My tank is very unhappy, need help diagnose

[schafon]

Hi everyone!
I'll give some background:
The tank is red sea 750xxl, It was leaking and I fixed it.
I moved everything from my 120G a month and 10 days ago.
The 120G had a cyano and maybe dinos problem before the move.
When I moved everything within days all the corals were very happy (happier then they were in the 120, for example I had a Zoa rock that didn't open for me for close to a year and when I moved it to the new tank to my surprise it opened and was happy).
In the last 3 weeks the tank got covered in algae, which made sense to me since I've used new rock.
Some of my fish got ick so 3 days ago I moved all fish to the old (sterilized) 120G for copper treatment.
When I moved the fish to the new tank I had to remove all the rocks and might stirr up the sand.

From the day I did the move (it was in the evening) all of the corals got very upset, my hammers lost a lot of their skin and are not extending, some of my other corals also shows sign of stress and are not happy.
I lost all of my acro frags today and yesterday.

Can you help me to diagnose whats going on?
I suspect few different things:
Moving the rocks and stirring the sand (I don't think this is it since the sand is less then 2 months old)
I recently started using a chiller I got of Amazon that is keeping my salt water storage at 77 degrees (It's in the garage) - Might have some contaminants?
I've opened a new salt bucket (tropic marin pro reef salt) and used it.


Water parameters:
salinity 1.025 (Was 1.0245 - increasing it slowly)
PH in the last week was 8.1 - 8.44 - I took out the CO2 scrubber to reduce it.
Nitrate 6.4
Phos 0.04
Alk usualy 8.6, since the corals are unhappy it was increasing in the last couple of days to 8.9, I've reduced the AFR dosing.
temp is around 77, with one low of 76.3 (forgot to plug heater) and a high of 79 (I live in FL)

Something I've noticed is that the corals are starting to open early in the day and close around noon.

I've sent ICP test yesterday hopefully will get the results early next week


Today I've took most of the corals (euphyllia) and put it in KFC dip.


Any ideas to what else I can check while waiting for the ICP test?
I think I can consider this as a tank crash

Thanks

 

[NoohpyT]

Most likely had an ammonia spike or some kind from stirring up the sand

 

[schafon]

You think ammonia spike makes sense when the sand is less then 2 months old?

 

[dwest]

The tank has had a lot going on to say the least. I’m guessing the problem is lack of stability of some kind due to the moves. I would do a couple successive large (30-50%) water changes and then keep everything as stable as possible.

I would also have a small bag of GAC in the sump to reduce the possibility of dino toxins being the issue.

 

[Suohhen]

It depends on what is in the sand. Through normal denitrification no but if the sand started with nutrients or anything died and decayed in it maybe. Also the amount of sand that is typically disturbed when rocks are removed is not much.
Tank moves are tuff. I agree 100% with the first reply on your other thread. Adding new rock makes it even worse. I did this exact same during my first upgrade years ago and had similar results. What I do now is move half the rock and let it go a few weeks with no light and slowly crank the light up over months until it is high enough to support coral and everything is stable.
We're a little past that point but what you can do is a few days of lights out here and there and crank the lights down significantly in general. My sincerest condolences. Tank crashes are brutal

 

[schafon]

The tank has had a lot going on to say the least. I’m guessing the problem is lack of stability of some kind due to the moves. I would do a couple successive large (30-50%) water changes and then keep everything as stable as possible.

I would also have a small bag of GAC in the sump to reduce the possibility of dino toxins being the issue.

what is GAC?
Edit: Never mind, it's carbon. Yes i'm running carbon in a reactor, didn't seems to change anything, I've replaced it today anyway.

Thanks everyone!
Right now I can't keep the tank stable since it's obvious that something is wrong, most of the corals are in the KFC dip and if everything survives it will be outside the tank for at least couple of days.
I'm planning blackout and chemiclean.

The speed of the things getting bad and everything all at once seems to be like something is toxic in the water, I'm not sure I have a way to find out what

 

[schafon]

Hi,
I just got my ICP test back, I think I've overdosed the Fuel trace element thing.
Do you think those number can cause such drastic results?

Thanks

 

[Suohhen]

I seriously doubt it. I have never seen a definitive case of a tank crash caused by trace element dosing and yet unestablished biome is incredibly common and makes complete sense. It's bacteria, it's always bacteria.
Here is my understanding of trace elements. Randy has a great article on the insane level of trace elements in fish food, especially algae based foods and yet that never seems to cause issues. One variable imo is that those elements are bound up in food so maybe there is a difference when it comes to supplements which provide bio available ionic forms of elements. However, Randy makes a great argument that trace elements are scarvenged incredibly quickly by bacteria and other micro organisms in the typical reef tank. I dump incredible amounts of reef plus and kent iron into my system which based on the labels should be providing 30x the amount of the theoretical optimal level for the whole system and yet the numbers never seem to go up. Ofc testing is always questionable when it comes to trace elements, but if anything we should expect artificially high levels in icp tests. And then there are the things that can be and are commonly tested for like iron and yet my daily dose of just the kent iron should theoretically increase my tanks level by 1ppm and yet over years of dosing I have never detected an increase via test kit nor icp.

 

[blaxsun]

While it's probably not the root cause, nothing every good comes from stirring up the sand bed. It's kind of like Vegas: What happens in the sand bed should stay in the sand bed...

 

[Suohhen]

While it's probably not the root cause, nothing every good comes from stirring up the sand bed. It's kind of like Vegas: What happens in the sand bed should stay in the sand bed...

They posted pics in the other thread referenced. Looks like it's about 1 in deep and not particularly fine. A sandbed needs to fix become anoxic and then grow anaerobic bacteria to become toxic. If there were already contaminents/dead things in the sb that is a possibility but it seems highly unlikely.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Most likely had an ammonia spike or some kind from stirring up the sand

Ammonia is literally coral food

 

[schafon]

Update - I've removed most of the corals from the tank, fish are already in the hospital tank.
I've dosed Cipro and plan to do so for the next couple of days, in case it's bacterial infection.
After that I plan a blackout to treat the algae.

 

[NoohpyT]

Ammonia is literally coral food

Ammonia will turn into coral food yes, but straight ammonia in high amounts will kill corals and fish

 

[Lavey29]

Ciprofloaxin, chemiclean, KFC dip, blackouts, etc,,,etc,,,etc,,,, man you have no biome what so ever in that tank so how do you expect corals to survive?

The key to this hobby is patience and you are lacking this quality. Your prior tank fell into disarray with cyano and dinos and I'm sure you dumped every chemical possible to bandaid fix it rather then correcting the underlying issues causing your problems.

Take a breath and slow down. You now have started a new tank and even if you used existing rock from the old tank there are still going to be many months of ugly phases and early on, no biodiversity and microfauna to create a health environment for the corals you moved in.

Please don't dump chemicals into your new system. You will open the door for major issues again. One day at a time. Corals can be closed for days, weeks even months as they acclimate. Work to maintain stability with good parameters, lights and flow. Weekly water changes.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Ammonia will turn into coral food yes, but straight ammonia in high amounts will kill corals and fish

It's extremely unlikely that a stirred sand bed would release an amount of ammonia toxic to coral...

 

[schafon]

Ciprofloaxin, chemiclean, KFC dip, blackouts, etc,,,etc,,,etc,,,, man you have no biome what so ever in that tank so how do you expect corals to survive?

The key to this hobby is patience and you are lacking this quality. Your prior tank fell into disarray with cyano and dinos and I'm sure you dumped every chemical possible to bandaid fix it rather then correcting the underlying issues causing your problems.

Take a breath and slow down. You now have started a new tank and even if you used existing rock from the old tank there are still going to be many months of ugly phases and early on, no biodiversity and microfauna to create a health environment for the corals you moved in.

Please don't dump chemicals into your new system. You will open the door for major issues again. One day at a time. Corals can be closed for days, weeks even months as they acclimate. Work to maintain stability with good parameters, lights and flow. Weekly water changes.

The thing is, that before that happened the tank was in very good place, I had a lot of coral growth (even from Acro).
After moving the rock all corals looked bad and lost flesh, not just closing, I'm certain that if I woulden't remove it to the KFC dip I would lose everything.
Everyone say that I should fix the underlying problem, but the numbers are where they should be, so what underlying problem do I need to fix?

BTW, I did not use any chemicals on the old tank.

 

[AKL1950]

The thing is, that before that happened the tank was in very good place, I had a lot of coral growth (even from Acro).
After moving the rock all corals looked bad and lost flesh, not just closing, I'm certain that if I woulden't remove it to the KFC dip I would lose everything.
Everyone say that I should fix the underlying problem, but the numbers are where they should be, so what underlying problem do I need to fix?

BTW, I did not use any chemicals on the old tank.

I think it was mentioned a few times already, but I’ll hit on it again. will all the changes going on, everything in that tank is stressed and when they all get stressed they assume a war is going on so they all put out their own toxic defenses. You need to stop making changes, let the system settle and get all your critters to get calm so they can get acclimated. Without stability, everyone and everything in the tank is going to stay in combat mode and flood the tank with toxins. Accept a little algae growth to gain stability. Lower your lights a little and that may help calm things. remember that every time you make a change, everybody it there has to react to it and that usually is not good.

 

[Lavey29]

The thing is, that before that happened the tank was in very good place, I had a lot of coral growth (even from Acro).
After moving the rock all corals looked bad and lost flesh, not just closing, I'm certain that if I woulden't remove it to the KFC dip I would lose everything.
Everyone say that I should fix the underlying problem, but the numbers are where they should be, so what underlying problem do I need to fix?

BTW, I did not use any chemicals on the old tank.

You're moving everything to a completely new environment. A new tank that has essentially no biodiversity and microfauna. The biome in the new tank is just starting. You can expect some corals not to survive, others taking days or weeks to acclimate. Stressing them out with a KFC dip will do more harm.

You need to determine why your previous tank fell into disarray so you don't repeat the same mistakes with a similar outcome.

As far as what your underlying problems are? Could be one or multiple things. Typically stability is the main issue in new tanks. Maintaining good numbers consistently without spikes or deficiencies . Lights and flow important also but these are more manageable.

You need to learn patience in this hobby.

 

[schafon]

My old tank was ok until I've neglected it, so that's an easy lesson to learn for the new one
I want to mention this again, except from algae that tank was in really good shape and growing impressively before this crash.
From the day I first moved the corals to the new tank everything was super happy, even more than the old tank!
So after a month of good growth and overall happy tank - in one day everything was unhappy, this doesn't look to me like a stability / biodiversity issue.

I'm not a big fan of doing the Cipro too, but I feel like I have something bad in my tanks, in the old tank I had zoas that refuse to open for a year, when I moved it to the new tank, first week they opened! I thought they were dead.
Now I feel like something is spreading in the new tank and causing everything to close again.
I suspect equipment failure but I can't see any evidence of that in the ICP, today I've changed my glass heater to titanium one just in case.

I wanted to to a complete reset of the tank, bleaching everything and starting again fresh, but if it's something that Cipro can fix, why not give it a shot?

 

[Suohhen]

My old tank was ok until I've neglected it, so that's an easy lesson to learn for the new one
I want to mention this again, except from algae that tank was in really good shape and growing impressively before this crash.
From the day I first moved the corals to the new tank everything was super happy, even more than the old tank!
So after a month of good growth and overall happy tank - in one day everything was unhappy, this doesn't look to me like a stability / biodiversity issue.

I'm not a big fan of doing the Cipro too, but I feel like I have something bad in my tanks, in the old tank I had zoas that refuse to open for a year, when I moved it to the new tank, first week they opened! I thought they were dead.
Now I feel like something is spreading in the new tank and causing everything to close again.
I suspect equipment failure but I can't see any evidence of that in the ICP, today I've changed my glass heater to titanium one just in case.

I wanted to to a complete reset of the tank, bleaching everything and starting again fresh, but if it's something that Cipro can fix, why not give it a shot?

The narrative and timeline for what your tank is going through fits tightly with a biome issue. It is tricky because we can't see the bacteria but that doesn't mean it is any less real. It takes time for bacteria and algae to grow and for levels to become out of whack. That is why everything can look great at first and then fall off a cliff. Reef keeping is all about stability and patience and I do not endorse chemical fixes, but I would never criticize someone else for using them. However I do agree you could very much benefit from slowing way down. Only bad things happen fast. Small changes over long periods promote stability and give us the ability to pinpoint issues with confidence.