Help Please, Blastos Very Unhappy

[DeepBrew]

Our 75 gallon reef has been running a bit over a year. We started adding corals about 9 months ago and have several blastos. They've all seemed super happy until about 3 weeks ago. One afternoon a noticed one of the closed up and very unhappy. Over the last few weeks all of them except for a merletti have developed the same symptoms. They've gone from this:


to this:


and this:


to this:


meanwhile the merletti is doing fine:


We do 10% weekly water changes, the last one was 1/1/2017. The water parameters today (before the water change) are:

Salinity: 35 ppt (refractometer
pH: 8.3 (meter)
Alkalinity: 9 dKH (API)
Calcium: 480 ppm (Salifert)
Magnesium: 1480 ppm (Salifert)
Ammonia: o (API)
Nitrite: 0 (API)
Nitrate: 5 (API)
Phosphate: 0 (API)

The tank is dosed with 15 ml of BRS 2 part (soda ash and calcium chloride) daily. Dosing hasn't changed since 11/27/16. Before that I was dosing 10 ml daily. I noticed that the calcium has been creeping up so I may drop the dose back some.

There is a reactor running since August of 2016. Until December 12 it ran a combination of ROX 0.8 carbon and GFO mixed together, no tumbling. On December 12 I replaced the media and set it up as GFO only with the media tumbling. It was soon after this change that we noticed the first blasto looking sad. The reactor is loaded with 0.6 cups of BRS high capacity GFO, the amount the BRS calculator recommends for a tank this size. It also the same amount of GFO that was mixed with carbon before.

Everything else in the tank is doing fine.

Is it possible the blastos don't like the GFO configuration I'm running now?

Do they look like they have a disease that needs to be treated?

Thanks in advance for any ideas you have that can help our blasto babies feel better.:)

 

[Va_Reef]

Right off the bat the calcium and magnesium seem a bit high to me, 430 and 1350 respectively are more ideal readings.

Its possible going from no tumbling to tumbling, you removed too much phosphates all at once. If nothing else has changed; lighting, flow placement, etc., then one would have to assume it is related to the GFO change.

I do see coral nearby, could they have grown and started to sting them in this time?

 

[Diesel]

Spot on the GFO.
Just shut it down for now and test for Po4 weekly and No3 daily.
What kind of salt are you using?

 

[DeepBrew]

Right off the bat the calcium and magnesium seem a bit high to me, 430 and 1350 respectively are more ideal readings.

Its possible going from no tumbling to tumbling, you removed too much phosphates all at once. If nothing else has changed; lighting, flow placement, etc., then one would have to assume it is related to the GFO change.

I do see coral nearby, could they have grown and started to sting them in this time?

I agree, calcium and magnesium are both high right now. Several weeks ago Mg was getting low and I added some and the level rose more than I intended. This was about 3 or 4 weeks before the blastos got unhappy. It's been slowly dropping and last week's test was 1410. I haven't added any more so I'm not sure why it went up to 1480 this week.

Calcium and alkalinity have both crept up some since I changed dosing from 10 to 15 ml per day. I'm going to back that down to 10 or 12 ml. I'm fairly new to dosing 2 part and am unsure if I'm dosing too much or too little. My dose seems pretty small for a 75 gallon tank but I don't have SPS.

What I noticed at lower doses is the calcium stays up over 400 but the alkalinity starts dropping below 8 dKH. Everything I read says you should dose equal mounts of each part but I wonder if I should dose less calcium sine I don't have a heavy SPS load.

Spot on the GFO.
Just shut it down for now and test for Po4 weekly and No3 daily.
What kind of salt are you using?

I will shut off the reactor and see if that helps. I'm using Instant Ocean salt. I changed from SeaChem Reef Salt back in the summer. So far I've been happy with it but I wonder if the calcium is a bit higher than I need.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Elysium]

How soon after the switch from 10 to 15 mL of 2 part dosing did you notice the changes? They may be happier at the lower alkalinity of 8 dKH.

Merlettis are more forgiving in my opinion to tank conditions, especially alk swings.

FWIW I keep my blastos wellsi at 7.8-8 dKH and they are usually fat and happy.

 

[DeepBrew]

I changed dosing from 10 to 15 on 11/26/16, changed the GFO setup on 12/12/16 and noticed the first unhappy blasto on 12/13 or 14. So it was a little over two weeks between upping the dose and the first unhappy blasto. Alkalinity doesn't seem to have changes a whole lot but maybe it's enough that the blastos don't like it. Here's the dKH history:
11/5/16 - 8
11/12/16 - 9
11/19/16 - 8.5
11/26/16 - 8.5, upped dosing from 10 to 15 ml per day
12/3/16 - 9
12/10/16 - 9
12/17/16 - 8
12/24/16 - no test, out of town
12/31/15 - 8
1/7/27 - 9

@Elysium, where does your pH typically run? Mine's been running 8.2 - 8.3 with the dKH between 8 and 9. I know the pH will drop some if I decrease dosing. How low can it get before I should be concerned?

Thanks again!

 

[Elysium]

Looks like the reactor switch might be the issue as others have said. Too clean water, too fast.

As to pH, I don't even monitor mine. I don't even think I've tested for it in the last year and it probably runs in the 7.8-8 range. They're in a bare bones 14g cube "holding tank" since November last year with a bunch of other LPS and SPS. Only a HOB filter with a year old bag of Chemi-Pure and Kalk in the ATO.

If stuff looks angry I test the big 3 (alk, Ca, and Mg). Otherwise a weekly check on parameters and slight bumps if necessary.

 

[DeepBrew]

I turned off the reactor last night. I also skipped yesterdays 2 part dose. I was planning on doing a water change today but I may wait a couple days and keep an eye on the blastos and water parameters.

 

[DeepBrew]

The GFO has been off about 48 hours now. One on the blastos is starting to look at little better. It's inflated a little bit:


Maybe the others will start coming around soon.

 

[brandon429]

this was excellent feedback for GFO and LPS interactions

 

[DeepBrew]

It's been a week since I turned off the GFO reactor. Most of the blastos are improving. The one on the left in this pic looks better, the one on the right doesn't look much better yet:


This one definitely looks better:


We're also having a bit of a cyano problem in this tank and are dosing H2O2 which could be slowing down the recovery. I'll update periodically to document progress.