Need help with Coral dieing

[THE REEF WHISPER]

Hey everyone,
My 13 gallon nano was doing okay until recently, but now several LPS are declining fast and I need advice before it's too late.
Symptoms:
Torch coral: Flesh band at the base/head junction is peeling/receding (tissue pulling away, exposing skeleton). No brown jelly or foul smell yet.
Dipsastraea (moon coral): Ongoing slow tissue necrosis (STN) from the base upward – clean skeleton being exposed more and more over the past weeks.

Parameters (tested today):
Alk: 10 dKH
Salinity: 1.026
Calcium: 450 ppm
Magnesium: 1330 ppm
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0-1 ppm (did a water change today)
Phosphate: Always 0 ppm (Hanna ULR – ultra-low nutrient system)
Lighting:
NICREW 65W NavaReef/HyperReef with controller
Current sunrise peak settings (1-hour ramp):
Violet/UV: 18%
Blue: 30%
White: 5%
Green: 0%
Red: 2%

What I’m currently doing:
Daily dosing Red Sea Reef Energy AB+
Heavy feeding with mysis shrimp (broadcast + some target feeding)
Moderate/indirect flow, stable temperature

Pictures

I have no pics of the torch it looks like it's getting a little better

Yesterday

Today little bit worse idk what to do

Pls help I really appreciate it

Merry Christmas and happy new year

 

[Sam7]

But is all the other corals doing fine? How old is your tank?

 

[THE REEF WHISPER]

Yes all other corals are doing fine. My tank is about 4 years old

 

[Fish Fan]

Merry Christmas to you too, TRW!

I'm sorry to see you're having some trouble, but I can see some real growth on some of your frags! Let's tag in the R2R #reefsquad to see if they can help.

R2R Reef Squad, TRW is a really good squid, if any of you guys could help him, I know he'd really appreciate it

 

[tbrown]

Most LPS like some nutrients in the water - you're running almost double zeros on phosphates and nitrates?

Tissue loss/recession on hammer and torches etc can be caused by a few different things - flow being one potential cause. Too much or too little can make them upset.

10 is fairly high alkalinity to be running with 0 phosphates. I know I've experienced some SPS losses in the past simply because I let my phosphates hit 0 and my alkalinity was around 9.5 dKh. Apparently my coral skeletons were outgrowing the flesh...

Just a couple of ideas to consider.

Just out of curiosity, with 0 nitrates and phosphates, what is the reason you performed a water change? Not saying you shouldn't have, just trying to get some understanding.

 

[Rocks reef]

I absolutely agree with @tbrown on this. Running zero nutrients is your main issue. LPS, especially, like more nutrients in the water. I would aim for 5-10 Nitrates and 0.05-0.10 phosphates. Bring those up and you will see happier LPS. Basically, they are starving with no way to feed their zooxanthellea.
High alkalinity coupled with no nutrients is detrimental to all corals.
There are several products you can get quickly off Amazon for nitrates and phosphates. Brightwell NeoNitro and NeoPhos.
Keep us posted.
Merry Christmas to you as well.

 

[THE REEF WHISPER]

Most LPS like some nutrients in the water - you're running almost double zeros on phosphates and nitrates?

Tissue loss/recession on hammer and torches etc can be caused by a few different things - flow being one potential cause. Too much or too little can make them upset.

10 is fairly high alkalinity to be running with 0 phosphates. I know I've experienced some SPS losses in the past simply because I let my phosphates hit 0 and my alkalinity was around 9.5 dKh. Apparently my coral skeletons were outgrowing the flesh...

Just a couple of ideas to consider.

Just out of curiosity, with 0 nitrates and phosphates, what is the reason you performed a water change? Not saying you shouldn't have, just trying to get some understanding.

Well it was 10ppm when I did a water change but it takes forever for them to come up so I don't know if that's stressing out the too coral cuz I have to like feed a lot to make them come up

 

[Fish Fan]

I would try feeding more to raise both your nitrate and phosphate

 

[X-37B]

Lower alk to 7-8.
Feed the fish/system more and reduce WC to once a month at 5%.
Zero n and p systems with an alk of 10 require more nutrients.

How many fish?

Also those settings, I do not know that light, are probably putting out low par.
What is your current par?

My 15g runs lower nutrients with an alk of 7.5.
Today
Alk 7.7
Po4 0.7
No3 0.8
First time in 8 months I got an no3 reading above 0.
Tank is 8 months.
200 par on the bottom 300 par upper level.
Gen 5 ab+ @ 100%

 

[tbrown]

Well it was 10ppm when I did a water change but it takes forever for them to come up so I don't know if that's stressing out the too coral cuz I have to like feed a lot to make them come up

Water changes don't take nitrates from 10 to 0 usually - the math is wrong unless you did a 100% water change. How much water did you change?

 

[THE REEF WHISPER]

25

 

[tbrown]

25%? Your reagents probably aren't working appropriately. Are you using an API test kit?

Assuming you replaced 25% of the water with fresh saltwater with 0 nitrates, your levels should have gone down by approximately 25% leaving you with 7.5 ppm, not 0-1. Either your test kits are difficult to read (most "guess which shade it really is!" tests are difficult to differentiate), or your reagents are bad/expired, or you're not following the directions each test.

Have you had the results verified by anyone? LFS sometimes can run tests for you (but don't trust those strip tests - they're unreliable).

 

[THE REEF WHISPER]

I use the APi master reef test kit the liquid I'm going to be most likely switching

 

[tbrown]

API for nitrates and for phosphates are very not accurate.