Triton Results In - Answer to Why SPS Will Not Survive?

[RMS18]

Some background- Tank is 8 months old.
Alk 7.8-8.0 -Hanna
Cal 450 - Red Sea
Mag 1400 - Red Sea
Ph 8.2 - Apex
po3 8-10 - Nyos
po4 .04-.07 - Hanna

Carbon dosing - Red Sea NoPox
BRS HC GFO - Possible Issue? Adding in the metals?
Heavy Fish Bio-load
Using 4 Brightwell blocks in sump - Possible Issue? -Leaching
Skimmer, Filter socks
ATI T5 - average par is 220
Flow is good - 2 3k gyres and 2 pulses
Dry Rock, Live sand
BRS & stage RODI - All filters and media less than 4 months old TDS read zero on way in and out. - Did a ATI test few months back and the RODI water came back perfect.

Long story short SPS will come in colorful, good PE then fade and lose all PE with 2-3 weeks. They all turn this pale red/purple and have a dried look. See pictures below.

LPS do great along with NPS. I sent out a Triton test and here are the results:

Triton Applied Reef Bioscience are the world leaders in professional sea water analysis.

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All suggestions are welcomed!

 

[RMS18]

Forgot to list the issues on the test for everyone:
Silicon - Extremely high
Low level of - Aluminium
Low Level of - Lead
Slightly elevated - Iron

 

[Ebslinger]

just curious... what is PE? New here and still learning.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

just curious... what is PE? New here and still learning.

polyp extension

 

[Ebslinger]

Ahh, thank you.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

What do your nitrates read and how much carbon source are you using?

 

[RMS18]

What do your nitrates read and how much carbon source are you using?

I stated po3 level in my post. 8-10ppm. I dose 12ml of nopox daily. Doser doses every 4 hours.

 

[Ebslinger]

Po3 = Phosphite

 

[Ebslinger]

I think you meant No3.

 

[RMS18]

I think you meant No3.

Oops typo!

 

[RMS18]

No suggestions?

 

[Gareth elliott]

How long was the dry rock cycled for?

Thats a lot of nutrient control on a young tank. Imo young tanks that use chemical nutrient control like carbon dosing take longer to cycle and can cause numerous blooms and die offs of different microfauna. These periods of biological instability can cause a myriad of bio-chemical reactions that are short lived but constant.

A snap shot of tank with icp is only going to show the tank at a very specific time frame. And not show any of the biological functions that are occurring in the water column or rock.

I would try to feed less and perhaps back off a little on the chemical filtration. Perhaps remove the gfo or carbon dose less. And give the tank time to find some level of equilibrium, my goto test for this is how much coralline algae you have.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Yeah, agreed. Your phosphate concentration, in particular, is pretty low. There's a lot of potential reasons for SPS to not do well in tanks, but your comments describe a fairly common issue, which is nutrient starvation.

It's true that you can find many examples of successful SPS keepers that have fairly low PO4 concentrations in their tanks, but there's some significant caveats to drawing conclusions from their water parameters. Most often, the colonies that are doing well in those water conditions have been established for quite a while, and the hobbyist is aggressively feeding the colonies with plankton substitutes, such as Reef Roids, Oyster Feast, etc...

What will probably be most useful to you is to examine the water that the SPS frags you're purchasing are being grown in. Taking SPS from a high NO3/ high PO4 environment to a low nutrient environment (particularly low PO4) is a known issue - the corals typically fade over the course of a few weeks, then RTN overnight. A significant contributor to an issue like this is very high light/high alkalinity. Your alkalinity looks fine as long as it's stable, but it'd be worth purchasing/borrowing/renting a light meter, especially if you're using LEDs.

Were this my tank, my first step would be measuring the light levels, followed by discontinuation of carbon dosing, removal of GFO, and removal of bio-blocks. I'd start feeding plankton substitutes at a low level (perhaps every other day), and monitoring nutrient levels and the appearance of the coral. When/if overgrowth of algae becomes an issue, I'd control the nutrient levels with water changes, and slowly reintroduce phosphate scavenging and biological nitrate removal.

 

[Ebslinger]

I don't have a lot of experience with SPS... I do have a lot of experience in water testing.

I would recommend getting another NO3 test kit... maybe a red sea. The one with the dial.... That way you can confirm your NO3 levels... from the pictures, the tank looks very sterile.

 

[RMS18]

How long was the dry rock cycled for?

Thats a lot of nutrient control on a young tank. Imo young tanks that use chemical nutrient control like carbon dosing take longer to cycle and can cause numerous blooms and die offs of different microfauna. These periods of biological instability can cause a myriad of bio-chemical reactions that are short lived but constant.

A snap shot of tank with icp is only going to show the tank at a very specific time frame. And not show any of the biological functions that are occurring in the water column or rock.

I would try to feed less and perhaps back off a little on the chemical filtration. Perhaps remove the gfo or carbon dose less. And give the tank time to find some level of equilibrium, my goto test for this is how much coralline algae you have.

Coralline grows ok. Not aggressively. I had coralline grow faster in past tanks. I started to carbon dose and use gfo because I could not grow cheato. GHA would take over the sump, grow over the cheato. Then it took over the display. After starting carbon dosing and gfo did the GHA thin, turn white and start to die in some areas. If any of that helps.

 

[RMS18]

Yeah, agreed. Your phosphate concentration, in particular, is pretty low. There's a lot of potential reasons for SPS to not do well in tanks, but your comments describe a fairly common issue, which is nutrient starvation.

It's true that you can find many examples of successful SPS keepers that have fairly low PO4 concentrations in their tanks, but there's some significant caveats to drawing conclusions from their water parameters. Most often, the colonies that are doing well in those water conditions have been established for quite a while, and the hobbyist is aggressively feeding the colonies with plankton substitutes, such as Reef Roids, Oyster Feast, etc...

What will probably be most useful to you is to examine the water that the SPS frags you're purchasing are being grown in. Taking SPS from a high NO3/ high PO4 environment to a low nutrient environment (particularly low PO4) is a known issue - the corals typically fade over the course of a few weeks, then RTN overnight. A significant contributor to an issue like this is very high light/high alkalinity. Your alkalinity looks fine as long as it's stable, but it'd be worth purchasing/borrowing/renting a light meter, especially if you're using LEDs.

Were this my tank, my first step would be measuring the light levels, followed by discontinuation of carbon dosing, removal of GFO, and removal of bio-blocks. I'd start feeding plankton substitutes at a low level (perhaps every other day), and monitoring nutrient levels and the appearance of the coral. When/if overgrowth of algae becomes an issue, I'd control the nutrient levels with water changes, and slowly reintroduce phosphate scavenging and biological nitrate removal.

I own a par meter. Lights are t5. I started to take the bio blocks out took one out and replaced it with more rock. Will remove another in a couple of weeks then another etc. I'll replace them with rock as I remove.

 

[RMS18]

I don't have a lot of experience with SPS... I do have a lot of experience in water testing.

I would recommend getting another NO3 test kit... maybe a red sea. The one with the dial.... That way you can confirm your NO3 levels... from the pictures, the tank looks very sterile.

Issue is GHA takes over everything if I let phosphates and nitrates go higher but. I'll reduce the nopox and take gfo off line I guess.

 

[RMS18]

Also like to point out my lips are doing great, Aussie hammer, Aussie Elegance, and a open brain.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

That's not uncommon. As you may already know, most LPS species are a whole lot tougher than acropora. Some additional details might be helpful; you noted that you're using T5 (good for you, a whole lot easier than LEDs) and have a PAR meter. What's the PAR at the sandbed, and at the rock level where the SPS are (you did note an average of 220 in your original post, but extra details would be useful). How large is the tank, and how is flow being provided? How old is the tank, is this your first tank, are you hand-dosing alk/Ca, what's your water change schedule if any, and are you adding any other supplements other than fish food?

It would also be helpful to know the source of the frags; as you've already found out, LPS are generally extraordinarily resilient, and can adapt to higher/lower flow, higher/lower light, and higher/lower alkalinity over a much more broad range and much more quickly than can SPS.

As for the bio-blocks, you need not worry about removing them all at once. Presuming that your tank has a reasonable amount of rock (and you've already shown a sandbed) there's almost no risk that removing them would result in an unprocessed ammonia spike.

From the standpoint of your fight with GHA and subsequent success, I'd say you were on the right track, you just might have overdid it a bit.

 

[RMS18]

That's not uncommon. As you may already know, most LPS species are a whole lot tougher than acropora. Some additional details might be helpful; you noted that you're using T5 (good for you, a whole lot easier than LEDs) and have a PAR meter. What's the PAR at the sandbed, and at the rock level where the SPS are (you did note an average of 220 in your original post, but extra details would be useful). How large is the tank, and how is flow being provided? How old is the tank, is this your first tank, are you hand-dosing alk/Ca, what's your water change schedule if any, and are you adding any other supplements other than fish food?

It would also be helpful to know the source of the frags; as you've already found out, LPS are generally extraordinarily resilient, and can adapt to higher/lower flow, higher/lower light, and higher/lower alkalinity over a much more broad range and much more quickly than can SPS.

As for the bio-blocks, you need not worry about removing them all at once. Presuming that your tank has a reasonable amount of rock (and you've already shown a sandbed) there's almost no risk that removing them would result in an unprocessed ammonia spike.

From the standpoint of your fight with GHA and subsequent success, I'd say you were on the right track, you just might have overdid it a bit.

Sand bed where lps are range from 140-160. The Sps are in 200-250. Tank 120g - total water volume is 120 with sump. I have 2 gyre 3k pumps running a alternative turbulence mode ramping from 60% to 100%. Also have 2 octo pulses for some extra flow at 90%. Tank is 8 months old. This is not my first tank it's my 4th. All past tanks were lps and nps tanks and very successful. This is my first shot at sps. Built this tank for sps mainly. M build thread is below. Everything was new and good quality. Apex dos is dosing Cal and alk. 10-15% w/c every week. I dose half dose of acro power once a week. Reef roids 2-3 times for sea fans - target feed. sps came from Jason fox from RAP in NY. Rock scape is minimal in display hence the extra blocks in the sump.