Acans melting, LPS and mushrooms shrinking, SPS is browned out but zoas are great - need some help

[Zero_Cool]

Trying to get back to basics here. Corals not looking good after Polyplabs Medic and Ruby Reef Rally Pro treatments (pictures below). Have done 2 water changes of 30 gallons each (on a 230 gallon system volume) in last week plus carbon to try to pull out the medications.

LPS: torches and hammers shrinking or retracting, acans/blastos melting
Mushrooms: shrinking
Sps: browned out, some tissue loss

Current params:
SG: 1.025 (refractometer)
Temp: 77.5
ALK: 9.4 (Hannah)
PO4: .28 (Hannah)
NO3: 6.4 (Hannah)
Ca: 430 (Salifert)
Mg: 1320 (Salifert)

Using Reef Crystals salt
7 stage RODI (shows 0 TDS out)
Run Kalk at 1000mL per day
Just added refugium with Chaeto
Lighting: (3) Radion G6 Pro on Reef Dudes schedule (53% schedule but don't have a PAR meter)
Filtration: Klir7 filter roller, Reef Octopus 200 skimmer

Could this be happening due to the elevated PO4?

Oddly enough the PO4 tested higher after a water change so I tested the 0 TDS RODI in the ATO and it tested .05 (I will run it again).

Any suggestions to improve or what to do next would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[blaxsun]

Out of curiosity, how did you dose Medic? I found that if I didn't mix/dissolve prior it seriously irritated the heck out of my corals.

 

[littlefoxx]

Ruby rally has had some people comment that it killed all their corals when you look at the product on Amazon and I’ve seen mixed reviews about how coral safe it is on here too. Using both might also have contributed too. Never used these products as there’s too many mixed reviews for them. If you Google search these meds and corals a lot of information comes up that might help you figure out what’s wrong

 

[Zero_Cool]

Out of curiosity, how did you dose Medic? I found that if I didn't mix/dissolve prior it seriously irritated the heck out of my corals.

I mixed it into a cup of tank water until disolved and then into the return chamber of my sump twice per day.

 

[Zero_Cool]

Ruby rally has had some people comment that it killed all their corals when you look at the product on Amazon and I’ve seen mixed reviews about how coral safe it is on here too. Using both might also have contributed too. Never used these products as there’s too many mixed reviews for them. If you Google search these meds and corals a lot of information comes up that might help you figure out what’s wrong

I got the information to try them here on R2R from a member that I trust who had experience using them. I was going to be unable to catch all of the fish to send them to a hospital tank for treatment and was willing to try anything. The combination seems to have helped with the ich outbreak (Gem tang and Purple tang are on the mend) but may be contributing to other losses - a mandarin and 2 anthias plus these corals included.

If the meds are the issue then I am doing what I can - water changes and carbon changes.

Do you think the PO4 is an issue at .28? This is about 8x what I would prefer it to be. I have pulled out an old fluidized reactor and some GFO to install this weekend with a new UV sterilizer.

I also switched over to Blaxsun's Radion program and bumped up to 60% of his schedule to try and take the lighting queation out of the equation.

Flow in the tank is also what I would consider light. There are (4) MP40 but nothing set higher than 30% and those are at the top of the tank.

 

[soreefed]

Where’s Crash Override when you need her.

 

[Zero_Cool]

Where’s Crash Override when you need her.

That's my cover name. Acid Burn is who we need on this.

 

[soreefed]

That's my cover name. Acid Burn is who we need on this.

lol that’s right!!!

 

[Pod_01]

IMO,

Do you think the PO4 is an issue at .28? This is about 8x what I would prefer it to be.

This is not your issue and I would leave PO4 alone. I had my reef at 0.75 levels and yes colour can be impacted but the colour returns.

My corals with elevated PO4 (running at 0.15 at the moment)

To run with low PO4 is something that should be attempted by long time professional reefers. They tend to have live rock, established tank, lot of fish and reef keeping procedures that work.
From my experience in new tank 5 years with dry rock low PO4 (sinking PO4) leads to dead corals/ starved corals etc…

Since your corals are struggling I would not recommend this:

I also switched over to Blaxsun's Radion program and bumped up to 60% of his schedule to try and take the lighting queation out of the equation.

I think of lights as gas pedal, if you have gas you go faster. Your corals seem to show deficiency so stepping on gas will lead do quicker decline. That is my experience.

Also I would stop using:

Filtration: Klir7 filter roller

GFO

Those things work too well and remove all types of good things that corals require. Your aim is for the corals to be the main filter and skimmer only supplements them. You seem to be going in the other direction and corals are starving.

In general when corals show sign of decline try to figure out what you did 2-4 weeks ago. They react slow unless the medication was too much or interaction caused sudden response.
Also try to change only few things at a time and observe the change in the tank. In your posts you seem to be changing things quite quickly and corals will not respond well. Also you will not know what was a cause and what was a response.
My observation, going from good to bad is bad. But going from bad condition to good condition too fast is also bad. You need to give corals time to adjust.

Good luck,

 

[Zero_Cool]

In general when corals show sign of decline try to figure out what you did 2-4 weeks ago. They react slow unless the medication was too much or interaction caused sudden response.
Also try to change only few things at a time and observe the change in the tank. In your posts you seem to be changing things quite quickly and corals will not respond well. Also you will not know what was a cause and what was a response.
My observation, going from good to bad is bad. But going from bad condition to good condition too fast is also bad. You need to give corals time to adjust.

Good luck,

Thank you. You are correct. This is a snowball effect of a bad decision not to set up a QT protocol from the start.

The thing I did 2-4 weeks ago was to panic when I saw how bad the 2 new fish had gotten due to the outbreak of ich. Did what alot of people have done in that situation and treated the DT with medications. The medications saved the 2 fish that were symptomatic but are incurring a significant toll on the rest of the tank inhabitants. Clearing the medications from the water and practicing good husbandry are the only things I can do now to bring the corals back to good health.

You (and others) are correct as well that I am panicing again and trying to find the magic bullet that will reverse the issues I am having at this time. Corals were doing well before I used the meds in the tank so I should be focused on getting back to that equilibrium with as few changes as possible.

I will add the UV that is coming in this week but will hold off on any other changes for the foreseeable future.

I will also be setting up a hospital tank so that I can properly treat the remaining fish outside of the tank and will go fallow for the recommended number of days required to eliminate the ich parasites. Qt protocols will be created as I never want my tank inhabitants (or me) to go through this again.

 

[Bozburn]

Following this thread, Ive had trouble with SPS but as of the last few weeks my Torch, Duncan and Chalice are all doing poorly so I am curious to what is going on. Might be something similar, I am going to borrow my buddies Par reader and see if that has anything to do with it. Alk 7.13 - Cal 434 - Mag 1389 - Nitrates 21 - Phos .012.

Acans died a few weeks ago but that's because I saw my Copperband eating them , wife loves the CBB so no more acans for me.

 

[Cbones1979]

I’m in the same boat. I’ve had reefs the past 5 years and up until now have never had the issues I’m having keeping LPs and SPS alive. Must have had a major swing in soemthing months ago. Every sps coral died one by one slowly. Almost ebery few days a sps started losing tissue. After they went my torches started going. Now I’m bare bones and my long time Duncan and hammers are losing heads randomly.

I test weekly and haven’t really changed anything. Also had an icp test done and it came back with only trace element deficiencies.

I use fritz blue salt. Dose all for reef (which I’ve decreased from 24 ml to 13 ml since corals died and alk keeps moving up to slow it down)