SPS Dying Off - Please help me solve this mystery

[liudachris]

This is key IMHO - nicely written. I'm not sure its nitrate and PO4 if it was low for just a short time - but if there was a quick drop - or it persisted for a while, this could be the issue.

If anything I think the low nitrate persisted for a while. I have been feeding more frequently but it doesn’t seem to be enough. My phosphate didn’t drop out when I started dosing but I have been keeping track of it.

 

[liudachris]

If anything I think the low nitrate persisted for a while. I have been feeding more frequently but it doesn’t seem to be enough. My phosphate didn’t drop out when I started dosing but I have been keeping track of it.

I do want to add more fish. Just can’t decide on what I want to add

 

[MnFish1]

If anything I think the low nitrate persisted for a while. I have been feeding more frequently but it doesn’t seem to be enough. My phosphate didn’t drop out when I started dosing but I have been keeping track of it.

0 nitrate IMHO - I know its heresy - does not cause a die off. As long as there is nitrate in the water its enough - which is not common sense here - but its common sense in the real world

 

[mangolove]

My tip is just look into aquaforest energy, build / vitality and amino <<-- dose this to your reeftank instead of nitrate / ammonia

 

[Dburr1014]

0 nitrate IMHO - I know its heresy - does not cause a die off. As long as there is nitrate in the water its enough - which is not common sense here - but its common sense in the real world

True

 

[dwest]

How old is the tank? Have sps grown in the past without problems?

 

[PizzaIan339]

My PAR varies depending on the location in the tank. PAR is >300 but can be as high as 500 in the middle of the tank. The frags dying were at PAR around 400. I thought that the expelling of pigment at the tips was due to too much light in a low nutrient environment.

Salt - 1.026, TMP
RODI for top off yes.

Maybe the corals have bleached witch could be a big problem.

 

[MnFish1]

True

it looks like your nitrate was '0' for a while - maybe a couple months? That may be part of the problem

 

[Dburr1014]

it looks like your nitrate was '0' for a while - maybe a couple months? That may be part of the problem

I'm not the OP, I was just agreeing with you on zero nitrates "usually" are not coral killers.
BTW, my tank is still zero since may. 6 months at zero. Coral need ammonium, not so much nitrate. We test for nitrate cuz we don't have a great way to test for ammonia/ammonium.

 

[liudachris]

I'm not the OP, I was just agreeing with you on zero nitrates "usually" are not coral killers.
BTW, my tank is still zero since may. 6 months at zero. Coral need ammonium, not so much nitrate. We test for nitrate cuz we don't have a great way to test for ammonia/ammonium.

I wonder if my nutrients in general were too low…I know my stocking is super light (looking to add some anthias and maybe a gramma), there was so little algae growing that all my hermit crabs died a couple months ago…

I assume water quality is good otherwise since my Crocea has been growing.

 

[ScottB]

***Could this be a delayed response to my nutrients bottoming out 2-3 weeks ago?

Yes, absolutely.
*edit: but as others have said low nitrate isn't nearly as harmful as 0 PO4.

 

[liudachris]

I want to start off by thanking everyone who has responded for trying to help me troubleshoot what's going on. Ive been away for about a week and I asked my wife to feed pretty heavily while I was away.

I was able to take a few macro shots today to show the damage.
The best way I can describe is that entire coral starts to get pale, PE diminishes, then releases stringy stuff from the tips as if expelling pigment, and then you can see that the skin recede from the tips and the corallites and the base, eventually the entire thing will STN. I've attached a few photos of the frags affected, you can already see some algae growing on the tip of the exposed skeleton. Please any thoughts are welcome. I'm hoping this is all fall out from a nutrient crash and will stabilize. It honestly looks like burnt tips but my alk is not high.

Current tank measurements.
NO3 - 4
PO4 - 0.03
Alk - 8.1
Ca - 450
Temp 77ish

 

[MnFish1]

Interesting. I'm sorry not to have a clear answer. It could be a disease, lighting, flow, etc.

 

[MnFish1]

That said - the fact that it's spreading - here is what I did in this situation. Cut off the good coral - glue it to something - and toss the dead pieces.

 

[liudachris]

Took a little break and circling back to this thread.
Unfortunately, SPS has continued to decline and at this point I only have 5% of what I started with. My nutrients continue to be low with Phos and Nitrates being close to zero. I have tried dosing but it seems like when I dose, it just ticks everything off more. FWIW, my 4 crocus are thriving.

Does dosing Nitrate consume phosphate and vice versa? Is that why dosing is ticking off my SPS?

 

[Spare time]

Took a little break and circling back to this thread.
Unfortunately, SPS has continued to decline and at this point I only have 5% of what I started with. My nutrients continue to be low with Phos and Nitrates being close to zero. I have tried dosing but it seems like when I dose, it just ticks everything off more. FWIW, my 4 crocus are thriving.

Does dosing Nitrate consume phosphate and vice versa? Is that why dosing is ticking off my SPS?

Your phosphate was fine. IMO aminos (reef energy for example) are better than nitrate for dosing. I really don't think its an issue of low food since you feed 7 times a day.

 

[RockBox13]

Your dKH and pH are too low. If you were sitting at 8 and your pH was 8.1, it was probably fluctuating down to 7 and your pH down to 7.9 or maybe less. I really don’t understand this focus on too little Nitrate and Phosphate as the priority in a reef tank over raising and stabilizing your pH up at 8.3-8.4 like it should be with higher alkalinity. You could have a carbonate/bicarbonate imbalance as carbonate is turned into bicarbonate through decomposition and the build up of detritus. If you want to raise your pH but not your overall alkalinity too much I would suggest SeaChem Reef Buffer which is still a blend of Carbonate and Bicarbonate, but heavier on the carbonate to raise pH without overshooting pH above 8.3-8.4. Reef Carbonate which is heavier on the bicarbonate to provide stabilization of the pH up at 8.3. I prefer to keep alkalinity on the high side at 11-12 constantly. If pH is low, but your Alkalinity is 9 and above, you need more bicarbonate. If pH is good at 8.3 but alkalinity is getting to 8 and below, you need more carbonate as a basic rule. As long as other parameters are good, especially Mag, this is usually the problem I have usually seen affecting SPS so many times because one thing that I did as a person selling fish and coral to people was water tests for free. And not ammonia and nitrite either, full calcium, alkalinity and magnesium if necessary as well. I’ve done thousands upon thousands of full reef water tests on hundreds of tanks and maybe non detectable nitrates or phosphates could make your coral look less than perfect maybe, it’s not going to cause rapid tissue necrosis across the board on your SPS. It just doesn’t make sense to try and replicate reef parameters on Alkalinity because there is just too much acidification in an aquarium, then combine that with less oxygen and more potential for acidification because of no skimmer and I would bet dollars to donuts that there is no macroalgae refugium running or gravel vacuuming of the sand bed. Raise your pH and Alkalinity ASAP.

 

[MnFish1]

Your dKH and pH are too low. If you were sitting at 8 and your pH was 8.1, it was probably fluctuating down to 7 and your pH down to 7.9 or maybe less. I really don’t understand this focus on too little Nitrate and Phosphate as the priority in a reef tank over raising and stabilizing your pH up at 8.3-8.4 like it should be with higher alkalinity. You could have a carbonate/bicarbonate imbalance as carbonate is turned into bicarbonate through decomposition and the build up of detritus. If you want to raise your pH but not your overall alkalinity too much I would suggest SeaChem Reef Buffer which is still a blend of Carbonate and Bicarbonate, but heavier on the carbonate to raise pH without overshooting pH above 8.3-8.4. Reef Carbonate which is heavier on the bicarbonate to provide stabilization of the pH up at 8.3. I prefer to keep alkalinity on the high side at 11-12 constantly. If pH is low, but your Alkalinity is 9 and above, you need more bicarbonate. If pH is good at 8.3 but alkalinity is getting to 8 and below, you need more carbonate as a basic rule. As long as other parameters are good, especially Mag, this is usually the problem I have usually seen affecting SPS so many times because one thing that I did as a person selling fish and coral to people was water tests for free. And not ammonia and nitrite either, full calcium, alkalinity and magnesium if necessary as well. I’ve done thousands upon thousands of full reef water tests on hundreds of tanks and maybe non detectable nitrates or phosphates could make your coral look less than perfect maybe, it’s not going to cause rapid tissue necrosis across the board on your SPS. It just doesn’t make sense to try and replicate reef parameters on Alkalinity because there is just too much acidification in an aquarium, then combine that with less oxygen and more potential for acidification because of no skimmer and I would bet dollars to donuts that there is no macroalgae refugium running or gravel vacuuming of the sand bed. Raise your pH and Alkalinity ASAP.

One does not need at 8.3-4 or an alkalinity >7 to be successful at growing/keeping Coral

 

[RockBox13]

One does not need at 8.3-4 or an alkalinity >7 to be successful at growing/keeping Coral

I don’t claim or even imagine that a higher pH or alkalinity is necessary to be successful at keeping corals, but every reef tank is different and there are a lot of different corals with different requirements. In this particular tank with no skimmer we can reason that oxygenation is most likely lower, if there is no macroalgae refugium helping add oxygen or possibly helping stabilize pH, the reported pH of 8.1 there’s probably a swing all the way down to 7.7 with the lights off. Oxygen doesn’t affect pH directly, but it affects the ability of the coral itself to function properly. Feeding the coral at this point could then actually reduce the ability of the coral to use the available oxygen. The rapid tissue necrosis and how he described it starting at the base and moving upwards to me also indicates the problem is low alkalinity made worse by a lower oxygen level. If someone experienced tissue necrosis from high alkalinity which is very, very rare in my experience, tips burning on Acros would be from excess carbonate, low bicarbonate and a pH out of range from 8.6 and higher. His temperature is not out of range, but also is not helping with the pH or oxygenation at around 82F. I bet there was no gravel vacuuming and so as the detritus builds up, so does acidification. I don’t know how to manually keep pH consistent at 8.1-8.2, but it’s super easy to stabilize it at 8.3-8.4 with higher dKH.
“Although the beneficial long-term effect of feeding on coral calcification is very clear (reviewed by Houlbrèque and Ferrier-Pagès 2009), the short-term effects can be the exact opposite (Al-Horani et al. 2007; Colombo-Pallotta et al. 2010). A possible explanation for this discrepancy is that impairment of calcification resulting from zooplankton feeding is caused by a reallocation of energy, for example to prey capture. By investing energy into prey capture, which requires muscle contraction and mucus secretion by polyps, corals may temporarily stop calcifying. In other words, corals may be unable to allocate sufficient oxygen and organic compounds to produce the required energy for calcification while they are actively feeding” https://reefs.com/magazine/aquarium...al-growth-implications-for-coral-aquaculture/
Some guy named Randy Holmes Farley, who is actually the older brother of both Larry Holmes and Chris Farley says to me me one time, he says, “
What is the Acceptable pH Range for Reef Aquaria?
The acceptable pH range for reef aquaria is an opinion rather than a clearly defined fact, and will certainly vary based on who is providing the opinion. This range may also be quite different from the "optimal" range. Justifying what is optimal, however, is much more problematic than that which is simply acceptable. As a goal, I'd suggest that the pH of natural seawater, about 8.2, is appropriate, but reef aquaria can clearly operate in a wider range of pH values. In my opinion, the pH range from 7.8 to 8.5 is an acceptable range for reef aquaria, with several caveats. These are:

• That the alkalinity is at least 2.5 meq/L, and preferably higher at the lower end of this pH range. This statement is based partly on the fact that many reef aquaria operate quite effectively in the pH 7.8 to 8.0 range, but that most of the best examples of these types of tanks incorporate calcium carbonate/carbon dioxide reactors that, while tending to lower the pH, keep the carbonate alkalinity fairly high (at or above 3 meq/L.). In this case, any problems associated with calcification at these lower pH valuesmay be offset by the higher alkalinity. Low pH primarily stresses calcifying organisms by making it harder for them to obtain sufficient carbonate to deposit skeletons. Raising the alkalinity mitigates this difficulty for reasons that are detailed later in this article.”

 

[liudachris]

Your phosphate was fine. IMO aminos (reef energy for example) are better than nitrate for dosing. I really don't think its an issue of low food since you feed 7 times a day.

I actually feed about 3x a day if I can, 2x if I don't have time.