Help needed, losing corals fast!

[Morpheosz]

Tried posting this previously but didn't get any attention so trying again as my situation is evolving quickly. The short story is I have a 3.5 month old 75G tank that cycled and matured very quickly. I transplanted some rock from my previous nano and started with Ocean Direct sand. Within 2 months nearly everything was covered in Coralline and I have closely managed very stable water conditions. I have added a dozen fish and 40+ coral frags. It is a mixed reef with a little bit of everything.

For the first couple of months they were thriving, good extension, growing fast. Over the last 2-3 weeks, I had a number of my SPS quickly start to look pale, then start losing polyps in a patchy way. Over the course of the last week, I've completely lost 3 birds nest frags and a digitata. I have 2 stylophora that were growing like mad that look very patchy now and I have another birds nest that appears to be losing polyps from the base heading up. I have a few acro frags, two are losing tissue from the base and one looks ok, and oddly enough one seems to be thriving with polyp extension. I also had half a dozen euphyllia. I've lost 2 frogspawn that I added 3-4 weeks ago. They looked great for a week, then not so great for a week, then quickly receded and died over the course of a week. I have one more that is on the same trajectory and looks like it will be gone by tomorrow (less than a week ago it was quite large) - will add pic. I have one hammer that has looked kind of sad but hanging in there, one frogspawn and two hammers that look great still.

Oddly enough though, not all is unhappy, I have a many acans, 2 torches, half a dozen goni and one alve, 2 hammers, and a frogspawn that all look like they are thriving. Same story with a pair of elegance corals, and a bunch of zoas and pipe organs. I added a couple chalice a couple weeks ago that look fine so far as well.

My params have stayed consistent. Light measured with par meter is appropriate (75-150 for most of the tank with patches of 200-250 up top for the SPS).

These are averages over the 3 months, I check alk daily and adjust dosing to stay consistent as well as phosphates as they will bottom out if I don't.
pH 8.05-8.2 daily
Alk 8.0
NO3 4-7
PO4 .03-.07
Ca 440-450
Mg 1325-1375

Talked to my LFS and he suggested could be bacterial infection and suggested maybe a chemiclean run. Thoughts?

Would really appreciate any thoughts, this is very frustrating as I've been super attentive and things were on a great trajectory. I have been adding a lot of frags so that is the one thing that has been a moving target.

 

[damsels are not mean]

I would bet on an alk swing. What is your dosing/WC regimen like?

 

[Ultra Aquatics]

Didn’t see salinity mentioned, might want to double check against a reference solution.

 

[Morpheosz]

I would bet on an alk swing. What is your dosing/WC regimen like?

Thanks for your support!

I test alk almost every day and I have managed to keep it pretty consistent until a couple days ago when it jumped from the usual 8.0 to around 8.7, but that was after all this started and I attribute it to losing all these corals and their uptake and me needing to turn the dosing down some. Up until now I've had to up the dosing every few days as things have taken off.

I am dosing Triton Core 4 part (3 part) on a Neptune DOS, started around 4ml per day and inched it up to about 13ml per day at the peak, now I'm down to 10. Till date, I've only done one water change to siphon out some of the early detritus as I've been attempting to give the Triton method a go. With that said, I may switch to water changes and 2 part if there is more of a margin for error after this is resolved. I also am awaiting ICP results but the Triton lab is painfully slow, having had my sample nearly a week now.

Here is my last ~6 weeks of alk tests with Hanna, you can see the spike in the last couple days, but this was a week or two post my trouble starting and as mentioned feels like an effect rather than cause.

 

[Morpheosz]

Didn’t see salinity mentioned, might want to double check against a reference solution.

Good call, I had noticed that it had crept up a month or so ago to close to 37ppt and I nudged it back down. I just checked it against reference with refractometer (which was bang on) and it was a bit high. Probably a hair under 36ppt. I took 2 gallons out and let the ATO top it up and it's just a hair above 35 now. I'll take a bit more out later if it stabilizes there. Doesn't seem like that should be enough to create such a dramatic reaction though from these corals?

 

[Bleakborn]

I had something similar happened to me when I switched food, lost a lot of my sps because lack of nutrience, switched back and some recovered after awhile.

Did you change up your feeding?

If not food did you add a bunch of Corals?

 

[Hawkaholic]

You might try cipro.

 

[useer10202820]

Wont help quickly but get icp test. When this happened to me, did a test and mentioned I had high tin metals. This was strange to me as I only use rodi I make and always check my equipment. Using ro buddy w brand new catridges. Tested 0 tds. Next time I made rodi and tested, was over 40 tds. Well there was my issue. Tossed that in trash and got 6 stage rodi aystem

Also check for anything rusty. I lost all my acros and a few other zoa colonies during this.

 

[Morpheosz]

I had something similar happened to me when I switched food, lost a lot of my sps because lack of nutrience, switched back and some recovered after awhile.

Did you change up your feeding?

If not food did you add a bunch of Corals?

Not really any big recent changes but as this is a newer tank, I've evolved a lot in the few months it has been up. With that said, I am a heavy feeder as no matter how much I feed I need to supplement phosphates and occasionally nitrates. I have an avast marine feeder feeding 5x / day for my anthia, wrasse, and chromis, plus I supplement 1x / day with frozen or nori, plus I add phyto nearly every day and every 2-3 days I mix in reef roids or reef chili, aminos, and coral vitalize. Definitely added a bunch of corals as the tank is 3 months old and I've added 40-50 frags, more every week as I stock up.

 

[Morpheosz]

Wont help quickly but get icp test. When this happened to me, did a test and mentioned I had high tin metals. This was strange to me as I only use rodi I make and always check my equipment. Using ro buddy w brand new catridges. Tested 0 tds. Next time I made rodi and tested, was over 40 tds. Well there was my issue. Tossed that in trash and got 6 stage rodi aystem

Also check for anything rusty. I lost all my acros and a few other zoa colonies during this.

I have an ICP in the queue at Triton but they are taking their sweet time, it was marked received nearly a week ago.

 

[Morpheosz]

You might try cipro.

Thanks, do you happen to have any references on how to do this and what it treats?

 

[Hawkaholic]

Thanks, do you happen to have any references on how to do this and what it treats?

There are a couple threads on here about whole tank cipro dosing, but I have no first hand knowledge. Sorry.

I have also been told of people dosing in a QT at 500mg cipro per 150 gallons.

The cipro photo-degrades so dose after lights out if doing the display tank.

 

[FragFarm]

Hello,

This is Frank from Frag farm, sorry to hear about your issues going on. Let’s see if we can tackle it in stages.
First, are you currently running a carbon to neutralize toxic warfare in a mixed reef tank?
Second, from reading your prior comment, it seems like you put a lot in the tank within a three and half month period. When it comes to reefing stability is key, and slow and steady wins the race. If this is an emergency, I recommend you send your water out for an ICP test, but if you want a quick solution I would run a poly filter in case there is toxic metal in there. It won’t hurt to run the filter.
Third, please check your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates.
Good luck

 

[Hawkaholic]

In tank cipro dosing

In Tank Cipro treatment simplified. This is used for brown jelly disease. Can be use for other things like torch bacteria infection.This is how I did it simplify from the Original thread. I have to give credit to the original thread because they help me treat brown-jelly disease in my tank and...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Cristiano Amaral]

Witch salt mix are you using?

 

[Lavey29]

Thanks, do you happen to have any references on how to do this and what it treats?

I have used it several times in my tank for bacteria infection including BJD with good success and no collateral damage. Just dosed some a few nights ago because hammers lost a few heads. Everything perked right back up healthy again today.

 

[Dburr1014]

Are you running any activated carbon?

 

[Hawkaholic]

I have used it several times in my tank for bacteria infection including BJD with good success and no collateral damage. Just dosed some a few nights ago because hammers lost a few heads. Everything perked right back up healthy again today.

What rate did you use?

 

[Lavey29]

What rate did you use?

125mg pill diluted in small amount of tank water. Dose after lights out. Remove carbon but skimmer can run. 3 doses over 6 days then 20% water change. I have an 80g total system

 

[Morpheosz]

Are you running any activated carbon?

I was running the larger BRS reactor full of BRS carbon. I wondered if I didn't pull too much out, but still seemed like a radical shift for a deficiency. What are you thinking?