Skeletons showing, Polyps bailing out

[Forty-Two]

is it common for leathers to cause issues with LPS? I had a die of of a few hammers as well, and wonder if my leathers are the killers.

When you've ruled out the other basic options like parameter swings - definitely start looking at the leathers. It could be that or a parasite. Ive seen in other threads before that the Euphyllia seem to be more sensitive to the toxins from the leathers and tend to bail first.

In this case - I would be suspicious of two items:
1) Nitrates are too high @ 47.6. Something is going on to be that elevated and could cause irritation to the corals - especially the Euphyllia
2) Leathers could be emitting toxins from the anemone stings (highly likely) - however its a question whether the carbon would scrub enough of that out. Its possible its not because the initial drop of toxin into the water will be somewhat circulated prior to getting to the carbon scrubber.

 

[Dcloser12]

is it common for leathers to cause issues with LPS? I had a die of of a few hammers as well, and wonder if my leathers are the killers.

I've seen my leathers effect many coral in my tank. I can't keep them within a foot of anything else except zoas. Hermit crabs and emeralds WILL go after softies if they do not have a food source. It becomes a starving chef with an attached arsenal of cutlery! The parameters in this post are not ideal but not a single one stands out at a hammer killer. Hammers and touches are just touchy in general. Sometimes they tolerate any change, sometimes they just get mad, close up then die. I personally do not have the cheat code to these things. In my personal tank I've just learned to change stats over weeks. 10% water changes once a month. Gfo reactor, the works. I never run carbon and my tank is thriving. When I was very hands on, everything and I mean Everything suffered.

 

[Shirak]

These are the times when I just get bummed out about reefing. I’ve been keeping reef tanks almost 2 years now so I’m not a total newbie but by no means a seasoned vet and some days, I feel like I know stuff and other days, I wonder whether I’m cut out for this hobby. I’m sure we all have those days.

I’ve had this 120g display (standard 4x2x2) w/ ~25 g sump for about 9 months now. I have two AI Hydra 32s mounted 13” above the water line. My parameters are not perfect but they are very stable… I test weekly (sometimes more when I’m extra frustrated) and before water changes & then a couple days after. I use Tropic Marin salt & make my own RODI.
I am having fine success with zoas, leathers and mushrooms, my RBTA is massive and happy. All of my corals were dipped before being in the tank.

Here are my gripes:
My hammers are bailing out & I had a nice 4 head (that was only 2 heads when I got it) green torch brown jelly suddenly a few weeks ago & pulled it immediately so it didn’t spread. I had an amazing baby gold torch that was growing well from a tiny speck suddenly bail out… I watched it peel from its tiny skeleton. I have some favias & chalice frags that are just receding like crazy. I have some scolys, a Trachy & a cynarina on the sandbed and I can see their skeletons. The cynarina is by far the worst… it used to be huge in my nano tank & I had to move it because It was so big.

I added a really cheap green Monti Cap frag the other day to see if it would take off & it’s already white around the edges after a few days. I noticed it after the first 24 hours though.

Nutrients bouncing around will do wonky things to your LPS. You say you are dosing Brightwell Alk every other day but are you also testing each time or weekly?

I also wonder about your Par. I have a tank half your size (60g) and run 2 Hydra 26 and 1 Hydra 32. They run 70% power or more, 7" off the water, and at the sand bed 20" below the water par is around 150-180 where my torches are sitting..

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Your welcome

From what youve shared thus far, i would consider getting your NO3 and PO4 down. To do this i would plan for a series of large water changes. i have done something similar called "operation refresh" haha

Plan to change out 50-75% of your water over 3-4 days. So for you 60-90gals total...about 30gals each day. If your NO3 is 47 this should cut it about in half when your done. Doing it over a few days will reduce shock to your system.

You may want to consider your feeding or how the levels became elevated. Do you run a fuge? maybe something to consider.

As mentioned before, consider running more carbon for a period to see if that helps. Maybe move the leather so it isnt being stung or remove it all together.

Cipro may also be helpful and in my experience wont hurt.

Feel free to ask questions if ya need anything!

I do not have a refugium… my sump has a less than optimal layout in my opinion so the compartment they have for the fuge is way in the back which I’m not a fan of since I can’t see it well. I do think I’m going to start one by just sectioning off the skimmer compartment. I’d rather have it in the main sump vs an external fuge, but I need to at least give it a try!
Here are some FTSs since I think you asked me yesterday. The anemone is really allllll over the leather today! I really have to get that guy outta there.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

I've seen my leathers effect many coral in my tank. I can't keep them within a foot of anything else except zoas. Hermit crabs and emeralds WILL go after softies if they do not have a food source. It becomes a starving chef with an attached arsenal of cutlery! The parameters in this post are not ideal but not a single one stands out at a hammer killer. Hammers and touches are just touchy in general. Sometimes they tolerate any change, sometimes they just get mad, close up then die. I personally do not have the cheat code to these things. In my personal tank I've just learned to change stats over weeks. 10% water changes once a month. Gfo reactor, the works. I never run carbon and my tank is thriving. When I was very hands on, everything and I mean Everything suffered.

I think your comment about being hands on is a good one. Maybe I’m worrying too much and just doing more harm than good. That’s one thing that makes this hobby tough… you want everything to be perfect so you try to “help” and then you helping is actually hurting. I forget sometimes that these corals have been around a lot longer than I have and they probably know better than I do. I just feel so awful when I see them dying… it’s not about the money, it’s about the animal & thinking I contributed to its downfall.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Nutrients bouncing around will do wonky things to your LPS. You say you are dosing Brightwell Alk every other day but are you also testing each time or weekly?

I also wonder about your Par. I have a tank half your size (60g) and run 2 Hydra 26 and 1 Hydra 32. They run 70% power or more, 7" off the water, and at the sand bed 20" below the water par is around 150-180 where my torches are sitting..

Here is my lighting schedule. I had the Pirates of the Caribbean schedule running at 100% intensity (which had UV at something like 146%? at its peak) but I dialed it down a bit. Before I put the schedule in place, I ran it in acclimation mode for 45 days. I do need to rent a par meter and do a map of this tank.
Do you think I have too much light or too little? I had hopes of growing some nice Montis or maybe even Acros down the road, so I chose this schedule in order to make sure the other corals would do well for quite some time before adding anything that’s crazy light hungry.

 

[Shirak]

Here is my lighting schedule. I had the Pirates of the Caribbean schedule running at 100% intensity (which had UV at something like 146%? at its peak) but I dialed it down a bit. Before I put the schedule in place, I ran it in acclimation mode for 45 days. I do need to rent a par meter and do a map of this tank.
Do you think I have too much light or too little? I had hopes of growing some nice Montis or maybe even Acros down the road, so I chose this schedule in order to make sure the other corals would do well for quite some time before adding anything that’s crazy light hungry.

Yeah that's pretty much pushing the light to the max other than upping CW for a bit more par. Par meter readings would be interesting. I would suspect based on my experience with the Hydra 26 and 32 your par is low, which is probably ok for the softies but not ideal for the LPS and would guess that unless SPS were directly under the lights and way up on the rock you will not have enough par. The AI are also more focused and narrow beam than some on the market so they will be more spot coverage. You can see on your mesh top how the light hits mostly below the fixture even at the height you have them. My own tank even with 3 fairly closely spaced over a 4' wide area the par varies quite a bit as you go across the tank from left to right. Mine are in the same orientation as yours with about 8" between them. If it were my tank I would be looking to add another fixture at least, preferably two. I would also consider a different brand with wider spread.. I will not buy AI lights again for this reason, everything else about them is great. Another good option might be a couple of the more powerful reef brite strips across the tank, one in back and one in front of the AI lights. That would give you more par and better spread.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

For the record, this is a hammer that just bailed yesterday and landed in this spot. The polyp is completely open and was completely open and fluffy even while it was bailing. I’m kinda surprised it didn’t blow away over night.


And here’s a picture of the nem and large leather “cuddling” today. This is closer than they normally are - as they all do, this nem has a mind of its own.

 

[jcolliii]

What do you target feed, how, and how often? Sorry if I missed that. My LPS don't look great when I neglect feeding them.

I don't think your PO4 is necessarily that high, but the nitrate is on the high side.

I only ever had polyp bail once - and it was devastating. Gorgeous, large, four color open brain. I had a leather in the tank at that time, and kinda always suspected the shedding might have had something to do with it. Rubber-banded the polyp to a large flat tile, but it wasted away pretty quickly.

 

[DanTheReefer]

When it starts to hit the fan (stuff closing, browning out, etc) I just do water changes until the problem goes away. 20% minimum every day. It should cover everything except bad flow and lighting.
One thing I haven’t seen folks mention is you’re running your carbon in the sump. I recommend you get the mini BRS media reactor and Rox carbon. While a bag sitting in the sump is doing something, it’s not nearly as effective as forcing water through a packed brick of media.
I found this thread because a new frogspawn I got is bailing out a few days after and everything else is happy. I found the polyp and will see if I can get it to start growing again. If you have success with yours, please let us all know

 

[DanTheReefer]

Adding to what I just said, hopefully here’s some hope for you with water changes and carbon. In May all of the montipora turned brown and my disco lepto also browned out. They looked really bad, had no idea what was going on. Did 20% water changes for a week and ran carbon. You can see that by 45 days later they had not only recovered appearance/ color wise but grown pretty significantly in size.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Adding to what I just said, hopefully here’s some hope for you with water changes and carbon. In May all of the montipora turned brown and my disco lepto also browned out. They looked really bad, had no idea what was going on. Did 20% water changes for a week and ran carbon. You can see that by 45 days later they had not only recovered appearance/ color wise but grown pretty significantly in size.

That’s a great tip! I’m so glad your corals recovered too. I am definitely going to look into getting a reactor. I have nano tanks and keep the carbon in the media baskets which obviously works a lot better than just throwing bags of carbon into the sump. I did at least put them right under the filter socks so there’s a better chance.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

What do you target feed, how, and how often? Sorry if I missed that. My LPS don't look great when I neglect feeding them.

I don't think your PO4 is necessarily that high, but the nitrate is on the high side.

I only ever had polyp bail once - and it was devastating. Gorgeous, large, four color open brain. I had a leather in the tank at that time, and kinda always suspected the shedding might have had something to do with it. Rubber-banded the polyp to a large flat tile, but it wasted away pretty quickly.

That’s so sad about your open brain bailing out! I target feed my corals usually twice a week - Coral Frenzy pellets and LRS reef frenzy. Sometimes they manage to catch other food when I feed my fish. My blue tang has learned that she can just flip her tail at the corals and steal their food though. What a stinker!

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

When my lps start going, I check po4 daily to monitor potential swings. Not to send you down the number chasing game but po4 swings easily in my tank and my coral hate that. I try to keep it around .1. Around .3 is where everything starts goin south for me

Jeeze how do you guys get any thing with those crazy high #s i dose p04 and n03 daily to maintain p: .03 and n:5-7 thats not even uln. Sps like low #s to begin with in your system and work up to high nuts but your way to high, test daily, starve your fish and carbon dose until you come down then start over with low #s and feed low and dose nuts for positive results

 

[Dcloser12]

Polyps don't bail out over .03 phos let alone .1. The comparison game isn't going to diagnose the ops tank issues. Yes we know that desirable ranges exist. I have grown LPS and sps with .5 phos. Do they like it?, heck no but will they survive? Absolutely! If you shock them via dropping or spiking any number it becomes an issue, if they creep over time then growth suffers but they don't abandon ship. I firmly feel the issue Is one of the major 3 and that is major swings, lighting or flow!

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

Was actually just thinking about this thread last night and wondering if there was any news? @Brit’s Fish

 

[fushi]

Oh my goodness… sometimes this website is a little buggy when I post from my phone… half of my original post is missing! Here’s what got cut out… I swear I know better than to not post parameters!!


My parameters (before water change - 2 weeks since last):
Temp 77.
Salinity 1.026 (hanna)
Nitrates 47.6 (hanna)
PO4 0.1-0.25 (salifert)
Calcium 480 (salifert)
Magnesium 1380 (salifert)
Alkalinity 7.3 (salifert) I feel like this is low but it’s very stable, even when I dose Brightwell Alkalin8.3 by hand every other morning.
pH 8.2 (Red Sea)
Ammonia 0 (Red Sea) I don’t usually test ammonia but figured I’d check today.

I’m using the Pirates of the Caribbean schedule on my Hydra 32s, although it’s dialed down a bit. I thought I had a screenshot of my settings but I’m away from my tank and can’t share them now, of course. I’ll post them in the morning.

I’ve attached some pictures of the corals that I don’t think are looking amazing, along with the graveyard/hospital portion of my sandbed. The lighting is a little lower over there but my Tomini tang has also chosen this area as her “litter box”. Can’t win.

Any advice would be great!!

There seemed to be a few good suggestions by others in this thread but the top things id be concerned about are:
Corals stinging each other
PH as my red sea ph test is useless, it always shows 8.2, I would recommend getting a ph pen like a Hannah
Pests, dipping isn't a guarantee
Some kind of contaminate, an ICP test could be helpful
light, have you checked your par as I feel like you should have two hydra32s at 100% on that sized tank
A combination of the above


2 Hydra32's all channels at 100% with a par meter at 6"

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Update on my tank issues: I have been wondering for a while now whether this could be related to Tropic Marin. I started using TM at the beginning of last year & the tank originally in question was started with TM & has never had any other salt.
Pretty much all of the corals in my pictures from December are gone, along with others that were previously basically bomb proof. I’ve lost so much money in corals and have lost a few fish as well. All of my euphyllia are gone (even the ones that were growing quickly a few months ago), forget about any Acans, Scolys or Cynarinas I had! Zoas are randomly not opening (like one coming melting away next to another colony that’s completely open & happy), my toadstools are constantly irritated and shedding. I could go on & on. My parameters are stable and nearly the same as my original post.

The issue is not exclusive to this tank now either. I just don’t even know what to do anymore. In the first 2 weeks of this year, I lost 5 fish between 3 tanks.

I have an empty bucket of TM that I bought 4-5 months ago from my LFS and it was a Turkish made bucket. I more recently bought the larger bag of salt and dumped it into that empty bucket & threw the bag out so I have no clue where that’s from. All I can say is that it mixes dirty… not like my original batches did last uear

I have another 120g that’s only about 4 months old now and I decided to start it up with Reef Crystals. The bioload is super light - 6 fish so far. 1 chromis, 2 damsels, 1 melanarus wrasse, 1 carpenters flasher wrasse and a Tomini tang. I have only done 2 20% water changes so far & I haven’t had any issues with corals at all.

To anyone familiar with the Tropic Marin saga, does this sound like the issue that others have had? I just want to cry & am wondering if this hobby is even for me. I love it… I LOVE learning everything I can about this stuff, I’m even looking into some Marine Biology courses at some of my local universities. I do everything you’re supposed to do to have a healthy tank and yet, everything is dying.

 

[Dcloser12]

I have had differences in levels with different salts. I have seen fluctuations in ranges with the same salt. I assume the buckets are vibrated in transport and minerals separate so not all scoops contain the same amounts of elements. That is the only explanation I have. As far as being deadly to fish and coral alike.. I don't know. The main issue for fish would be Salinity. Short of really and I mean really being way off during water changes I don't see this being an issue that will cost you fish and coral. It's more likely something is leeching out of your rock work or maybe a cyano die off and toxins being released. Honestly we don't always find out why, if we did no one would have these issues because we would know what's going on. That's the main reason everyone starts with the same questions about levels. It's the one thing we can monitor and control and diagnose. Everything else is beyond our testing capabilities.