Please help. Tank quickly deteriorating

[rkpetersen]

Sorry to see this setback!

LED level and spectrum look ok and corals were obviously doing ok with them before. 1.5h of T5s shouldn't be causing any problems. When your corals recover you can start increasing that by 30 minutes per day each week; this is conservative and as salty mentions you could probably increase that much faster safely, although I wouldn't until the corals are happy again. The Euphyllias don't look that good, agreed, but I wouldn't touch them or do anything else to upset them further.

Reasons why Vibrant is the major culprit here have been mentioned. Vibrant works by having bacteria outcompete algaes for nutrients. But corals also need those nutrients for their own photosynthetic zooxanthellae; it's possible you bottomed out your phosphate or nitrate and didn't catch it in testing; in my experience when phosphate goes to 0.00, many corals particularly LPS, do not respond well. And then there's another way that Vibrant can do it's job too well, already alluded to - If nuisance algae dies and isn't removed, it will release nutrients and potentially toxins back into the water.

In addition to other things mentioned, I would still keep siphoning the cyano off the sand frequently. It will help keep it from spreading and getting established, until improving water parameters keep it in check again.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Thank you @rkpetersen.

 

[Brew12]

Reasons why Vibrant is the major culprit here have been mentioned. Vibrant works by having bacteria outcompete algaes for nutrients.

Just as an FYI, this isn't actually how Vibrant works. All bacteria will consume nutrients to reproduce, which Vibrant does, but that isn't the mechanism it uses to kill algae. It is often recommend to dose nitrates or increase feeding for coral when using Vibrant to keep nutrients from bottoming out. It's actually pretty cool to watch the bacteria in Vibrant rip algae apart under a microscope.
I do think you are spot on with the rest of your assessment. Vibrant will kill beneficial algaes that help keep problematic bacteria at bay. Combined with the nutrients being released by the dying algae and it can cause problems. Throw on a bunch of other system changes that negatively impact stability and it can easily cause problems.
I think people forget that reef tanks are designed to grow things. Any time we target something to be killed it will cause issues. That is why the first preference should always be to find an organism that will eat whatever the target species is. For some things, like Bryopsis, that isn't a good option so products like Vibrant have a role. We just can't expect it to be without it's issues.

 

[MnFish1]

Sorry , I was not clear there.
Lol. Hybreds.
IMO, you could add the t5 amd easily run them as long as the rest of your peak time , And yes , ease into it.

Just watch the coral

Lighting makes a huge difference. I recently bought some new coral (large pieces) that were at a lower par than mine - so I used the acclimation mode - after 3 days all my other coral closed up.... I ramped it up quickly and all are doing fine. To the OP - its best to make one change at a time (i.e. add vibrant) then wait to mess with lights - if you do 2 things at once - you'll never know if 1 or the other (or something else) is causing the problem

 

[AnemoneBay]

Sea hares!

 

[Dom]

My compliments to the OP. I found it very well written and thorough.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Lighting makes a huge difference. I recently bought some new coral (large pieces) that were at a lower par than mine - so I used the acclimation mode - after 3 days all my other coral closed up.... I ramped it up quickly and all are doing fine. To the OP - its best to make one change at a time (i.e. add vibrant) then wait to mess with lights - if you do 2 things at once - you'll never know if 1 or the other (or something else) is causing the problem

Yup.
Slow change. Keeps it stable and the coral can keep up.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I had been dosing the Vibrant for 3 weeks before any changes were made to the lights. The first picture is almost exactly how my tank looked before the temp drop and adding the lighting.

One thing I was thinking last night is that my tank has a ton of small feather duster type inverts in both the tank and in the sump. Could the temp drop have caused a die off of these inverts, thereby providing extra organics in the tank?

I always tested my nutrients before dosing the Vibrant, and they were never close to bottoming out. I guess it could have bottomed out in between dosing, but I didn't think that Vibrant worked that way. I would also think it unlikely that every 4 days the NO3 would go to 0 and then 1 exactly and the PO4 would go to 0 and then 0.04 exactly. My Hanna ULR would always read between 10 and 15 ppb.

What is confusing to me is that after dosing the Vibrant for 3 weeks, everything looked very happy. Then the temp drop and additional lighting the next day, and bam!, most things are mad and still mad 10 days later.

Since nothing has died and based on the advise given here, my plan is as follows:

Stop the Vibrant for now
Wait on making any more light changes until the corals show signs of being happy. I'll keep the T5's on for 1.5 hours a day and once things look happy, I'll increase it by 30 minutes a week.
Keep manually removing as much algae as I can.

If this sounds like a good plan or if anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know.

Thank you again everyone for your suggestions and compliments. This place is the best.

 

[Brew12]

I had been dosing the Vibrant for 3 weeks before any changes were made to the lights. The first picture is almost exactly how my tank looked before the temp drop and adding the lighting.

One thing I was thinking last night is that my tank has a ton of small feather duster type inverts in both the tank and in the sump. Could the temp drop have caused a die off of these inverts, thereby providing extra organics in the tank?

I always tested my nutrients before dosing the Vibrant, and they were never close to bottoming out. I guess it could have bottomed out in between dosing, but I didn't think that Vibrant worked that way. I would also think it unlikely that every 4 days the NO3 would go to 0 and then 1 exactly and the PO4 would go to 0 and then 0.04 exactly. My Hanna ULR would always read between 10 and 15 ppb.

What is confusing to me is that after dosing the Vibrant for 3 weeks, everything looked very happy. Then the temp drop and additional lighting the next day, and bam!, most things are mad and still mad 10 days later.

Since nothing has died and based on the advise given here, my plan is as follows:

Stop the Vibrant for now
Wait on making any more light changes until the corals show signs of being happy. I'll keep the T5's on for 1.5 hours a day and once things look happy, I'll increase it by 30 minutes a week.
Keep manually removing as much algae as I can.

If this sounds like a good plan or if anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know.

Thank you again everyone for your suggestions and compliments. This place is the best.

I think this is a great plan. Stability may be the most important thing we can provide to our tanks. Any changes should be slow and calculated.

 

[jtl]

Dosing Vibrant was the worst thing I have ever done to my tank. Did not kill the GHA but did promote Cyano and my corals are still not fully recovered. Huge set back to my over one year old tank.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yup. Good plan.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Ok, a quick update. I seem to be catching up with the algae and cyano. Alk consumption has increased a bit, so I think that is good news.

On the bad side, some of the corals are looking a little worse. I just tested nitrates, and they are just less than 0.5ppm. I was thinking about dosing some nitrates to slowly bring this up to help the corals. My concern is it is also fuel for the algae.

What would you recommend?

 

[brandon429]

The issue with your tank ILR is you’re acting in partial steps vs the whole, at once. If you want the succession stopped, consider this and the mass of tanks we’ve already worked in other threads

You posted really good pics it’s simple to envision your physical cure options. In your prior work (which shows willingness to access rocks, key, rare, will win) you missed two critical points we use: pre test modeling for compliance, as well as rasping and or an algae kill application.

Works:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...r-a-full-rework-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/


I would rate your overall challenge compared to what we usually see as a 4 out of 10 on predicted compliance. The hesitation before action factor was lowish, so your reworks should be low and you can test model all of it before acting on your whole tank. Nutrient adjustment is going to set your tank off on an exchanging sequence of cyano, hair algae etc even if this target does fade. We’re getting updates on 6 month intervals of people who tried nutrient tuning in the algae forum, they’re asking for help on new invaders same tank with corals lost. Check that forum, glb’s thread. Unenjoyment of aquarium + inputting money, months.





Before adjusting params back and forth, that corals never asked for
all in the name of guessing, try being directed on a test rock or all your tank if serious...we’re so against whole tank experimentation and waiting—take command.

make the tank cloudless and detritus free first, then kill algae off rocks, not just brush it. That regrows.


The steps advised here are out of the order of ops on page 1

Vibrant, fluc, nutrient adjustments are all preventatives to be applied in the clean condition, but you’ve been advised to apply them experimentally in the invaded + detritus condition, we rearrange timing. After work. Try to find updates in our sand rinse thread showing tradeoff invasions

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Personally I’d stop poking it. Change is slow.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Personally I’d stop poking it. Change is slow.

That's what I think I should do, sometimes I just need someone to tell me to leave it alone.

 

[JDtimk]

I agree with a slow and balanced approach to your tank recovery as others have said, but I think you could make some changes that will help you get back on track more quickly.

If it was my tank, I would do a good vacuuming of the sand bed under the rocks to remove any impacted and saturated detritus and then start from there with a balanced nutrient export plan. If you set up a decent algae scrubber it will outcompete the nuisance algae and cyano in your tank eventually. I would not use additives to try to solve your problem with nutrients.

Just curious but I didn't see any fish in your tank picture. Do you have fish in there? (oops found the two clowns after posting lol) A properly sized fish population will add a balanced source of nutrients to your corals and in combo with the algae scrubber, you should be able to maintain your nutrients at a level that makes your corals happy. If you get a little algae growing just add the right snails, crabs, fish, etc. to take care of it.

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/beeping-green-hair-algae.527285/page-5

nonwaiter. examples of you could have your tank fixed by January 10th are all fair game

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I agree with a slow and balanced approach to your tank recovery as others have said, but I think you could make some changes that will help you get back on track more quickly.

If it was my tank, I would do a good vacuuming of the sand bed under the rocks to remove any impacted and saturated detritus and then start from there with a balanced nutrient export plan. If you set up a decent algae scrubber it will outcompete the nuisance algae and cyano in your tank eventually. I would not use additives to try to solve your problem with nutrients.

Just curious but I didn't see any fish in your tank picture. Do you have fish in there? (oops found the two clowns after posting lol) A properly sized fish population will add a balanced source of nutrients to your corals and in combo with the algae scrubber, you should be able to maintain your nutrients at a level that makes your corals happy. If you get a little algae growing just add the right snails, crabs, fish, etc. to take care of it.

Yes, I have four fish in the tank. My nutrient levels have been pretty stable for a while now. Until the episode that started on December 27th, everything was very happy. With what I believe was a large die off of small tube worms or feather dusters which I think was caused by my temp drop, things went south quickly. Nothing has died, including some SPS that I had been nursing back to health. They don't look great, but are still alive.

I think I do need to beef up my CUC. After my killer blue legged hermit took out most of my snails, my conch and all of my other hermits, I didn't replace as many as I probably should have. I also got rid of the hermit and didn't add any more hermits to the tank. Live and learn I guess.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

UPDATE!!!

It's been almost two weeks since I originally posted. Things are looking better. The Frogspawn and Splatter Hammer still haven't opened, but are starting to come out a little. They are both still alive. Everything else is really starting to come out again.

The GHA is almost all gone as well as the cyano. Because every one of my rocks has coral encrusted on them, I couldn't clean as @brandon429 suggested. During my last water change I did vacuum under every rock and there was a lot of detritus lodged under there. Each day I have been cleaning any debris I can get off of my rock.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions and reminding me to be patient.