SPS Keep Dying - Please Help - Tank Parameters Seem Ideal

[sgrosenb]

Hi all,

I am hoping to find out what the culprit for my tank is that is killing all my SPS. I’ve done a fair amount of research over the past year, and from what I can tell, my water parameters, lighting, nutrients, etc etc. are all in-line with what a successful reef tank should have to let SPS thrive. I’ve done ICP tests (results here and below), gone through the whole ugly stage – I’ve even had a 1 month period where my SPS actually thrived and grew. However, over the past 6 months I cannot seem to keep SPS alive for more than a few months before they turn white and die. I’ve purchased over 20 frags now (monti’s, birdnests, acros, etc), and they’re all dead or dying. I’m hoping that through this post I can narrow down what the culprit(s) must be – I am at a loss and can’t figure it out. I have a lot of time, energy, and passion invested in this tank and I want nothing more than to have a thriving SPS system. Thank you for your time and help!

Tank Background/Info

• The tank is 165g 5x2x2 Red Sea Reefer 625XXL and has been up for just over a year.
• I started it with completely dry, dead Reefsaver Rock from Aquacave. (Beneficial bacteria could be an issue - starting with completely dry rock, no live rock seeding?)
• For sand, I went with Topic Eden Misoflakes – I have roughly a 1.5 inch sand bed.
• PO4 is sometimes a bit high – I’ve had it range from 0.015 up to 0.10 (Hanna ULR checker)
• NO3 rock steady at 4ppm (Red Sea test kit)
• Alkalinity – this is an interesting one. I have a GHL KH director that seems to be quite accurate. My alkalinity will range anywhere from roughly 8.5-9.8 in any given few week period. I have no idea why (my only thought is the aragonite sand breaks down) but my alkalinity actually increases often times over a few week period. I understand this defies logic since I don’t dose anything, but the numbers don’t lie, and I have confirmed them over and over again with a Hanna Alk tester – they always line up. I’ve included a chart below of Alk for visual purposes so you can see.
• Calcium – 460-470; doesn’t budge and doesn’t drop – I don’t dose anything for calc
• Magnesium – try to keep it around 1350; it drops here and there so I dose it back up – lowest it gets is 1250.
• Lighting is hybrid LED/T5 with 3x XR15W G4 Pro Radions and 4xT5 (2 Blue Plus, 2 Coral Plus). More on lighting setting below (I’d be surprised if lighting is the issue, but this is one area that I keep coming back to)
• For flow I have 2 Maxpect XF 250 Gyres running anywhere from 20-40% at any given time.
• Return pump is Vectra L1 at roughly 50% power
• Bubbleking Mini 160 protein skimmer running 24/7
• Refugium completely full of chaeto and sea lettuce algae. (I don’t usually trim this – I probably should). H380 Kessil light on 8 hours at night over fuge.
• No algae issues in display tank
• No filter socks
• pH ranges from 8.0-8.3 like clockwork throughout the day
• Temp goes from 78.0-80.0 each day (no chiller, but it rarely, if ever, gets above 80.5)
• Water Changes every week (sometimes every 2 weeks) of ~15% with Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt
• Auto top-off 4-stage Spectrapure RODI. Registers 0 TDS consistently. My tank is pretty far away from my RODI so I have about 50 feet of tubing that runs to the tank. I flush the RO system for 5 minutes every time before adding fresh water so that I don’t get TDS creep
• Dosing – I haven’t dosed anything except for a bit of Magnesium in over 6 months. Calcium stays right around 460 and doesn’t budge. Alkalinity stays steady / rises.
• Coralline Algae – There is a good bit on my two gyres and my magnetic glass cleaner. There’s also some on my rocks, but it’s not caked on there like I see in a lot of tanks. Not sure why it hasn’t taken off yet – might be another hint as to why SPS won’t live/grow.
• Other corals – I have a few zoas that I have had for over 6 months. They are doing fine and are colorful, opened up, etc, but they have not grown at all – no new polyps whatsoever. Any reason why zoas would look perfectly fine, but not grow at all? Maybe another clue as to what’s wrong with my tank?
• I had a few clams sitting on the sand bed – one died after about a month, the other after about 3 months.
• Fish – I have a bunch of fish in there – all happy and healthy and none that would be picking at SPS, so I’m confident that’s not it
• Food feeding: Pellets 1x daily; Frozen mysis shrimp 1x daily
• Absolutely no sign of pests, so I’ve ruled that out

Lighting:

Settings are done via ecosmartlive.com on the Coral Lab SPS AB+ setting. Three (3x) XR15W G4 Radions sitting roughly 10 inches from the surface:

Par readings:

Light schedule:

General Tank Params:

Alkalinity:

This one has me quite perplexed. It really bounces around and I’m not sure why. Unclear how it can possibly increase, but it definitely does (for example, there were no changes to tank and no water changes between Jan 5 - Jan 17 and it increased from 7.8 to 9.8):

ICP Results:

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/73865

Random Tank Pics:

 

[ycnibrc]

Your tank is what I dicuss in this thread

Why cant u keep sps?

If po4 is really 0.024 then he needs to raise it up to 0.08 to 0.1

www.reef2reef.com

 

[sgrosenb]

Your tank is what I dicuss in this thread

Why cant u keep sps?

If po4 is really 0.024 then he needs to raise it up to 0.08 to 0.1

www.reef2reef.com

Thanks ycnibrc - that's very interesting. So you're thinking that if I add Zeobak and Zeostart3 that I will see much better results? I don't have a reliable source for some live rock unfortunately.

 

[ycnibrc]

Thanks ycnibrc - that's very interesting. So you're thinking that if I add Zeobak and Zeostart3 that I will see much better results? I don't have a reliable source for some live rock unfortunately.

Yes if all parameters are good then u are lacking of bacteria

 

[jda]

Don't expect this to help. You have bacteria or else stuff would not be functioning.

The dry/dead rock thing is real, but not because you don't dose any man-made bacterial products, but lack diversity and microfauna. It can take 2 to 3 years to come if you get some in on frags, plugs, snail shells and the like. Even if you dose that stuff, it is still a limited strain and you will still lack diversity and microfauna. You can probably do more by buying some live rock from Florida (there are several sources for cultured stuff near Tampa and you are luckier than most of us to be so close), QTing it and removing all the nasty crabs and stuff and then putting it in your tank.

Mike Paletta does a good job of talking about dry/dead started tanks in this article. He has been doing this for a long time and I think that he has a good amount of humility and honesty here:

Revisiting my Elos tank after 18 months | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Sometimes we just aren’t as smart as we think we are. I am using the “royal we” as I know I am definitely not as smart as I think I am a lot of the tie, especially when it comes to this hobby.

reefbuilders.com

 

[sgrosenb]

Thanks @jda - do you think I can narrow it down to lack of bacteria diversity, or do you see anything else that it could be?

 

[jda]

It is not just bacteria. The live rock has microfauna that do things, porous places where anoxic bacteria can live and do good things (not available in a bottle). All of this provides buffers and stability that is not there in a barren tank. Cryptic sponges are wonderful.

You live in Florida. Get a fishing license and collect some ricordea, some snails, some zoas on some rubble or jewelbox clam shell, etc.. I am just going off of what we did decades ago when we visited my grandparents, so I have no idea what you can get now. Make sure that it is legal for your county and the state and you can introduce all that you need this way. All of these things will have bacteria and microfauna on them that are invaluable.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Thanks @jda - do you think I can narrow it down to lack of bacteria diversity, or do you see anything else that it could be?

An excellent source of microfauna and bacterial diversity is IPSF. You can find them here https://www.ipsf.com/index.html

Their wonder mud is awesome. I was able to add SPS to my tank 3 months after start up with dry rock and dry sand. You get great biodiverity with their products...

 

[vetteguy53081]

I would focus on rock, Salinity and lighting as possible contributors.
I wonder if youre getting false salinity as Apex probe has let me down more than once indicating I had 34.8 or 1.024 to find at LFS it was 1.031 explaining loss or discoloration of my SPS.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Double check all your tests with different kits. It is odd that your alk would go up without dosing anything. Are you adding anything to increase ph like a buffer? Water changes with will cause this but its odd since TMPR has a lower alk. Lack of biological diversity is a real thing and I would not rule it out.

 

[RCS82]

An excellent source of microfauna and bacterial diversity is IPSF. You can find them here https://www.ipsf.com/index.html

Their wonder mud is awesome. I was able to add SPS to my tank 3 months after start up with dry rock and dry sand. You get great biodiverity with their products...

dang I wish I lived in the states sometimes lol.

 

[sgrosenb]

Some great feedback - thanks all. @jda I do live right near the ocean - do you think that grabbing a few handfuls of sand would get me a good bit of the way there (keeping it in ocean water the whole time as not to let anything die)? Or possibly couple that with the Wondermud that @SawCJack00 mentioned (ipsf website says Wondermud has "Reef Amphipods, Mama Mia Worms, Baby Bristle Worms, baby shrimps, baby snails and as a very diverse assemblage of reef phytoplankton and zooplankton."

Would I be well on my way to bacteria and microfauna needed? Not sure where to get sponges from... I'm tempted to just buy a few pieces of live rock from Tampa Bay Saltwater, but I worry about hitchhikers, etc.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[danoo]

When I started my tank I added IPSF wonder mud, fiji mud, and whatever bacteria that was on the cleanup crew from reef cleaners. It still took about 1.5 years before everything stabilized to the point where the tank was thriving. These might be good additions to your tank but they aren't going to be a magic cure.

Though your situation does seem on a different level because while in the early days I had mixed success with acros, I never had any trouble with montis or birds nest. I'm a little confused how it is possible for alkalinity to go up, but at the same time if your SPS corals aren't doing well it isn't that surprisingly for alkalinity consumption to be very low.

But at least one thing jumped out to me, and that was your iodine levels. It shows up as low on your ICP test, and in my own personal experience low iodine levels can lead to stressed SPS. I'll also add in this quote from a much more reputable source that I just saw in this interview with Adam at Battlecorals:

AD: Another great question. This is something that came out of ICP testing. I have never paid much attention to iodine. When Triton first hit the scene I had my tank tested and at one point early on I had extremely low, undetectable iodine. And at the same time was seeing some abnormalities in a lot of my sps colonies. Mainly thinned tissue and minor tissue recession around bases. I went ahead and boosted my iodine levels and things did seem to perk up. Many of the symptoms I was seeing did subside after the iodine was brought up, so I've been supplementing lightly ever since.

 

[sgrosenb]

Double check all your tests with different kits. It is odd that your alk would go up without dosing anything. Are you adding anything to increase ph like a buffer? Water changes with will cause this but its odd since TMPR has a lower alk. Lack of biological diversity is a real thing and I would not rule it out.

Funny you should ask @DesertReefT4r - no I don't add anything, but I've been asked before how I keep my pH up that high (if I'm not at the house and go on vacation, it goes up to 8.4-8.5 range). Any red flags or considerations I should think about given that I have naturally higher pH?

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Funny you should ask @DesertReefT4r - no I don't add anything, but I've been asked before how I keep my pH up that high (if I'm not at the house and go on vacation, it goes up to 8.4-8.5 range). Any red flags or considerations I should think about given that I have naturally higher pH?

No having a higher ph is a good thing and will increase coral growth. Just want to make sure you dose nothing? No kalk in the ato, cal reactor ? If not I would suspect inconsistent test results. Alk can't just drop and increase on its own. Water changes can cause this but only if the alk in the new saltwater is higher than the tank.

 

[sgrosenb]

No having a higher ph is a good thing and will increase coral growth. Just want to make sure you dose nothing? No kalk in the ato, cal reactor ? If not I would suspect inconsistent test results. Alk can't just drop and increase on its own. Water changes can cause this but only if the alk in the new saltwater is higher than the tank.

It's a mystery to me... I literally do not dose anything except some magnesium every few weeks or so. No calcium reactor, no kalk, no other reactors. The GHL KH Director is pretty accurate, and my Hanna alk kit confirms the results. Kind of feels like my SPS problems might be tied to this somehow

 

[sgrosenb]

Correction on this - I have a LaMotte alkalinity test not Hanna. My LaMotte and GHL KH Director are both very close to each other.

 

[Rick5]

Have you run the spontaneous/unprompted alkalinity increases by @Randy Holmes-Farley ?

 

[BigAsh]

My tank was started with dry rock and it took 18 to 20 months to stop killing acros and getting them to grow. Acro success also seemed to correspond with rapid proliferation of coralline algae. I also started dosing iodine and potassium in response to low readings on icp tests.

 

[sgrosenb]

Have you run the spontaneous/unprompted alkalinity increases by @Randy Holmes-Farley ?

I have and he had a few notes. Here is what he said on two different forums in response to rising alkalinity:

These are the things that can lead to apparent alkallinty rises:

Test error,
top off with tap water,
decline in nitrate,
dosing of nitrate,
dissolution of new artificial live rock
supplements or foods that contain alkalinity even if you do not realize it
dissolution of live rock or sand due to very low tank water pH
dissolution of live rock or sand due to very low pH inside of them due to degradation of organics

and:

The alk rise you report of 0.05 dKH per day is quite low and may be from a variety of usually minor sources, such as dissolution of aragonite sand or rock where the pH is low due to degradation of organics, such as down in sand. Sand is known to slowly dissolve and does add alk.

So it would seem to me that it may be my sand due to "degradation of organics", but I'm not sure what exactly that is. I had thought pH needed to be below 7.4 in order for aragonite to break down and add alkalinity to the water, and mine never drops below 8.0. However, maybe there is something going on underneath the sand that I'm not smart enough to understand, and that is causing the rise.

Either way, I still can't grow SPS - I'm hoping it might be the lack of beneficial bacteria. I just got some live rock from someone else's tank who has some beautiful SPS, and I'm also starting to dose Zeobak. Hopefully this helps, but any other thoughts are very welcomed!