Struggling with some sps

gonzo620

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So let me start with my water quality.
Calcium 425 ppm
Alkalinity 8.8 dkh
Magnesium 1360 ppm
Ph 8.0
Nitrate 8-12 ppm
Phosphate.015 ppm
Temp 77-79
I perform a 30 gallons (15%) water change every other weekend. I’m dosing 100 mls of liquid soda ash and calcium carbonate via dosing pump.

Now the tank is a 3 year old 180 gallon with diy sump and frag tank total water volume 208 gallon.
Lite with a 12 lamp Aquaticlife T5 fixture (6 rows of 2 lamps) I’ve also added 3 AI primes for shimmer. Flow comes from 2 Tunze 6105. This photo was taken in April when color was satisfactory not great everywhere but but better than now.
EEDAF337-F235-4619-9A65-C53DC38E23DD.jpeg

So looking advise on what could be going on with mostly Acros. New frags lose color and look terrible for weeks. My colonies have slowly been turning for the worse similar to the new frags. Including my Montipora as well.
Largest oldest colony German purple polyp and a mystic Monti in the back.
901347D3-9E3E-4F64-9429-369505124C6E.jpeg

My red cap is very pale
AB255625-8415-4888-8074-2B589E8D9CFD.jpeg

The green Monti as well ( photo hides the paleness)
B45E9E7A-DE7D-4AC2-8566-63A0C3EC929E.jpeg

The hardest hit is the purple bonsai
19196E88-F448-4E32-9BF1-0E2A10305BC5.jpeg

If you’d like more info let me know. If you have any theories chime in.
 
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gonzo620

gonzo620

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@Flippers4pups German is sitting at around 420
Montis are both at 240-300
Bonsai at 300
Don’t know what you’re referring to the primes?

Yes 100 mls daily.
Alk is dosed 6 times a day and cal 3 times a day for a ruff total of 100 mls each a day.
 

Flippers4pups

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Other than water contaminants as a possible factor, when mine would pale out it was due to low P04. Yours is a little low.

.02-.05 with N03 around 10-15 ppm. Your colonies are large enough to handle more nutrients.
 
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gonzo620

gonzo620

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I run gfo in a reactor. I’ve ran gfo in my tank since I got into reef keeping. Feel confident I’ve had these levels of po4 for many many years.
 

Nicholas Dushynsky

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Hi your original tank shot looks amazing. I know it's very disheartening when sps pale. The tank I currently have was thriving as in montipora digitata (being my only sps I've tried) was encrusting and growing fansntasticly. But I had a cyano issue that's when growth slowed right down then they paled and and stn with a little rtn on a couple of them.it went from this
Screenshot_20190612-110940_Video Player.jpg
to this
Screenshot_20190612-111045_Gallery.jpg
they were grown from 1 inch frags I just don't know why they just paled and died. I have been using the same light for 2.5 years now my levels are similar to yours with
Alk 8.3
Cal 460
Mag 1350
Nitrate 5-10
PH 8
Phos is higher at 0.06
Temp 78.5.
The only thing I had done differently before I went away on hol was do a quick water change and I didn't let the temp get the same which dropped the tank temp by about 3-4 degrees quite suddenly which is the only thing I can think of in my situation. But it all looked fine after and didn't notice any change of paling for 2-3 weeks.
I was dosing 25ml of alk and about 18ml cal via dose per day to keep stable then now I'm down to about 4 ml alk and turned the calcium off as has stopped being consumed and am had risen to 470. I hope someone can help shed light on your issue. My tank is only 24 gallon no sump.
 
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gonzo620

gonzo620

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@Nicholas Dushynsky Now I’m thinking maybe cyano might be the issue. I’ve been battling a small bout of cyano for about 6 month. I blame biopellets. Which I’ve taken off line. It was mostly confined to the sand around my rock flower garden and zoa garden, opposite ends of the tank. You can see it in the first picture. Also in my fuge. It killed off my cheato there. It’s growing well now since I stop BP.
 

Nicholas Dushynsky

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That's an imbalance between nitrates and phosphates so maybe phosphates or nitrates bottomed out and the reading is from die off??? I think my phosphates dropped from (maybe) the corals using it for growth as they were growing fast (for me at least) and basically starved themselves, I think I should have tested phosphates more often and not just when having issues. Reading around you have to dose phosphates to keep levels up in a sps dominant tank. Disclaimer these are my opinions, I'm no where near qualified enough to state this as fact. I just see it as corals are growing well, you keep up with alk and calcium consumption with mg to keep those steady, next you've taken the easy way and your doser is tuned and things are fantastic then slowly phosphates are being used for food and growth then things start fading, growth slows your dosing levels raise base levels and not keeping them steady where they've been. Now you start testing alk and calcium and tune the doser to the consumption you now have, you do a water change.
Next the phosphates are low and out of balance and cyano starts to grow, now things are on the decline then it's just a slow balancing act to bring everything back to the levels they were growing at and combat the cyano with water changes. You get die off from either stn or rtn then you get everything corrected you buy more sps and start the cycle again but remembering phosphates this time around. Iv just cut my dead stuff out gave it a little rescape last night and put back more euphillias from my other tank. If any sps remnants remain and grow, fantastic if not blah.
This was while refilling the tank so everything is annoyed but I've saved one piece of monti that hasn't started to die yet but the colour is way off.
Screenshot_20190612-004418_Gallery.jpg
 

rcpalmer1

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I would spend the $30 and do an ICP test. I found the all my trace elements were 0. I my opinion it is worth doing every few months. I would definitely do one if I had a tank like your that started to go down for an unknown reason.
 

Flippers4pups

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Imbalance in nutrients is and has been huge problem with some reefers, exacerbated by the use of GFO and carbon dosing when it wasn't warranted. I've personally responded to help new reefers here on many occasions, where they are dosing NOPOX/carbon, running GFO, doing huge water changes when all a long they had low nutrients to begin with.

In my system, I personally have what many would consider very high levels of N03 and P04. (N03 40-50 ppm and P04 at.10)

Only export methods I use are a skimmer and refugium with chaetomorpha. No dosing except kalkwasser in my ATO reservoir and weekly water changes of 10% of my water volume.

KISS!

DSC_0082.JPG
 

Nicholas Dushynsky

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I would spend the $30 and do an ICP test. I found the all my trace elements were 0. I my opinion it is worth doing every few months. I would definitely do one if I had a tank like your that started to go down for an unknown reason.
I think that's a great idea but the turn around from when you start to notice a problem it might be too late, so you start adjusting things and potentially make things worse like I did. I no my water change water is close to natural sea water as I actually use natural sea water that I collect myself, and have been using for over 2 years now and the lighting is the same Chinese black box vipar spectra that iv had for 2.5 years but was changing light intensity wandering if it was that causing an issue as its getting closer to the light and bleaching? Which just annoyed them more.
I think I just left it too late and not even thinking about phosphate as an issue doing water changes alone isn't enough to save them from rtn. I did frag off a couple healthier bits that still have polyps on them in the hope that it can come back one day.
 

Nicholas Dushynsky

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Imbalance in nutrients is and has been huge problem with some reefers, exacerbated by the use of GFO and carbon dosing when it wasn't warranted. I've personally responded to help new reefers here on many occasions, where they are dosing NOPOX/carbon, running GFO, doing huge water changes when all a long they had low nutrients to begin with.

In my system, I personally have what many would consider very high levels of N03 and P04. (N03 40-50 ppm and P04 at.10)

Only export methods I use are a skimmer and refugium with chaetomorpha. No dosing except kalkwasser in my ATO reservoir and weekly water changes of 10% of my water volume.

KISS!

DSC_0082.JPG
Amazing tank.
 

Nicholas Dushynsky

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My tank was running great on kalk in my ato,
I then went to 2 part as consumption was too high for kalk and had to manually add alk on top so went to a doser. My tank is a sumpless 24x18x18 90litre with no skimmer and just filter floss for a bit of mechanical removal and bio home media for biological. I only do a water change now and then.
I have been reefing for over 13 years now but this tank of only 3 years (13year old rock) is the first one I have had sps in, so I'm still learning these very finicky animals and how unforgiving they can be. My other 2 tanks of which is a 35l and 55l tanks with just easier more forgiving corals in it I'm fine with and don't do much at all to them at all. I keep them simple just a small water change, as a few litres here and there doesn't take long and a scrub of the glass. Just wish I hadn't gone for sps at all.
 

acropoora

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Wow. You have a beautiful tank. Sorry to hear about the issues. Your tank looks to be pretty mature. If anything I would take one of the troubled colonies out and dip to see if anything comes off. Another thing that took me down a few years back and killed some of the colonies I had forever was rust. I couldn't figure it out until I took everything with magnet out and found a koralia pump I had in the sump to move water had a huge bulge on the magnet and busted open and releasing rust. That would be another thing I would inspect without knowing all the other variables with your tank. Good luck and hoping for the best.
 

Nicholas Dushynsky

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Wow. You have a beautiful tank. Sorry to hear about the issues. Your tank looks to be pretty mature. If anything I would take one of the troubled colonies out and dip to see if anything comes off. Another thing that took me down a few years back and killed some of the colonies I had forever was rust. I couldn't figure it out until I took everything with magnet out and found a koralia pump I had in the sump to move water had a huge bulge on the magnet and busted open and releasing rust. That would be another thing I would inspect without knowing all the other variables with your tank. Good luck and hoping for the best.
I had the same issue on an old tank that was 8 years old with a Koralia nano pump where the magnet failed. As my lps weren't opening as much and that took me a while to find it as I just used to leave the magnet in and remove the pump from it to clean it. It's only because my lfs owner said to check ot that I did. I now check mine everytime I clean the pump.
 

Paul Sands

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I’d look into trace element supplements since you aren’t adding via your two part. It’s likely that your colonies are consuming more than can be corrected with water changes.

Water testing might be useful too. It would give you a better idea on what is low without dosing a trace element supplement that would increase everything.
 

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