Losing all our Euphyllia and SPS slowly over last 6 months - diatoms or dinos - and could they be to blame?

[AstroMelly]

Hi Everyone

Need some help and your opinions please?

We have been losing our LPS steadily over the last few months and I am tearing my hair out now looking for a reason. We have lost nearly all our euphyllia starting with a wall frogspawn a few months back, followed by a 5 head green hammer about 6 weeks ago, a 3 head blue tip torch which the polyps bailed recently out of over a 2 day period (was apparently perfectly healthy up to a day or so before) and now the final straw a lovely wall purple hammer is receding. All these were added around the same time over a 2 month period which was about March-April this year - so about 6-7 months ago. Most were healthy and looked great until a few months back - we lost a goni first (BJD), the frogspawn followed soon after (no BJD). We also lost an elegance that only lasted a few weeks but I understand that is a common occurrence.

In addition it appears we have begun a new phase of either diatoms or dinos. Tank is 11 months since first fish. We battled cyano in Feb-March this year and beat it down by vacuuming the sand fortnightly. I am attaching some of photos and my 2 ICP tests which I ran at the same time (quite recently). The ATI ICP also includes the RO water which came back spotless. I've got some close-up videos of the montis both in good health and more recently as well and I may upload them to YT and link them if there is interest.

My salt mixing barrel in the garage has been also developing a brown seemingly bacterial scum on the water even though last time it was empty I cleaned it with a hydrogen peroxide solution. This happened before but over a much longer period (several months between cleaning) - whereas this last time I have only made 2 batches i think and the brown spots/surface scum seems much worse than it was before. I don't think this is the same as what we are seeing in the DT but I would still rather have crystal clear water to put in. I'll tip what I have now and clean the barrel before adding any more water. The water we added last week looked alot cleaner than how it appears now (just a few days later).

Some (well let's face it basically all) of our SPS are also unable to survive our efforts. We have apparently lost: an orange plating monti, several cyphastrea, and the latest ones to go downhill were an encrusting monti (was green with orange polyps) another monti (had nice blue polyps) and a green psammocora - this one is still with us but developed brown lines and is heading south as well. The (beautiful) mummies eye chalice which you see our Starry Blenny 'Astrid' admiring was stung by one of our anemones and receded all the way to infinity - so that one I can explain myself.

It appears to me (though I could be wrong) that the brown dust/mud/algae which I am constantly cleaning off the glass and appears to be collecting on the substrate ends up covering them and there is nothing to sweep it away. Even if I go in and blow with a turkey baster it does not budge - it's like it is growing on the coral skeleton. Eventually everything just ends up brown and dead.

Flow is 2xMP40s and a Maxspect xf-350 gyre - all up at the weir end of the tank - it's a peninsula so all equipment is located at the weir end.

We vacuumed the sand on Friday last week and combined that with a 20% wc. A few days before that we did try running an in-line pump with a filter sock to try and clean the sand in-situ but that jut stirred the sand up and clouded the tank. The blue tip torch bailed out a couple of days after that. We see a lot of small bubbles forming on the brown 'mud' on the substrate which I am assuming is some form of gas by-product of the decomposition of whatever it is - or perhaps as a result of photosynthetic activity? Most notably when magnet cleaning the glass - a lot of the bubbles are disturbed. This gas is a relatively recent thing.

My current tank parameters and history are available in this link along with hardware and fish/invert stocking list AquaticLog Rocks!:

Main Tank's Parameters

www.aquaticlog.com

If you can't see params etc. via the link pls let me know - here are the latest readings.

The substrate is 50/50 caribesa special grade/fuji pink with some coarse crushed coral mixed in. The rock is Caribsea life rock shapes. My ICP shows elevated silicates, and Aluminium although the 2 tests disagree on how much Al is in there. I am using ceramic bio media extensively in the sump - probably caused the elevated Al readings. (1 x marinepure 8x4x4 brick, 1 x mp 8x1x1 plate and 1 x Brightwell Aquatics NO3 brick).

Please help! We are losing confidence and have now decided not to buy any more coral until we understand what is going on. The only glimmer of good news is all the fish seem healthy and are growing.

I do run a 36w Helix 2.0 UV and our Magnificent Foxface (Vivian) has had some ich (just a few spots now and then) which seems to be being beaten down by it. I was worried perhaps I have encouraged a bacterial imbalance in the tank by running UV relatively slowly to try and combat the ich threat but I have no idea if this is even a thing. The UV is running at about 750 litres/hour which is approx 1x tank turnover.

I'm sorry for the long post but I do hope someone out there can help us - I may resort to buying a microscope to try and identify the brown sludge. There is an assortment of wider field tank shots - some taken just after the last sand vacuuming and some just now about 5 days later to show how it has come back.

If more shots required I can provide!

Cheers

Frogspawn on the way out.



A green torch I forgot to mention - now also gone



The green hammer - gone



Purple wall hammer before major demise began.



Chalice post anemone sting - now gone.



2 montis seem to be bleaching



Blue tip torch bailing out - now all polyps gone.



We always see these when we dip - after corals have been in the tank - any ideas - good/bad?



Some shots after the last sand vacuuming - last week



And 5 days later...


Purple wall hammer is now looking like this (bottom right).

 

[Fish Think Pink]

SO, long shot but going to ask brand of salt

hoping you haven't been fighting with a bad bath of Tropic Marin salt... those should ALL be off store shelves by now. However, I stock months of salt 'just in case' suddenly we want to do big back to back water changes or something

Tropic Marin Recalls ‘Turkish Blend’ of Pro-Reef Salt Mix

Turkish Blend usually engenders a connotation of fine tobacco or strong coffee but the term is coming to mean something very different for one flavor of Tropic Marin’s popular saltwater mixes. Mysterious coral problems started arising from the reefing community several months ago but it’s only...

www.reef2reef.com

Regarding your photos of amphipods, and your statement - always see these in the tank after we dip...... so, amphipods are good, but wondering your coral quarantine process because multiple things can get thru dips ... and if they are already IN your tank then well, it is too late

Sorry for your losses. Know your heart is breaking. Hang in there!

 

[ninjamyst]

Tell us how much and how often you feed your corals and fish. Your parameters show you have detectable nitrate and phosphate but let's dig deeper in nutrients. Tell us your export mechanism. Skimmer, reactor, fuge?

 

[TigerReef]

@Fish Think Pink, salt mix was my first thought also.
@AstroMelly, you mention brown bacterial scum in your mixing barrels. To me, this could be a significant clue. Anything new in the garage? New chemicals, solvents, paints, etc. Something leeching into your saltwater?

But please don't give up! It is obvious from your write-up that you are a diligent and thoughtful reefer. R2R is here to help.

 

[AstroMelly]

Hey guys and thanks for your feedback, thoughts, interest and support!

First good shout on the salt mix. I do use TMPro Reef BUT am also aware of the Turkish clay contamination issues. We live in the U.K. and it seems almost all our TM salt comes from the Germany plant. I always check my barrels and I still have all of them. They are all from Germany so I don’t think we are seeing clay contamination. Seems it’s a developing problem as when we first started we did not see any of this brown stuff at all. Maybe I just need to deep clean it again but I did that already only a few weeks back.

Thanks for the feedback on the amphipod pic. I knew they were good but did not know how to ID them. We see those of varying sizes - up to about 8mm I guess - if/when we dip our own corals so guess that’s a good thing overall.

As for coral quarantine procedure - we dip any new corals for pests and that’s it. The dip we use was an own brand from our LFS and now we have moved on to Rx. We only saw large amounts of pests from the blue torch - it was riddled with small brown flat worm. We dipped for an extended period and then again a few weeks later - no more came off and we dipped again a few weeks back before it bailed and it was still clean. We had some bad experiences at the beginning trying to quarantine fish and lost quite a few early on. Now we do not quarantine fish but we are not and have not added any fish for about 2 months.

Next - feeding. We feed 2 or 3 times a day. Always a mix of dried pellets or flake and frozen every day. We feed three pinches of seaweed extreme and about the same of a smaller pellet food Hikari Marine S. Sometimes one or both of these is replaced with a quality flake. It’s usually about the same quantity of dried I suppose. The fish are not feeding for more than about 3-4 minutes. When we feed frozen we feed 3 cubes of mixed from krill/mysis shrimp/brine shrimp or PE mysis from a block. The frozen is gone in a New York minute. Sometimes I will target feed the Duncan, the anemones, the scoly and our blasto with the frozen. We also like to supplement with a half sheet of red seaweed in a net feeder about once or twice a week - that usually lasts a few hours in the tank. I have been adding a 20ml seachem phytoplankton dose twice a week for a couple of weeks now as we have a filter feeding sea cucumber (Colin) in the tank (he was elsewhere for a few months but we have reintroduced him. We have a stash of reef roids but are not feeding these currently.

Nutrient export is via skimmer only. It’s a reef octopus 150s elite. I try to dry skim so like a nice dark skimmate but sometimes end up with a sort of strong tea tan colour. Usually the cup needs emptying 2-3 times a week. I run a ReefMat 1200 and have found it to be excellent. We get about 6-7 weeks from a roll.

Ok so back to the salt mix. I am also concerned about this. I run a jecod (cheap jebao) pump in the barrel to mix the water and I leave it in there running to equalise the temp as well. I have my concerns about this pump. When I first saw the brown stuff I obviously deep cleaned the barrel but also dismantled and cleaned the pump. Seemed to me there was a concentration of this stuff on and around the impeller. I thought maybe rust but it’s not rust. It’s slimy and not particulate in nature. Maybe I can pull the pump and take some pics later. The barrel is a food grade blue barrel - 220 litres and I have the same brand 110 litres that I use for RO water. The ro water barrel is always super clean no brown stuff. I’ve never had to clean the ro barrel so never have. Both are heated with titanium heaters and 2 InkBirds controlling. So it’s either the salt mix or the presence of salt, or the pump that is encouraging the brown whatever it is.

Nothing of note has changed out there recently. Also good that I have a ‘control’ barrel (the RO barrel) although no salt and no pump in that one. They sit next to each other. I run a 4 stage RO/DI rated at 50 gpd and I have a digital TDS meter. My RO filter unit puts out between 4 and 6 ppm tds and my DI stage output is always zero. If it goes to 1 or above I change the resin.

One intersting thing happened this batch though. I mistakenly mixed to 1.033. I topped up the barrel with ro and was not running the pump so the salinity reading was low as the saline water was under to fresh. Hence mixed too salty. The barrel was full so I decanted 50 litres to 2 water tanks I have and topped up the barrel with RO to 1.025. Did the water change and the water seemed clear but we pump it from the garage to the house so not 100% on that but after the water change I tipped the 2 tanks into the barrel which caused a lot of bubbling and movement in the barrel and then topped up with ro to 1.025 again. I wonder if tipping the water disturbed the stuff on the edges/bottom - or increased oxygenation/agitation encouraged whatever it is to grow faster? That’s my current working theory on the worse brown stuff in the barrel!

I will grab some pics later on of the pump and the water if I can show it!

Thanks again - don’t worry we are not going anywhere. We are bitten and fully invested both financially and emotionally.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hey guys and thanks for your feedback, thoughts, interest and support!

First good shout on the salt mix. I do use TMPro Reef BUT am also aware of the Turkish clay contamination issues. We live in the U.K. and it seems almost all our TM salt comes from the Germany plant. I always check my barrels and I still have all of them. They are all from Germany so I don’t think we are seeing clay contamination. Seems it’s a developing problem as when we first started we did not see any of this brown stuff at all. Maybe I just need to deep clean it again but I did that already only a few weeks back.

Thanks for the feedback on the amphipod pic. I knew they were good but did not know how to ID them. We see those of varying sizes - up to about 8mm I guess - if/when we dip our own corals so guess that’s a good thing overall.

As for coral quarantine procedure - we dip any new corals for pests and that’s it. The dip we use was an own brand from our LFS and now we have moved on to Rx. We only saw large amounts of pests from the blue torch - it was riddled with small brown flat worm. We dipped for an extended period and then again a few weeks later - no more came off and we dipped again a few weeks back before it bailed and it was still clean. We had some bad experiences at the beginning trying to quarantine fish and lost quite a few early on. Now we do not quarantine fish but we are not and have not added any fish for about 2 months.

Next - feeding. We feed 2 or 3 times a day. Always a mix of dried pellets or flake and frozen every day. We feed three pinches of seaweed extreme and about the same of a smaller pellet food Hikari Marine S. Sometimes one or both of these is replaced with a quality flake. It’s usually about the same quantity of dried I suppose. The fish are not feeding for more than about 3-4 minutes. When we feed frozen we feed 3 cubes of mixed from krill/mysis shrimp/brine shrimp or PE mysis from a block. The frozen is gone in a New York minute. Sometimes I will target feed the Duncan, the anemones, the scoly and our blasto with the frozen. We also like to supplement with a half sheet of red seaweed in a net feeder about once or twice a week - that usually lasts a few hours in the tank. I have been adding a 20ml seachem phytoplankton dose twice a week for a couple of weeks now as we have a filter feeding sea cucumber (Colin) in the tank (he was elsewhere for a few months but we have reintroduced him. We have a stash of reef roids but are not feeding these currently.

Nutrient export is via skimmer only. It’s a reef octopus 150s elite. I try to dry skim so like a nice dark skimmate but sometimes end up with a sort of strong tea tan colour. Usually the cup needs emptying 2-3 times a week. I run a ReefMat 1200 and have found it to be excellent. We get about 6-7 weeks from a roll.

Ok so back to the salt mix. I am also concerned about this. I run a jecod (cheap jebao) pump in the barrel to mix the water and I leave it in there running to equalise the temp as well. I have my concerns about this pump. When I first saw the brown stuff I obviously deep cleaned the barrel but also dismantled and cleaned the pump. Seemed to me there was a concentration of this stuff on and around the impeller. I thought maybe rust but it’s not rust. It’s slimy and not particulate in nature. Maybe I can pull the pump and take some pics later. The barrel is a food grade blue barrel - 220 litres and I have the same brand 110 litres that I use for RO water. The ro water barrel is always super clean no brown stuff. I’ve never had to clean the ro barrel so never have. Both are heated with titanium heaters and 2 InkBirds controlling. So it’s either the salt mix or the presence of salt, or the pump that is encouraging the brown whatever it is.

Nothing of note has changed out there recently. Also good that I have a ‘control’ barrel (the RO barrel) although no salt and no pump in that one. They sit next to each other. I run a 4 stage RO/DI rated at 50 gpd and I have a digital TDS meter. My RO filter unit puts out between 4 and 6 ppm tds and my DI stage output is always zero. If it goes to 1 or above I change the resin.

One intersting thing happened this batch though. I mistakenly mixed to 1.033. I topped up the barrel with ro and was not running the pump so the salinity reading was low as the saline water was under to fresh. Hence mixed too salty. The barrel was full so I decanted 50 litres to 2 water tanks I have and topped up the barrel with RO to 1.025. Did the water change and the water seemed clear but we pump it from the garage to the house so not 100% on that but after the water change I tipped the 2 tanks into the barrel which caused a lot of bubbling and movement in the barrel and then topped up with ro to 1.025 again. I wonder if tipping the water disturbed the stuff on the edges/bottom - or increased oxygenation/agitation encouraged whatever it is to grow faster? That’s my current working theory on the worse brown stuff in the barrel!

I will grab some pics later on of the pump and the water if I can show it!

Thanks again - don’t worry we are not going anywhere. We are bitten and fully invested both financially and emotionally.

Do you have or can get a microscope?
Check the stuff on the substrate for dinos.
I don't think, imo, the problem is your salt or feeding.
I do see some large leather coral. I may have missed it but, do you run carbon? Leather like to release their toxin in the water column. Carbon will help with that.

 

[Dcloser12]

I think it's related to the leathers. They are all pretty large and I'm willing to bet they are going to war with one another. I'd run carbon to remove anything from the water but you may want to add trace elements back as skimming and carbon both diminish them. The brown stuff on the glass sounds like diatoms. You need a microscope to verify. Also do you run any other lights or just the deep blues? They make the coral pip but you will suffer greatly on par which could suggest the slow demise

 

[AstroMelly]

Hi!

I do not currently own a microscope - I am seriously thinking of investing in one - is it worth getting one like this?



Or a more traditional one like this?



In terms of carbon - I do run carbon in the media tray under the reef mat - there is a slide out tray - I have probably about 250g of carbon in there. Started running it in the reefmat when we got it which was August - before that I was running a similar amount in a filter media bag for about 4-5 months before that - in a high flow area of the sump. I have changed it once only in the reefmat - that was about 6 weeks ago. I have no idea how to tell when it is exhausted so I will probably change it out again in the next few days when I am due to replace the filter roll. Seems like a logical time to replace it as I will have to take the filter roll out anyway and the media basket is under the roll path. Is it enough carbon for the tank - it's a 220g tank - and how often should I change it?

 

[AstroMelly]

The large leather with green polyps is right up at the high flow area of the tank - there is a huge toadstool right next to it.

I have amino acids which I have added previously but not on a schedule - trace elements do show up in my ICP reports in the OP. Which ones should I concentrate on?

Sorry - and lights - I run the standard Radeon AB+ programme on 4 x XR-15s Gen 5 Pro at 60% intensity for a 12 hour photoperiod.

 

[Dcloser12]

The large leather with green polyps is right up at the high flow area of the tank - there is a huge toadstool right next to it.

I have amino acids which I have added previously but not on a schedule - trace elements do show up in my ICP reports in the OP. Which ones should I concentrate on?

Sorry - and lights - I run the standard Radeon AB+ programme on 4 x XR-15s Gen 5 Pro at 60% intensity for a 12 hour photoperiod.

Your input tests show your pretty good on trace elements I'd assume the constant water changes account for that. As far as a Microscope stay traditional. 2500x is all you really need to identify. I have a digital hand held as well I only use to examine coral through the glass of the tank. Carbon loads up. It's pores fill with captured elements and its ideal capacity is reached in a week or better. It's effectiveness falls like a rock after a few days how ever. The leathers constantly shed. The solution could very well be an entire trove of things, I how ever will advise you turn up the lights a little and add just a hint more white or just add a little white. Give it a week and see what happens. You'll know in a day or 2 by how the coral respond if it's better or worse. I wouldn't advise making alot of changes at once. You'll never know what you did that helped or made it worse and we play the long game here. Nothing happens over night. Add carbon and some whites. See if they just need a little bit of par. Even bleaching coral look great under blues. The ice tests say the waters fine so let's do this

Known positives
Nutrients
Water
Nitrates
Phosphates
Flow
Lighting schedule

Potential issues
Leathers
Carbon
Par
Unknown concentrated bacteria on glass and sand (presumably diatoms)

Buy a Microscope add Carbon and change your light Intensity just a little. 5 or 7% and see where your at next week.

 

[Pkunk35]

sorry to hear about the losses,

I think the brown stuff in the RO bucket is bacteria from water pipes and is harmless. At least that is what the guest from Acrogardens said on the podcast, Reefbum. I get the same occurrence on my bin and pumps with 4 brands of salt Including TM, doesn’t seem to make any difference.

I had Some questions that I thought might be helpful:

what’s your WC schedule?
Do you test for phosphate regularly (at least weekly until stabilized)? I know you feed heavy but with a filter roller I’m sure most of that food is being eaten right away or removed, and true 0 phosphate swings kill lps IME. Personally, without being able to see the tank or know more daily/weekly habits, the tank sounds too clean to me and wondering if this could be seen with low phosphate numbers. Just a guess, I had similar happen to me when using a auto water changer for a while.

Agree that leather can warefare but doubt it will kill LPS in 220g of water, so while worth looking at I doubt this is the culprit. I’d watch the amount of “carbon aggressiveness” with a new tank.

also last note is that death of all those LPS and SPS in under 1 year tank is very common especially the walling species. I’m sure as time progresses your tank will have more success with some of those , but also really recommend aquaculture for higher rate of success overall.

hope it helps!

 

[ninjamyst]

sorry to hear about the losses,

I think the brown stuff in the RO bucket is bacteria from water pipes and is harmless. At least that is what the guest from Acrogardens said on the podcast, Reefbum. I get the same occurrence on my bin and pumps with 4 brands of salt Including TM, doesn’t seem to make any difference.

I had Some questions that I thought might be helpful:

what’s your WC schedule?
Do you test for phosphate regularly (at least weekly until stabilized)? I know you feed heavy but with a filter roller I’m sure most of that food is being eaten right away or removed, and true 0 phosphate swings kill lps IME. Personally, without being able to see the tank or know more daily/weekly habits, the tank sounds too clean to me and wondering if this could be seen with low phosphate numbers. Just a guess, I had similar happen to me when using a auto water changer for a while.

Agree that leather can warefare but doubt it will kill LPS in 220g of water, so while worth looking at I doubt this is the culprit. I’d watch the amount of “carbon aggressiveness” with a new tank.

also last note is that death of all those LPS and SPS in under 1 year tank is very common especially the walling species. I’m sure as time progresses your tank will have more success with some of those , but also really recommend aquaculture for higher rate of success overall.

hope it helps!

The OP posted water parameter and there's detectable nitrate and phosphate. OP also have 30+ fish and some big eaters.

My recommendation is to feed 3-4x a day but remove the pellets and flakes. Feed only frozen for the next month and feed often but not too heavy per feeding. Make sure the food is not going into overflow.

Since you have reef roids handy, use it 2x a week and start with low dosage.

Carbon works very fast. You may be be causing swing in nutrients and trace every time you change large amount of carbon. Carbon should be changed regularly, like every 2 weeks or less. you should reduce amount of carbon used but change them more frequently.

I always live by the rule of big nutrient import and big nutrient export. The tricky thing is finding that balance.

Have you shared what you are dosing for 2 parts??

 

[Lavey29]

I think you have already received excellent feedback but will give my .02 anyways. Most of us went through similar situations the first year with our corals. Your tank is still maturing and things will become much more stable with time. Several areas stand out in your post. LPS like nitrates at 10-15. You are 5 or less. Corals will take months to show the affects of this as they slowly starve and decline from the inside out. You mentioned BJD at one point. This bacteria develops because of coral stress and their immune systems get compromised. This indicates significant parameters problems stressing the corals and allowing the BJD to overwhelm them. You are running your radions at 60%. I run radions also and was keeping them at 70%. I was shocked to par meter the tank and see how low my par was with XR15s at 70%. I now run them at 100% AB setting to get reasonable par for the tank. It is obvious you are a very diligent reefer with your detailed write up. I feel after a year, your tank will make a dramatic evolution for better stability but you have to continue to do your part. Get nitrates to 10. Check your par.

 

[Dburr1014]

I think you have already received excellent feedback but will give my .02 anyways. Most of us went through similar situations the first year with our corals. Your tank is still maturing and things will become much more stable with time. Several areas stand out in your post. LPS like nitrates at 10-15. You are 5 or less. Corals will take months to show the affects of this as they slowly starve and decline from the inside out. You mentioned BJD at one point. This bacteria develops because of coral stress and their immune systems get compromised. This indicates significant parameters problems stressing the corals and allowing the BJD to overwhelm them. You are running your radions at 60%. I run radions also and was keeping them at 70%. I was shocked to par meter the tank and see how low my par was with XR15s at 70%. I now run them at 100% AB setting to get reasonable par for the tank. It is obvious you are a very diligent reefer with your detailed write up. I feel after a year, your tank will make a dramatic evolution for better stability but you have to continue to do your part. Get nitrates to 10. Check your par.

So what par did you get at 70% and 100% respectively?
Curious.

 

[Meista_Flya]

I have a relatively new tank set up and was receiving this " diatom/algae/cyano" break out thing all at once. I don't know where it came from or how bit gotten so bad. I thouroly scrapped all the glass to get all the algae off then all the red stuff underneath that.i had to vacume all the rock and all the sand as some of the corals I had were completly engulfed with water it was. I then par'd the tank to realize my par was really high then lowered the lights and increased flow. I then ran a chemi clean treatment and did a 50% water change with tropic marine pro reef.. waited a few weeks to see what was going on and it's seemed to mostly go away but looked like it was coming back again so this time I did another chemi clean treatment but instead of using tropic marine I use natural sea water from my local fish store since we live off the coast of Florida. after that the tank seems to start drastically getting better but it wasn't without hard work and patience to get there. my nitrates and phosphate were high enough for it not to be dinos even tho it looked like dinos I had high nitrates and phosphate so it wasn't that my water was too clean.

as for BJD ..... if they have decent flow that will help.... also I recommend re dipping euphyllia into koral MD revive or iodine or a mixture of all three as used in the "KFC dipp" method to try and help get them back and up coming.

the chemi clean treatment is also anti bacterial as well. so that should help with BJD

in my established tank I had issues with euphillia not doing well and when I sent out an ICP test it came back I had low iodine I didn't see your ico test but if u did one check ur iodine levels since they take on iodine

I'll send updated pictures when I can I hope this help if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask! I will do my best to help ! just going on experience

 

[Lavey29]

So what par did you get at 70% and 100% respectively?
Curious.

I went from 150 at the very top of my rocks few inches deep down to 50 par at the bottom. Now at 100% I'm getting 300 to 350 top rocks where my SPS are down to 100 to 125 on the bottom for LPS and soft. Middle is 200 to 250 for torches there and some other LPS. Tank came vibrantly alive with the par increase. Huge color increase and steady growth now across the spectrum. I wish I had 30s instead of 15s. I ramped up 1% per day over 30 day period. Huge difference in corals.

 

[Julbra]

Nothing definite but a few things I thought about:

Brown stuff in bin:
I also get some brown scum in my mixing bin (if i don't clean it for a while) both at the bottom and floating at the top. Never noticed any negative impacts from that. It comes off with citric acid. I'd be quite surprised if it's the same thing you're seeing growing on your glass.

Red/Brown stuff in tank:
With bubbles it sounds like common cyanobacteria. If it is truly coating all your corals it is possible it is smothering them. Does it come off if you blow harder with the turkey baster? If so maybe the tank flow needs to be rethought, Peninsula are tricky in that respect! All pumps at one end on such a large tank might not be enough. Maybe as a temp measure I would add some cheaper wave makers towards the middle and other end to see if it helps.
Any large peninsula owners here to help?

Alkalinity:
It's shifting quite a bit from week to week, are you dosing manually? Our SPS were doing quite poorly until we added an automatic alkalinity dosing pump. Our LPS were fine through the shifts though so it's unlikely to be your root problem.

Amphipods: we have the same kind as you. Unlikely to be the issue. In our tank we had a huge population boom at one point and they started eating healthy corals but no issues with them since we added a wrasse. It was very obvious though and I'm pretty sure you would notice if that were your issue (i.e. you see them eating corals in broad daylight). Also, whole coral heads disappear overnight, not a slow decline.

Carbon:
Just checking that you are rinsing your carbon well under the tap (then flush in RODI) before putting it in the tank? If you don't rinse it releases a lot of very fine black particles. I don't know if they are harmful to corals but all carbon manufacturers recommend rinsing. Don't overdo the carbon at this point. If you insist on running it under your fleece mat then just follow the yellow-water treatment instructions for your water volume and change monthly.

 

[Lavey29]

So what par did you get at 70% and 100% respectively?
Curious.

I should also add that I run diffusers and I took par reading with them on and with them off and the difference was minimal like 20 par at the top. However, the diffusers just make the light much more manageable to my eyes and I seemed to get much more even spread in the middle and bottom of the tank. It helped with hot spots too.

 

[AstroMelly]

Wow loads of good info here! Thank you so much for contributing.

I really liked the post balancing the goods and the bad and that’s the only one I think I read this morning so today I have:

Replaced my roller mat as it ran out this evening. Also replaced the carbon under it and yes I rinse until water clear every time.
I did check my light schedule and I believe it was the standard AB+ which during the main photoperiod has matched levels of red green and the two whites. For me all 4 of these were at 24% so I upped the 2 whites to 40% and also bumped the overall intensity to 65% (from 60%).
I have moved the ailing montis (I think one is gone) out from the shade of the other frag rack we have and moved both frag racks up in the tank a bit. Could not believe my eyes when I saw the orange polyps of the other monti start to peek out!!! Let’s wait and see on that.

Someone asked about dosing - I only started dosing in August before we went away for a fortnight. At this point the Alk was low and it was quite hot in the UK at around that time. The tank regularly got up to 27.5C - usually is sits between 25.3 and 25.7. Combined with the low Alk of around 6.5 I think it got down to - you can see the history of all my parameters in the aquatic log link in the OP. So since I started dosing Alk I tried to raise it by about 0.1 per day or 2 until it reached 8.5 and that’s where I am trying to hold it. When we returned from the break I set up Ca and Mg dosing also. I think my Alk dosing container may have run out about a week ago - the redsea app is supposed to remind you but I will be checking it a week before next time - so to my surprise last Saturday it was reading 8.0. I have boosted the doser slightly and I think we are at about 8.3 now. I am dosing the redsea foundation additives A B and C pre mixed. They are quite expensive however and I may look for an alternative. I still have 1 spare dosing pump.

That’s enough for now but I will reread the thread and will add more replies where I’ve missed questions maybe tomorrow.

I will also be sure to keep you all updated.

Thanks again for joining me!

 

[Lavey29]

Wow loads of good info here! Thank you so much for contributing.

I really liked the post balancing the goods and the bad and that’s the only one I think I read this morning so today I have:

Replaced my roller mat as it ran out this evening. Also replaced the carbon under it and yes I rinse until water clear every time.
I did check my light schedule and I believe it was the standard AB+ which during the main photoperiod has matched levels of red green and the two whites. For me all 4 of these were at 24% so I upped the 2 whites to 40% and also bumped the overall intensity to 65% (from 60%).
I have moved the ailing montis (I think one is gone) out from the shade of the other frag rack we have and moved both frag racks up in the tank a bit. Could not believe my eyes when I saw the orange polyps of the other monti start to peek out!!! Let’s wait and see on that.

Someone asked about dosing - I only started dosing in August before we went away for a fortnight. At this point the Alk was low and it was quite hot in the UK at around that time. The tank regularly got up to 27.5C - usually is sits between 25.3 and 25.7. Combined with the low Alk of around 6.5 I think it got down to - you can see the history of all my parameters in the aquatic log link in the OP. So since I started dosing Alk I tried to raise it by about 0.1 per day or 2 until it reached 8.5 and that’s where I am trying to hold it. When we returned from the break I set up Ca and Mg dosing also. I think my Alk dosing container may have run out about a week ago - the redsea app is supposed to remind you but I will be checking it a week before next time - so to my surprise last Saturday it was reading 8.0. I have boosted the doser slightly and I think we are at about 8.3 now. I am dosing the redsea foundation additives A B and C pre mixed. They are quite expensive however and I may look for an alternative. I still have 1 spare dosing pump.

That’s enough for now but I will reread the thread and will add more replies where I’ve missed questions maybe tomorrow.

I will also be sure to keep you all updated.

Thanks again for joining me!

Sounds like logical approach and progress. The only thing I caution is the white light increase. Corals really do not need white light or very little at most. White light is for our viewing pleasure but it can also promote algae in your tank. Just use the standard pre set AB setting for the lights. Increase intensity via the schedule to 65% as you referenced and then bump up 1% per day and see how corals react. This was my approach. Check out the Photone app in the Google store and add it to your phone. It is surprisingly accurate for a free app and I compared it to a 510 par meter too. I was surprised how accurate it was but I only held my phone at the water surface not underwater.