STN decimates my thriving reef!

[Cory]

I use ATI Labs. I have used Triton in the past and will probably send a sample to them to compare.

Curious what was wildy different?

 

[CDavmd]

So things continue to slowly progress downward. I decided to clip off a piece of skeleton that had just lost tissue in the last 24 hours and take a look under the microscope.

I'm seeing a large population of Ostreopsis!! Whats curious is that the brown slime is not forming in my system. This may be due to the very high flow I'm running- 2 WAV's and a GYRE. The high flow may be preventing the formation of large clumps of the Dino slime and thus fooled me.

This would explain the death wave that has taken hold. Ostreopsis is quite toxic. Further I have noticed that my water does not have the salty smell of the ocean but rather an odor which is reminiscent of freshwater tanks.

I still feel other factors such as the antinomy are at play but with the amount of ostreopsis I am seeing I am not surprised the corals are dying. I'm going to add a more powerful UV running in the main display and see if this helps.

 

[CDavmd]

Curious what was wildy different?

nothing that I am aware of at the present- I just liked ATI as they seemed to have a faster turn around in the past. I'm want to send a comparison to Triton and see if they also note a high antimony just to confirm.

 

[Bassmaster116]

The title says it all. Why did this happen??? several factors at play but I have been unable to reverse it and at this point I am losing every single Acropora in my system
Utter frustration!

So to start- I am not a new reefer and I have been at this hobby for a many years. I've mainly kept LPS in the past with a few hardy SPS without any major issues. If you are interested please see my tank build thread in my signature. I gradually shut down my old system which had been running for over a decade as I brought my new system online. The new system is a RSR 425xl- I started it last February-March so it is approaching its one year mark.

It was started with a mixture of Marco premium rock and KPaquatics live rock from Florida. I let it mature for about 4 months before turning on the lights and adding the first fish. The pod population exploded in that time and I avoided all the uglies and essentially never had a turf algae issue. I then added a few of my coral colonies ( mainly LPS) from my old system as well as coralline scrapings. Within a few months the rocks were all completely covered in healthy purple. Coraline really took off so I added a few small frag test SPS. They also took off- quickly encrusting and branching out.

The tank continued to do well with all the coral growing beautifully. I would periodically seed copepods from algae pod as well as amphipods from Florida pets. I fed heavily, did monthly water changes, ran carbon a couple weeks each month. I dosed a little microbacter 7 every couple weeks and daily flatworm stop. My parameters were pretty stable running alkalinity of 8.2 and calcium of 420ish checking with a trident ( and hanna tester before trident was available). My magnesium runs 1360 and Nitrate has held steadily around 5-10. Phosphate for the most part averages 0.08 but I have had some fluctuations from 0.03 to 0.17 at times. Phosphates have never bottomed out but rather I have had a couple times when I was out of town and feeding pellet food where it got as high at .27.

Well during the summer I had an outbreak of ice or velvet- not really sure which. I believe it came from the amphipods I was seeding each month because all the fish had been quarantined with copper prior to introduction. I removed them all and went fallow for about 82 days. During this time I ghost fed the tank and nutrients never bottomed out. The corals and SPS continued to grow rapidly and color up beautifully. You can see some of the growth on my build thread. My Alk/Calcium supplementation was with ATI essentials Pro and the amount needed was getting prohibitive so I set up a calcium reactor running reborn and remag.

In December I started re-introducing the fish. Just prior to doing this I made a slight change to my aquascape and added about 5 pounds of new sand in a few spots. This is when problems first started.

The sand developed golden brown areas which I thought was diatoms and expected. It started looking a little too thick and I noticed some in areas where corals were combating for real estate. I sampled it and to my dread I had a mixture of small cell amphidinium and Ostreopsis. Nutrients were still good if not a little high (phosphate 0.1 and Nitrate 10)-

I took immediate action with siphoning, increasing flow, dosing silicates, and running UV. I also did the Dr. Tims 3 day blackout with Refresh x 3 doses followed by waste-away for 5 doses. This seemed to work and the Dinos disappeared. I kept the UV going for the next 4 weeks. I also stopped water changes for a bit.

I finished adding the fish back and continued to feed heavily which is my custom (probably a little too much). The tank is fairly heavily stocked-

2 clowns
2 firefish
1 midas blenny
1 Dracula goby
1 red fin fairy wrasse
1 flame wrasse
1 melanurus wrasse
1 banana wrasse
1 purple tang ( 3 inches)
1 blue throat trigger (3-4 inches)
2 cleaner shrimp
1 Serpent star
Several trochus, nassarius, nerite snails
1 conch

Sooo I removed the UV around the new year. No obvious Dino's returned but then I noticed some green film like algae on one rock. This was right after a New Years trip during which the tank was fed the Neptune pellet food. My Phosphates were 0.2 when I returned. I did a water change but Several days later the green slime was starting to spread and I realized it was cyano. Around this time I noticed my green slimer coral which had grown into quite the early colony started showing some tissue loss. I trimmed and epoxied the area but it continued. A growing frag just behind it also showed some early STN. Despite trimming, epoxy, etc they both progressed gradually losing all their tissue. I increased flow again, added more carbon, more water changes, refresh and waste away protocol and this seemed to end the cyano but the STN continued. No obvious flatworms on any corals.

I got an ICP test result back around this time. I had sent it before going on vacation. To my surprise the results showed extremely high Antimony!! The level was 26! No idea where this came from. It was not in my RO water ICP test and I can't imagine its in my Salt (I'm using Tropic Marin Pro Reef). Just in case I have sent an ICP on my salt reservoir and it is pending.

Since Antimony is found in plastics I scoured the system. The only thing I could come up with is some ABS 3d printed adapters I had made for my WAV pumps. I removed them, did 6 x 15% water changes, ran chemipure and polyfilter.

I noticed some algae like growth on my sand and checked it under the scope and again saw small cell amphidinium mixed in with diatoms, and all sorts of pods, etc. There were more Dino's than expected so I started the UV again which seems to have knocked them back again.

Despite all this- the STN continues to spread. Red planet near the two previous STN causalities started to go, then several throughout the tank started losing tissue. Some are holding on but others have progressed to RTN. My birds nests, Oregon tort seem unaffected thus far but I am steadily losing all my Acropora. The way it has spread really makes me think of an infection but who knows. All I can surmise is that a series of events initiated this fire and now its going to run its course with the death of all my Acropora.

Things that I think contributed-
1. Dino toxin
2. High organic nutrient due to heavy feeding and re-introduction of fish too quickly (explains the cyano appearance)
3. Cyano toxin (species was the green type that is known to be more toxic)
4. High Phosphate spike during pellet feeding while I was on vacation
5. Antimony pollution???

I've sent another ICP test which is cooking. Also sent a DOC test and Aquabiomics test to see what bacterial species are dominating.
I'm dosing Dr. Tim's ecobalance and doing weekly water changes. Nutrients and chemistry remain stable.
Not sure where to go from here?

I feel your pain! I currently am in an almost identical situation minus the velvet. Cyano due to auto feeder hopper fell out into my tank while i was gone spilling tons of pellets and flaked food into my tank. Got rid of the cyano only to have dinos.... Then my ATO pump went out when i was gone sump ran low and had a 5 degree temp swing... Dinos are back and most of my SPS have STND...

 

[CDavmd]

I feel your pain! I currently am in an almost identical situation minus the velvet. Cyano due to auto feeder hopper fell out into my tank while i was gone spilling tons of pellets and flaked food into my tank. Got rid of the cyano only to have dinos.... Then my ATO pump went out when i was gone sump ran low and had a 5 degree temp swing... Dinos are back and most of my SPS have STND...

Ouch sorry- it really does suck!

I have to say that something has changed in our hobby. I have run tanks for a long time and never had these types of issues. Some Turf algae yes on occasion, a short run of Cyano-yep! but things would always sort out.

These days it seems despite pain-staking quarantine of fish, something pops up. Despite all the care I took in setting up this system now I am dealing with the dreaded Ostreopsis plague!!! Just so frustrating.

It especially hurts given how nicely all my frags had grown out- things looked gorgeous in December and now its death and destruction! My wife keeps asking me is this really worth your time

 

[Cory]

If you have dinos, i got rid of mine by raising po4 to .60ppm. Gone in a week.

 

[Bassmaster116]

Ouch sorry- it really does suck!

I have to say that something has changed in our hobby. I have run tanks for a long time and never had these types of issues. Some Turf algae yes on occasion, a short run of Cyano-yep! but things would always sort out.

These days it seems despite pain-staking quarantine of fish, something pops up. Despite all the care I took in setting up this system now I am dealing with the dreaded Ostreopsis plague!!! Just so frustrating.

It especially hurts given how nicely all my frags had grown out- things looked gorgeous in December and now its death and destruction! My wife keeps asking me is this really worth your time

I can tell you now, im at the opposite end of the spectrum and an extremely new... had a tank in highschool with no clue what i was doing... My current tank ( 75g and 40B with a mutual 40b sump) just turned a year old. In the beginning i was so ontop of things and kept changing things...

As you know nothing happens fast so my growth rate for my sps wasn’t noticeable untill about a month before my issues started... which sucks boom stuff starts taking off then i get a kick in the gonads by running into these issues...

I will say however (knock on wood) i have had zero problems with fish disease once i added the 75. The first couple months i had my system up and going fish were healthy and happy... i upgraded to the 40b and took a small UV offline. boom i lost my clowns and plenty others... i was so frustrated so i finally decided to set up a QT... nope no matter what i did still had issues. My LFS had a jabeo 55W UV (yes extremely over sized) for sale, so i bought it installed it and stopped using a QT. Haven’t had a single fish die.. when i had my temp swing my powder blue didnt look good. Had ICH white spots all over it once temp came back up and was stable for a few days boom happy and healthy again. I am a huge believer in just feeding a sick fish more often and running UV since my dino issue i actually replaced my UV bulb and added another 55W that will be arriving tomorrow.

Also ill be taking my ATS off line and running my skimmer only at night to help with PH fluctuations otherwise that will be my only means of mech. filtration... no socks, took both my gfo and carbon reactors off line when i added the 75G and removed my marine pure blocks. All i have now is UV, Lots of rock rubble, and my skimmer. Hoping by keeping things simple this will help! The most dreaded thing water changes are automated and my CUC keeps the sand pristine! Hoping that these new changes will help, if not im considering starting over... but not giving up!

 

[Dlealrious]

I had a similar issue happen late last year. I used a product called continuum equation which is like a floculant. After 2 week course it calls for 25% large water changes to suck out the remaining detritus. After first water change I lost and echi, then a few days later my blue tenuis, then another tenuis. So stupidly I did another water change. Over the next month I lost all my tenuis and blue coral apart from 1 blue. Multiple icp showed nothing off with my water. 4 months later instill can't keep tenuis, last 2 to 4 weeks then start to strip. Makes no sense as it's only tenuis now. I'm sure I introduced a bad bacteria that is causing havoc in my tank

 

[dwest]

So things continue to slowly progress downward. I decided to clip off a piece of skeleton that had just lost tissue in the last 24 hours and take a look under the microscope.

I'm seeing a large population of Ostreopsis!! Whats curious is that the brown slime is not forming in my system. This may be due to the very high flow I'm running- 2 WAV's and a GYRE. The high flow may be preventing the formation of large clumps of the Dino slime and thus fooled me.

This would explain the death wave that has taken hold. Ostreopsis is quite toxic. Further I have noticed that my water does not have the salty smell of the ocean but rather an odor which is reminiscent of freshwater tanks.

I still feel other factors such as the antinomy are at play but with the amount of ostreopsis I am seeing I am not surprised the corals are dying. I'm going to add a more powerful UV running in the main display and see if this helps.

I agree. Hit with UV in and out of display. Be sure to replace a GAC weekly for now. Good luck. I was reading your thread and impressed by your knowledge. Good luck!

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I would look into perhaps putting an ozone generator on the tank before I would go UV. I would think that ozone would be better at attacking the dinos that are on the tissues.

 

[GlassMunky]

Which company was it?

ICP Analysis

We do ICP analysis on all types of water. We test for 50+ elements and provide results as low as 10 ppt

www.icp-analysis.com

I will say this was about 1.5-2 years ago so maybe they have improved since then but for me it just turned me off of the whole idea, so I never did it again.

 

[CDavmd]

I agree. Hit with UV in and out of display. Be sure to replace a GAC weekly for now. Good luck. I was reading your thread and impressed by your knowledge. Good luck!

Thanks @dwest- appreciate that. I hope I can get this under control before I lose all the SPS.

 

[CDavmd]

I would look into perhaps putting an ozone generator on the tank before I would go UV. I would think that ozone would be better at attacking the dinos that are on the tissues.

Perhaps but I’m not willing to risk ozone in the home. I have family with respiratory issues and ozone is not a good idea.

 

[Brad ward]

It sounds like things went south after adding your new sand. I would remove it best you can. If antimony is a metal I would run cuprasorb in a reactor on slow flow. You could also add a little chemipure to the reactor. Sorry this is happening, it’s frustrating.

I agree
Sounds like it changed with the sand
I’ve heard people running magnets through new sand before adding it to remove metals
I run bare bottom with 24/7 skimming and chaeto and suffer from lack of nutrients
That’s my issue

 

[dadnjesse]

I read that you run the UV part time. Why not 24/7 thats how I run mine it doen't seem to hurt anything.

 

[CDavmd]

Sooo.....just to update everyone.....one by one I lost all the high end Acros. I tried fragging and then the frags would die. I used the new Triton STN-X.....didn't do a thing.

The UV which I do run 24/7 eliminated the Ostreopsis fairly quickly. Next came small cell Amphidinium. What's curious is that it is not completely responding to the UV ( this species unlike the large cell variety goes into the water column at night). I used a few black out days, did the bacteria method and it persists. Its not bad but gets progressively worse by 7-10 days after siphoning.

I finally gave in and used Chemiclean for the cyano and it did the trick.

I did compare Triton and ATI's ICP tests and they came back comparable. interestingly the last ATI test which still indicated high Antimony came with a message from ATI to ignore it, because it was a lab error?? In any event I could not find the source and I've given up on it.

I sent an Aquabiomics and it came back quite good. He indicated that I had quite the diversity and I'm only missing one bacterial species due to the UV. He states he could predict I had a UV sterilizer based on this result.

Lastly, I took out all the dead skeletons, removed some rock, did a pretty aggressive cleaning of the sand and also cleaned the sump. I opened up the aquascape a bit to improve flow and keep detritus from getting trapped. The survivors and other LPS corals are doing well and showing signs of recovery with good polyp extension.

The small cell amphidinium continues to be a pest but I'm gradually increasing my display temperature to 82-83 as per the recent suggestion that it may possibly be a solution to dino's. We'll see....

So the survivors are:

1. Oregon Tort: amazing that it was not fazed one bit by all the happenings.
2. Battle Corals Frog skin
3. Green slimer coming back from a little numb that was left
4. Purple Tip Turaki
5. Slimeball
6. Garf Bonsai
7. Two species of birds nest

Theres also a few spots with clear acropora like growth....little islands here and there...fingers crossed some survivors are coming back.

Here are a couple night shots to show the general landscape. I need to shoot some with the lights on.

Thanks for looking!

 

[dwest]

Sooo.....just to update everyone.....one by one I lost all the high end Acros. I tried fragging and then the frags would die. I used the new Triton STN-X.....didn't do a thing.

The UV which I do run 24/7 eliminated the Ostreopsis fairly quickly. Next came small cell Amphidinium. What's curious is that it is not completely responding to the UV ( this species unlike the large cell variety goes into the water column at night). I used a few black out days, did the bacteria method and it persists. Its not bad but gets progressively worse by 7-10 days after siphoning.

I finally gave in and used Chemiclean for the cyano and it did the trick.

I did compare Triton and ATI's ICP tests and they came back comparable. interestingly the last ATI test which still indicated high Antimony came with a message from ATI to ignore it, because it was a lab error?? In any event I could not find the source and I've given up on it.

I sent an Aquabiomics and it came back quite good. He indicated that I had quite the diversity and I'm only missing one bacterial species due to the UV. He states he could predict I had a UV sterilizer based on this result.

Lastly, I took out all the dead skeletons, removed some rock, did a pretty aggressive cleaning of the sand and also cleaned the sump. I opened up the aquascape a bit to improve flow and keep detritus from getting trapped. The survivors and other LPS corals are doing well and showing signs of recovery with good polyp extension.

The small cell amphidinium continues to be a pest but I'm gradually increasing my display temperature to 82-83 as per the recent suggestion that it may possibly be a solution to dino's. We'll see....

So the survivors are:

1. Oregon Tort: amazing that it was not fazed one bit by all the happenings.
2. Battle Corals Frog skin
3. Green slimer coming back from a little numb that was left
4. Purple Tip Turaki
5. Slimeball
6. Garf Bonsai
7. Two species of birds nest

Theres also a few spots with clear acropora like growth....little islands here and there...fingers crossed some survivors are coming back.

Here are a couple night shots to show the general landscape. I need to shoot some with the lights on.

Thanks for looking!

Unfortunately, the turning point in winning my small amphidinium battle was just after I removed my sand.

 

[TX_Punisher]

Good luck. I'm dealing with a small dino outbreak but it seems to be getting better. Corals seem unaffected.

This hobby certainly has a way of humbling you despite years of experience.

Good luck