Please Help, I'm losing so many corals

[JustinMN18]

Hello, I have a 100 gallon Innovative Marine EXT100, and I'm losing corals. For lighting, I'm using two AI 32HDs. I run a protein skimmer, refugium (which is not at all growing my chaeto), a Carbon/GFO reactor plumbed into the manifold, and a UV sterilizer.

I started this tank in November 2020, and cycled it with media from a previously established tank. I've gone through Cyano, dinos, etc, and everyone has been fine. Three weeks ago I went away for a weekend trip (left Friday, returned Sunday), and had just replaced the carbon and GFO. When I got back, I noticed that 1 hammer frag appeared to have *i think* brown jelly. I also noticed my scoly was receding suddenly, as well as my plate coral. All other corals (torches, other hammers, frogspawn, acans, duncan, leathers) were fine. I performed a 10% water change a few days later.

Now over those last 3 weeks, I have lost the scoly, two plate corals, 1 torch (that is bailing now), 1 tachy that is also receding, and 3 heads on my 8 head hammer.

I have no idea what's going on. Here are my parameters.
Salinity: 35
Temp: 77.5
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
Phosphate: 0.2 (this has been a problem for me... I'm currently dosing NoPOx to get this down.)
Alk: 9.9
Calcium: 460
Mag: 1350
PH: 8.2

I recently started dosing Alk and Calc using the Red Sea products. I have tested Alk and Calc every day for about a week now, at the same time in the morning and night, and don't notice any fluctuation.

Here were my thoughts / things I've tried:
1) Increased my water testing
2) Dosing NoPOx to deal with Phosphates and Nitrates. 3ml per day to just slowly bring it down.
3) Increased the amount of GFO in the reactor mixed with Carbon
4) Rented a PAR meter, noticed the lighting was in the 100-300 range throughout the tank, so I raised the lights 2 inches.
5) Messing with Fuge lighting to try and get macro to grow to help manage the phosphate

I'm just at a loss. No idea what's happening or how to stop it. Thanks everyone.

 

[ReefCheef]

Are you using RO/DI water to make your saltwater?

 

[JustinMN18]

Are you using RO/DI water to make your saltwater?

Yes, I have a 5 stage RODI unit, and have the same water source that BRS does. I'm using a Smart Buddie booster on it, and store it in a brute. It kinda smells "musty" in there. But I was told that shouldn't matter?

 

[olonmv]

Nitrates are a lil high it seems. I’d wait for others to chime in since I’m a noob.

 

[Nateaqua]

Whats the origin of the torch? Aussie or Indo.

Needs some TLC! there's definitely something going on. There may be a pest thats aggravating it, however at this point a "pest type dip" will need to be used with caution as they are strong and can add to the stress the coral is already experiencing.
The best method Ive found to help with health related issues with torches, and all Euphyllia really, is as follows.

BJD/ Tissue Recsn
-- Brown Jelly and tissue recession
*Iodine alone will not stop it. It's a tiny bandaid.

1. 2 cups of tank water 1 capful of witch hazel (hydrogen peroxide is fine too). Swirl it around a bit to release the jelly. Dip for 15mins

2. 2 cups of tank water 1/2 package of furan 2. Same process.

3. 2 cups of tank water and iodine until it looks like lightly colored iced tea. Same process.

4. Rinse in tank water. Reintroduce to tank in low light.

-Separate dishes for each, don't combine.

-For brown jelly or extreme tissue recession, dipping back to back days may be required.

*For referene; I have a euphyllia dominant system with over 30 different variations.

I have tried this several times whenever my frogspawn, hammers are doing bad or dying. They always make a great recovery after this. This comes from another reefer in this forum. Also isolate the bad one for the other good ones, so you have less risk to spread, could move to a corner of the tank.

Also I turn off my GFO reactor during this time until the frogspawn/ hammers bounce back. If you could lower to 9 on ALK and drop nitrates to 10 would also help out. As far as phosphates, I do not have a definite answer, but I agree it is high.

 

[JustinMN18]

I have tried this several times whenever my frogspawn, hammers are doing bad or dying. They always make a great recovery after this. This comes from another reefer in this forum. Also isolate the bad one for the other good ones, so you have less risk to spread, could move to a corner of the tank.

Also I turn off my GFO reactor during this time until the frogspawn/ hammers bounce back. If you could lower to 9 on ALK and drop nitrates to 10 would also help out. As far as phosphates, I do not have a definite answer, but I agree it is high.

So you do all of those steps, all right after each other? Where do you buy furan? I've never heard of that. And do you use Hazel or hydrogen peroxide?

Thanks for this tip!

 

[dedragon]

best way to get nitrate and phosphate down from that high is going to be consistent water changes over the next couple of days. What does the refugium look like/ what light are you using? are you having trouble growing chaeto? what fuge lighting?

 

[JustinMN18]

best way to get nitrate and phosphate down from that high is going to be consistent water changes over the next couple of days. What does the refugium look like/ what light are you using? are you having trouble growing chaeto? what fuge lighting?

I have an AI fuge light. I have chaeto in there, and some red ogo. I have rock and some media balls in the refugium, along with 2 emerald crabs and a couple snails. And it's COVERED in GHA. I don't have any algae issues in my DT, but my refugium is covered.

I run it on an opposite light schedule, 12 hours.

 

[dedragon]

running nopox, and gfo and still have high phosphates so they are in getting in the tank somehow or not being exported fast enough with protein skimmer, waterchanges etc.
dipping is really the only think to help with brown jelly. I like your dip regimen as well, furan is a nice added touch and i shud put that in my dipping arsenal just in case

 

[dedragon]

hmm my chaeto outcompetes my gha in my fuge which is odd. Have you tried dosing chaetogro between water changes? chaeto takes up a lot of iron and trace elements it needs to grow

 

[JustinMN18]

running nopox, and gfo and still have high phosphates so they are in getting in the tank somehow or not being exported fast enough with protein skimmer, waterchanges etc.
dipping is really the only think to help with brown jelly. I like your dip regimen as well, furan is a nice added touch and i shud put that in my dipping arsenal just in case

I have no idea how my phosphates are getting so high. The TDS meter on the output of my DI resin is reading 0, and I don't feel like I feed that much. I use frozen in the morning, and pellets in the evening, and have been trying to cut back as much as possible over the last week.

I'm just using NoPox now, I wasn't before. The highest my phosphates got was 0.30, and yesterday they were 0.24. I'm hoping today they'll be at 0.20 or just slightly below.

I'm going to try and copy the dipping regimine provided above. I'm not sure where to buy Furan though.

 

[JustinMN18]

hmm my chaeto outcompetes my gha in my fuge which is odd. Have you tried dosing chaetogro between water changes? chaeto takes up a lot of iron and trace elements it needs to grow

I have not tried chaetogro. Do you think that would be a good thing to try?

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Do an ICP asap to rule out that. Check water with a multimeter for voltage or broken equipment.

 

[dedragon]

i think you would see even faster coral death and fish freaking out with electricity in the tank. but always good to check pumps and heaters to make sure they are not cracked just in case.
Chaetogro definitely works to increase chaeto growth, i use it myself, but after i am done with my bottle i may do the diy stuff people on reef2reef seem to use
I think maybe they were talking about api furan -2 (unsure here please correct me if im wrong)
How often and how much are you doing water changes on this tank?

 

[vabben]

How are you dosing your Alk? Manual or with a doser? If manual, make sure it is added slowly and in a high flow area, dumping Alk supplements into the water can quickly kill coral.

Also running GFO with a refugium is most likely the reason your Chaeto is not growing, the GFO is stripping the nutrients your Chaeto needs to grow.

 

[Nateaqua]

Do all those steps in a row. Get tank water before 2 minutes before each step, so it the correct temp. Also I use hydrogen peroxide, and as far as the furan order off Amazon it was one day shipping. Can also get a bottle of idion from cvs or Walgreens.

 

[MERKEY]

I think your tank is still new.

It could be releasing phosphate from the rocks.

Waterchanges will only help with nitrates not phosphates.

I have a feeling unning gfo and nopox is stripping anything your corals need out of the water column before the corals can use it.

Sounds like you are basically starving your corals. I know weird theory....

I know you have high no3 and po4 but I think you are removing it before your corals can use it.

Just my opinion. But I would stop the gfo and nopox and let your tank mature.

20 nitrates is not bad at all and .2 phos won't kill anything.

I run .15 phos and 20nitrates

Stability is key

If you want to control just phosphate there is phosgaurd, lanthium chloride, and gfo isn't bad but when mixed with nopox I believe is doing too much.

Each tank is different tho!

You have a lot of good advice from other member so just stick to what you choose and keep it stable

 

[schuby]

IME, chaeto struggles or dies when it runs out of iron. It won't usually die from lack of nitrate and phosphate if you have fish, but it may not grow much. When chaeto dies, it releases what it consumed: nitrate, phosphate, and iron. The GHA is probably feasting on decomposing chaeto.

When this happened to me, I did three things: got new chaeto (or remove all non-wiry, non-dark-green chaeto), added a small powerhead in refugium to circulate water in and around chaeto, and started dosing supplemental iron. I've not had my chaeto die since (1.5 years now) and there is no GHA or cyano in my refugium.

One more thing, how many watts is your 'fuge light?

 

[schuby]

A pic of your tank, under white light, would be very helpful for us. I also suspect that your starving your tank by running too much export mechanisms, maybe in an attempt to keep it "clean" (aka "sterile" or life-less).

One thing to keep in mind is that if you started this tank with dry rock, then that rock will adsorb phosphate for the first 3-6 months. Once it reaches an equilibrium, it will slow down and the phosphate levels in your tank will seem to rise for no reason. This could be the reason. You may have been enjoying the unexpected removal of phosphate that you were crediting to another reason. This happened to me and was very confusing.

 

[Tired]

Agreed with the above; those nutrient levels aren't actually that bad, and some corals will like those numbers. Phosphate in particular doesn't kill things at most levels you can reasonably get in a reef tank. Some healthy tanks have 1ppm or more of the stuff. Nutrients a little high by some standards will do MUCH less harm than trying to yank all the nutrients out.

Do you feed the corals? If so, what and how much?

Agreed that it sounds like they might be starving. What could be happening is they've all been quietly suffering in the background, but have now hit a point where they can't even pretend to stay healthy any more, so they're slowly declining.

Stop dosing NoPox. Remove all nutrient removal methods, really, except maybe some carbon- it won't take much. To get the chaeto going, try ChaetoGro, your corals might benefit as well. Just be sure not to overdose, I've found that too much (i.e. twice as much as recommended) ChaetoGro is irritating to some corals.