Asking for help because I am at a complete loss

[Nano sapiens]

Saw your post on 'City Water Report', so looks like you're still having issues keeping coral in this system.

Since I see that all the 'usual suspects' have been looked for and ruled out, I'd suggest having your system's microbiome tested by Aquabiomics (https://aquabiomics.com/). Not only will this tell you what kind of bacteria/archaea community your system has (and if it is of a type that has been found in other healthy reef aquariums, or not), but it will also tell you if there are any known coral pathogens.

Best of luck resolving this.

 

[TriggerFinger]

Hey @HWDylan I didn’t read the whole thread but I noticed on page 2 you said you have a water softener and the rodi is after the softener. Have you moved it to before the softener? There’s a couple threads on here that had similar issues and a water softener in the home. I’ll try to find a thread

here’s the thread I was thinking of. She may have had a bad batch of salt or the wrong salt added to her softener.

Everything is Dead, Including All Bristleworms

I agree with wallyB keep the rocks, you can probably get away with a muriatic acid and chlorine dip, then rinse with RODI, and cure for a couple of weeks if you feel the need to. i never cured the bit of Tonga branch and vanuatu island rock i kept after the fact, and have now been in 3 different...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[ReefGeezer]

Where do you get that stuff, just did a quick search and didn’t see it.

Garf.org - It' and old site so navigating it isn't the easiest, but they have several products, including their Grunge, that might help with biodiversity.

 

[HWDylan]

Saw your post on 'City Water Report', so looks like you're still having issues keeping coral in this system.

Since I see that all the 'usual suspects' have been looked for and ruled out, I'd suggest having your system's microbiome tested by Aquabiomics (https://aquabiomics.com/). Not only will this tell you what kind of bacteria/archaea community your system has (and if it is of a type that has been found in other healthy reef aquariums, or not), but it will also tell you if there are any known coral pathogens.

Best of luck resolving this.

Thank you! I will investigate this further for sure and get my water tested.

Hey @HWDylan I didn’t read the whole thread but I noticed on page 2 you said you have a water softener and the rodi is after the softener. Have you moved it to before the softener? There’s a couple threads on here that had similar issues and a water softener in the home. I’ll try to find a thread

here’s the thread I was thinking of. She may have had a bad batch of salt or the wrong salt added to her softener.

Everything is Dead, Including All Bristleworms

I agree with wallyB keep the rocks, you can probably get away with a muriatic acid and chlorine dip, then rinse with RODI, and cure for a couple of weeks if you feel the need to. i never cured the bit of Tonga branch and vanuatu island rock i kept after the fact, and have now been in 3 different...

www.reef2reef.com

I have not thought about this yet... interesting.

Sounds like a good weekend project for me.

Garf.org - It' and old site so navigating it isn't the easiest, but they have several products, including their Grunge, that might help with biodiversity.

I added 25lb of Garf about 3 or 4 months ago at this point and saw no improvement unfortunately. I do not think that biodiversity is my problem at this point.



To further add to what has been happening with this issue since my last post here, I have been running carbon (ROX) non-stop in a reactor since about March. No improvements.

I stopped washing my filter socks in the washing machine thinking that maybe residue fabric softener was my issue. I now just use water and bleach in a bucket and thoroughly let them dry before using them. I have been doing this since late march and I have seen no improvements.

I set up an area in my sump with a Kessil A360 over it and a frag rack to test to see if it is something (lighting, livestock, flow, etc) in the display. I am currently watching a group of about 8 frags (2 acros, 2 montis, 2 favias, a chalice, and a yuma) slowly die after only being in there for around a week. Pretty much exactly like they would in the display. So I do think I can rule out one of my fish picking at the corals as well as the lighting and flow.

Unless I am completely missing something, this HAS to be something in the water right? I did order an ATI ICP test kit recently (should be here on Wed) just to get an ICP test done by a different company than Triton on the off chance that their methodology will catch something Triton is missing.


I guess my next step is to set up a seprate smaller tank completely isolated from the display. That way I can rule out some contamination coming from the tank or equipment.

 

[vessxpress1]

My first inclination was chloramines getting in through the water or residual copper from QT. But that is a heck of a light bank. I see you have dialed them back. Many coral don't need nearly the light we like to provide them and I think a lot of sellers be it private or LFS, tend to run stuff on low settings to save energy and pure blue to make colors stand out more than they normally would. Then they get into a home system and get baked but people look at every other parameter thinking something else is wrong. I've done it.

The nice part about zoas is they can stretch and tell you if they're getting enough light. If they lay out flat and color starts to fade out they probably are getting too much light. If they start stretching upwards they want more. I just moved some around because of this. I hope you figure it out. Such a cool tank there.

 

[tripdad]

Consider doing a biodiversity/ coral pathogen test with Aquabiomics to rule out coral pathogens.

 

[ReefHomieJon]

What’s the difference between what your salinity shows on the monitor and what it is really?

 

[HWDylan]

What’s the difference between what your salinity shows on the monitor and what it is really?

Salinity reads 36ppt with a hanna conductivity probe, and 35 with the Digital Refractometer. I have double checked these readings with a analogue refractometer as well since I had one lying around. All read roughly the same thing. I mostly ignore that APEX probe since it has never really been particularly accurate.

My first inclination was chloramines getting in through the water or residual copper from QT. But that is a heck of a light bank. I see you have dialed them back. Many coral don't need nearly the light we like to provide them and I think a lot of sellers be it private or LFS, tend to run stuff on low settings to save energy and pure blue to make colors stand out more than they normally would. Then they get into a home system and get baked but people look at every other parameter thinking something else is wrong. I've done it.

The nice part about zoas is they can stretch and tell you if they're getting enough light. If they lay out flat and color starts to fade out they probably are getting too much light. If they start stretching upwards they want more. I just moved some around because of this. I hope you figure it out. Such a cool tank there.

I thought lights as well since 8 radion pros is a lot but I turned them all the way down to 15% and even turned off every other light so only 4 were on and I still get the same results. Ive killed about 40 frags at this point experimenting with different things, luckily I have a decent grow out tank at work I can pull from.

The frags I put in the sump under the Kessil A360 also showed the same behavior as ones in the display. Poor polyp extension and gradual tissue recession over about a weeks time.

 

[HWDylan]

Consider doing a biodiversity/ coral pathogen test with Aquabiomics to rule out coral pathogens.

Just ordered a sample kit.

 

[HWDylan]

My Aquabiomics results should be here by the 31st so I am looking forward to that possibly shedding some light on this issue.

In the mean time I was wondering... lets suppose this test comes back totally normal with nothing pointing to why I would see coral mortality. Where do I go from here?

I have narrowed this down to it having to be something in the water. I put a bunch of frags in the sump under a spare Kessil A360 and saw the exact same thing happen (slow tissue recession and death over the course of about 2 weeks or so). So it isnt my lighting and it isnt my flow.

Could the rocks be leaching something possibly? I am starting to really consider buying all new rock, stripping the tank down and running vinegar or bleach through the system and then basically starting over from scratch with this system. That is a nuclear option but it is starting to look more and more enticing at this point since I am over a year and a half into this tank and literally every coral I put in dies (with the exception of GSP). I would hate to go this route only to have this same issue arise again.

Some background on the rocks I used: It is a 50/50 mix of Pukani and Reef Saver all brought brand new from BRS. I soaked the rock in bleach for a while and then in RO/DI with Prime for several weeks before letting it all dry out. I know this is basically standard procedure with rock like Pukani, but could I have introduced something that could still be leaching out of these rocks a year and a half later? I am getting very conspiratorial with my theories at this point but I am getting desperate to solve this issue.

Alternatively: Could there be some chemical or biological process going on in this system that could be messing with the "reef tank chemistry" side of things? This tank has had an insane demand for Alk and Cal since day 1. I am up to 209ml a day of each being dosed and I cant find anywhere it is precipitating out. This high demand is literally the only thing in this system that seems out of place to me. Ive never had a tank with no corals soak up cal and alk like that. If I stop dosing I see a drop of about 1DKH a day until it starts to bottom out around 5DKH (I did this experiment very early on before I even had corals in the tank at all) .

Interesting side note... the most recent frags ( a few acros ,some favia, and a chalice) I put into the sump showed what looked like Alk burn on the tips after a few days. Tips of the acros turned white. I check and re-check my alk using both a neptune trident and a Hanna Alk Checker and both agree with each other (~9DKH). I even took a sample to work and used out lab equipment to test it and it came up the same. I know I am sounding crazy but is there any way something could be fooling an Alk test into showing a much lower number? What if I am doing ~200ml of alk daily and its burning my corals but something is throwing all my testing off? Man, I need a tinfoil hat at this point...

 

[Nano sapiens]

My Aquabiomics results should be here by the 31st so I am looking forward to that possibly shedding some light on this issue.

In the mean time I was wondering... lets suppose this test comes back totally normal with nothing pointing to why I would see coral mortality. Where do I go from here?

I have narrowed this down to it having to be something in the water. I put a bunch of frags in the sump under a spare Kessil A360 and saw the exact same thing happen (slow tissue recession and death over the course of about 2 weeks or so). So it isnt my lighting and it isnt my flow.

Could the rocks be leaching something possibly? I am starting to really consider buying all new rock, stripping the tank down and running vinegar or bleach through the system and then basically starting over from scratch with this system. That is a nuclear option but it is starting to look more and more enticing at this point since I am over a year and a half into this tank and literally every coral I put in dies (with the exception of GSP). I would hate to go this route only to have this same issue arise again.

Some background on the rocks I used: It is a 50/50 mix of Pukani and Reef Saver all brought brand new from BRS. I soaked the rock in bleach for a while and then in RO/DI with Prime for several weeks before letting it all dry out. I know this is basically standard procedure with rock like Pukani, but could I have introduced something that could still be leaching out of these rocks a year and a half later? I am getting very conspiratorial with my theories at this point but I am getting desperate to solve this issue.

Alternatively: Could there be some chemical or biological process going on in this system that could be messing with the "reef tank chemistry" side of things? This tank has had an insane demand for Alk and Cal since day 1. I am up to 209ml a day of each being dosed and I cant find anywhere it is precipitating out. This high demand is literally the only thing in this system that seems out of place to me. Ive never had a tank with no corals soak up cal and alk like that. If I stop dosing I see a drop of about 1DKH a day until it starts to bottom out around 5DKH (I did this experiment very early on before I even had corals in the tank at all) .

Interesting side note... the most recent frags ( a few acros ,some favia, and a chalice) I put into the sump showed what looked like Alk burn on the tips after a few days. Tips of the acros turned white. I check and re-check my alk using both a neptune trident and a Hanna Alk Checker and both agree with each other (~9DKH). I even took a sample to work and used out lab equipment to test it and it came up the same. I know I am sounding crazy but is there any way something could be fooling an Alk test into showing a much lower number? What if I am doing ~200ml of alk daily and its burning my corals but something is throwing all my testing off? Man, I need a tinfoil hat at this point...

The person who can best answer any unusual chemistry questions is Randy Holmes-Farley. Try posting your specific queries in R2R's Chemistry forum (he runs it)

 

[HWDylan]

I just got my @AquaBiomics sample back today (see attached).

I see a few things are wonky but could any of this be to blame for all these problems?

Also how does one go about balancing this bacterial colony skew out a bit. Looks like I have way more Vibrionacae and way less Pelagibacteraceae. I am a biologist but microbiology is not my strong suit and I havent done bacterial seqencing stuff since college so its been a bit.

I also do not have a robust enough background in marine bacterial colonies to know if these things are capable of causing coral death on the scale that I have been experiencing.

Any input is much appreciated here.

As a side note I have set up a 55 gallon tank to see if a different system on the same water source is able to grow corals.

 

[Nano sapiens]

AquaBiomics followed up with an email regarding my sample, so keep a look out for that.

Good to see that you don't have any of the known fish or coral pathogens. Of course, there are undoubtedly as yet unidentified pathogens, but at least these major ones can be ruled out.

 

[HWDylan]

AquaBiomics followed up with an email regarding my sample, so keep a look out for that.

I received this email later yesterday and have been reading over it and processing it a bit.

They said my results were certainly interesting and outside of the norm.


I am about at the end of my rope on this probelm to say the least. I am seriously considering a complete tank breakdown, housing the fish in a 300g stock tank I have and then running bleach or vinegar through the whole system to start completely over. I would really hate to do all of this work and stress on the fish just to have this issue pop back up but ... man... I am just out of ideas.

 

[salty joe]

Can you afford checking your other tank that grows coral with AquaBiomics for comparison?

 

[HWDylan]

Can you afford checking your other tank that grows coral with AquaBiomics for comparison?

I was just talking about this with a coworker.

I may do this. Might even be able to get work to foot the bill.

 

[HWDylan]

Update for anyone still following:

The separate tank I set up has been very successful with growing corals.

This means the issue I am having is traceable to SOMETHING in the 300 gallon tank I am struggling with. I have sent in many ICP tests (from different companies even) and I have tried everything I know of. The ONLY thing that has pointed to something being even slightly wrong in that tank is the Aquabiomics bacteria test. There are several strains of bacteria present in my tank that are not normal and several normal strains not present in my tank.

I have made the hard decision to just drain the tank, move the fish into a 300gal stock tank temporarily, and bleach the whole system.

Tough choice to make, but I do not know how else to really deal with something like this and if I start completely over, I am sure I can get things running smoothly. I think something happened early in this tanks life that allowed certain types of bacteria to get a foothold in a way that I am unable to fix outside of a nuclear option.

Sucks that it took this long and to go through all of this but I do think I finally have a viable way to fix things.

Thanks to everyone who had any input of any kind. This has been incredibly frustrating and I appreciate all the help.

 

[salty joe]

IDK if this has been mentioned but could there be a pesticide or herbicide or toxin or chemical that ICP would not test for causing you grief?

Not sure what bleach would do if that's the case.

 

[HWDylan]

IDK if this has been mentioned but could there be a pesticide or herbicide or toxin or chemical that ICP would not test for causing you grief?

Not sure what bleach would do if that's the case.

If there is I dont know how it would be getting into the tank and not the tank sitting right next to it.

The test tank I set up is in the same room, using the same water source so I could eliminate the environment and water source as potential causes.

 

[Pistondog]

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.

Guess I'm late to the party.
Have you put a test coral in a guppy breeder in the tank, to rule out fish bothering them?
I have a couple of reef safe fish that didn't get the memo. So my scoly lives in a clear breeder for now.