My sps die in 2 weeks

[DSC reef]

Its gonna be tough to keep SPS with high phosphate and nutrients. Bio load is probably more than your system can export.

 

[Rixar]

Tough one. Any airborne chemicals in the area of the tank? Aerosol scents or anything like that?

No, all sprays are away, no perfume is used or others next to it.

Alright well your tests for nutrients are worthless. Your rock work is covered in algae, you clearly have nutrients in the system. If you didn't, then the algae would not exist; this is a far better indicator than any test. Testing won't come back positive when you have that much algae in your system. I would focus on cleaning that stuff up and monitoring your nutrients, specifically your feeding. I'm not sure if this is what's causing your SPS to die, but its definitely an issue you should address.

I have never had algae, I have thought that my corals could die of hunger and start using more coral food and feed my heavier fish, I have not had better results with my sps, now I am feeding less to control the algae

Those tangs break my heart.

What type of rock is that? it almost looks like concrete?

The rocks are skeletons of coral, the rocks are glued to the grid using NYOS cement, I leave a photo when the tank was new, before I had sand but remove it in case there was a chance that it contained metals, I will have it again Sand ahead.

 

[Parsec]

SPS's in my experience was a balance between lighting and trance elements. I use Red Sea foundation ABC plus and Reef builder, which helps what the heck alkalinity. I noticed a huge difference once those trace elements were added.
Secondly that algae worries me a bit, seems to be quite a bit of nutrients in there for that to be going on. A lawnmower blenny has always does wonders for me. Start with adjustments to lighting. And hey.....maybe its fine for now but a 50 gal is pretty small for those tangs.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

My thought is that all that green algae covering your rocks and floor is killing the SPS coral by Allelopathy(chemical warfare). Carbon would not be enough to remove the chemicals secreted by these plants if they are in decently close proximity to your corals. I also noticed your fish are too large for that size of tank. The issue of their size and the ethical implications are one thing, but just for practical purposes, those fish are too big, they need to eat too much and poop a lot. Your tank just cannot handle that size of a bioload. Here's a plan of action that I think will get you back on track. It will take some work, but not too bad.

• Get a 5 gallon bucket of your tank water, filled with 2-3 gallons of your tank water. Grab a rock out of the tank one at a time. Get a wire brush and while keeping your rocks in the water as much as possible (to preserve the life in them), scrub absolutely every last visible bit of green algae off them. Then give them a thorough rinse in the tank water inside the bucket. Return the newly cleaned rock to the tank. Repeat this process until every rock is totally clean of green algae.
• Next turn off all the pumps and powerheads, take a razor blade and scrape off all of the green algae off every surface that you can inside the aquarium. Siphon the algae and it's debris out of the tank along with a 50% water change.
• Cut your lighting back to 4 hours a day for the next month while you are doing these steps.
• Remove all of the fish from your tank while you have the rocks out and re-home them to your local fish store for store credit or whatever you want. Just get them out of there. Start with new size appropriate (small) fish, add them after quarantining them.
• Do another 50% water change, use an actual fluidized reactor to run your carbon in. Having water passively flow around a bag of carbon may remove the discoloration of the water only, but will not really remove any organics which is what we really need it for. On that same note, all the bio media you have sitting in the plastic tupperware tray is also doing nothing for you. Water will flow over it. It also needs to be in some type of fluidized reactor to do anything.
• Whatever fish you get next don't over feed them. If you are feeding frozen food feed them a very small amount twice a day. If you are feeding only flakes or pellets, once a day.
• Stop feeding any type of liquid coral foods or feeding addititves. Period.

I have taken the above steps many many times in new clients tanks that I have taken over after they have been neglected and it is definitely possible to rehab this tank and get it SPS ready if you stick with the plan. You also need to thoroughly clean your protein skimmer as in take it out, take it apart and clean everything. Take all of that junk sitting in your sump and vacuum out all the debris sitting in the bottom. If your city water is treated with chloramines, make sure to dose with Seachem Prime before adding into the tank or make sure that it is going through two carbon units in your RO/DI system.

 

[Daddy-o]

Have you double checked that your R/O is removing all chlorine/chloramine

 

[Titanwerx]

My thought is that all that green algae covering your rocks and floor is killing the SPS coral by Allelopathy(chemical warfare). Carbon would not be enough to remove the chemicals secreted by these plants if they are in decently close proximity to your corals. I also noticed your fish are too large for that size of tank. The issue of their size and the ethical implications are one thing, but just for practical purposes, those fish are too big, they need to eat too much and poop a lot. Your tank just cannot handle that size of a bioload. Here's a plan of action that I think will get you back on track. It will take some work, but not too bad.

• Get a 5 gallon bucket of your tank water, filled with 2-3 gallons of your tank water. Grab a rock out of the tank one at a time. Get a wire brush and while keeping your rocks in the water as much as possible (to preserve the life in them), scrub absolutely every last visible bit of green algae off them. Then give them a thorough rinse in the tank water inside the bucket. Return the newly cleaned rock to the tank. Repeat this process until every rock is totally clean of green algae.
• Next turn off all the pumps and powerheads, take a razor blade and scrape off all of the green algae off every surface that you can. Siphon the algae and it's debris out of the tank along with a 50% water change.
• Cut your lighting back to 4 hours a day for the next month while you are doing these steps.
• Remove all of the fish from your tank while you have the rocks out and re-home them to your local fish store for store credit or whatever you want. Just get them out of there. Start with new size appropriate (small) fish, add them after quarantining them.
• Do another 50% water change, use an actual fluidized reactor to run your carbon in. Having water passively flow around a bag of carbon may remove the discoloration of the water only, but will not really remove any organics which is what we really need it for. On that same note, all the bio media you have sitting in the plastic tupperware tray is also doing nothing for you. Water will flow over it. It also needs to be in some type of fluidized reactor to do anything.
• Whatever fish you get next don't over feed them. If you are feeding frozen food feed them a very small amount twice a day. If you are feeding only flakes or pellets, once a day.
• Stop feeding any type of liquid coral foods or feeding addititves. Period.

I have taken the above steps many many times in new clients tanks that I have taken over after they have been neglected and it is definitely possible to rehab this tank and get it SPS ready if you stick with the plan. You also need to thoroughly clean your protein skimmer as in take it out, take it apart and clean everything. Take all of that junk sitting in your sump and vacuum out all the debris sitting in the bottom. If your city water is treated with chloramines, make sure to dose with Seachem Prime before adding into the tank or make sure that it is going through two carbon units in your RO/DI system.

I was going to add some advice about the fish and the bio media but bounce just said it all, follow what he says and you will be back on track! Great advice!

 

[Rixar]

My thought is that all that green algae covering your rocks and floor is killing the SPS coral by Allelopathy(chemical warfare). Carbon would not be enough to remove the chemicals secreted by these plants if they are in decently close proximity to your corals. I also noticed your fish are too large for that size of tank. The issue of their size and the ethical implications are one thing, but just for practical purposes, those fish are too big, they need to eat too much and poop a lot. Your tank just cannot handle that size of a bioload. Here's a plan of action that I think will get you back on track. It will take some work, but not too bad.

• Get a 5 gallon bucket of your tank water, filled with 2-3 gallons of your tank water. Grab a rock out of the tank one at a time. Get a wire brush and while keeping your rocks in the water as much as possible (to preserve the life in them), scrub absolutely every last visible bit of green algae off them. Then give them a thorough rinse in the tank water inside the bucket. Return the newly cleaned rock to the tank. Repeat this process until every rock is totally clean of green algae.
• Next turn off all the pumps and powerheads, take a razor blade and scrape off all of the green algae off every surface that you can inside the aquarium. Siphon the algae and it's debris out of the tank along with a 50% water change.
• Cut your lighting back to 4 hours a day for the next month while you are doing these steps.
• Remove all of the fish from your tank while you have the rocks out and re-home them to your local fish store for store credit or whatever you want. Just get them out of there. Start with new size appropriate (small) fish, add them after quarantining them.
• Do another 50% water change, use an actual fluidized reactor to run your carbon in. Having water passively flow around a bag of carbon may remove the discoloration of the water only, but will not really remove any organics which is what we really need it for. On that same note, all the bio media you have sitting in the plastic tupperware tray is also doing nothing for you. Water will flow over it. It also needs to be in some type of fluidized reactor to do anything.
• Whatever fish you get next don't over feed them. If you are feeding frozen food feed them a very small amount twice a day. If you are feeding only flakes or pellets, once a day.
• Stop feeding any type of liquid coral foods or feeding addititves. Period.

I have taken the above steps many many times in new clients tanks that I have taken over after they have been neglected and it is definitely possible to rehab this tank and get it SPS ready if you stick with the plan. You also need to thoroughly clean your protein skimmer as in take it out, take it apart and clean everything. Take all of that junk sitting in your sump and vacuum out all the debris sitting in the bottom. If your city water is treated with chloramines, make sure to dose with Seachem Prime before adding into the tank or make sure that it is going through two carbon units in your RO/DI system.

Thanks for your advice, only 2 months ago I have algae in the tank, before I have never had them and I have also had these problems with sps previously.

You are right that my fish are too big, I adopt them being very small, now I am afraid that someone treats them wrong and I am thinking of looking for a new home of confidence, but it is difficult to find a responsible person with their animals.

The skimer and all my machinery receives a cleaning every 3 months, if it is fixed the movement pumps have been cleaned today and the skimer was cleaned 2 weeks ago, I try to keep my equipment clean

Many thanks for the advice, I'm going to change my active carbon and put it inside the fluid reactor, I currently have a little cuprisorb inside the reactor, to treat any possible heavy metal input that was not detected in the triton test.

 

[Jason mack]

Check too see if you have any rusty pipe clamps check all magnets for breakage .. have you thought about doing a triton test or something similar.. test for copper in your water .. or heavy metals .. that would be my suggestion

 

[Rixar]

Yes, I have searched everywhere and I have checked my magnets and everything is correct. I did a triton analytic last month, my values were good, some metals came out but within an acceptable range, vanadium, aluminum or copper came out a small part of the scale. The small part of aluminum is of the blocks of marine pure, the copper of the fish's animes and the vanadium I do not know, perhaps of the mixture of salts

 

[Rixar]

I did not know that algae could do chemical warfare, I've never cleaned my back cristsl, today in the morning I'm going to change 15 gallons of water with a good clean. As I said before, the algae in my rocks are new, we have never had algae before, but we have fed a lot of food to see if this was the problem, I will try to fix this problem and continue documenting the progress in this thread , Thank you

 

[ps2cho]

Those tangs are almost fully grown and that is pretty cruel to keep them in a 50 cube. Start with trading them into a local fish store ASAP. You'll no longer be committing animal cruelty and you'll cut your nutrients down.

This is like you living your life out of a closet.

 

[Rixar]

Hey, I came here to ask for advice, not to ask for morality classes.

The other companions, I have been recommended to look for a new home and this morning I have put to work, do not need to be reminded again and again, I thank you for your interest in the welfare of animals, believe me I worry a lot about the health of them feeding them with the best that I can find, but only 2 years ago average 5cm, it has grown very fast jejejeje

 

[DSC reef]

Those tangs are almost fully grown and that is pretty cruel to keep them in a 50 cube. Start with trading them into a local fish store ASAP. You'll no longer be committing animal cruelty and you'll cut your nutrients down.

This is like you living your life out of a closet.

Accusations of animal cruelty is a bit harsh. Let's focus on helping the OP with his current issues. He's already stated he's looking for a good home which means he actually cares for his animals. To the OP, you've got a lot of great advice and I'm confident you'll succeed in your goals with the right help and encouragement.

 

[chefjpaul]

We all are here to learn, teach, share.
No one came into this hobby knowing everything.

Good luck.

 

[Rixar]

Thanks for your comments guys. I have good news:

- Today I have found a new house for my animals, it is an aquarium with 150 gallons, he is finishing to establish the system, in 2 months they will be in his new house.

- I have put my active carbon into a fluid reactor


- I brushed two of my large rocks and a large part of the rear glass, I will do the cleaning in 2 times. - I made a water change of 15 gallons

- I have stopped the addiction of coral food and phytoplankton.

I'm going to follow through the thread so they can see the evolution and can help me

 

[DSC reef]

Just go slow rixar. Decreasing your heavy Bio load alone will decrease nutrients and that's awesome you found a good home for your fish. Removing all the algae at once could cause a spike since the algae is actually absorbing the excess nutrients. Slow and steady.

 

[Rixar]

Perfect, thanks!

I have increased the light hours in my algae filter and added a few doses of vinegar to the peristalsis

 

[Scorpius]

Tang Police need their own sub-forum and lock them in there. lol Agreed the tank is too small for fish of that size but get off your high horse folks.

 

[Justin Swinney]

I'm curious. I'm having similar issues with good water levels. I have one stylo that's seems to be doing well for now but none of my other sps have made it more than a month. I've been reading about vibrio and wonder if I don't have that in the water causing these losses. Considering adding a uv sterilizer

 

[N4sty T4te]

My thought is that all that green algae covering your rocks and floor is killing the SPS coral by Allelopathy(chemical warfare). Carbon would not be enough to remove the chemicals secreted by these plants if they are in decently close proximity to your corals. I also noticed your fish are too large for that size of tank. The issue of their size and the ethical implications are one thing, but just for practical purposes, those fish are too big, they need to eat too much and poop a lot. Your tank just cannot handle that size of a bioload. Here's a plan of action that I think will get you back on track. It will take some work, but not too bad.

• Get a 5 gallon bucket of your tank water, filled with 2-3 gallons of your tank water. Grab a rock out of the tank one at a time. Get a wire brush and while keeping your rocks in the water as much as possible (to preserve the life in them), scrub absolutely every last visible bit of green algae off them. Then give them a thorough rinse in the tank water inside the bucket. Return the newly cleaned rock to the tank. Repeat this process until every rock is totally clean of green algae.
• Next turn off all the pumps and powerheads, take a razor blade and scrape off all of the green algae off every surface that you can inside the aquarium. Siphon the algae and it's debris out of the tank along with a 50% water change.
• Cut your lighting back to 4 hours a day for the next month while you are doing these steps.
• Remove all of the fish from your tank while you have the rocks out and re-home them to your local fish store for store credit or whatever you want. Just get them out of there. Start with new size appropriate (small) fish, add them after quarantining them.
• Do another 50% water change, use an actual fluidized reactor to run your carbon in. Having water passively flow around a bag of carbon may remove the discoloration of the water only, but will not really remove any organics which is what we really need it for. On that same note, all the bio media you have sitting in the plastic tupperware tray is also doing nothing for you. Water will flow over it. It also needs to be in some type of fluidized reactor to do anything.
• Whatever fish you get next don't over feed them. If you are feeding frozen food feed them a very small amount twice a day. If you are feeding only flakes or pellets, once a day.
• Stop feeding any type of liquid coral foods or feeding addititves. Period.

I have taken the above steps many many times in new clients tanks that I have taken over after they have been neglected and it is definitely possible to rehab this tank and get it SPS ready if you stick with the plan. You also need to thoroughly clean your protein skimmer as in take it out, take it apart and clean everything. Take all of that junk sitting in your sump and vacuum out all the debris sitting in the bottom. If your city water is treated with chloramines, make sure to dose with Seachem Prime before adding into the tank or make sure that it is going through two carbon units in your RO/DI system.

I've had much much worse GHA than this and not had a single SPS coral perish.

So I disagree with the statement that algae will cause sps death within a two week time period, at the levels it is in this tank. GHA pretty much has to be touching the coral and growing over it to cause death in my experience. Otherwise we wouldn't have huge refugiums and algae scrubbers setup for nutrient removal. When you do go to remove the hair algae keep the lights the same, and use a tooth brush and filter socks, or do it in bucket of water change water. Leaving the lights on and manually removing speeds up the process of the algae depleting the nutrients it's feeding on IMO, your going to be scrubbing regardless, might as well scrub fewer times and remove larger quantities of algae.

I've had much much worse GHA than this and not had a single SPS coral perish.What you can run into is the GHA out competing the SPS for nutrients when you reduce feeding, which in turn causes the coral starve to death.

This is not to say that GHA can't create chemical warfare, I;m not knocking the idea of it at all, just dont think thats what this one is given my experience.

Here are my questions:
1. Are you running ATO?
(sps HATE salinity swings)

2. What is the Tanks Temp and have you checked for swings during the day with your ATI on?
(My 200 Gallon swings 1 degree with less watts per gallon than yours, anything more than 2 degrees is no good especially if the corals aren't used to it)

3. Are you losing these corals following water changes?
(If your using Red Sea Coral Pro the alkalinity spike from adding 12 DKH water to 8.2 DKH water could be causing the issue)

4. Have you left the system for extended periods of time without any sps to rule out bacterial infections, or pests?