Montipora showing white skeleton, problems with almost all corals

[pajin]

Hello everybody,

I am desperate for some pieces of advice! Recently I've been experiencing some problems with a lot of corals. I've had my current reef tank for 8 months. I know it's not a long time, but since the very beginning, it's been running very well. Until now...

Since the beginning of April, I noticed one of my Caulastreas is not as puffed up as it used to be. Then some other LPS started to look bad as well, some even had its tissue receded. Some corals looked perfect like nothing was happening. Before the symptoms appeared, I was rearranging my reef, but I did not do any significant change, just moved two large rock on the top of the reef. I assumed that this caused "something" that bothered my corals, but maybe it was just a coincidence...

Since the beginning of April, I lost two corals - pocillopora and torch coral, that was looking great even when other corals looked sick, but over just one night it suddenly died... Now LPS corals look better, tissue recession is no longer progressing but it's also not getting better...

But now my montiporas don't look good (look at the pictures). They're turning white, two days after they look good, it lasts a week and then again... All of my SPS corals are not growing for a month at least...

What bothers me is that I can't figure out what is going on. For six months I had no problems, not even algae or cyanobacteria. I change nothing in my maintenance routine (10 % WC weekly). Since the problems appeared I did 3 larger water changes (25 %). After the WC everything looks better but after some time some corals start to show the signs of distress. This makes me think something's wrong with the water - like something was accumulating in it...

I use dosing pump for calcium and alkalinity, so my values are quite stable. Ca around 420, KH around 8.5. Before the incident I had zero nitrates and phosphates, now I have nitrates around 2, phosphates 0,06. Temperature 27 °C.

Does anyone know what might be happening in my tank? Thank you for every piece of advice.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Are you running an agresssive chemical media like a gfo?

Are you using rodi ?

Look hard at your metal parts. Including your return pump.

 

[pajin]

I am using GFO - 30 grams in my 100 l (26 gallons) tank. I am also using rodi, so the input water should be fine. I admit I did not check my pumps since I first placed them in the sump...

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yea double check. May as well.

The gfo is good and bad, if it's a metal it will pull it out.
But Is it's. Nutrint realated you should pull it out.

It doesn't feel like a nutint problem off the bat though.

The nex would be chem warfare id guess.

 

[Tahoe61]

What are you using for lighting?
Are any of your reagents expired, how are you measuring alk?

 

[pajin]

I forgot to mention - I use LEDs - just cheap China, blue and whites 2:1 and a few of green and red. For the first six months, caulastreas on the bottom grew many new heads and my SPS grew several centimeters so I suppose it's "coral compatible" and sufficient. In the sump, I have three fluid filters - one with filter media, one with biopellets (just a few) and the last one with sorbents - zeolite, activated carbon and GFO. The important thing - I don't use a skimmer. This filtration system was "designed" in our LFS - I was said it's proven to be working with many other customers. At the time I did not understand much about the filtration systems, there were too many possibilities... So I decided to trust him... And it did work well. I know there is a "rule" to never run biopellets without skimmer, but I also found some user that have a similar setup without troubles.

Actually, earlier today I replaced the GFO and zeolites with another filter media, so few hour my tank is free from GFO.

My salinity is 1,025, I use red sea coral pro salt. For dosing, I use red sea foundation programme. None of my reagents are expired. For testing, I use mainly salifert. Phosphates were measured using hanna checker. I already ordered my own hanna checker for both phosphates and alkalinity.

I target feed my lps frozen food and for filtrators, I use reef roids and reef pearls. Apart from that, I use red sea reef energy - daily dose 2 + 2 ml.

Because I changed nothing above mentioned and it was working before, I suspect some chemicals in the water - heavy metals (don't know the source) or other chemicals, or allelopathy - I have goniopora that does not look bothered at all and I read an article that this coral can be quite toxic - I had placed it in the tank two months before the first signs of stress in corals appeared. Could this be the cause? I know a lot of people with gonioporas and similar corals I have and the have no problems at all... Another coral that is completely unaffected is my fungia plate coral.

This picture is 2 days old...

 

[Tahoe61]

Your tank is beautiful.

I would however run a skimmer if you're going to use any carbons such as bio-pellets and such. I know there are a few hobbyist that can pull it off, in a smaller tank it is harder.

The nitrate level and phos are low levels so you might want to let your Alk drift down if you're using zeovite or bio-pellets.

I am more inclined to think this issue is associated with the use of bio-pellets, or zeovite or the gfo than heavy metals or allelopathy. Jm2c.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I am more inclined to think this issue is associated with the use of bio-pellets, or zeovite or the gfo than heavy metals or allelopathy. Jm2c.

You're one that would know..

 

[pajin]

I am more inclined to think this issue is associated with the use of bio-pellets, or zeovite or the gfo than heavy metals or allelopathy.

You may be right. I think that by that time I added one more spoon of the biopellets, because it wears off in time and I wanted to strengthen the biological filtration... All right, the zeolites and GFO are out already, tomorrow I'll lower the amount of biopellets and I'll give it some time if it gets any better...

 

[pajin]

Little update - everything is still the same... I checked all the equipment that is in contact with water and found nothing, no rust or anything else. No other coral died, SPS look still the same, not growing at all. Plate montipora is still an issue - the skeleton starts to get white but after the water change which I usually do on Saturday it gets the color back. Interestingly, I had not changed the water this weekend because I was busy. But the white montipora started to gain the color regardless the WC was not performed. Today I'm going to change 25% of the water (because one caulastrea started to look bad again) and then 20 % WCs every other day - I found one user with similar issue - he could not find the cause but started to do larger WCs every other day for 3 weeks and this solved the issue for him.

 

[pajin]

update:

It looks like I solved it! Unfortunately, I don't know how because I did so many changes. It might have been the big water changes every other day performed the whole June. Or it might have been the new skimmer I bought. Or probably a combination of all of the things I changed. The tank went through a phase with high nitrates (25 mg/l) and phosphates (0,35 mg/l). Since the beginning of July, everything looks good and healthy. All SPS started to grow again. I just hope it's not just for a while... So that's it

 

[BoomCorals]

Glad to hear it's on the way to recovery. I am inclined to think adding the skimmer did the trick but who knows for sure.

 

[Jenuvio]

update:

It looks like I solved it! Unfortunately, I don't know how because I did so many changes. It might have been the big water changes every other day performed the whole June. Or it might have been the new skimmer I bought. Or probably a combination of all of the things I changed. The tank went through a phase with high nitrates (25 mg/l) and phosphates (0,35 mg/l). Since the beginning of July, everything looks good and healthy. All SPS started to grow again. I just hope it's not just for a while... So that's it

What type of skimmer did you use?