My tank is dying and I don’t know why!!! I’m frustrated and sad, please help!

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Cassian

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I don't think the cyano is more of a result of the issue vs a cause.

Perhaps a stray voltage voltage? Faulty equipment? Maybe the pump is worn down and leaching into the system? Any old magnets?
I will check for stray voltage. This tank is new as is all of the equipment. I went through all of the equipment recently and haven’t seen anything that could leach
 

vetteguy53081

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I will try uping my salinity, but would my low salinity be killing my coral? Everyone I have known has kept it at my levels and I have kept it that way for years. Would it kill all of a sudden?
Too high or low never supportive of SPS
 
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I’m not quite ready to take this step yet, but would changing my sand be a completely crazy idea or possibly a good idea?
 

vetteguy53081

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I’m not quite ready to take this step yet, but would changing my sand be a completely crazy idea or possibly a good idea?
See first if after water test and adjustments, things stabilize.
Changing sand will disrupt bacteria and add silicates to the tank
 

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I would up testing to start, if your having issues, it can be very helpful to have daily testing. especially for alkalinity, every week or two won't always show important fluctuations. Monthly water changes aren't always sufficient for every tank. When I went through a phase of similar issues, I remedied them with weekly 40-50% water changes, daily testing and dosing. This approach isn't for every person or every tank. But you said that it improves after water changes so perhaps your dosing and water changes are not keeping up with export or import needs. Improvement, even if brief, with a water change, suggests a water issue to me.

what did you actually use for your sand? there are acceptable black sands that many use for reef tanks. Indo black, or Hawaiian Black are the ones that come to mind first for me. but perhaps some generic "Volcanic Sand" is leaching something harmful into the tank. Changing sandbeds is generally a drastic and indivisible step unless there is a definitive problem with the sand or all other less drastic avenues have been taken.

Have you done an ICP test to see if there are some chemical Nasties that at home testing wont pick up?
 
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I would up testing to start, if your having issues, it can be very helpful to have daily testing. especially for alkalinity, every week or two won't always show important fluctuations. Monthly water changes aren't always sufficient for every tank. When I went through a phase of similar issues, I remedied them with weekly 40-50% water changes, daily testing and dosing. This approach isn't for every person or every tank. But you said that it improves after water changes so perhaps your dosing and water changes are not keeping up with export or import needs. Improvement, even if brief, with a water change, suggests a water issue to me.

what did you actually use for your sand? there are acceptable black sands that many use for reef tanks. Indo black, or Hawaiian Black are the ones that come to mind first for me. but perhaps some generic "Volcanic Sand" is leaching something harmful into the tank. Changing sandbeds is generally a drastic and indivisible step unless there is a definitive problem with the sand or all other less drastic avenues have been taken.

Have you done an ICP test to see if there are some chemical Nasties that at home testing wont pick up?

I used Caribsea Hawaiian black sand. And no I haven’t done an ICP test yet. I’ve heard they are not very accurate??
 

pcon

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I used Caribsea Hawaiian black sand. And no I haven’t done an ICP test yet. I’ve heard they are not very accurate??
Yeah I wouldn't worry about caribsea hawaiian black. ICP testing is a highly accurate measurement technique when applied correctly. They are not universally a replacement for at home testing, and there are some issues with the methodology of shipping a water sample to a facility to be tested, the exact levels of like calcium, sodium, chloride are not the most accurate, so for the every day concerns of alkalinity, calcium, magnesium it isn't the best testing technique. But where ICP shines in my eyes is the more unusual elements that we dont or cant test for at home. ICP is very accurate at saying if there is the presence or high level of dangerous elements like metals.
 

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I am very sorry to hear this, I understand how this feels. There are too many variables at play for me to be able to give anything too specific. It sounds like RTN which can go from coral to coral but this usually happens very quickly not over a few weeks. The appearance of Cyano suggests a stability swing, maybe a sand bed disturbance, significant tank flow change (mixing up crap that was previously undisturbed). Is the "algae" forming over corals diatoms?

Nothing you have written jumps out at me, the high mag wont kill corals in my experience. The salinity is low. Look for other parameters swinging, it is surely something. Sorry I cant be of more assistance.
 

NickC

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I’m gonna go against the grain here. My vote is replace every single cartridge on your RO/DI asap. Buy replacement cartridges at the same time, so you have them on standby. Once you have the filters swapped, do some water changes and suck out all that sand. Make it go by by.

Keep up on doing water changes with your clean water, and see where you’re at 6months from now. I’d bet money that things turn around.

Swapping out those blue led things for some t5 or mh wouldn’t hurt your cause either. Good luck hope things turn around for ya
 

homer1475

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Ok so you have 0 phosphates, whats your nitrates at? I'm going to guess 0 also and your having a dino outbreak that is killing your corals along with the slow painful death of the corals starving with no nutrients in the water.

Easy to figure this one out, although non blue pics would help immensely with IDing the algae. 0 nutrients = Dino's and starving corals. Starving corals typically starts with SPS RTNing, and LPS slowly receding till they wither away to nothing.
 

LiamPM

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Ok so you have 0 phosphates, whats your nitrates at? I'm going to guess 0 also and your having a dino outbreak that is killing your corals along with the slow painful death of the corals starving with no nutrients in the water.

Easy to figure this one out, although non blue pics would help immensely with IDing the algae. 0 nutrients = Dino's and starving corals. Starving corals typically starts with SPS RTNing, and LPS slowly receding till they wither away to nothing.

This I would wager is the nail on the head....Sounds like you have bottomed out. A salinity of 1.023 i highly doubt would cause issues, plenty run low without issues, although you would struggle with other parameters from this, but still very highly doubt its a deaths door issue. Stray voltage again i doubt you'd see the symptoms you have here, could very well be leeching something but statistically if i was you id be following up on @homer1475 's comment and advise.
 

Paul B

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Unfortunately I have no idea what is wrong with your tank and because I can't see it from here, I would be guessing.

I know it is not salinity, phosphate, nitrate, magnesium, electricity etc.
Your sand, Not so sure because normally black sand is fresh water sand and dyed, not volcanic which is fine.
You do have dino's and cyano but those things won't kill your corals. I have those things and next week my tank will be 49 years old.

You are changing water enough, of course we aren't sure what is in your RO water although a reading of 1 is just about perfect.

What are you feeding this tank and how often? Are there any fish?
What is your lighting and flow?

When did you set up the tank and how did you do it?
 

jt17

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I had the same thing happen to my tank last year. My nitrate and phosphates bottomed out and sps started to rtn. Here’s what I did:
1. Turned off my skimmer. (I too have an oversized skimmer)
2. Removed the ceramic media from my sump
3. Stopped using phosphate remover (phosphateE)
4. Started feeding more (I set up an auto feeder and added a second feeding of frozen and weekly feeding of reef roids and BRS reef chili)
5. Began dosing KNO3 to get my nitrates up to 12 ppm
6. Did a chemiclean treatment (first I ever tried and it cleared up the algae)

Important to note: I didn’t do all of this at once but over the coarse of a couple weeks. It’s hard to make adjustments slowly when your tank is in crisis but we cannot forget rule number 1, nothing good happens fast in this hobby.
Take a deep breath and know that this can be resolved. I started seeing improvements within a couple weeks.
 

EMeyer

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When salinity is wrong, I think that is the first thing to fix. Because no other aspect of water chemistry makes sense unless the salinity is correct.

1.023 is very low relative to the ocean. Forgive me if I geek out on units for a moment.

1.023 sounds really close to 1.026, right? Not really. Thats 30 vs 35 ppt. Nearly a 16% difference in salinity. Offshore reefs essentially never experience such a low salinity, and even inshore reefs can suffer really badly when runoff from a rainstorm lowers salinity temporarily.

Which is not to say "no coral can ever survive 30 ppt". Just that its actually pretty far from the ideal, and the use of SG instead of PPT units masks this.

Personally, my theory is that *nearly everyone* who successfully keeps SPS has their salinity very close to 35 ppt, but since many people miscalibrate (or don't calibrate) their measurement devices, a range of different numbers are reported... :)
 

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