sps bleaching from the top and bottom....getting tired of this

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amir basis

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i'm affriad no local reefing club in my area, but i do know a few fellow reefers where i live so i'll them maybe they'd know.

meanwhile, the tissue necrosis is still progressing;Sorry

I just bought new carbon and sediment filters for my RO and gonna do a major water change. I have nothing to loose at this point.
 

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So basically no lighting? I would fix that to start!
Sunlight is lighting, if they are getting enough par then i wouldn't worry about it. though its probably quite a bit different for the new frags you bring in.

any chance its seasonal and maybe during the summer they are just getting too much light? also what about the temperature? is it difficult to maintain stable temperatures in your greenhouse?

sounds kinda like your acros aren't super healthy and something is pushing them over the edge and allowing them to be susceptible a bacterial infection that spreads throughout your system. I have seen similar issues in my system after an alk swing. most of the coral appears to survive the alk swing fine except a few frags or colonies but after i stabilize the alk they, and others in the tank continue to STN.

There are so many variables at play its going to be really difficult to find a simple solution.
 
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Sunlight is lighting, if they are getting enough par then i wouldn't worry about it. though its probably quite a bit different for the new frags you bring in.

any chance its seasonal and maybe during the summer they are just getting too much light? also what about the temperature? is it difficult to maintain stable temperatures in your greenhouse?

sounds kinda like your acros aren't super healthy and something is pushing them over the edge and allowing them to be susceptible a bacterial infection that spreads throughout your system. I have seen similar issues in my system after an alk swing. most of the coral appears to survive the alk swing fine except a few frags or colonies but after i stabilize the alk they, and others in the tank continue to STN.

There are so many variables at play its going to be really difficult to find a simple solution.
during winter when solar radiance is weak and not much direct sunlight i use an LED lights as extra, and during summer i slowly reduce the light hours in which the LED are on and at summers peak (right about now) i deploy a shading screen to reduce the direct sunlight intensity.

as for temp, i have a chiller and a cooling fan that keeps the tank at 24-25 degrees celsius.

i completely agree with on that there many variables that plays a role in this situation, which is why i said in the title of this thread, i'm getting tired of this.
it's one thing when a problem happens, you loose your corals/fish and get really sad about it but at least you found out the cause so you would avoid it in the future , but when it keeps happening without any known reason and you never come out on the other end of this with clear findings and an obvious conclusion, then it's just pure frustration.
 

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a several of my acropora corals are beginning to bleach , some from the top and some from the bottom, and it's the third time it's happening to me and always the same senario : the tank looks great, goos coral growth, water stable and clean, fish having a blast, bring additional few corals, everything is good for a week or two, new corals starts to suffer, old corals also begin to suffer, colonies end up in the trash. i'm really starting to wonder if this hobby is simply
over my head.

i've attached a short video of the the corals for you get a sense of the tank.
parameters:
DKH: 7
cal :450
mag: 1650
no3 :5ppm
po4: 0.04
triton 7 core dosing
cheato refugium

feeding : fish eat twice a day (pellets, frozen, nori..) and the corals i direct feed 2-3 times a week with vitalis sps coral food, as well as dose daily KZ aminos and corals vitalizer.

when everything started i thought that there might be too much light in combination with high ALK, so i reduced the light to very low (almost ambient room light), my ALK was 7 anyhow so didn't do any changes there, and dosed a little phosphate and nitrate to increase nutrients. a week after and nothing seemed to help and things are still going south

as for ICP test, i did send one but by the time i'll get the results probably everything will be gone.thought may be to do 100% water change.

so if anyone has any idea what is going on, then by all means please share.



I've not read the entire thread but...

I'd suggest that you phosphate is low. And perhaps nitrate too. How are you measuring them? The ULR Hanna PO4 Checker has a margin of error of 0.03ppm. Bottoming out phosphate is really really bad for acropora. It might be closer to zero than you realize.

Your alk of 7 is perfect. That's what I maintain my alk at for my SPS system. It's also an appropriate level for a low nutrient system.
 

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amir basis

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I've not read the entire thread but...

I'd suggest that you phosphate is low. And perhaps nitrate too. How are you measuring them? The ULR Hanna PO4 Checker has a margin of error of 0.03ppm. Bottoming out phosphate is really really bad for acropora. It might be closer to zero than you realize.

Your alk of 7 is perfect. That's what I maintain my alk at for my SPS system. It's also an appropriate level for a low nutrient system.
I’m using Red Sea pro test kits. My phosphate is at 0.03-.04 and nitrats are 4 ppm.
I am dosing both since they do get depleted pretty fast
 

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Did you get the ICP results yet? The video does not look like a chemistry issue to me (unless you messed with the chemistry in the last couple months or there's chlorine/chloramine in your water).

I did not see anyone mention pests - turkey baster to check for AEFW and take some macro pics to check for red bugs. Or dip and see what comes off.

A lot of people saying you can't grow acros in sunlight lol. Do get the PAR meter and check to make sure you're not giving them too much or too little light. But also, take all advice in this thread (including mine) with a grain of salt.
 
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Did you get the ICP results yet? The video does not look like a chemistry issue to me (unless you messed with the chemistry in the last couple months or there's chlorine/chloramine in your water).

I did not see anyone mention pests - turkey baster to check for AEFW and take some macro pics to check for red bugs. Or dip and see what comes off.

A lot of people saying you can't grow acros in sunlight lol. Do get the PAR meter and check to make sure you're not giving them too much or too little light. But also, take all advice in this thread (including mine) with a grain of salt.
thanks for your reply:)
I haven’t got my icp test yet and from my experience it will take a while.
As for pests, I’ve checked the corals and looked for AEFW and red bugs and such and haven’t found. Also, all corals are dipped and washed throughly before placed in the tank.

anyhow, I wasn’t gonna update everyone on this until the weekend when I’m sure that I’m correct, but since you asked I might as well say now that I think I found the problem. It snuck under ours noses here.
Since identified and addressed , the tissue necrosis so far has stopped and few corals are showing signs (maybe) of recovery.

I’m gonna keep you all in suspense for a while, I just want a few more days of monitoring in order to be sure before I tell everyone here.
I’ll update on Friday :)
 

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thanks for your reply:)
I haven’t got my icp test yet and from my experience it will take a while.
As for pests, I’ve checked the corals and looked for AEFW and red bugs and such and haven’t found. Also, all corals are dipped and washed throughly before placed in the tank.

anyhow, I wasn’t gonna update everyone on this until the weekend when I’m sure that I’m correct, but since you asked I might as well say now that I think I found the problem. It snuck under ours noses here.
Since identified and addressed , the tissue necrosis so far has stopped and few corals are showing signs (maybe) of recovery.

I’m gonna keep you all in suspense for a while, I just want a few more days of monitoring in order to be sure before I tell everyone here.
I’ll update on Friday :)
Suspense Anticipation GIF
 
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amir basis

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so sorry guys it took me a while, been too busy in the past few days and didn't have the time to post an update,
so here it is :
as for now, 3 corals are showing slow signs of recovery, one sps frag is however completely lost, probably due extensive damage that was too much for it to handle or bounce back from. corals stopped showing tissue regression from the tips or from base. however, exposed skeleton on some of the acropora corals are beginning to get algae/cyano/coralline growing on them. i'll guess i'm gonna have to trim them off.
as i said in my previous posts, i decided to do a big 70% water change, and to do an overall cleanup of the sump, pipes, power-heads and so on.
while i was cleaning my sump i looked up on the display tank and then i saw it, clear as the hot sun, it all made sense, all the puzzle parts were in place (more theatrical descriptions....) and here it is (drums please):























IMG_4244.jpg

ta da!!

i caught my lovely sweet hearted emperor angelfish going to town on one of the affected corals. as an instinct i knocked hard on the glass shouting "no! ya butt*****" and drove him away.
i think that i didn't notice him doing that before because whenever i approach the tank he leaves whatever his doing and swims up in anticipation for food. so i decided to put my phone and video the tank while i'm a way for a while. sure enough, when i looked at what the camera captured i saw him picking aggressively on all the corals that were suffering the most .
i transferred him to the sump and since then the stn has stopped. the only problem i have now as i said is the algae that's starting to take over the dead branches.

now, i've had this fish for a year now, and now that i think about it, he might be the cause for sps loss in previous experiences.
there is still a chance that something else , aside from the emperor's pickings , that drove the corals to the edge, and the reason i say that is because one frag that was still half ok kept loosing tissue and died shortly after ,even though i isolated the fish, so i don't know if the damage caused by the fish was just too much for the coral to handle or maybe something else.
i'm still waiting for the ICP test results, which i took when everything started going south and before i did any water changes. i'll update on that once i get the results (i promise!). and i'm still working to get PAR readings in the tank (still haven't found an available PAR meter).

as for the fish, rest assure i'm not gonna keep him in the sump and i'm currently looking for a new appropriate home .

thanks to you all for the tremendous help and support!! it really is heart worming to see everyone united for the benefit of someone else on the other side of the planet. i really appreciate it :)

i'll update in when the icp results come,
cheers
 

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I recently went through something very similar with a bi-colour blenny, glad you caught the cause - but it always sucks having to rehome a fish you’ve had for a while & like.

Emperors are beautiful
 
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hey everyone,

just wanted to update that i've finally got my ICP test results. there was a delay in the shipment of the samples so that why it took so long.

the results looks fine other than small amounts of copper detected (still in the green range acroding to triton). could have these small amounts of copper caused all my problems, as well as my emperor fish? :confused:
Screen Shot 2021-08-12 at 19.19.46.png

Screen Shot 2021-08-12 at 19.19.53.png

Screen Shot 2021-08-12 at 19.20.00.png
 

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There was another post today from someone who caught his emperor pounding away on acropora. He had the fish for almost 2 years before it went rogue. I think they finally get bored.

As to copper, I don't have any scientific evidence to show, but any amount is too much for acropora in my opinion. Are you able to keep crabs and shrimp?

Look around for any copper or brass fittings. Hopefully you can find some Cuprisorb or equivalent to absorb the copper.
 
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There was another post today from someone who caught his emperor pounding away on acropora. He had the fish for almost 2 years before it went rogue. I think they finally get bored.

As to copper, I don't have any scientific evidence to show, but any amount is too much for acropora in my opinion. Are you able to keep crabs and shrimp?

Look around for any copper or brass fittings. Hopefully you can find some Cuprisorb or equivalent to absorb the copper.

i do have to lysmata shrimps and they seem to be doing fine. i do however noticed that the number of snails i have in the tank dropped and while i used to see tons of small copepods on the glass now i don't see any at all :/...could that be related?

i did state before that about a week before i bought the new corals and 3 weeks before everything started i used a different type off salt simply because what i usually used (redsea blue bucket) ran out from my lfs. now after i removed my emperor and changed back to redsea salt corals are recovering slowly (some unfortunately didn't make it). so i'me kinda puzzled if was the copper from the bad salt , the emperor, a combination of both or something else entirely.
 

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Did you get the ICP results yet? The video does not look like a chemistry issue to me (unless you messed with the chemistry in the last couple months or there's chlorine/chloramine in your water).

I did not see anyone mention pests - turkey baster to check for AEFW and take some macro pics to check for red bugs. Or dip and see what comes off.

A lot of people saying you can't grow acros in sunlight lol. Do get the PAR meter and check to make sure you're not giving them too much or too little light. But also, take all advice in this thread (including mine) with a grain of salt.
yeah there are large, successful coral farms here in the US, outside using natural sunlight. Similar latitude and climate. I have no experience growing coral outside but I've seen some of them using some type of filters.
 

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Im not sure where people got the idea that 7 dkh is too low to grow sps? I've been growing sps for almost 20 years and have always kept my alkalinity around there with good success, not to mention thats where the ocean is at and it seems pretty good at growing them too.
 

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