Asking for help because I am at a complete loss

[HWDylan]

hmmm interesting. You do have a LOT of light for sure, and a lot of encrusting with little branching. I'm interested to see PAR results.

That's definitely where I'd go next. water is a little cloudy as well? maybe just photos? but cloudy water = bacterial blooming and spiking.

How much carbon are you running, and what brand? and hopefully it's not tumbling? Too much carbon can also be a bad thing.

Sadly most of my branching sticks bit the dust when things started to go south again. Stylos and bird's nests and millies all died.

Cloudy water in the older pics was from when I had set the tank back up after the bleaching and it was still going through some ugliness. Bare bottom tanks go through a lot of cloudy days before things even out. Its been months since I have seen anything cloudy at all.

I use ROX carbon and I run a BRS Reactor full when I use it. Its off and on and I pack it in there tight to prevent grinding and tumbling. I really only use it when I feel I need to. Ive gone through phases with this tank of using it constantly to not using it at all to see if there was any change in things and I never saw any.

Also did you bleach the sump out and all equipment?

Having working with sanitization units in hospitals before, I'm well aware it only takes a single bacterium to repopulate and cause havoc. Super Bugs in Endoscopes killing people was a hot topic for a few years due to improper washing, and storage, causing Bacteria to end up co-mingaling and creating "super bugs" which was insane.

I filled the whole system with tap water and added about 15 gallons of bleach and turned everything on. Anything that was exposed to water normally was exposed to the bleach.

I do fear that some of the porous surfaces of the rocks may have been able to remain un-bleached but I have no way of knowing that. I tried my best to run the tank as normal but with bleach water instead of saltwater.

This is tough to digest because you have been so diligent in your efforts to get your beautiful tank right. I honestly believe your par numbers are off too. I think your par is way low because you have the lights mounted high and running a lower intensity. I have XR15s mounted 8 inches up and I'm running 80% schedule AB plus and I still think I might be low for SPS. You have checked so many variables with your water I think your lights need to be par mapped again. I wish you best of luck.

I am in the process of trying to borrow or rent a PAR meter now.

If I end up just buying one I assume this is the one to go with?

SQ-520 Full Spectrum Smart Quantum LED PAR Sensor

Increased Accuracy for LED Lighting Measurements! The Smart Quantum SQ-520 PAR Sensor is a USB powered sensor that will hook up to any PC or MAC allowing you to use your personal computer instead of an expensive dedicated monitor with the included 15 foot long USB cable. Hooking a sensor up...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

 

[Lavey29]

Sadly most of my branching sticks bit the dust when things started to go south again. Stylos and bird's nests and millies all died.

Cloudy water in the older pics was from when I had set the tank back up after the bleaching and it was still going through some ugliness. Bare bottom tanks go through a lot of cloudy days before things even out. Its been months since I have seen anything cloudy at all.

I use ROX carbon and I run a BRS Reactor full when I use it. Its off and on and I pack it in there tight to prevent grinding and tumbling. I really only use it when I feel I need to. Ive gone through phases with this tank of using it constantly to not using it at all to see if there was any change in things and I never saw any.


I filled the whole system with tap water and added about 15 gallons of bleach and turned everything on. Anything that was exposed to water normally was exposed to the bleach.

I do fear that some of the porous surfaces of the rocks may have been able to remain un-bleached but I have no way of knowing that. I tried my best to run the tank as normal but with bleach water instead of saltwater.


I am in the process of trying to borrow or rent a PAR meter now.

If I end up just buying one I assume this is the one to go with?

SQ-520 Full Spectrum Smart Quantum LED PAR Sensor

Increased Accuracy for LED Lighting Measurements! The Smart Quantum SQ-520 PAR Sensor is a USB powered sensor that will hook up to any PC or MAC allowing you to use your personal computer instead of an expensive dedicated monitor with the included 15 foot long USB cable. Hooking a sensor up...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

Also when you did your ICP you checked your RODI also?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Light plays a key role with SPS followed by BALANCE of alk and CA which affect PH.
As for light. . . SPS require lots of light. Fortunately, there are many choices to select from. Metal halides, t5s and LEDS, all can grow corals with beautiful colors. You dont need brightness of the sun but medium to bright.
If you get drops at night and look at a graph such as on an Apex, you will quickly realize the effect imbalance has. If you are dosing and not testing alk this is also a problem. In my opinion, you should never dose anything to your reef tank that you are not testing for. Alk is vital to acro health and a component that is very easy to over shoot ; the consequences of over dosing can be catastrophic. I try to keep my alk closer to 8 as oceans are naturally 7.0 DKH range. You may read on some forums of some reefers keeping their alk as high as 10, and even 11,12 and 13. I do not understand how they do it. I can tell you that if the alk in my system goes 10 I’m in deep trouble. It will cause sps to do something known as peeling. Its probably the absolute worst thing that can happen to your hard corals. Its basically the sps shedding its skin due to extreme stress. It can be near impossible to save a hard coral from dying once it has begun to seriously peel.
High or low calcium wont kill your acro. High nitrates can kill them but generally they will lose color. Variations in Temperature and salinity can harm acro. I have found nothing more lethal however than unstable alkalinity. For me this is the number one issues I have encountered when trying to keep hard corals.
So the key here is stability. Avoid swing and keep alk the same. It promotes acro color, growth and overall health
Flow also important but Light more so. Adequate flow is an absolute necessity for coral health and ultimately color. There are no objective criteria that really well describe the necessary flow required. Adequate water movement around SPS coral significantly impacts their nutrient absorption and excretion. In terms of how much flow is enough, perhaps the best metaphor is that everyone loves a nice breeze but no one enjoys overly forceful winds. Basically gentle polyp movement indicates minimally required flow. Exactly how much flow and polyp movement around SPS is not really known. More flow and more polyp movement are usually considered better but too much direct flow will strip tissue off the coral.
Then comes Nitrates as SPS need nutrients. Nitrates and phosphates are required for organisms to grow and thrive. Too little or too much of either can present problems.
Warm temperatures also pose an issue leading to bleaching.

Some of the easier acros that are forgiving are :
Birdsnest
Monticap
Digitata
Slimer
Staghorn
pocillopora
Stylophora

 

[HWDylan]

Also when you did your ICP you checked your RODI also?

Yessir.

Only thing detected at all was minor amounts of silicate (probably from the storage barrel I am told)

 

[Lavey29]

Yessir.

Only thing detected at all was minor amounts of silicate (probably from the storage barrel I am told)

I'm still thinking light deficiency but that whole rock and tank bleaching is concerning also.

 

[HWDylan]

I'm still thinking light deficiency but that whole rock and tank bleaching is concerning also.

As far as I can tell, the major differences between the test tank and the main display are the lights, the fish, and the rocks.

It almost CANT be something leaching into the water from somewhere since using only display water for the test tank has not caused any issues and the coral in there is colored up and growing.

I will investigate lights further but if that is true it just doesn't explain why things went well for a while and then went downhill. I have not changed the light settings at all. Same lights and same configuration for the entire 3ish years this has been going on.

I am not at all saying that isnt the case though. PAR meter rental is hard to come by anymore so I fear I am gonna have to just bite the bullet and buy one. I can at least rule out lights then. I dont want to start tweaking knobs yet though without knowing if I should be going up or down with the lights. People seem to go both ways on it. Id rather have a number to shoot for than a general "My tank has lights running at 80%" anecdotes. My understanding is that PAR levels should be in the 300 range with some things liking more and some liking less.

I am finishing up a round of STN-X and RTN-X from Triton just seeing if dosing that will change anything in the boime. So far no noticeable changes. Once this is done I am going to aggressively dose a combination of Microbacter 7 and Dr. Tims Ecobalance. I am not a huge believer in bacteria in a bottle solutions but I am desperate. I will probably send in another @AquaBiomics test to see if things have changes significantly.

 

[Lavey29]

As far as I can tell, the major differences between the test tank and the main display are the lights, the fish, and the rocks.

It almost CANT be something leaching into the water from somewhere since using only display water for the test tank has not caused any issues and the coral in there is colored up and growing.

I will investigate lights further but if that is true it just doesn't explain why things went well for a while and then went downhill. I have not changed the light settings at all. Same lights and same configuration for the entire 3ish years this has been going on.

I am not at all saying that isnt the case though. PAR meter rental is hard to come by anymore so I fear I am gonna have to just bite the bullet and buy one. I can at least rule out lights then. I dont want to start tweaking knobs yet though without knowing if I should be going up or down with the lights. People seem to go both ways on it. Id rather have a number to shoot for than a general "My tank has lights running at 80%" anecdotes. My understanding is that PAR levels should be in the 300 range with some things liking more and some liking less.

I am finishing up a round of STN-X and RTN-X from Triton just seeing if dosing that will change anything in the boime. So far no noticeable changes. Once this is done I am going to aggressively dose a combination of Microbacter 7 and Dr. Tims Ecobalance. I am not a huge believer in bacteria in a bottle solutions but I am desperate. I will probably send in another @AquaBiomics test to see if things have changes significantly.

Managing lighting requirements for a mixed reef can be challenging because you crank them up for SPS then your LPS get upset and if you lower them your SPS don't fare well. To me, a gradual decline over a period of time indicates a nutrients or light problem. You have thoroughly covered the nutrients side so I'm thinking lights. I visualize a plant in my house looking good and then slowly declining. I know it's getting water but is it getting the right amount of sunlight? To little or to much will cause it to slowly decline and die. This is a very challenging hobby and I'm a novice still learning but have a lot of freshwater experience with planted tanks. Lights and nutrients levels were key there too. I hope you get it figured out.

 

[HWDylan]

Managing lighting requirements for a mixed reef can be challenging because you crank them up for SPS then your LPS get upset and if you lower them your SPS don't fare well. To me, a gradual decline over a period of time indicates a nutrients or light problem. You have thoroughly covered the nutrients side so I'm thinking lights. I visualize a plant in my house looking good and then slowly declining. I know it's getting water but is it getting the right amount of sunlight? To little or to much will cause it to slowly decline and die. This is a very challenging hobby and I'm a novice still learning but have a lot of freshwater experience with planted tanks. Lights and nutrients levels were key there too. I hope you get it figured out.

I appreciate the input a lot. Lights are one of the MAJOR differences between the display and the test tank so I will start looking into that again. At this point if I got even one of the corals to start flourishing and growing Id be thrilled. Everything from Acros, to Stylos, to Montis, to Leptos, to Cyphastreas all seem to be affected similarly. Either death or a complete loss of color and no growth.

 

[Lavey29]

I appreciate the input a lot. Lights are one of the MAJOR differences between the display and the test tank so I will start looking into that again. At this point if I got even one of the corals to start flourishing and growing Id be thrilled. Everything from Acros, to Stylos, to Montis, to Leptos, to Cyphastreas all seem to be affected similarly. Either death or a complete loss of color and no growth.

But keep in mind changes won't happen overnight, my tank went through ups and downs the first year now but as I made positive corrections to various areas like parameters and lights, it took weeks or even a few months before things started thriving. You could just see the difference but not something that just occurred over a short period. I am a firm believer in PNS probio also a natural bacteria supplement and phytoplankton dosing.

 

[HWDylan]

But keep in mind changes won't happen overnight, my tank went through ups and downs the first year now but as I made positive corrections to various areas like parameters and lights, it took weeks or even a few months before things started thriving. You could just see the difference but not something that just occurred over a short period. I am a firm believer in PNS probio also a natural bacteria supplement and phytoplankton dosing.

FWIW I do dose phyto.

I bought a bottle of the PNS Probio from algaebarn but its kind of expensive and I have to dose A LOT based on their instructions so I only went through 1 bottle.

 

[vetteguy53081]

As far as I can tell, the major differences between the test tank and the main display are the lights, the fish, and the rocks.

It almost CANT be something leaching into the water from somewhere since using only display water for the test tank has not caused any issues and the coral in there is colored up and growing.

I will investigate lights further but if that is true it just doesn't explain why things went well for a while and then went downhill. I have not changed the light settings at all. Same lights and same configuration for the entire 3ish years this has been going on.

I am not at all saying that isnt the case though. PAR meter rental is hard to come by anymore so I fear I am gonna have to just bite the bullet and buy one. I can at least rule out lights then. I dont want to start tweaking knobs yet though without knowing if I should be going up or down with the lights. People seem to go both ways on it. Id rather have a number to shoot for than a general "My tank has lights running at 80%" anecdotes. My understanding is that PAR levels should be in the 300 range with some things liking more and some liking less.

I am finishing up a round of STN-X and RTN-X from Triton just seeing if dosing that will change anything in the boime. So far no noticeable changes. Once this is done I am going to aggressively dose a combination of Microbacter 7 and Dr. Tims Ecobalance. I am not a huge believer in bacteria in a bottle solutions but I am desperate. I will probably send in another @AquaBiomics test to see if things have changes significantly.

As a mixed reef person here- one of the challenges you face are toxins (reason I run chemiPure elite). Sps and lps release toxins and complete with each other. Add leathers to the equation and they release their own form of toxins called terpenes

 

[HWDylan]

As a mixed reef person here- one of the challenges you face are toxins (reason I run chemiPure elite). Sps and lps release toxins and complete with each other. Add leathers to the equation and they release their own form of toxins called terpenes

Yea I have only ever done mixed reefs both for hobby and professionally. I do use carbon off and on but there are hardly any corals in this tank anymore to release toxins. Alternatively, I have tanks at work that are PACKED with coral and I don't do anything (no carbon at all) but water changes on them and have never had an issue with it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yea I have only ever done mixed reefs both for hobby and professionally. I do use carbon off and on but there are hardly any corals in this tank anymore to release toxins. Alternatively, I have tanks at work that are PACKED with coral and I don't do anything (no carbon at all) but water changes on them and have never had an issue with it.

Here is what risky would be-

 

[Hydrored]

Sadly most of my branching sticks bit the dust when things started to go south again. Stylos and bird's nests and millies all died.

Cloudy water in the older pics was from when I had set the tank back up after the bleaching and it was still going through some ugliness. Bare bottom tanks go through a lot of cloudy days before things even out. Its been months since I have seen anything cloudy at all.

I use ROX carbon and I run a BRS Reactor full when I use it. Its off and on and I pack it in there tight to prevent grinding and tumbling. I really only use it when I feel I need to. Ive gone through phases with this tank of using it constantly to not using it at all to see if there was any change in things and I never saw any.


I filled the whole system with tap water and added about 15 gallons of bleach and turned everything on. Anything that was exposed to water normally was exposed to the bleach.

I do fear that some of the porous surfaces of the rocks may have been able to remain un-bleached but I have no way of knowing that. I tried my best to run the tank as normal but with bleach water instead of saltwater.


I am in the process of trying to borrow or rent a PAR meter now.

If I end up just buying one I assume this is the one to go with?

SQ-520 Full Spectrum Smart Quantum LED PAR Sensor

Increased Accuracy for LED Lighting Measurements! The Smart Quantum SQ-520 PAR Sensor is a USB powered sensor that will hook up to any PC or MAC allowing you to use your personal computer instead of an expensive dedicated monitor with the included 15 foot long USB cable. Hooking a sensor up...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

Apogee 650 is the latest of you want to measure wider spectrums, it’s a waste for Radions

 

[Lavey29]

FWIW I do dose phyto.

I bought a bottle of the PNS Probio from algaebarn but its kind of expensive and I have to dose A LOT based on their instructions so I only went through 1 bottle.

Good moves, dose half dose of probio twice a week. I know you have a large tank so it can add up but once you get the bacteria established you can scale back.

I think you are taking a very logical systematic approach to your situation.

There are water tests for invasive bacteria also that are harmful to coral.

 

[MnFish1]

I am at a complete loss here and I don't know what else to try. I would appreciate any and all advice or ideas you guys possibly have.

I am a year and a few months into this new tank. Everything is going great and (using a trident) I have the parameters very very stable, coraline algae growing all over, and all of the fish are very healthy and disease free. This is not my first tank and so I have tried to do everything the best way possible this time around. Quarantine all fish properly, not cheap out on items, etc. I have a maintenance routine that is very constant so there should be no big changes ever happening to this system.

Here is my problem: Every coral I put into the tank dies. I have tried: Stylo, Cyphastrea, Chalice, Lepto, and Zoanthids. Only the Zoas are still alive but they are absolutley not growing or spreading at all and several have just melted away. All of the other corals have just gone pale and had their tissue slowly recede over the course of about 1 week or two.

What is the issue here? I have a tank at work that I have 0 issues with and my first tank was an SPS dominant 75g that was fine. I am somewhat experience in this hobby and would like to rule out any of the obvious newbie mistakes when it comes to corals.

Here is a bit of background on the tank and the parameters:

300 gallon display (96x36x20) with a ~150g sump. It is a bare bottom display with an ABS plastic bottom (pretty much covered in coraline at this point). It is controlled by and Apex with 3 DOS units and a Trident. I verify the tridents reading once a week to be safe and it has never deviated more than the expected margin of error. I have a Pentair 80W HO UV Sterilizer on it running off of the return pump (Reeflo Barracuda Gold). There is cheato in the fuge that is growing well and I run filter socks that I change out every few days.

I dose BRS Soda ash and BRS Calcium Chloride (about 180ml of each a day) with a DOS over a 24hr time period to keep everything stable.

Alk: 9.0DKH
Cal: 425 ppm
Mag 1500ppm
PO4: 0.1 - 0.05ppm on average
NO3: 12-25ppm on average

I have sent in several ICP tests over the last year and every singe one has come back almost completely green. I honestly have never seen an ICP test that looked so good on any of my tanks (I can post the most recent one if people are interested).

For Lighting I have 8 Radion Gen 4 Pros with diffusers on them at about 16in off the water. I rented a par meter when I first set them up and have PAR maps for the tank at 50%, 60%, and 70%. I am running the lights at 55% currently and there is no place in the tank where the PAR is over 310.

For Flow I have 2x MP40 and 4x MP60 (overkill but I wanted to push water across an 8ft tank so I went with more horsepower) I use a combo of Tidal Swell mode and Reef Crest on the vortechs to keep the currents in the tank constantly shifting.

Water changes are done via one of the DOS units at 6gal a day. I use Tropic Marin Pro salt and adjust the alk up a bit to match the display.

I use no other media like GFO. I have a carbon reactor plumbed into the manifold but rarely use it unless I feel the need to.



Everything seems perfect for corals (especially SPS) but here I am unable to keep anything alive, much less get it growing)

Please help. I have no clue what this issue is.

A couple more questions:

1. What kind of fish are in the tank - are you sure they are compatible with the corals you're trying (I assume they are)
2. What is the source of the coral - are they being shipped, properly acclimated, etc (I have had much better luck with coral bought from an LFS as compared to shipped)
3. Do you QT the corals? How long does it take for them to 'do poorly'. Weeks, hours, days, etc
4. Do you use carbon - (activated). Which can help with coral warfare if there is any.
5. Do you do any dips, etc?

This happened in a tank of mine - and adding activated carbon seemed to solve the problem. Assuming all of your tests are correct - there has to be some unmeasurable problem.

The tank itself looks nice. I don't suppose you have PAR measurements. ? Are you trying to match the PAR levels from teh place you bought the corals?

 

[zdrc]

I filled the whole system with tap water and added about 15 gallons of bleach and turned everything on. Anything that was exposed to water normally was exposed to the bleach.

I do fear that some of the porous surfaces of the rocks may have been able to remain un-bleached but I have no way of knowing that. I tried my best to run the tank as normal but with bleach water instead of saltwater.

As a last ditch effort you could toss all the rocks, empty the sump and the display, and repeat the bleaching. Then buy all new rock + sump stuff. Definitely worth trying other stuff first, though.

Personally, I don't think it's a light problem because it seems like you tested it pretty well already. It's probably not too little light because the zoas would be doing well. It could be too much light, but you tested the PAR already and you also played around with turning the lights down to 15%, and that didn't seem to be working. Still, it might be worth comparing the lighting in the test tank to the display, then trying to match that PAR in the display.

Have you considered running another AquaBiomics test?

 

[Steve and his Animals]

On the same vein with the lighting, I don't know if this was discussed prior, but in the store I work at where we use all AI Hydra lights on our reefs, there was a mistake in setting the lighting spectra and the UV was cranked. For months, we couldn't figure out why corals were dying. We dropped the UV down to like 10% and the deaths stopped almost immediately. Only other thing that I could think of that you might not have already.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

I haven’t read the whole thread and it might have been mentioned but did you start the tank with dry rock? If so, that’s most likely your issue. It can take ages before those tanks are ready for coral.

 

[terraincognita]

On the same vein with the lighting, I don't know if this was discussed prior, but in the store I work at where we use all AI Hydra lights on our reefs, there was a mistake in setting the lighting spectra and the UV was cranked. For months, we couldn't figure out why corals were dying. We dropped the UV down to like 10% and the deaths stopped almost immediately. Only other thing that I could think of that you might not have already.

This is also a very good point.

PAR isn't the only thing you need to be concerned with, SPECTRUM is a HUGE factor as well. I didn't even think about that for a second.