Tank is 5 years old and had been without issue for nearly a year. Build thread
- Salinity: 35.1ppt
- Alkalinity: 8.9dKH
- Calcium: 440ppm
- Phosphate: 0.12ppm
- Nitrate: 16ppm
Possible Causes
I did some manual dosing of Phosphate RX (lanthanum chloride). Phos was at 0.2 and I just wanted to bring it down to a little below 0.1. I'd been burned before with lanthanum and dosing too much too quick. This time I dosed 3-4 drops a day for a little over 3 weeks. It's such a small dose in such a large volume of water 400L. I was checking phos every couple days and it was barley moving, thats why it took so long to eventually get down to 0.08ppm when I stopped dosing.
I switched kalk, I mean it was still the same manufacturer. I had been getting 98% pure kalk, but something has changed and I can't find 98% pure anywhere only 95%. This was my first time buying 95% kalk. I changed over 2 months ago. Though I'm dripping it in my coral holding tank as well and I've not seen issue there so I'm skeptical.
Also unlikely but worth mentioning I found the nori feeder had some plastic worn away and there was exposed metal that looked like rust. The exposed portion was very small though, about the size of a grain of rice. I've removed the feeder since finding it.
Remediations
Again fearing lanthanum had somehow done this I added Brightwell Purit to a reactor 6 days ago. It's basically like carbon but with more binders in it to make it more effective.
I trimmed off all the branches on my big colonies that had big brown bits. I've seen RTN before and this is not that. The skin hadn't sloughed off, it had just slowly died away and brown alage was growing on the skeleton.
I ordered an ICP test to rule out any contaminants. You can see below 3 years of ICP for comparison. The one on Jan 6th doesn't show anything super alarming that I can see. Silicon is a bit higher than I'd really like it but I don't think that would be responsible for this. Lanthanum is at 0 but my guess is that's because the Purit pulled anything that was in there out.
I added 4 vials of Prodibio BioDigest thinking perhaps it was bacterial and maybe some good guy bacteria would help.
I got the ICP back just today seeing all my traces at zero I decided to take kalk completely offline and resume 2 part dosing. My 2 part has trace elements in it so I figure on the remote chance the kalk is to blame it's now offline, and even if it's not bad kalk the 2 part dosing can help replenish trace elements.
This monti was BRIGHT yellow
Red viper coral so pale and dying around base
Elkhorn acro that was neon green now missing flesh and turning brown
This myiagi tort has been unkillable, almost a pest, it's losing all its color and die off on the tips
I think the blues being on are making the pink pop a bit more than it really is to the eye. But this is a pale pink, mostly wanted to show what I'm seeing brown on the tips of all the acros.
ICP
I've got a bucket of salt coming and was thinking of doing a massive 50% (200L) water change. The only thing giving me pause is from all accounts water chemistry looks fine-ish. I don't know that a massive WC would actually help, just feels like I need to do something. I've been in similar situations before and I know sometimes doing too much is actually a detriment.
Have I done what I can and need to wait and see? Also curious if this seems familiar to anyone that's seen it before.
Crazy thing is the rest of the tank is great! LPS are all swaying in the current fat and fluffy. Great color on the chalices. Even have two colonies of stylo that haven't missed a beat. No GHA or brown algaes anywhere on the rocks or sand. What is happening?!
It started about a 6 weeks ago from my notes, some of my SPS started to lose color. I didn't think too much of it as I've seen it before and usually a couple extra water changes and time will perk things back up. But the thing that really caused alarm for me was about 2 weeks ago my alk started climbing and I hadn't touched any of the dosing.
I usually keep my alk around 8.4 dKH but every time I tested there was a 0.1 or 0.2 increase to where I got to 9.8 dKH. At that time I started to back off my 2 part dosing so much so I went from dosing 35ml a day to nothing. I stopped 2 part dosing completely and was only dosing kalk. I had to back kalk down from 3.6L a day to 2.1L per day before I could finally get alk down to 9 dKH where it's been holding for the past few days. Which is crazy, zero 2 part and half my kalk dose!
The problem seems to be exclusively with SPS, predominantly acropora. In fact most of the carnage is all acropora, bar some really beautiful juggernaut montipora. It's all very pale and the tips are turning brown. Now around some of the bases I'm seeing skeleton and little bits of algae starting to take hold. The acropora is all over the tank so not just isolated to one area.
Current parameters
Tank is 5 years old and had been without issue for nearly a year. Build thread
- Salinity: 35.1ppt
- Alkalinity: 8.9dKH
- Calcium: 440ppm
- Phosphate: 0.12ppm
- Nitrate: 16ppm
Possible Causes
I did some manual dosing of Phosphate RX (lanthanum chloride). Phos was at 0.2 and I just wanted to bring it down to a little below 0.1. I'd been burned before with lanthanum and dosing too much too quick. This time I dosed 3-4 drops a day for a little over 3 weeks. It's such a small dose in such a large volume of water 400L. I was checking phos every couple days and it was barley moving, thats why it took so long to eventually get down to 0.08ppm when I stopped dosing.
I switched kalk, I mean it was still the same manufacturer. I had been getting 98% pure kalk, but something has changed and I can't find 98% pure anywhere only 95%. This was my first time buying 95% kalk. I changed over 2 months ago. Though I'm dripping it in my coral holding tank as well and I've not seen issue there so I'm skeptical.
Also unlikely but worth mentioning I found the nori feeder had some plastic worn away and there was exposed metal that looked like rust. The exposed portion was very small though, about the size of a grain of rice. I've removed the feeder since finding it.
Remediations
Again fearing lanthanum had somehow done this I added Brightwell Purit to a reactor 6 days ago. It's basically like carbon but with more binders in it to make it more effective.
I trimmed off all the branches on my big colonies that had big brown bits. I've seen RTN before and this is not that. The skin hadn't sloughed off, it had just slowly died away and brown alage was growing on the skeleton.
I ordered an ICP test to rule out any contaminants. You can see below 3 years of ICP for comparison. The one on Jan 6th doesn't show anything super alarming that I can see. Silicon is a bit higher than I'd really like it but I don't think that would be responsible for this. Lanthanum is at 0 but my guess is that's because the Purit pulled anything that was in there out.
I added 4 vials of Prodibio BioDigest thinking perhaps it was bacterial and maybe some good guy bacteria would help.
I got the ICP back just today seeing all my traces at zero I decided to take kalk completely offline and resume 2 part dosing. My 2 part has trace elements in it so I figure on the remote chance the kalk is to blame it's now offline, and even if it's not bad kalk the 2 part dosing can help replenish trace elements.
This monti was BRIGHT yellow

Red viper coral so pale and dying around base

Elkhorn acro that was neon green now missing flesh and turning brown

This myiagi tort has been unkillable, almost a pest, it's losing all its color and die off on the tips

I think the blues being on are making the pink pop a bit more than it really is to the eye. But this is a pale pink, mostly wanted to show what I'm seeing brown on the tips of all the acros.

ICP

I've got a bucket of salt coming and was thinking of doing a massive 50% (200L) water change. The only thing giving me pause is from all accounts water chemistry looks fine-ish. I don't know that a massive WC would actually help, just feels like I need to do something. I've been in similar situations before and I know sometimes doing too much is actually a detriment.
Have I done what I can and need to wait and see? Also curious if this seems familiar to anyone that's seen it before.
Crazy thing is the rest of the tank is great! LPS are all swaying in the current fat and fluffy. Great color on the chalices. Even have two colonies of stylo that haven't missed a beat. No GHA or brown algaes anywhere on the rocks or sand. What is happening?!
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