I don't know what is wrong

[TommyGo]

I started my tank in March of 2019. Things have been going well until recently. I've noticed some, not all, of my SPS and LPS corals' tissue start to recede. I thought this could be due to dosing vibrant so I stopped dosing it 4 weeks ago. My issues continued so I bought an ICP test to try to figure out what was going wrong. I got the results back here: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/103925 (also attached doc.pdf). Nothing seems to be exceptionally out of wack besides my silicon. I have a minor amount of aluminum in the tank as well. I did a search online to find that both shouldn't cause serious issues. Let me know if this is wrong. I also attached my water parameters for the last several months (parameters.png). I haven't made any significant changes to light or flow since starting the tank.

I'm at a loss for what is wrong. I would apprentice any help or pointers. Thank you in advance.

 

[Cristy17]

I think maybe your nitrate is too low. I have been seeing 20-30 is good. Just my idea because everything else looks spot on. Only other thing I can think of is if there is electrical current running through the tank?

 

[Alexreefer]

Honestly I dont have a clue, your params seem fine. Have you QT the corals? Dipped them, they could have a parasite.

 

[Cristy17]

Maybe get the reefsquad in on this. You don’t want to risk losing your corals...do you know how to get their attention? If not, I can do it for you.

 

[TommyGo]

Cristy17 I just bought a voltage meter on amazon to check if there is any stray voltage. I can't feel any with my hand in the tank. I'm slowly working my nitrates up, I'll keep doing that. Thank you for the help. I'm not sure who the reefsquad is or how to get their attention.

Alexreefer I don't QT my coral, but I always dip them and inspect them. I can't see see any parasites with the magnifying glass I have on the tank. Thank you for the suggestions.

 

[Cristy17]

So the reefsquad are members that are very knowledgeable in the hobby. You simply write #reefsquad and they get alerted to the thread. It’s an amazing tool with great response. You will see one pop up shortly. I hope they can help you figure out what is happening before things get too bad.

 

[Cristy17]

I don’t know why nobody from #reefsquad have not responded. I am thinking because it’s late here on the east coast. Not sure where they are all located. They usually get in touch within 30 min. But I guess it depends on the time.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Any changes in lighting at all? Any changes in flow? (New pumps, added/removed pumps ect...)

 

[TommyGo]

Crabs the only change to light was turning on acclimation mode to reduce the intensity when I added new corals in December. If that counts? I haven't made any adjustments to flow.

 

[SPR1968]

Your tank parameters look fine and it might help if you could post some pictures of the tank and the problem corals?

I would just ask why you’ve been/were dosing vibrant when your numbers are all good?

I have had experience myself with it, and it can have an affect on corals (I lost 2 elegance corals). I’m not saying it’s this at all, but just wondering why your using it.

Any delays from Reefsquad is generally due to time zone differences, someone will always come along to help

Welcome to R2R as well Tommy

 

[vetteguy53081]

A recent and ongoing issue has been false salinity with salt level showing normal to be discovered too high at 1.031 and similar
I would take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test water for you and focus on ph and salinity readings and see what they come up with for comparison

 

[claus]

I started my tank in March of 2019. Things have been going well until recently. I've noticed some, not all, of my SPS and LPS corals' tissue start to recede. I thought this could be due to dosing vibrant so I stopped dosing it 4 weeks ago. My issues continued so I bought an ICP test to try to figure out what was going wrong. I got the results back here: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/103925 (also attached doc.pdf). Nothing seems to be exceptionally out of wack besides my silicon. I have a minor amount of aluminum in the tank as well. I did a search online to find that both shouldn't cause serious issues. Let me know if this is wrong. I also attached my water parameters for the last several months (parameters.png). I haven't made any significant changes to light or flow since starting the tank.

I'm at a loss for what is wrong. I would apprentice any help or pointers. Thank you in advance.

This could be related to your issue:

How I Averted a Complete Tank Crash - ReefBum

A few months ago my tank was spiraling downhill pretty quickly, as I was mysteriously losing a large number of corals. Time to do an ICP test.

reefbum.com

 

[claus]

FYI: I am not the author of the above thread, but I also keep SPS, LPS and Zoas in a low nutrient system (Phosphate roughly 0.02 ppm and Nitrates near 0.5 ppm) and if I don't feed some of my LPS (Bubble, Scoly, Trach, Lobo etc) they will go downhill. Also my zoas never really do as well as I would like and i suspect that my water parameters may be too clean. If your nutrients are low you might want to turn your lights down a bit, slightly lower your KH if it's on the high side and feed more. I utilize amino acids, rotifers, cyclops, etc to try and keep nutrients at the level that is acceptable for the [p04]-3 and [no3]- and the light intensity that I use.

 

[Flippers4pups]

To the Op questions, I agree we need to see the tank. I've seen numerous times what's hobbyist that have new or newly set-up tanks, that their tanks are extreme sterile. Starting out with dry Rock, dry sand and little in the way of bacterial strains to support corals. Bacterial strains outside of the normal denitrification strains of bacteria.

I agree we need to know if any corals that were placed in the tank where dipped for parasites.

 

[Lorenzo Angotti]

Hi, yes it’s very frustrating to get to the bottom of this especially if your other corals are doing fine, it can be simple as chemical warfare, nobody knows but you hope your skimmer if you have one is doing its job. It could be when you were dosing vibrant, even though they say it’s reef safe I personally now try not to add products in my tank for this reason as from my experiences that straight after a day or two it’s affected the odd coral, some corals are tougher than others and it is this why you can’t explain when the odd coral is struggling. Hope you sort your problems out and good luck.

 

[Uncle99]

Actual, you record some high phosphate at .5 and 1.0...should be 0.05 to .1 and combined with incorrect colour spectrum or outside light would go green.
Unless it’s just a typo

 

[TommyGo]

Your tank parameters look fine and it might help if you could post some pictures of the tank and the problem corals?

I would just ask why you’ve been/were dosing vibrant when your numbers are all good?

I have had experience myself with it, and it can have an affect on corals (I lost 2 elegance corals). I’m not saying it’s this at all, but just wondering why your using it.

Any delays from Reefsquad is generally due to time zone differences, someone will always come along to help

Welcome to R2R as well Tommy

I attached pictures. These are the best I could get. I took them with the flash on for visibility. The chalice and tort are doing the worst. The milli seems to be starting to bleach and the scoly is starting to recede.

I started dosing vibrant to help get rid of some bubble algae before it became a problem. It was working, but it has since began to come back.

 

[TommyGo]

A recent and ongoing issue has been false salinity with salt level showing normal to be discovered too high at 1.031 and similar
I would take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have them test water for you and focus on ph and salinity readings and see what they come up with for comparison

I've been using the hanna salinity checker. I just recalibrated it today and got a reading of 1.026. My ph has always been fairly consistent. I will take a sample to an LFS and see what they get back for readings. Thank you.

 

[TommyGo]

To the Op questions, I agree we need to see the tank. I've seen numerous times what's hobbyist that have new or newly set-up tanks, that their tanks are extreme sterile. Starting out with dry Rock, dry sand and little in the way of bacterial strains to support corals. Bacterial strains outside of the normal denitrification strains of bacteria.

I agree we need to know if any corals that were placed in the tank where dipped for parasites.

I have fair bit of coralline algae going in the tank, but yes the tank still is fairly new. It hasn't been running for a year yet.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I see this is a mixed reef. It could be as simple as LOS releasing toxithat affect the SPS for which i had a similar instance. It was Triton that bought this to my attention.
Try adding chemipure blue which will break down these toxinsand see if any change after 2 weeks.
I saw changes right away after a week