SPS problem, spots

[Graffiti Spot]

I would check any funky looking frags at night to see if there are spiders or anything else weird you missed. Although I personally don’t think pests would cause this, spiders and some other stuff can be sneaky. If they are clean then maybe try feeding a little more, I wouldn’t change much else though, unless stuff gets worst but most pics of acros were not bad imo. Except for the tiny frags, but the smaller the frag the easier they are to stress ime.

 

[Cfellini91]

Checking your lightening, that’s going to be your biggest thing. Talk to your LFS about a parmeter. It could be the adjustment in lightening.

 

[Cfellini91]

Checking your lightening, that’s going to be your biggest thing. Talk to your LFS about a parmeter. It could be the adjustment in lightening.

 

[Rakie]

I've got three opinions for you. My first step is the most important as it rules out MANY little critters and all pests. It may be a mix of a few things though. Each of these suggestions is it's own little recipe to solve each problem.


1) The first thing to do immediately, go to any petshop and get Melafix -- Any version works but I suggest POND, as it's stronger.

Dip your corals in Melafix, and if you go through with this ask me all about it. There's a bit of information to using Melafix and I will walk you through the process. I suggest this dip above all, if you have any pests (even very unusual ones) this will kill them. From any type of worm, to SPS spiders, to nudis, to pyramid snails. It will kill anything.

But seriously ask me about how to use it, as it depends which version you get.

___________________

and my PO4 went to 0

2) This is what I would look into immediately. You don't want zero po4, I would suggest an absolute minimum of 0.05, ideally more like 0.10+. It's a myth that SPS dislike phosphates. And cutting phosphates to zero is basically how you speed-kill corals, especially zoas in my experience. Yes, I saw you fed more and that it didn't help, but feeding isnt exactly the same as a controlled dose.

That's where my bet would be first and foremost. I would pickup Seachem Phosphorus and dose that.

I would also suggest the follow taboo's
- No filter socks
- No chaeto or dose Chaeto supplements
- Dose po4 to 0.10
- Get no3 to 20-25

If this does not help, I would then assume it's likely that you're greatly undervaluing the rust issues on your return pump. Lastly it's possible you have an unusual pest (Bobbit worms eat corals when young, and are too small to eat fish, for example).

On Rust: Tunze is the only pump where some magnet rust is okay, because they use a different magnet that makes an inert form of rust that doesn't harm our reefs. They do this at great cost to them, because that's how you make the best equipment on the planet. Yes, I'm slightly biased when there's good reason to be!

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3) So the first thing I would say, is that 0 water change systems with Fuge that are NOT dosing essential elements becomes a problem over time.

How this problem manifests in order (lacking trace)
- Macro uses all trace
- Macro stops taking up nutrients
- Corals SLOWLY begin to pale (can take months)
- Corals slowly begin to STN

So if you are using ATI essentials, or Triton system, or just dosing something for your chaeto (it strips the water of essential metals) then you're fine. If not, this probably isn't the problem, but it isn't helping and may just be another straw on the camels back.

My symptoms were exactly what you're describing. You'd think i'd put this first in that case, but it's all good info to weed through.

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4) Stability issues
- Salinity
- Temp swings
- Alk swings
- High alk + Low nutrients?
- High Lighting + Low nutrients?
- High Lighting + High Alk + Low nutrients?
- Cal/Mag
- Wife randomly spraying the room full of fabreeze daily?

 

[CMO]

I'd second low PO4 as a potential. I recently had an issue with similar spots on certain corals and think it may have been from driving PO4 too low. Now that I've bought it back up things are recovering and spots are pretty much gone.

 

[Big E]

I want to add this info because @Pedoconfuego mentioned bacterial imbalance. My tank has always run at NO3 2 and PO4 0.06 when I changed my fuge light i started testing NO3 10 and PO4 0.0 would a new light change the way my tank is metabolizing NO3 and PO4 or did something else happen?

It looks like you've gotten some good advice already. I'll cover a few things even if they've already been addressed.

No light and then a change in bulbs could easily be enough to affect the algae filter and how it performs. Nitrates up and P04 down is the classic short term result when an algae filter starts to falter. At this point just try to get the Po4 up. I'd focus on that till you get your ICP results back.

Since the corals are struggling you have to watch alk levels as they can usually rise. Alk spikes aren't a cause but a result of slower growth and then it becomes a stressor and another change.

Its a good bet there was a combination of stressors to cause the results. With no water changes you need to have a plan in place to replenish trace elements. This is mainly either a calcium reactor or a dosing plan. If this was never done it's possible as another cause. So something will need to be done with that.
Off the top of my head I'd check potassium levels as it's one of the larger elements. I'd check Mg as well.

Pests-- not sure of this as you haven't found anything yet and the montis going bad sounds more like a chemical/bacterial issue. A frag that is pale from pests or otherwise will take about two weeks to show signs of recovery if they are clean.

I'd keep carbon off line for now as it will reduce dissolved organics and the corals could probably use that right now.

If you're dosing any foods, products, ect. that don't have natural ingredients listed on the bottle stop them.

 

[Fishfinder]

@Rakie I’ll be using some melafix today with a friend. The rust issue-it didn’t seem like much rust at all. But I am working on new pumps/replacements. But the holiday weekend has that held up. Was your issue from cheato and using up trace?

@Big E can you explain to me why NO3 rising and PO4 dropping happens when the algae filter struggles? I’d love to understand why. I was on top of alk testing when this process started and didn’t have any spike.

But my dosing has been cut in half lately from the lack of uptake. May also explain the rise in nitrate?

My biggest guess is the fuge. From having no lighting then changing a bulb. I feel like I messed up it’s efficiency. Or it released something when it wasn’t being lit

 

[Rakie]

@Rakie I’ll be using some melafix today with a friend. The rust issue-it didn’t seem like much rust at all. But I am working on new pumps/replacements. But the holiday weekend has that held up. Was your issue from cheato and using up trace?

My issue was from lack of nutrients. I had a small tank and my nutrients bottomed out. Usually the ULNS thing works with people who have large and mature tanks with big fish (large tangs). Not everybody, but most people in this situation don't realize while they are testing "zero" nutrients they have plenty, and that in a smaller tank like mine was, we could hit "true zero", which is a legit hard zero. That's very hard on corals in general, and what I had happening physically looks exactly like what you had happening to you.

The trace issue is something that takes time to happen, but over time it can be an issue if you aren't supplementing trace.

But my dosing has been cut in half lately from the lack of uptake. May also explain the rise in nitrate?

My biggest guess is the fuge. From having no lighting then changing a bulb. I feel like I messed up it’s efficiency. Or it released something when it wasn’t being lit

Could be related. Well kept ATO's are ruthlessly efficient. Typically too efficient for my liking. I don't think it leaked anything, but if it were dying from zero lighting then it would be putting out no3, and once lit up it would resume taking up po4 pretty quickly.


So po4/no3 balance issues -- When you have balance issues with po4/no3 one or the other won't be taken up -- this is my anecdotal experience from testing during my ULNS trials. When I had zero po4, my no3 would rise because the lack of balance meant the no3 wasn't being taken up. When I dosed po4, no3 started dropping. And when po4 is very high, I've found dosing no3 lowers po4.

They rely on each other, and are both crucial. With no po4, NO3 can't be properly utilized. With no no3, po4 can't be properly utilized.

The big taboo I tell everybody is to not limit po4. Dose some. Your no3 will likely drop as it begins getting consumed.

 

[Rakie]

Dipping Melafix The easy way

With Pond: I typically use 1-2mL per CUP of water (8oz)
With Regular/Marine: 1-2 caps (5-10mL) per CUP of water (8oz)
Duration: 5-7 minutes, you either need a micro powerhead or a turkey baster/pipette to blow off pests. They may cling onto the coral
Rinse: A gentle rinse is all that's needed after a melafix dip

Mind the timer for the duration. It's very, very important. If you forget a frag for 15 minutes it'll be dead. Melafix is both awkwardly gentle and very harsh as the time goes on. It kills most anything very, very quickly. Including LPS/SPS spiders.

 

[Fishfinder]

I went to see @bubbaque today. Dipped some of the worst Frags. No pests at all. I feel better and worse at the same time. I was hoping for an answer. I’ll keep going with water changes and PO4 dosing

 

[Seminoles76]

Sorry to hear that fish. Been there with that feel better and worse feeling.

In your last picture you posted with the hippo, there is a black/dark circle. Almost looks like something burrowed into that one. Was that all good coral flesh where you circled and is that a hole or just a photo issue?

Hopefully, the WC and PO4 will get you straightened out.

 

[Fishfinder]

Sorry to hear that fish. Been there with that feel better and worse feeling.

In your last picture you posted with the hippo, there is a black/dark circle. Almost looks like something burrowed into that one. Was that all good coral flesh where you circled and is that a hole or just a photo issue?

Hopefully, the WC and PO4 will get you straightened out.

Good eye, It’s just shadowing. When you look at it in person it’s just a solid white spot

 

[Justfebreezeit]

I had very similar looking damage to a garf bonsai. I found a rusting weight in an algae scrubber.

Removed it and did water changes and it healed. Just a thought.

 

[Rakie]

I went to see @bubbaque today. Dipped some of the worst Frags. No pests at all. I feel better and worse at the same time. I was hoping for an answer. I’ll keep going with water changes and PO4 dosing

That's good -- Narrowing things down is a good thing.

 

[Big E]

@Rakie I’ll be using some melafix today with a friend. The rust issue-it didn’t seem like much rust at all. But I am working on new pumps/replacements. But the holiday weekend has that held up. Was your issue from cheato and using up trace?

@Big E can you explain to me why NO3 rising and PO4 dropping happens when the algae filter struggles? I’d love to understand why. I was on top of alk testing when this process started and didn’t have any spike.

But my dosing has been cut in half lately from the lack of uptake. May also explain the rise in nitrate?

My biggest guess is the fuge. From having no lighting then changing a bulb. I feel like I messed up it’s efficiency. Or it released something when it wasn’t being lit

Every healthy system creates a nutrient balance based on many variables ranging form export systems in use and livestock loads. With algae filters.....chaeto only..... it's common over time to have limited nitrates and the po4 will tend to rise. Chaeto takes out 100-1 nitrate to phosphate These people end up having to dose nitrate or use GFO to keep a balance. This is also common with carbon dosing.

Because it's based on the setup and livestock some systems will have a good balance.........every system is dynamic
In your case you had a good balance with your setup .....when the algae filter stopped working at it's current level the No3 rose and created an imbalance making P04 limited. The bacterial population changed, coral intake changed, ect. When it was working good the Po4 was being replenished fast enough to have some always available.

People are going to have issues when either nutrient level is at zero. The corals will slowly struggle the longer this persists. Acropora are most sensitive to this.

 

[Patrick.S]

This is not from personal experience, but I have seen very similar damage caused to sps by a tailspot blenny. Any chance you have a blenny in the tank?

 

[Fishfinder]

@Big E that does make complete sense. I removed some of the cheato and I’ll keep dosing the PO4. Hopefully it will balance back out soon.

 

[Fishfinder]

This is not from personal experience, but I have seen very similar damage caused to sps by a tailspot blenny. Any chance you have a blenny in the tank?

I do have a bicolor blenny......

 

[WWIII]

Sorry to see you having these apparent issues @Fishfinder. My main display tank has also had similar issues. I think it is bacterial related in my case and maybe in yours as well? I wish there was a bacteria test for our reef tanks that could provide some guudance for a stable reef tank. That may be impossible, since I'm sure there are a lot of different critters and strains in our tanks at any one time.

My tank seemed to go through this after I finally got rid of dinos. I am pretty sure I had amphidinium dinos, which were taking over my sand bed and some other surfaces in the tank. I dosed microbacter7 and stopped trying to control nutrients. I let my po4 do whatever it wanted, while my nitrate always stayed around 2ppm. Eventually the dinos disappeared. Then I lost a torch and started getting spots on some acros and montis. The torch looked like brown jelly disease, but the sps just had spots showing up. Then one day my acros just started looking better and growing well again. I finally tested my po4 and it was near 0.1 ppm.

Bottom line is I had good looking acros and growth with both 0.02 po4 and 0.1 po4. I don't think that was causing the issues directly, but do feel it helped something out compete the dinos and whatever other "bad" bacteria that was hurting my corals. I honestly feel like the microbacter7 helped as well.

All during this my icp tests never showed anything out of the ordinary. I dipped corals, never found pests. It was frustrating, very frustrating! I guess at least I had the dinos to blame, but when they were apparently gone, the corals got worse before they got better.

Sorry not much good avice to share from my personal experience. Who knows if it is even related to what you're tank is going through? At the end of the day all we can do is keep the big 3 in line, test for heavy metals through icp, try to eliminate pests and hope for the best! Bacteria biodiversity is more important than we give it credit in these close systems, I think. The problem comes up in that we have no definition of what good bacteria biodiversity is and no way to test for it. Maybe a uv sterilizer would be appropriate during these times, when the corals are having issues and we don't have a clue why? Maybe the answer is seeding the tank with more "good" bacteria is another answer? I haven't seen anything definitive, other than eventually the tanks get better. Doesn't help much when we see our hard earned money and prized corals looking sick.

Good luck! Let us know what happens!

 

[Fishfinder]

@WWIII this is very helpful thank you. So you had random spotting also? I picked up microbacter7 yesterday. I’m hesitant to use because I don’t want nutrients to drop further. The consensus seems to be nutrient imbalance/bacterial. I pulled half my fuge and will continue with PO4 dosing. I might start some bacteria at lower dose