Need some help. Bugs or something else?

[Red_Beard]

ATI ICP in the mail! Hopefully this will give some useful insight. I have been pushing on getting phosphates down too. I dont see any changes, good or bad so far. But, no further necrosis either.

 

[Biff0rz]

Those bugs, are they coming from the coral skin or the rock the coral is attached to? Bugs on skin = bad. Interceptor if so. (red, white, or black)

 

[Mels_Reef]

Need some more experienced eyes on this, and would be grateful for any advice getting to the bottom of this!
I have been shifing the focus in my tank to sps, and all my 'easier' stuff has been going great for a little over a year now so i decided to dive in and starting about August last year added a few batches of nice frags. A few months ago i started to notice 'tuliping' and distorted polyps and stunted growth. When the frags were first added they grew a little and would start to base out and then just hit a wall. I pushed through that and got another wave of growth, but am now seeing some basal STN and STN in areas where the frag is self-shading. Like really slow, over the course of a few weeks. In trying to figure this out and watching them at night i also noticed some odd patterning that looks like bug bite marks but for the life of me cant see any bugs even after looking almost every night for a week or so. Is this the work or a pest? Or is it something else entirely? Or a combination of the two?

I have been doing regularish water changes for 6ish months mraning every week or every other week 10-15 gallons (75 gallon display, 40b sump) skimming dry, i use AFR and have been manually dosing ammonium bicaronate as my nitrates are always super low. Po4 is high though and ive been working getting it down slowly with lanthanum chloride in the skimmer cup.

Sg: 1.0255
Alk: 8.3dKh
Cal: 400ppm
Mag: 1500ppm
No3: .2ppm (dosing .5 oz of 9g/250ml per day ammonium)
Po4: .4ppm
pH: 8.2

I have been feeding benireef 2x week as well as adding af probio s/f as directed. Parameters are stable except po4 which i am working on. Thank you!

Am I reading this right?
.4 phosphate and .2 nitrate?

 

[Jasonak]

Sorry man just seeing this. Those are some great pictures. I sure dont see any pest but im not a expert and have been dealing with RTN/STN off and for the last year also. Its one of the main reasons I setup a new frag tank just to make back ups of everything. I really wish I had some advice here for you. Hopefully the ICP tells you something for me there was no obvious sign. If ICP doesn't show anything I would do the aquabiomics next.

 

[Red_Beard]

Those bugs, are they coming from the coral skin or the rock the coral is attached to? Bugs on skin = bad. Interceptor if so. (red, white, or black)

I havent seen any bugs despite intensive looking. Just those odd patterns on the underside. May or may not be bugs.

 

[Mels_Reef]

Am I reading this right?
.4 phosphate and .2 nitrate?

If these are truly your numbers, I would totally focus on getting po4 down to a reasonable level. I would recommend under .12 for SPS. If your no3 is truly that low, you are likely starving the corals as well. I am not saying these numbers are definitely what is causing your issues but it would be on my short list. The good news is, this number combination will work in your benefit. Start dosing nitrate to try to maintain at a very minimum 5 no3. When you do that, your po4 will start coming down naturally. Just my experience with SPS. When po4 is over .15 or nitrate drops below 5 I see bad results in my sticks.

 

[Red_Beard]

Sorry man just seeing this. Those are some great pictures. I sure dont see any pest but im not a expert and have been dealing with RTN/STN off and for the last year also. Its one of the main reasons I setup a new frag tank just to make back ups of everything. I really wish I had some advice here for you. Hopefully the ICP tells you something for me there was no obvious sign. If ICP doesn't show anything I would do the aquabiomics next.

Thanks man, good to know i am not alone at least lol. Hope yours get turned around and heal fully too! Would be nice to find out what is going on definitively at least (in both our cases) if for nothing else than to expand the collective knowledge base. If the ICP doesn't point to anything definitive I will keep aquabiomics in mind.

 

[Red_Beard]

Am I reading this right?
.4 phosphate and .2 nitrate?

If these are truly your numbers, I would totally focus on getting po4 down to a reasonable level. I would recommend under .12 for SPS. If your no3 is truly that low, you are likely starving the corals as well. I am not saying these numbers are definitely what is causing your issues but it would be on my short list. The good news is, this number combination will work in your benefit. Start dosing nitrate to try to maintain at a very minimum 5 no3. When you do that, your po4 will start coming down naturally. Just my experience with SPS. When po4 is over .15 or nitrate drops below 5 I see bad results in my sticks.

Yep, that is indeed correct. I have been running high phosphates for 2 years or so. I have been dosing LC to bring them down and have been slowly increasing dosage and monitoring for 2 months or so. I did just cut back on pellet feeding Monday too shifting to more cubes instead, hoping that would help.

I did get my no3 up to the 2-5 range now too. Upped my ammonium dosing.

 

[Jasonak]

Thanks man, good to know i am not alone at least lol. Hope yours get turned around and heal fully too! Would be nice to find out what is going on definitively at least (in both our cases) if for nothing else than to expand the collective knowledge base. If the ICP doesn't point to anything definitive I will keep aquabiomics in mind.

Yeah sometimes its partial sometimes I loose the whole thing. My phos has been high for long time also .4-.5 im at .15 now as of just the other day been using Tropic marin elimi NP just dumping it in my skimmer. It doesn't seem to affect the fish/tank that way.

 

[Red_Beard]

Yeah sometimes its partial sometimes I loose the whole thing. My phos has been high for long time also .4-.5 im at .15 now as of just the other day been using Tropic marin elimi NP just dumping it in my skimmer. It doesn't seem to affect the fish/tank that way.

Truely sucky. Ive luckily only lost 2 so far, the rest seem to have stabilized, hopefully they are able to recover, or maybe i will frag the STNd bits and give it a fresh start.

How have you been liking the elimiNP? I have been wanting to try that next, that and NP bactobalance, once my little bottle of phosphat-e is used up.

 

[Biff0rz]

I havent seen any bugs despite intensive looking. Just those odd patterns on the underside. May or may not be bugs.

You won't see them without a microscope..

 

[Red_Beard]

Alright, ATI lab finally recieved my sample and i should have results within 2 days. But, in the meantime i have steadily been working on getting po4 down, and it is now sitting at .1. I think whatever truely is at issue here, that was at very least one of the key facets. Things are even looking visibly better.
This is the one i had to frag 2 weeks ago to stem the basal stn.

And this is the base that i cut it from. Even that tissue looks markedly improved.

Strawberry fields has even shot out a branch with that signature red tip

This is the one with the dead undersides, that stn has stopped and tissue color is getting deeper.

Not to say that i am out of the woods, but hopefully i am not deceiving myself and this is an actual step forward!

 

[Red_Beard]

ICP results are in!
https://lab.atiaquaristik.com/share/de61f89f925818dc76b2

Some interesting data here for sure. Some of the values were surprising, others not. I think my key takaways here are that i need to cut back on ChaetoGro, change water more, and pay more attention to my RO. Mostly basic

Sodium(low)/Chloride(high) ratios were off a bit, but not crazy.

It shows that my magnesium levels are critically high, at 1732 mg/l. Salifert testing had it at high 1400's, so i knew it was on the high side, but not that high. What is the best way to get that down, water changes? And also, how is it so super high? I change out 10-15 gallons every other week, and am not dosing it specifically, just with AFR.

The other things that were out of line, were Bromine, Iron, Zinc, and Cobalt, which were high. That is likely an issue of overdoing it with ChaetoGro. I will cut back substantially there.

Vanadium and Flourine were low, reportedly about half of the recommended levels. Is there any benefit to dosing those purposefully? Or just step up my water change schedule?

Phosphorus and phosphate were high(122ug/l and .38mg/l) which reflects my tests earlier showing .4mg/l. That has since been addressed and is being monitored long term for stability. Hopefully i can keep it around the .1s.

For the RO sample, it was also showing that i have detectable levels of zinc, which is also likely contributing to high zinc levels along side excessive ChaetoGro dosing. So, a little extra attention there is warranted. Everything else was 'undetectable'.

 

[underwaterwonders]

Interesting icp, I kinda think you should get your ro working proper and do a water change, would fix the weirdness in the icp and the high p04. Then from there test to see if p04 keeps raising and use the many methods available to reduce it.

High bromine and such a high level of iron is weird, is there a chance you dosed chaeto grow and then immediately grabbed your icp sample?

Coral look better for sure.

 

[Red_Beard]

Interesting icp, I kinda think you should get your ro working proper and do a water change, would fix the weirdness in the icp and the high p04. Then from there test to see if p04 keeps raising and use the many methods available to reduce it.

High bromine and such a high level of iron is weird, is there a chance you dosed chaeto grow and then immediately grabbed your icp sample?

Coral look better for sure.

Thanks! It is odd, i was worried iron was too low, and i have a ton of macro in the sump so i thought it was getting used more heavily than it was. Guess it goes to prove the addage of not dosing without testing once again true. Definitely going to give my ro a once over.

Nah, didnt collect right away, but i did dose the night before and collected the sample in the morning.

 

[Red_Beard]

Holy crap... think i found my magnisium smoking gun...
Tested some fresh mixed salt, 1.026 salinity and it maxed out my salifert test kit. Extrapolating that .2 titrant is another 30ppm, i added 1.25 ml titrant so 1875 ppm!!!
Guess i am chucking this bucket :/ but that at least solves that mystery.

 

[underwaterwonders]

Holy crap... think i found my magnisium smoking gun...
Tested some fresh mixed salt, 1.026 salinity and it maxed out my salifert test kit. Extrapolating that .2 titrant is another 30ppm, i added 1.25 ml titrant so 1875 ppm!!!
Guess i am chucking this bucket :/ but that at least solves that mystery.

What salt mix was it? That’s a really high mg

 

[Red_Beard]

What salt mix was it? That’s a really high mg

Instant ocean purple bucket.
I thought so too, thought maybe it stratified, this was the last bucket from a bunch i bought in '23. Rolled the bucket to mix it up just in case, still mixed up 1800s at 1.025. Ran to petco and grabbed another one and did a 20 gallon change this afternoon, i think my snails were starting to struggle. Down to 1500s at least. Going to do another big change tomorrow.

 

[Biff0rz]

You have some major issues aside from the po4 IMO.

Magnesium - are you dosing it? If so, you need to let it settle down. Water changes will help normalize it.
Bromine - Are you supplementing this? If not, are you dosing 2-part? It can come from that. But, this is pretty high.
Iron - this is super high and pretty concerning, esp since this ATI ICP shouldn't detect it even when supplemented. I would check your salt and/or look for old equipment leaching
Copper - Again, with ATI ICP, this should be undetectable. If you still have copper after a w/c and subsequent ICP, you'll want to look at equipment (rodi and tank pumps), gfo sources, and maybe food. It should be 0. Cuprasorb can soak it up too.
Zinc - this is super super super high and likely your biggest issue -- again, equipment, rodi, salt, etc. I'd find the source of this asap!

 

[Red_Beard]

Just wanted to thank you guys for the advice, it was spot on. ICP test was invaluable.
Things have been back in 'normal' parameter range for about a week now and i am already seeing some dramatic improvement. This is that same frag as the first pic in this thread, almost all of the dead spots on the plug have filled back in. It is still working on the underside of the branches though, but definitely looking much better. Everything else is likewise looking good, but this was the most drastic improvement.