My Monti and Anacropora are Peeling

[aquaticlog]

You can see all of my measurements for this aquarium here:

Farm's Parameters

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And these are my measurements for another aquarium where things seem to do quite alright.

Treasure Lagoon's Parameters

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[z-reefer]

Just one pattern I can see in the parameters is that you have higher nutrients in the treasure reef to match the 8dkh all, I wonder if in the farm where you are running a little lower on the nutrients dropping the all closer to 7 might help?

 

[aquaticlog]

I see, or increase the nutrients even more in the farm?

 

[z-reefer]

I see, or increase the nutrients even more in the farm?

Just a thought, I haven’t been keeping acros for too long so maybe someone else with more experience can chime in

 

[aquaticlog]

Here's a full follow up I shot up. I'm agreeing with this thread that Copper HR Checker might be bogus. My ICP tests have just came in and I go through all of them here:

 

[am3gross]

Is your upstairs tank and the farm plumbed together?

 

[aquaticlog]

Is your upstairs tank and the farm plumbed together?

the first tank in the video with bare bottom is plumbed into the farm. the tank with the sand is a separate system

 

[am3gross]

Have you seen your Flame Angel picking at your SPS in the bare bottom? Maybe that could explain the corals in there?

The ICP shows you have elevated Bromine, which says "it can cause tissue detachment, starting in the middle of the coral"

Also, I see your Tin level...Though yours is not high now. At one time mine was 54, and I could not keep corals alive. The description on your ICP test says "it can lead to dissolving and dying tissue in fast growing SPS".

More questions for you.

Where did you get the farm tank from?

New? Used?

Water changes?

In the video you talk about the UV, not having one on the "treasure Reef" (which is a beautiful tank by the way) and it being good to go without it. Now we both know 2 tanks are never alike!

Seriously tho, when I set up my 375, brand new, I would stick SPS in there and within 2-4 weeks they would just die off, much like yours are doing. I did an ICP and it said my Tin was 54. Did lots of water changes, went on a 6 month deployment, came home to the same thing. dying coral. I decided to move the tank to a new part in the house and restart everything. During that process I found my salinity refractometer to be off. 1.030. I considered that to be the cause of my death, but then the same thing happened again. now my tin is down to 9. I am wondering now if both our tanks were new, if that could be the issues for us both? If it is then water changes would help, if you do enough.



Mike

 

[aquaticlog]

Have you seen your Flame Angel picking at your SPS in the bare bottom? Maybe that could explain the corals in there?

The ICP shows you have elevated Bromine, which says "it can cause tissue detachment, starting in the middle of the coral"

Also, I see your Tin level...Though yours is not high now. At one time mine was 54, and I could not keep corals alive. The description on your ICP test says "it can lead to dissolving and dying tissue in fast growing SPS".

More questions for you.

Where did you get the farm tank from?

New? Used?

Water changes?

In the video you talk about the UV, not having one on the "treasure Reef" (which is a beautiful tank by the way) and it being good to go without it. Now we both know 2 tanks are never alike!

Seriously tho, when I set up my 375, brand new, I would stick SPS in there and within 2-4 weeks they would just die off, much like yours are doing. I did an ICP and it said my Tin was 54. Did lots of water changes, went on a 6 month deployment, came home to the same thing. dying coral. I decided to move the tank to a new part in the house and restart everything. During that process I found my salinity refractometer to be off. 1.030. I considered that to be the cause of my death, but then the same thing happened again. now my tin is down to 9. I am wondering now if both our tanks were new, if that could be the issues for us both? If it is then water changes would help, if you do enough.



Mike

Hi Mike and sorry for the delay in answering. I got the aquarium custom built in the basement, so was there from the beginning. It was doing rough first (as you can see in my earlier videos as I document weekly), then I put on tiny 9w UV and it started to get better, slowly improving and at six month mark it was doing great. Then it started to come down.
The big difference with this tank - there's no sand in this tank, and I know that nowadays everyone frowns upon sand in the tank, but it has always been a great experience for me and a great aesthetic appeal.

 

[am3gross]

Hi Mike and sorry for the delay in answering. I got the aquarium custom built in the basement, so was there from the beginning. It was doing rough first (as you can see in my earlier videos as I document weekly), then I put on tiny 9w UV and it started to get better, slowly improving and at six month mark it was doing great. Then it started to come down.
The big difference with this tank - there's no sand in this tank, and I know that nowadays everyone frowns upon sand in the tank, but it has always been a great experience for me and a great aesthetic appeal.

No worries man, how are things going? Better I hope?

 

[aquaticlog]

No worries man, how are things going? Better I hope?

I wish, no - still some colonies are dying and overall things do look a bit on the brown side for me. I can't figure it out.. yet.

 

[njreefkeeper]

Everything in my experience with these types of unexplainable anomalies points to something bacterial.

I use to own a store and brought in maricultured colonies that I’d routinely dip and quarantine before introducing them to the main system. Can’t remember which specific species it was but I slowly started seeing peelin in a few of the same family of SPS. This was a 140 gallon isolated system. I fragged a few pieces of what I could and moved it to another system. Then I put an 80 watt UV on a 140 gallon system. Within a day (aside from extremely clear water) the recession had stopped completely. But in the tank I’d moved the saved frags to it had already started spreading to other montipora in that system. That’s what led me to believe it was not the water quality. I put another large UV on that system and lo and behold...it went away as well. I also started dosing a few different bacterial products each week after a water change; feeling that even though the UV was indiscriminately killing good and bad, that eventually I’d win the war if I was dosing more of the bacteria I wanted.
Ever since then I have strong UV’s on all my tanks at home and haven’t seen any RTN or STN anomalies. I feel the benefits of a properly or overly sized UV far outweigh any possible negatives; especially in handling the things we can’t exactly see and test for.

 

[aquaticlog]

Everything in my experience with these types of unexplainable anomalies points to something bacterial.

I use to own a store and brought in maricultured colonies that I’d routinely dip and quarantine before introducing them to the main system. Can’t remember which specific species it was but I slowly started seeing peelin in a few of the same family of SPS. This was a 140 gallon isolated system. I fragged a few pieces of what I could and moved it to another system. Then I put an 80 watt UV on a 140 gallon system. Within a day (aside from extremely clear water) the recession had stopped completely. But in the tank I’d moved the saved frags to it had already started spreading to other montipora in that system. That’s what led me to believe it was not the water quality. I put another large UV on that system and lo and behold...it went away as well. I also started dosing a few different bacterial products each week after a water change; feeling that even though the UV was indiscriminately killing good and bad, that eventually I’d win the war if I was dosing more of the bacteria I wanted.
Ever since then I have strong UV’s on all my tanks at home and haven’t seen any RTN or STN anomalies. I feel the benefits of a properly or overly sized UV far outweigh any possible negatives; especially in handling the things we can’t exactly see and test for.

Hmm, I definitely can see that. And I know of several reefers that have UV on their systems and swear by them. It is interesting that I do not have a UV on my main reef nor I ever kept one and yet have never ran into this particular issue - I would lose a colony once in a while, but not at the same level as what's happening now.
Now the big difference between the two systems is the absence of sand in the frag system - I'm actually on the fence now about adding the sand into one of the tanks plumbed into the system - I love the look and the tank without sand just does not seem to do it for me.

 

[njreefkeeper]

Hmm, I definitely can see that. And I know of several reefers that have UV on their systems and swear by them. It is interesting that I do not have a UV on my main reef nor I ever kept one and yet have never ran into this particular issue - I would lose a colony once in a while, but not at the same level as what's happening now.
Now the big difference between the two systems is the absence of sand in the frag system - I'm actually on the fence now about adding the sand into one of the tanks plumbed into the system - I love the look and the tank without sand just does not seem to do it for me.

I never was a fan of UV until I tried it. I think most people don’t run one large enough to be truly effective.

As for sand, I hear you. But I like the benefits of a barebottom system too...so that’s why I have both.

 

[WWC]

The Nitrates are low, we would normally recommend between 10-30 and with acro you will want them in High direct flow at or near the top of the tank

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Any good way to check for stray current?

Sorry for the late reply but I have never tested for the stray current myself. Only used trusted equipment and keep chords in the tank to a minimum. I have always used a grounding probe and keep it clean as well.
Are the only corals that are peeling still just montipora and anacropora? If all acropora are doing just fine I would move the two species to another tank but before doing so do a nice quick dip with some iodine drops mixed in a trusted dip at a low concentration.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Also if your constantly putting hands in the tank and messing with stuff, keeping that to a minimum would be benificial.

 

[aquaticlog]

The Nitrates are low, we would normally recommend between 10-30 and with acro you will want them in High direct flow at or near the top of the tank

Wow, thanks. My acros are all getting very high flow and while they are all on the same level - this tank has 4 Radions and they all get around 200-300 PAR. My nitrates are around 7-9 ppm, I'll start bumping it up more.

 

[aquaticlog]

Also if your constantly putting hands in the tank and messing with stuff, keeping that to a minimum would be benificial.

Great point, I always wear gloves when I work in the tank just in case. This is a frag system as well, so I do work on it regularly.

 

[aquaticlog]

Sorry for the late reply but I have never tested for the stray current myself. Only used trusted equipment and keep chords in the tank to a minimum. I have always used a grounding probe and keep it clean as well.
Are the only corals that are peeling still just montipora and anacropora? If all acropora are doing just fine I would move the two species to another tank but before doing so do a nice quick dip with some iodine drops mixed in a trusted dip at a low concentration.

Lately it has been a number of high end acros as well.