When things go from WOOT! to what the heck?

Ed olson

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Another tank update that isn’t full of good stories and growing corals unfortunately.. The last couple of weeks have been a little rough with the tank. I’m going to forego the categorical news in past updates and get right down to the problem.
Even though I’ve been down this salt path before, this time around I’m experiencing a whole different side of things and am certainly way more observant, maybe to my own detriment. Regardless, I refuse to start freaking out and know that starting a saltwater tank is like walking into a casino, it’s always a gamble. Sometimes you leave with more, less, or no money at all but was probably a lot of fun doing it. So let’s get on with it.
I noticed a few days ago that my meteor shower and bizarro cyphastrea were closed up, which I thought was a little odd due to the fact it stays open day or night. Upon closer inspection I noticed my blasto looked way off and most of the heads were halfway closed up. It was then that I noticed the razor blade on the sand being propped up by the blasto. There was a little “pile” of orange sand where the blade was touching the sand. I removed the blade and siphoned out a half cup of sand where the orange was.
As of yesterday multiple corals were starting to look bad. When I came to the conclusion that something was off by the number and different types of corals showing symptoms I decided a full round of testing was necessary. All params came back within normal ranges with no spikes. Funny thing is I’m almost more ticked that my GSP has been closed up this whole time, and we all know how hard it is to kill GSP most of the time. But most of all I think if I lose more than a couple corals I’ll be most upset about the prior 8 months that I’ve seen come and go and the frags that have now become tiny mini colonies.
I have decided to go back to the routine I had back in July/Aug/Sept which was dosing kalk in ATO and doing 12g-16g water changes every week and that’s it. During this time I saw the best growth and was having no issues. I don’t want a hard reset on the tank but a soft reset might be in order here.
Over the past two weeks I have been doing too much too fast and haven’t been very patient with things and I felt an immediate need to do something but work has had me tied up and today is the first day I’ll have some time to piddle around and investigate a little further, but will for sure get a water change in at some point.
I undoubtedly think that what is happening is a water quality issue and that maybe the razor blade and the “rust” is what is causing the corals to be ticked off. This morning, everybody looks unhappy and I just don’t want to lose more than what I currently think I might be. Here is a small list of things that even an untrained eye could pick out as being not right:
Cyphastreas (both of them)
One branching frogspwan
All GSP
Some Zoas
LT plate coral - one of my favorites :(
Duncan colony
Montis - both of them - one branching and one plating

If it were bugs or pest I would expect only certain species to be affected, but it’s multiple differing corals, which tells me water quality.

I hate the fact that there are so many variables tucked away in such an umbrella problem that you’d need to be a professional investigator to pinpoint the culprit with any kind of precision or accuracy. Green water? It’s algae, easy enough to figure out and fix. Brown/red/green stuff on sand rock? Dinos or diatoms, identifiable and customizable plans of action. But the whole tank looking sick? Forget about it. Try as you might, the chances that you can whittle it down to one or two things and reverse them to stop the process is almost impossible. Which is why I’ve decided that maybe the best thing to do is revert back to what I was doing when the tank was “thriving” and just keep it simple.

If anyone has had the same experience I’d love to hear about it and whether or not you were able to turn things around and/or if you even figured out what the problem was to begin with. Hell, even if you have a decently educated guess on what the problem was I’d take that, too.

Thanks for reading and I will post another update soon enough that will hopefully have better news and that things are on the mend.

I've crossed-posted this to reach as many folks as possible to increase pool of experience I can draw from.
 

homer1475

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water change.
water change.
water change.
100%

If your sure it's a water quality issue, nothing will replace a good old change of whats causing the issue to begin with.

I would do as large of a WC as possible, then revert back to my old schedule when I seeing the best growth, and health.
 

Timfish

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Stick with water changes and be patient. When corals or ecosystem experience a stress event, of what ever type, it can take months for them to recover. You may have already fixed the problem and it's just going to take time for the ecosystem and corals to shift to a favorable equilibrium
 

Woodyman

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100%

If your sure it's a water quality issue, nothing will replace a good old change of whats causing the issue to begin with.

I would do as large of a WC as possible, then revert back to my old schedule when I seeing the best growth, and health.

Multiple water changes over the next several days are probably in your tanks best interest. Aim for 30-40% every 2-3 days for the next ~9 days
 

3429810

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I left a razor in a Tupperware I use for fragging/dipping overnight and it rusted like crazy. How long was it in the tank for? Also it wasn’t “rust” it was actual rust that was in your sand bed and tank and that is bad. If your Parameters are fine but the razor is the only difference why would you start dosing? Figure out what is wrong before you start trying to fix it so then you know for sure what fixed it. I think the people saying lots of water changes are right and then maybe look into something that absorbs metals but again make sure you know the issue before you do anything more than water changes.
 
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Ed olson

Ed olson

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Thank you folks. I already have my WC operation in progress and know that it will be the best thing currently for the tank. I will do as many as I can as often as I can over the next week or so with the limited gpd on my RO unit and my schedule. I think I'll pull the plug on the kalk and keep the AFR during this wc regimen and just top-off with RO water. I already use carbon, but will give it a change out today. I have one filter sock and a skimmer, no other filtration or fuge. The system is close to bare bones as it is, so it makes it a little easier to either confirm or deny that one piece of equipment/filtration or another is part of the problem.

@bert236 - I was dosing before all this happened, not as a way to fix an issue. Hell it could be the dosing itself, but I'm not quite convinced this is the issue here.

As stated, trying to sleuth a problem in a reef tank that isn't staring you in the face and saying "hey I'm the problem" with the limited time you have before corals die is almost futile. Since what your corals are telling you could be from something that happened weeks ago, spending time trying to "figure it out" doesn't really lend itself to extracting specific data while performing emergency measures, especially since what I may do now may not show itself until weeks down the line. So while I agree that looking into the specific cause may be worthwhile for informational purposes, time is not on my side here and the corals that aren't doing so well may not have weeks to wait around for relief to tell what worked or not.
 

JGT

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Rusty blade looks like the culprit. Had a powerhead where the electric cable corroded/rusted and released some metals into my tank. Noticed my corals weren't looking good and luckily happened to discover the faulty powerhead. Removed it, did water changes and added a big bag of cuprisorb. Lost only 2 corals, but it took over a month for some of them to come back.
 

kingjames_dc5

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Stick with water changes and be patient. When corals or ecosystem experience a stress event, of what ever type, it can take months for them to recover. You may have already fixed the problem and it's just going to take time for the ecosystem and corals to shift to a favorable equilibrium
I agree with this. You started thing looked better in the morning after the blade was remove. Between rust and the oil on the blades I’m sure it wasnt helping I believe you may have already fixed it As well I would do a large water change and revert back to your old schedule.
 
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Ed olson

Ed olson

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Not much to report here. Situation the same. Only had enough water for 12g change yesterday but have 25g ready for a wc this morning and hope to get another one in by Friday. Keeping fingers crossed.
Threw some fresh carbon in and stopped kalk in ato and just going with AFR right now.
 

Lyss

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Maybe add some Poly Filter? It does change color if it’s pulling stuff out. I’ve never had one change in my reef tank but I stuck one in my planted FW tank for a few hours b/c I’d over-fertilized, and it turned orange — pulled excess iron.
 

Tamberav

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Another tank update that isn’t full of good stories and growing corals unfortunately.. The last couple of weeks have been a little rough with the tank. I’m going to forego the categorical news in past updates and get right down to the problem.
Even though I’ve been down this salt path before, this time around I’m experiencing a whole different side of things and am certainly way more observant, maybe to my own detriment. Regardless, I refuse to start freaking out and know that starting a saltwater tank is like walking into a casino, it’s always a gamble. Sometimes you leave with more, less, or no money at all but was probably a lot of fun doing it. So let’s get on with it.
I noticed a few days ago that my meteor shower and bizarro cyphastrea were closed up, which I thought was a little odd due to the fact it stays open day or night. Upon closer inspection I noticed my blasto looked way off and most of the heads were halfway closed up. It was then that I noticed the razor blade on the sand being propped up by the blasto. There was a little “pile” of orange sand where the blade was touching the sand. I removed the blade and siphoned out a half cup of sand where the orange was.
As of yesterday multiple corals were starting to look bad. When I came to the conclusion that something was off by the number and different types of corals showing symptoms I decided a full round of testing was necessary. All params came back within normal ranges with no spikes. Funny thing is I’m almost more ticked that my GSP has been closed up this whole time, and we all know how hard it is to kill GSP most of the time. But most of all I think if I lose more than a couple corals I’ll be most upset about the prior 8 months that I’ve seen come and go and the frags that have now become tiny mini colonies.
I have decided to go back to the routine I had back in July/Aug/Sept which was dosing kalk in ATO and doing 12g-16g water changes every week and that’s it. During this time I saw the best growth and was having no issues. I don’t want a hard reset on the tank but a soft reset might be in order here.
Over the past two weeks I have been doing too much too fast and haven’t been very patient with things and I felt an immediate need to do something but work has had me tied up and today is the first day I’ll have some time to piddle around and investigate a little further, but will for sure get a water change in at some point.
I undoubtedly think that what is happening is a water quality issue and that maybe the razor blade and the “rust” is what is causing the corals to be ticked off. This morning, everybody looks unhappy and I just don’t want to lose more than what I currently think I might be. Here is a small list of things that even an untrained eye could pick out as being not right:
Cyphastreas (both of them)
One branching frogspwan
All GSP
Some Zoas
LT plate coral - one of my favorites :(
Duncan colony
Montis - both of them - one branching and one plating

If it were bugs or pest I would expect only certain species to be affected, but it’s multiple differing corals, which tells me water quality.

I hate the fact that there are so many variables tucked away in such an umbrella problem that you’d need to be a professional investigator to pinpoint the culprit with any kind of precision or accuracy. Green water? It’s algae, easy enough to figure out and fix. Brown/red/green stuff on sand rock? Dinos or diatoms, identifiable and customizable plans of action. But the whole tank looking sick? Forget about it. Try as you might, the chances that you can whittle it down to one or two things and reverse them to stop the process is almost impossible. Which is why I’ve decided that maybe the best thing to do is revert back to what I was doing when the tank was “thriving” and just keep it simple.

If anyone has had the same experience I’d love to hear about it and whether or not you were able to turn things around and/or if you even figured out what the problem was to begin with. Hell, even if you have a decently educated guess on what the problem was I’d take that, too.

Thanks for reading and I will post another update soon enough that will hopefully have better news and that things are on the mend.

I've crossed-posted this to reach as many folks as possible to increase pool of experience I can draw from.

Water change and poly filter to remove metals.
 

ScottB

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What are your nitrates and phosphates?
What test kit used for phosphates?

It is easy to find very different definitions of "normal" parameters when it comes to nutrients.
 

ScottB

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1ppm no3 nyos
0 ppm po4 Hannah checker

Been like that since the very beginning.
You can certainly run those levels successfully if the system is loaded with fish and fed multiple times per day. Otherwise, you are simply starving the system.
NO3: 10
PO4: .1

Right side.JPG
 

Timfish

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0 PO4 could be a problem. PO4 is inorganic phosphorus and reef systems can alo have orgnic forms we can't test for so systems mught seem to do okay with inorganic phosphorus at 0 but it's just guessing if there's enough organic phosphorus at any given time. I'd start feeding more to get inorganic phosporus above the .03 mg/l threshold identified by research at Southampton university. If you want to read more about phosphorus in captive reef ecosystems here's their work:

An Experimental Mesocosm for Longterm Studies of Reef Corals

Phosphate Deficiency:
Nutrient enrichment can increase the susceptibility of reef corals to bleaching:

Ultrastructural Biomarkers in Symbiotic Algae Reflect the Availability of Dissolved Inorganic Nutrients and Particulate Food to the Reef Coral Holobiont:

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates



And here's some more stuff you might find interesting:

Phosphorus metabolism of reef organisms with algal symbionts


Sponge symbionts and the marine P cycle

Phosphorus sequestration in the form of polyphosphate by microbial symbionts in marine sponges


Fig 4 from the above paper on phosphorus metabolism in reff organisms with simbionts
DIP DOP POP.jpg
 

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