Help from the experts

[Lavey29]

I’d say flow or chemical warfare myself from that picture… do you run any carbon?

Flow hasn't changed in a year. Warfare always a possibility but multiple corals in different places at the same time? Everything here had been fine for over a year together.

 

[blaxsun]

It was probably the right call. More often than not when you try to save everything you end up losing a lot more than if you'd just cut your losses.

 

[Lavey29]

You could send out for an aquabiomics test to help confirm or eliminate pathogenic bacteria. Just a thought.

Good suggestion, if the decline continues will do that. I've been dosing some good bacteria to combat the problem. Have an ICP on the way too

 

[Lavey29]

It was probably the right call. More often than not when you try to save everything you end up losing a lot more than if you'd just cut your losses.

True just hurt to lose some pieces that grew from small frags

 

[blaxsun]

True just hurt to lose some pieces that grew from small frags

Had this happen with a pair of indo torches (one was a beautiful 8-head dragon soul that I'd grown from a single head). It was my wife's favorite so naturally I tried to save it, but I ended up losing it anyway plus half of the other torch.

 

[Lavey29]

Had this happen with a pair of indo torches (one was a beautiful 8-head dragon soul that I'd grown from a single head). It was my wife's favorite so naturally I tried to save it, but I ended up losing it anyway plus half of the other torch.

Bummer, this hobby can be humbling at times

 

[Pod_01]

Luckily today everything seems stable with my SPS.

So out of curiosity, how long has your PO4 been above the 0.1 level?

My P04 is .25 now. I cut back the digi but the purple stylo is going fast

Just curious on your tank delay response.

Couple years back I turned my reef tank onto fresh water (accident when on vacation). The tank was like watching slow motion train wreck. Some corals packed it in asap, some bleached some tried to survive but died later. Some could care less.

This one bleached:
Before:

after:

Setosa just packed it in:

after:

This on bleached and took 2 years to finally give up:

after it grew some but eventually just gave up:

Anyway what I learned from number of my mistake.
The SPS that grow like fire will perish as fast. Slow growers take longer to react. So now I have a mix and when I see the fast growers not looking good I am on pins and needles.

Happy to hear things are stable.

 

[Lavey29]

So out of curiosity, how long has your PO4 been above the 0.1 level?


Just curious on your tank delay response.

Couple years back I turned my reef tank onto fresh water (accident when on vacation). The tank was like watching slow motion train wreck. Some corals packed it in asap, some bleached some tried to survive but died later. Some could care less.

This one bleached:
Before:

after:

Setosa just packed it in:

after:

This on bleached and took 2 years to finally give up:

after it grew some but eventually just gave up:

Anyway what I learned from number of my mistake.
The SPS that grow like fire will perish as fast. Slow growers take longer to react. So now I have a mix and when I see the fast growers not looking good I am on pins and needles.

Happy to hear things are stable.

Oh maybe 3 to 4 months above .2. It got to the point that GFO or phosguard couldn't bring it down so I switched to half doses of phosphate rx the past 2 months which seemed to keep things .1 to .15 or so until what was bound in the rocks got used up then it lowered to .06. This was about the time the first SPS went into RTN and then the big pieces started STN. I speculate the lower phosphates number stressed the corals and allowed a bacteria to get in with the aforementioned results. I guess I will know in the coming weeks if any others show symptoms. This is the first tank issue I have had in a long time and I have 38 SPS corals from frags to colonies at the top and had no losses really prior except for a bad shipper on one.

Guess it's like cutting the hedge back in the yard. Looks crappy for a little while. At keast I can kill some aptasia now since my nudibranch appear to be on strike.

Going to keep P04 in the .1 to .2 range hopefully. Will be checking daily. Alk creeped up a little to with the coral deaths and lower consumption so checking that daily for couple days too.

 

[Lavey29]

So out of curiosity, how long has your PO4 been above the 0.1 level?


Just curious on your tank delay response.

Couple years back I turned my reef tank onto fresh water (accident when on vacation). The tank was like watching slow motion train wreck. Some corals packed it in asap, some bleached some tried to survive but died later. Some could care less.

This one bleached:
Before:

after:

Setosa just packed it in:

after:

This on bleached and took 2 years to finally give up:

after it grew some but eventually just gave up:

Anyway what I learned from number of my mistake.
The SPS that grow like fire will perish as fast. Slow growers take longer to react. So now I have a mix and when I see the fast growers not looking good I am on pins and needles.

Happy to hear things are stable.

Oh maybe 3 to 4 months. It got to the point that GFO or phosguard couldn't bring it down so I switched to half doses of phosphate rx the past 2 months which seemed to keep things .1 to .15 or so until what was bound in the rocks got used up then it lowered to .06. This was about the time the first SPS went into RTN and then the big pieces started STN. I speculate the lower phosphates number stressed the corals and allowed a bacteria to get in with the aforementioned results. I guess I will know in the coming weeks if any others show symptoms. This is the first tank issue I have had in a long time and I have 38 SPS corals from frags to colonies at the top and had no losses really prior except for a bad shipper on one.

Guess it's like cutting the hedge back in the yard. Looks crappy for a little while. At keast I can kill some aptasia now since my nudibranch appear to be on strike.

Going to keep P04 in the .1 to .2 range hopefully. Will be checking daily. Alk creeped up a little to with the coral deaths and lower consumption so checking that daily for couple days too

So out of curiosity, how long has your PO4 been above the 0.1 level?


Just curious on your tank delay response.

Couple years back I turned my reef tank onto fresh water (accident when on vacation). The tank was like watching slow motion train wreck. Some corals packed it in asap, some bleached some tried to survive but died later. Some could care less.

This one bleached:
Before:

after:

Setosa just packed it in:

after:

This on bleached and took 2 years to finally give up:

after it grew some but eventually just gave up:

Anyway what I learned from number of my mistake.
The SPS that grow like fire will perish as fast. Slow growers take longer to react. So now I have a mix and when I see the fast growers not looking good I am on pins and needles.

Happy to hear things are stable.

You had some beautiful pieces sorry you lost them. I went out of town in June and a big digi on the side got knocked loose and fell on top of my 7 inch trachy. Both were gone when I got back

 

[Battlecorals]

I’d say flow or chemical warfare myself from that picture… do you run any carbon?

was was thinking this too.

just buy proximity of those zoos. I'm no softy expert and I have no idea if they could even do that but that's kind of where my mind went as well.

I mean it looks suspicious and not really like typical parameter type issues to me. Is most of the damage in the peripheral of those zoos or are there other issue similar farther away in a tank. Either way, it has been suggested yet you know, obviously burning some carbon may help or even moving some of those corals

 

[Lavey29]

was was thinking this too.

just buy proximity of those zoos. I'm no softy expert and I have no idea if they could even do that but that's kind of where my mind went as well.

I mean it looks suspicious and not really like typical parameter type issues to me. Is most of the damage in the peripheral of those zoos or are there other issue similar farther away in a tank. Either way, it has been suggested yet you know, obviously burning some carbon may help or even moving some of those corals

I do run carbon already. Everything had been fine for well over a year with flow. The corals grew in and started crowding each other so I anticipated some weaker ones getting pushed out and not surviving. I originally put my frags to close together but I was new to SPS and thought at least 50% would not survive. To my surprise all my frags did survive and thrive which leads to the crowded situation on top but I figure just let nature run its course. I'm pretty sure my phosphate swing caused a stressful even and some of the SPS developed bacterial infection. Hopefully pulling and cutting removed the bacteria so nothing else declines. Zoas grow everywhere in my tank. I like them filling gaps between corals. They even grow on my powerheads and I did not put any there.

On a side note, in a few weeks I will probably place an order with you to start over again in the open space.

 

[jda]

Unless you cut back on feeding, then there is little chance that your corals were phosphorous deficient.

Colonies are different. They just are. Sometimes there is no reasoning and stuff. Some of the time, it is point-source lighting that causes some under tissue to die off. The tissue die off means less surface area for SPS to grab bacteria and other sources of building blocks and energy.

My first thought with this stuff is always to start with lighting... either more panels from more angles or to add T5s. If you already use these things, then I have no idea.

 

[Lavey29]

Unless you cut back on feeding, then there is little chance that your corals were phosphorous deficient.

Colonies are different. They just are. Sometimes there is no reasoning and stuff. Some of the time, it is point-source lighting that causes some under tissue to die off. The tissue die off means less surface area for SPS to grab bacteria and other sources of building blocks and energy.

My first thought with this stuff is always to start with lighting... either more panels from more angles or to add T5s. If you already use these things, then I have no idea.

No just XR15 lights. Tank not really big enough to go with T5 in my opinion. All these SPS were small frags that turned into mini colonies and full size. Yes some things were starting to get shaded out but I'm sure that happens in the ocean too so I like to let the corals decide who's in and who' s out. Nature do its thing. I don't think my lighting which has been the same for 2.5 years had anything to do with this event. My SPS are all just the basic easier corals to work with nothing fancy. Only one millie in there and some torts. Rest are easy growers. I think my phosphate decline and possibly my slight salinity swing triggered the event.