My sps tank is crashing

[BriansBrain]

Do you know where the "bugs" came from? (From pre-reboot?) Whatever the source, I might be inclined to point to that as "the root problem".

I’d say post reboot. I’d guess probably from an incoming frag(s), but I’m not sure the source honestly. I started to notices loss of PE and color. When I really caught onto it was during a water change. My target mandarin was all over some acros picking at them like crazy!

Just wanted to personally say thank you for your time and detailed comments through my issues.

Also, a huge thank you to everyone who contributed their advice, experience, and time to help me. This is a great community with much more experienced and smarter people than myself lol!

 

[mcarroll]

How old are the bigger corals in the tank, BTW? ...how old is the system overall, including reboots? (And I may have missed it....why did you choose to do the reboot? Algae issues or something?)

BTW, you take great notes and you still have a killer tank, IMO. Props all around! That said, if you plan to keep collecting new corals it might be time to add a coral QT to your arsenal, eh? :) A little AIO tank is all it takes....think I saw in some YouTube vid that Jason Fox just has a little BioCube or something for QT. Coral QT is much lower overhead than a fish QT.

FYI, it's not unusual for incidents that happened from weeks/months ago to "come due" on a coral later on like this....that alk drop (from bug treatment I think u said) could have been the trigger event for the corals....but it didn't really show up in observable symptoms until more recently. (Wasn't just one trigger event that caused all this....definitely the combination of things.)

Last, someone in the thread mentioned fast growth not being the best indicator of coral health may have seen this article from me posting it bunches of time....or elsewhere on the web:
Fast Growth May Impair Regeneration Capacity in the Branching Coral Acropora muricata

FYI, there are a ton of good coral (and fish) journal articles there that I've been collecting just for reference.

 

[BriansBrain]

How old are the bigger corals in the tank, BTW? ...how old is the system overall, including reboots? (And I may have missed it....why did you choose to do the reboot? Algae issues or something?)

Only a small handful of sps were carried over. Probably only around 6 small mini colonies/frags, half being Acropora. The rest were all added as frags afterwards.

Equipment/tank is almost 6 but when I rebooted I used all new rock. A few live rock pieces and bio blocks from the previous setup and my other tank.

Broke tank down to restart from bryopsis and annoying super thick turf algae. Plus I was not happy with the aquascaping and sand

 

[mcarroll]

Only a small handful of sps were carried over. Probably only around 6 small mini colonies/frags, half being Acropora. The rest were all added as frags afterwards.

Equipment/tank is almost 6 but when I rebooted I used all new rock. A few live rock pieces and bio blocks from the previous setup and my other tank.

Broke tank down to restart from bryopsis and annoying super thick turf algae. Plus I was not happy with the aquascaping and sand

If you had algae like that, I guess you may have put that tank through some...eh...treatments?... trying to get rid of it.

Carrying over the corals should still have been fine.

But all things considered, taking the bio-blocks and misc. rock from the old tank would have been verboten in my book. (Not the only factors, but blocks are/were causative, rock is a vector.)

Man, sorry you've had such a rough ride – your experience is unfortunately all too common. Glad you've at least had the payoff of a ton of great coral growth!!!!

(If you haven't already, I hope you get a chance to start a tank from real live rock at some point...especially considering all the experience you have up to this point, I think you'd find it extremely worthwhile.)

I hope you can get things down to the basics and back to normal soon!!

 

[BriansBrain]

First good sign in a while. Mostly small observations but some montis are showing growth rings and regaining color! Green Slimer is still pretty rough and I don’t expect it all to survive but has it growth over where I cut the dead parts off. Granted, these are the easy corals, but nice to see. No further stn/rtn observed

 

[archipelago]

My phosphates are very high though, unless the Hanna checker is wrong. Started GFO at the 1/2 the recommended amount because my phosphate was 0.6

I know I'm late to the party (and I'm sorry for your troubles), but Hana sells certified calibration standards for all of their checkers. I purchase them for all of mine. I've had a Mg checker out of cal out of the box, and the only other checker I've replaced due to OOC was ULR PO4 (after ~ 2 years of use).

I test calibration for every checker I own every quarter, per my standard work checklist.

Unfortunately, while checker calibration can be tested, you cannot calibrate the unit itself. Once it's OOC, you must purchase a new unit.

 

[archipelago]

Edit: removed my post because it's not helpful and I sound dumb.

 

[xiaoxiy]

Bro 0.13 PO4 (while out of my "safe" range) is not what I'd consider incredibly high.

0.6 though? Definitely.

Calcification inhibition is a fact at high PO4 levels. And while the corals may appear to be growing well, I'm afraid that the skeletal structure at a microscopic level is not healthy.

Eh. My experience is similar to @Troylee.

I ran my phos at 0.5 for 12 months and only recently dropped them unintentionally by introducing a lot of new dry rock. Acros seemed to THRIVE on the higher phos.

 

[Troylee]

Bro 0.13 PO4 (while out of my "safe" range) is not what I'd consider incredibly high.

0.6 though? Definitely.

Calcification inhibition is a fact at high PO4 levels. And while the corals may appear to be growing well, I'm afraid that the skeletal structure at a microscopic level is not healthy.

Bro! That’s .4 phosphates…

 

[archipelago]

Bro! That’s .4 phosphates…

Ah - completely missed the "phosphorus" checker.

Carry on

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Looks like the acro STN has got me too. Been seeing the flesh slowly disappear on a small colony of TSA Fruity Pebbles. Going to cut it off the rock and put it on a frag plate and hopefully that will stop the spread. Don't see anything on it crawling or eggs of any kind. All of my other acros look great except this one small piece on this particular colony. Going to also give it a dip prior to glueing it to the plate. Ugh!

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Hijacking this thread sorry! Any thoughts from anybody?

 

[dwest]

I would get a frag of any effected colony.

 

[BriansBrain]

I know I'm late to the party (and I'm sorry for your troubles), but Hana sells certified calibration standards for all of their checkers. I purchase them for all of mine. I've had a Mg checker out of cal out of the box, and the only other checker I've replaced due to OOC was ULR PO4 (after ~ 2 years of use).

I test calibration for every checker I own every quarter, per my standard work checklist.

Unfortunately, while checker calibration can be tested, you cannot calibrate the unit itself. Once it's OOC, you must purchase a new unit.

I did end up purchasing the standard. The standard is 0.40 with an accuracy of +/- 0.03 I believe. Mine read 0.44. Outside of calibration, but it’s not way off like I anticipated

 

[eggie]

Hijacking this thread sorry! Any thoughts from anybody?

Could be bacterial infection. I would try Witchhazel and Prodibio Biogest

 

[bubbgee]

Could be bacterial infection. I would try Witchhazel and Prodibio Biogest

Hi Eggie,

how frequent do I dose prodibio biodest? Witchhazel doesn't seem to work for me after a week of dosing.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Further inspection - I think the mp40s may have been a touch too strong and was blowing off its tissue. I turned them down a bit and will see if it continues

 

[X-37B]

yea I was thinking perhaps my Hanna checker was giving inaccurate readings and I ordered their standard for cross reference. I had .6 phosphate and maybe it’s actually lower and stripped it away.

On a side note, I called Hanna to ask them an estimate on how long/how many tests their checkers are good for/hold calibration. They said they don’t know. I understand the checkers are hobby grade but honestly pretty ridiculous response from them given Hanna’s background in the professional chemistry world.

I have been using the same alk egg for 8 years running multiple times per week.
I back it up with salifert and red sea alk.

 

[eggie]

Hi Eggie,

how frequent do I dose prodibio biodest? Witchhazel doesn't seem to work for me after a week of dosing.

Same days you dosed the Witch Hazel 5-7 days

 

[AlexandraDreadlocksPanda]

I don’t think this is *just* a water quality issue. I’d be looking at something like AEFW or White Bugs weakening the corals, so then other things like the high PO4 and 1DKH spike become too much for them to ride out. If you haven’t got shrimp and crabs in there I’d give it a treatment of Milbemycin for a month just to make sure, has zero side effects and is pretty cheap…