SPS Keep STNing Need Help and Ideas

[aarbutina]

I have been having a bit of trouble with my SPS STN'ing recently. I can place a farg in the tank and it will look fine at first. Polys with be extended and things look happy. After about 2 weeks the polys will stop extending and retract and then the skin will start to peel at the tips. At first I thought it was my pellet reactor stripping all of the nitrate and phosphate out of my tank leaving practically zero nutrients. So I pulled the pellet reactor and initially things looked like they were starting to turn around. and then some of the acros started STN'ing again.

Here are the results from the lastest round of testing that I performed:

SG: 1.024 (I understand this is a tad on the low side but it shouldn't be killing SPS that said I am working on bringing it up).
Temp: 77.2oF
pH 8.2
Alk: 8.3 dkh (Hanna Checker)
Ca: 445 ppm (Hanna Checker)
Mg: 1270 ppm (Salifert)
Nitrate 4 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate 0.00 ppm (Milwaukee low range)

Some additional information:

I have tested my RODI for chlorine and chloramines, both 0.
I am reading 1 ppm on my TDS meter on my RODI Unit and have ordered new media to fix that (will be swapped out tonight_
Results of ICP testing that was performed 2 weeks ago (nothing stands out to me, CA was a bit high due to an over dose and has since fallen with water changes and not dosing) (testing was performed by ICP-Analysis dot com)
Aluminum 0.11 ppm
Arsenic 0.01 ppm
Boron 2.44 ppm
Barium 0 .01 ppm
Beryllium 0 ppm
Bromine 87.9 ppm
Calcium 621.5 ppm
Cadmium 0 ppm
Cerium < 0.01 ppm
Chlorine 23683.82 ppm
Cobalt 41.28 ppm
Chromium 0.02 ppm
Copper 0 ppm
Iron 0 ppm
Gallium 0.95 ppm
Iodine 0.01 ppm
Potassium 452.25 ppm
Lanthanum 0.02 ppm
Lithium 0.62 ppm
Magnesium 1306.09 ppm
Manganese 0 ppm
Molybdenum 0.04 ppm
Sodium 9798.72 ppm
Nickel 0.06 ppm
Phosphorus 0.08 ppm
Lead < 0.01 ppm
Rubidium <0.01 ppm
Sulfur 332.51 ppm
Antimony 0 ppm
Selenium 0.01 ppm
Silicon <0.01 ppm
Tin 0.04 ppm
Strontium 6.83 ppm
Titanium 0 ppm
Thallium <0.01 ppm
Uranium 0.05 ppm
Vanadium 0.01 ppm
Tungsten 0 ppm
Zinc 0 ppm

Tank is a 90 gallon display that has been running since February, lite with 4 radion Gen 4 XR15 pros. My radions do sit fairly close to the waters surface (~5" but they are dialed down so I wouldn't think this should be a problem). Water movement is provided by 2 MP40 that alternate between reef crest and nutrient export. Rock work was moved from a previous tank that started to leak, but DSB is new for the most part (some of the old sand was mixed in to seed). Goes without saying there is also a skimmer.

Vortechs have been check to ensure there is no rust.
I haven't been running carbon, but I just started running it again today to see if there an unknown organic was causing issues.

I don't see any sign that this is an SPS pest. It really seems like a chemistry issue that I can't pinpoint. Any help that people can provide would be great. I would be happy to answer any additional questions.

I recently confirmed that my Milwaukee low range phosphate meter can detect phosphate level down to about 0.05 ppm. So while it does read zero with my tank water is it possible that it could be any value less than 0.05 ppm.

I have tried dosing some phosphate over the past couple of days (using Seachem's Flourish Phosphorus) and so far I still can't detect any phosphate in the tank nor have I seen a response in the SPS. I did however loss a milli to RTN overnight last night. This was one of my frags that actually was still looking like i wasn't effected (which I do have a couple). It was fine before lights out and this morning it was totally peeling and almost completely gone. I had up the dose of phosphate to achieve a level of 0.03 ppm (2.4 mL of Flourish). I don't think that should cause this reaction but I suppose it could. I don't have any other explanations of such a rapid decline.

As an additional not my clams do not seem to be impacted, in fact they seem to be happy as clams. Nor are my Zoas. I would think it this was some sort of toxin or heavy metal issue that at least you would see some issues with the clams.

While i don't see pests, is it possible that there is a pathogen that could be causing issues?

While I work towards and answer I think I am going to set up a secondary (isolated frag tank) to move everything that isn't solidly in place out and see if they start to recover in a different system.

Happy to answer any question you may have. I am really scratching my head on this one.

 

[djrice69]

Take a frag almost dead or dieing sps out and test dip see if anything falls off. I'd look for aefw they hide pretty well.

 

[aarbutina]

Take a frag almost dead or dieing sps out and test dip see if anything falls off. I'd look for aefw they hide pretty well.

I can try that. I have some Coral Rx, do you think that it would that be sufficient?

My understanding is that aefw would typically leave more "blotchy" spot of tissue loss. This seems to be presenting more like and alk burn, but at the alk I am currently at it would seem unlikely.

 

[Coronus]

JMO, but you are doing too much. Stop doing everything. Take the carbon out. Stop dosing po4.
The tank is 5 months old. Its very young. Dosing this and that does not mature a tank.
I personally would shut all the dosing off and the reactors off. A tank that young doesnt need all that.
No3 is high for 5 month old tank. Let the tank mature, this takes months or longer for sps. How many fish do you have in the tank?
Bioload usually is an issue in new tanks. No stability also. Your keeping sps in a 5 month old tank. Hard to do and not recommended. They lose color eventually or rtn. Balance the tank, create months and months of stability. It takes a while.
Most important thing is balanced stabile alkalinity. Cut away dead tissue and remount. Keep doing this until it stabilized or dies.
The problem IMO is the tank is too new! Add more fish stabilize the tank. Take your time. Cut out all the extra stuff. Berlin method works perfect. Sump, protein skimmer, lots of fish. Lots of flow, lots of flow, lots of flow. Dosing only cal, alk, mag, k. Daily stability of alk.

 

[Coronus]

Lastly water changes cure all. Your tank is young, but every two weeks works. 15%. But thats with a good bioload.

 

[reefwiser]

From my experience in keeping SPS since 1991 some species are Very very sensitive to water quality issues.
It is baffling sometimes I see people check off all the water parameters and all are prefect. But at some point the tank had a hiccup and it can take up to two months for a coral to show STN because of it. I just did a reset of my tank because I had a spurt in growth of aptasia and had gotten into my sand. So I had to remove it. Have lost two corals so far the others are looking ok.
Waiting till MACNA to put a few corals I get in the tank. Building stability into your tank system is perhaps the best solution. I have been slowly doing this with my current tank but it is always and slow and rocky road to get every issue that would cause water quality issues under control. SPS have been use to high quality water and temperature stability and that is hard to achieve in a small glass box.

 

[aarbutina]

I totally agree with the statement that stability is key. As a bit of extra back ground I have been keeps SPS for probably going on 15 years. And am not unfamiliar with the do's and don'ts. I started with a 15 gallon nano reef (seen below) with a couple maxijet on a wave maker and a CPR BakPak 2 skimmer, with the light provided by 250w metal halide. Beyond using kalk in my top I I never really added anything. I monitored my parameters every once and a while and would maybe dump a little extra turbo CA when needed but they system just worked. Back then if you asked me what my nitrate was or my phosphate, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. But things grew and were colored properly (or the most part there are a whole lot of different lighting zones with 250w over a 15 gallon).

Flash forward a couple of years, a couple (under estimate) thousand dollars worth of equipment and a much more advanced understanding of the ins and outs of reef keeping and I can't keep anything alive.

Like clock work do a 5% water change once a week (of a total of 20% per month.
I maintain my temperature withing a 1/2 a degree.
My pH fluctuates around 0.15 pH unit over the course of 24 hours.
I monitor my alkalinity on a daily basis (and dose 2 part over the course of the day to ensure it is stable).
I do all my other testing on a weekly basis.

So all in all the parameters in the tank are fairly stable I would say.

Yes the tank is some what new, but with the exception of sand all of the rock work was pull out of a previous tank that had been running for 10 year or so. I will give you that sand can play a major function in the biological filtration. So it could be possible that an out of whack nitrogen cycle could be causing some issues at the sand bed continues to mature but I would think it would have to pretty seriously out of whack to be causing some of these issue, but I could be totally wrong there.

Yes the nitrates are a tad on the high side, but that was somewhat on purpose. When I was previously running the pellet reactor my nitrates were less then 0.25 ppm with undetectable phosphates. I was concerned that the corals could be starving so pulled the reactor and up'd my feedings to increase nutrient levels. Unless they are running a ULNS you see plenty of folks with nitrate levels in the 3-5 ppm ball park so I don't know if I would exactly say that they are abnormally and if they aren't fluctuating up and down constantly I don't really see an issue, but again I could be totally wrong.

I am definitely appreciative of the input and thoughts, so please don't take my reply and anything confrontational. I just wanted to give a little bit more background on where I have been in reef keeping, as I am a newbie here on R2R.

Part of my reason for wanting to set up a separate frag tank it to make the system very very basic. Tank, heater, skimmer, powerhead, light, ATO.... that's basically it (and a frag rack).

 

[aarbutina]

I also just realized I haven't giving a livestock run down (fishwise that is):

2 Clowns
1 Lawnmower blenny
2 Pajama Cardinals
1 Foxface Lo
1 Flame Fin Tang
2 Disbar Anthias
1 Diamond Watchman Goby

Then there is the assorted cleanup crew, cleaner shrimp and RBTA, but two clams.

 

[Vaughn17]

Lol, your nitrates aren't high. I just upgraded to a 180 four months ago. My tank is sps dominent and I added coral first when it finished cycling. NO3 was between 75 and 100 and PO4 was .5. The sps loved it, however, plates and chalices were not too happy and I had to remove those until the nutrients dropped. A month later my NO3 was 20 ppm and my PO4 was zero, and problems started. My lighting was also not up to par (literally) at the time, as I was awaiting new fixtures, so I hesistated to dose PO4 as heavily as I needed to. After three weeks, I started losing a few sps with more looking badly, so I dumped about 5 ml of Seachems's Activate in the tank and saw an immediate positive response. Began dosing daily and all ailing sps recovered.

PO4 doesn't kill stoney coral, IME, unless it gets really high (over 3 ppm). My qt has PO4 over 1 ppm right now. It doesn't have any acros, but has montis and stylos that are growing and really brightly colored. Also has a ton of bubble algae, lol.

BTW, I have dosed both NO3 (sodium nitrate) and PO4 (Activate) for over a year now with really positive results.

 

[Coronus]

Lol, your nitrates aren't high. I just upgraded to a 180 four months ago. My tank is sps dominent and I added coral first when it finished cycling. NO3 was between 75 and 100 and PO4 was .5. The sps loved it, however, plates and chalices were not too happy and I had to remove those until the nutrients dropped. A month later my NO3 was 20 ppm and my PO4 was zero, and problems started. My lighting was also not up to par (literally) at the time, as I was awaiting new fixtures, so I hesistated to dose PO4 as heavily as I needed to. After three weeks, I started losing a few sps with more looking badly, so I dumped about 5 ml of Seachems's Activate in the tank and saw an immediate positive response. Began dosing daily and all ailing sps recovered.

PO4 doesn't kill stoney coral, IME, unless it gets really high (over 3 ppm). My qt has PO4 over 1 ppm right now. It doesn't have any acros, but has montis and stylos that are growing and really brightly colored. Also has a ton of bubble algae, lol.

BTW, I have dosed both NO3 (sodium nitrate) and PO4 (Activate) for over a year now with really positive results.

I wrote his no3 was high for a 5 month old tank.
My tank is 7 years old with zero no3. IME sps def does not love no3 at a 100. They may be surviving but this is not recommended nor is it responsible reef keeping.

 

[aarbutina]

Coronus, I think it is all in how you balance things. If you are running a tank with zero nitrates and zero phosphates and run you alk between 7 and 8 you should be all good. This is very much in line with how folks were running their ultra low nutrient systems and zeo systems 10 years ago. That being said you are now seeing people keep successful tanks with both detectable nitrates and phosphate (like is said 3 to 5 ppm nitrate and and around 0.03 pm phosphate). Under there conditions they are able to push their Alk higher to 9 or 10 or 11. In most situations that I have heard of if you bring the alk up to above 9 in an ULN system you are going to fry your SPS.

For folks how runs NoPox and follow the Red Sea recommendation they are looking to achieve the levels below.

Nitrates are bad for SPS. Its all about the balance of the rest of your system.

 

[Coronus]

Charts like that change all the time. Each tank is different. If I allow detectable no3 or po4. I start growing algea in any of my systems. Zero works for me. You can have nutrients in your tank successfully without detectable nitrate and phosphate.

 

[aarbutina]

Totally agree... It is all in how you keep your tank and how it is balanced. I think my point was more that detectable nitrates aren't bad. Many many people keep successful tanks with varying levels of nitrates. In other cases, like yours, nitrates start to cause issues.

That being said I don't think that having a nitrate level of 5 should be killing SPS. And I don't think I was as explicit about it before but when i was running my pellet reactor my nitrates were very low and I had undetectable phosphates and i was still experiencing this issue. At that point I was keeping my alk between 7 and 8 dkH. There was some fluctuation, as I was dialing in my doser. I also did spike as high as 10 when I was out of the country and the wife was watching the tank and everything go fried. the spike was cause by a depressed pH with happened when my co2 scrubbing media exhausted while I was away (for some reason the inside of my house must have ultra high levels of CO2. I can exhaust a canister of fresh media in a week (which makes zero sense to me).

 

[teller]

Totally agree... It is all in how you keep your tank and how it is balanced. I think my point was more that detectable nitrates aren't bad. Many many people keep successful tanks with varying levels of nitrates. In other cases, like yours, nitrates start to cause issues.

That being said I don't think that having a nitrate level of 5 should be killing SPS. And I don't think I was as explicit about it before but when i was running my pellet reactor my nitrates were very low and I had undetectable phosphates and i was still experiencing this issue. At that point I was keeping my alk between 7 and 8 dkH. There was some fluctuation, as I was dialing in my doser. I also did spike as high as 10 when I was out of the country and the wife was watching the tank and everything go fried. the spike was cause by a depressed pH with happened when my co2 scrubbing media exhausted while I was away (for some reason the inside of my house must have ultra high levels of CO2. I can exhaust a canister of fresh media in a week (which makes zero sense to me).

Hi,

For a 5 month old reef tank maybe this article from Michael Paletta helps:
https://reefbuilders.com/2017/07/08/revisiting-my-elos-tank-after-18-months/
He also had all numbers in check, but.....

 

[aarbutina]

Hi,

For a 5 month old reef tank maybe this article from Michael Paletta helps:
https://reefbuilders.com/2017/07/08/revisiting-my-elos-tank-after-18-months/
He also had all numbers in check, but.....

I think I had that article up yesterday but wasn't able to get around to reading it.

 

[CoralWealth]

I had a very similar issue, you can check my threads. I zeroed it down to being lazy and not doing water changes, and also my TDS was 1 too.

Once I started doing weekly water changes, making sure my TDS is 0 (I added an extra carbon block and DI filter way worth the $50 to do that). Everything got sooo much better. I had the same problem with the corals looking great for 2 weeks then just stning from the tips (very slow too). All I did was do the water changes, keep everything as simple as possible and everything is doing great now. (knock on wood).

If I was you, I would do multiple water changes after you get your new filters. Like 20g every 4-5 days for a month and see how everything looks then. Make sure when you are doing the water change you are matching the alk (muritac acid will help lower it). Also I would try to get your phosphates off 0, just feed your fish more.

 

[aarbutina]

Hi,

For a 5 month old reef tank maybe this article from Michael Paletta helps:
https://reefbuilders.com/2017/07/08/revisiting-my-elos-tank-after-18-months/
He also had all numbers in check, but.....

It is certainly an interesting article. One major difference between what the author as well as Sanjay did to what I am doing is the use of dead rock. As previously mentioned I used live rock transferred from a previous tank that had sprung a leak. That being said I did use a good amount of dead sand so there could be a parallel.

 

[aarbutina]

I had a very similar issue, you can check my threads. I zeroed it down to being lazy and not doing water changes, and also my TDS was 1 too.

Once I started doing weekly water changes, making sure my TDS is 0 (I added an extra carbon block and DI filter way worth the $50 to do that). Everything got sooo much better. I had the same problem with the corals looking great for 2 weeks then just stning from the tips (very slow too). All I did was do the water changes, keep everything as simple as possible and everything is doing great now. (knock on wood).

If I was you, I would do multiple water changes after you get your new filters. Like 20g every 4-5 days for a month and see how everything looks then. Make sure when you are doing the water change you are matching the alk (muritac acid will help lower it). Also I would try to get your phosphates off 0, just feed your fish more.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have heard stories similar to yours where just 1 TDS can throw things way out of whack. Looks like my RODI supplies will be here today. I will probably dump what remains of my water that I currently have sitting and start a fresh barrel. It makes sense to me to use some fresh water to set up a frag tank and see how some of the easy to remove frags respond. Those that are solidly mounted to rock work may have to remain as the canary in the coal mine so to speak. It would be quite frustrating if it was something as simple as the DI resin letting something through that was killing my tank. But like I said it wouldn't be the first time that I heard of something like that being the case (you will also hear a lot of people state that a couple TDS really isn't that bad but it really matters what that TDS is...).

 

[Vaughn17]

I wrote his no3 was high for a 5 month old tank.
My tank is 7 years old with zero no3. IME sps def does not love no3 at a 100. They may be surviving but this is not recommended nor is it responsible reef keeping.

First off, you misquoted me. I stated that the NO3 was BETWEEN 75 and 100 ppm, not 100. Secondly, I was not recommending that anyone keep their tanks with NO3 at 100 ppm. I was running an experiment by adding corals to a new tank before fish, as newly cycled tanks generally have high nutrients so it makes sense to add species that utilize nutrients as opposed to creating them (i.e. fish). I aim for NO4 between 2.5 an 5ppm and PO4 around .1 ppm. BTW, I believe there are some extremely experienced sps keepers who maintain their tanks with high NO3.

Lastly, keeping a tank with zero NO3 is irresponsible reef keeping. And by saying that your tank has zero NO3, which you did, you fuel the misconception in this hobby that sps need zero/zero NO3/PO4 water quality to thrive and survive. Reality is, you have nutrients or some other food source in your tank or you would not be able to grow such a fine acropora colony. My tank's nutrients would be undetectable, too, if I stopped dosing NO3 and PO4, then after a few weeks sps would start dying. To each her/his own.

 

[aarbutina]

I don't know if I would call people who run a zero/zero system irresponsible. This is a method that has been used to grow and color SPS for many years. It's not that there is really zero zero it is that the consumption of nutrients is balanced. This consumption also includes consumption by the corals. If there was really zero the corals would starve. That being said running zero zero system doesn't leave a lot of room for error. As it is a very delicate balancing act.