SPS ongoing STN issues. Marine pure leaching?

[Holy_makerel]

I've been driving myself crazy for the last 6+ months trying to keep my SPS healthy. Tank is about 8 months old with 50% of the rock coming from my old system which was up for over a year. Rock is looking pretty mature at this point with lots of coraline growth in rocks and back glass.

60 gal mixed reef with zoas, LPS, monti, hydnophora, leptos, stylo, and acros.

Most everything is doing great but I'm currently losing the hydnophora which has flourished in the tank for over a year. Acros go through phases of growth and die back over the course of months and die back further everytime.

I've tried several different things to try and help my acros. Removing them all and dipping(bacterial i thought maybe), changing flow, alk levels (slowly), lighting, cleaning everything and making sure there isnt any rust or cracked equipment, added a grounding probe, added miracle mud, and added a temp controller. Going as far as stopping all 2 part dosing and kalk additions, no carbon dosing or GFO and relying on waterchanges to try and stabilize whatever has been happening.

I really need to send in a triton test and get a picture of my water quality but here are my #s from yesterday

Alk- 7.65 hanna
Ca- 400ppm salifert
Mg- 1320ppm salifert
No3 25ppm salifert
Po4- 0.02ppm hanna low level
Temp ranges between 77-78

I'm only dosing 2ml each of 2 part/day(this keeps my levels stable). Manually dosing mg as needed. Small amounts of GFO and carbon in a reactor. Vodka dosing 1ml/day. Also run a cheato reactor which grows calurpa better than cheato.

Was using salinity salt but changed over to HW Reefer about a month ago. I do a 5 gal WC a week right now but for a few months i was doing 10 gal.

Only thing i haven't removed is the biopure spheres and plate that are in my sump and am starting to wonder if its leaching Al or something into my water.

Any other ideas? The frustration of it makes me wanna just go towards LPS but I'd love to grow some sticks.

 

[Som1else]

Check your SG using a refractometer that is calibrated with a saline solution. Then repeat the measurement but this time calibrate the refractometer with RO or DI water

 

[Holy_makerel]

Check your SG using a refractometer that is calibrated with a saline solution. Then repeat the measurement but this time calibrate the refractometer with RO or DI water

Good suggestion! Always use my refractometer. Recently calibrated. Water is at 1.025

 

[markalot]

The acro growth and dieback plus only using 2ml a day of 2-part points to a testing or nutrient issue IMO. Can you explain what kind of dieback you are seeing? Is it base recession, or are the tips distorting and then dying off, or are they losing color, getting thin skinned, and wasting away?

I don't like carbon dosing in Acro tanks. Every time I've tried it I have lost corals. Driving PO4 too low will kill them off every time, and the fact you have 25 nitrates and are carbon dosing tells me you may be occasionally bottoming out PO4. I just lost a big beautiful strawberry shortcake doing this. I decided to dose nitrate while carbon dosing and bam, high res Hanna gave me 2ppm Phosphate and within a month that coral lost polyp extension, lost color, and RTN'ed.

 

[Holy_makerel]

The acro growth and dieback plus only using 2ml a day of 2-part points to a testing or nutrient issue IMO. Can you explain what kind of dieback you are seeing? Is it base recession, or are the tips distorting and then dying off, or are they losing color, getting thin skinned, and wasting away?

I don't like carbon dosing in Acro tanks. Every time I've tried it I have lost corals. Driving PO4 too low will kill them off every time, and the fact you have 25 nitrates and are carbon dosing tells me you may be occasionally bottoming out PO4. I just lost a big beautiful strawberry shortcake doing this. I decided to dose nitrate while carbon dosing and bam, high res Hanna gave me 2ppm Phosphate and within a month that coral lost polyp extension, lost color, and RTN'ed.

STN starts generally at the tips but has also started with the base as well. Early on i thought maybe alk burn so i reduced my alk to around 7 for a while to see if that helped. Nope, same MO.

In the last month was when i started carbon dosing and GFO again. Went without for a full 3 months with no change except some hair algae. No3 has been fairly constant around 25 and before putting gfo back online i was running about 0.08 po4. I had thought the same thing about po4 bottoming out. I had that issue early on in the tank.

I was a lab rat for almost a decade running organic extractions and am really consistent with my testing technique. I'd figure my LPS would be hurting if i was bottoming out on my po4. My blasto colonies, acan colonies, chalices, and euphillia are all big and healthy.

Thank you for the input. When i move my tank to it's new location in my fish room I'm planning on doing a display refugium and hope to eliminate carbon dosing and GFO out of my filtration.

 

[markalot]

Keep in mind acros might need more nutrients than LPS. No kidding. It's not really measurable nutrients as how many nutrients are moving through the system. An SPS tank with a ton of fish will always do better than the same take with less fish. In smaller tanks where fish loads are lower measurable nutrients can work better.

Tip burn is high alk and low nutrients. I have yet to see or hear about it being associated with anything else. Base recession is generally due to unstable Alk. A wasting away, thin skin, STN in multiple places, is generally due to low nutrients or some other problem with the water not related to Alk. Those are my observations but every tank is different. The key is stability. Re-adding GFO combined with carbon dosing is going to lead to acro issues every time, so the current problems may be completely unrelated to past issues. You made a change and you're paying for it. I can't stress it enough, when I neglect my tank except for the usual maintenance (empty skimmer, fill topoff, etc) all the acros thrive.

 

[Holy_makerel]

Keep in mind acros might need more nutrients than LPS. No kidding. It's not really measurable nutrients as how many nutrients are moving through the system. An SPS tank with a ton of fish will always do better than the same take with less fish. In smaller tanks where fish loads are lower measurable nutrients can work better.

Tip burn is high alk and low nutrients. I have yet to see or hear about it being associated with anything else. Base recession is generally due to unstable Alk. A wasting away, thin skin, STN in multiple places, is generally due to low nutrients or some other problem with the water not related to Alk. Those are my observations but every tank is different. The key is stability. Re-adding GFO combined with carbon dosing is going to lead to acro issues every time, so the current problems may be completely unrelated to past issues. You made a change and you're paying for it. I can't stress it enough, when I neglect my tank except for the usual maintenance (empty skimmer, fill topoff, etc) all the acros thrive.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not going to change anything at this point since the tank is gonna get moved in the next few months and will have a large refugium added. I've got about the max bioload i feel i can comfortably maintain, yellow eye kole tang, 2 stripe rabbitfish, chalk bass, orchid dottyback, 2 sapphire damsels, orange spot goby, and a lawnmower blenny. When i take the GFO offline my po4 slowly creeps up then i have hair algae issues.

I feed nori in the morning and frozen+pellets in the evening, everyday.

 

[jda]

If I had to suggest a few things, first would be to stop changing things. Second, stop all GFO, organic carbon, LC, etc. Third get some solid acropora lighting and leave the alone for a year - T5 or MH are going to have better results than LED and will even harbor more resilient coral. If you have LED, then stop changing them. Fourth, get a fuge or other natural nutrient export that cannot drive the N and P too low like dosing can.

I would be willing to bet that a Triton test will not really reveal anything that matters... it might have some out of whack parameters, but every tank does.

 

[Holy_makerel]

If I had to suggest a few things, first would be to stop changing things. Second, stop all GFO, organic carbon, LC, etc. Third get some solid acropora lighting and leave the alone for a year - T5 or MH are going to have better results than LED and will even harbor more resilient coral. If you have LED, then stop changing them. Fourth, get a fuge or other natural nutrient export that cannot drive the N and P too low like dosing can.

I would be willing to bet that a Triton test will not really reveal anything that matters... it might have some out of whack parameters, but every tank does.

Thanks, I'll be taking carbon and gfo offline shortly and letting the tank do it's thing for a while.

Lights are LED/T5 hybrid and i haven't changed the light schedule at all besides adding the t5 and slowly bringing up the time running from 30 min to 5 hours.....which was done months ago.

 

[teen]

what salt are you using? ive been going through losses as well (similar to what you are explaining) meanwhile other sensitive animals like clams and a small goniopora are doing great. im just through a bucket of RPM and while a lot of other ppl praise it, it always leaves a residue in a bucket after i do a water change. ive been reefkeeping a greater portion of my life and i cant say its normal to me.

**just re-read your first post. im not familiar with the salt your using.

 

[scuzy]

What's your source water? Check it for chloramine?

 

[Camaro Show Corals]

do a treatment of brightwell coral recover and then the restor by them, i had the same issue and all my acros came back from stna nd havent seen any in months they even picked up growth and better color!

 

[Holy_makerel]

What's your source water? Check it for chloramine?

RODI system made from my city water

TDS out of faucet is about 80ppm

TDS out of membrane 1ppm

TDS after DI stage 0ppm

Probably prudent to add some prime to my water just in case

 

[Holy_makerel]

do a treatment of brightwell coral recover and then the restor by them, i had the same issue and all my acros came back from stna nd havent seen any in months they even picked up growth and better color!

Done dips with an iodine base and coral RX. I'll look into that dip as well

 

[Camaro Show Corals]

you put 5 ml per 20 gallons every day for a week

 

[happyhourhero]

I would also remove gfo and let your p04 come up a bit. Also agree you want something to combat phosphate like an algae scrubber or refugium. If I had to put a $100 bill on what I thought your problem was it would be that.

I went thru this as well and know it is super frustrating. I hope it turns around for you!

 

[Holy_makerel]

I would also remove gfo and let your p04 come up a bit. Also agree you want something to combat phosphate like an algae scrubber or refugium. If I had to put a $100 bill on what I thought your problem was it would be that.

I went thru this as well and know it is super frustrating. I hope it turns around for you!

Thank you!

 

[scuzy]

RODI system made from my city water

TDS out of faucet is about 80ppm

TDS out of membrane 1ppm

TDS after DI stage 0ppm

Probably prudent to add some prime to my water just in case

Just to let you know from my experience I had 0 TDs from my rodi but chloramine was in my water. My city uses it and I didn't know corals would do great and then die off. Check for total chlorine and if it anything but 0 you have chloramine.

 

[BigJim]

The test strips below can be used to test for cholramine if you think it may be an issue.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/insta-test-free-total-chlorine-strips-lamotte.html

 

[Holy_makerel]

Looks like my city doesn't use chloromine to treat the water. Just chlorine. Interesting that it details total alpha radiation detected in the water. We live near the hanford site.