Corals Dying + ICP Test Result.

[Torretti]

Hello, lemme give some context and tell my mistakes and see if someone can help me.

I started my reef tank around 8 months ago, and everything was going well, corals looking happy and most of the rocks covered with coraline, until around 2 months ago when dinos showed up, even though my No3 was 10 and Po4 0.05. It looked like an brown spider web with smalls bubbles on the tips that covered the corals and some rocks. Since then I clean the corals and the rocks everyday, to remove it , which probably irritate the corals. I then increased the feeding, started to add phyto and copepods. It now turned in what i believe to be cyano, some spots have this reddish mat with some strings coming from it, but different from the first issue.

This period also coincide with the addition of a new light, the smat farm G5 95w, which I set to 40% power and was increasing it slowly. When it was around 80% power, I made the stupid decision to increase the power by higher amount and had it setted to 100%. Not that later all my coraline started to die and get white, so I set it back to 75% and never changed again (it was when the dinos started).

Honestly, all the corals are looking rough, dying slowly. All the LPS are losing tissue from the base, kenya tree and monti cap looks bleached, turbinaria and stylophora have a very shy polyp extension and the zoanthus frags that used to be big and round looks only partally open and crooked. The only one not so bad is a montipora forest fire.

So last week I did a 60% water change and collected the water for a ICP test by Reef Zlements and got the results today.

The tank has 100L.
I dose 5 ml of all for reef every day and do a 20% water change every 15 days.

On my tests I had:

Salinity 1.026 (35ppt)
DKH 8.6
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1300
Nitrate 2
phosphate 0.02
PH 8.1
Temperature 26ºC

And here is the ICP result:
Two things I notice is salinity is lower than expected and zinc high.
Macros seems most of it to be on the green zone and the traces all at the low red zone.

MACROS

TRACES

Pollutants

Thank you.

 

[Spare time]

Nitrate and phosphate are too low. That would be the first thing to correct

 

[Torretti]

Nitrate and phosphate are too low. That would be the first thing to correct

Yes, I agree. But I believe because I tested after a big water change. Usually I have my phosphate at 0.05 and nitrate at 10.

 

[Spare time]

Yes, I agree. But I believe because I tested after a big water change. Usually I have my phosphate at 0.05 and nitrate at 10.

Have you checked for any rust in terms of the nickel and zinc?

 

[Torretti]

Have you checked for any rust in terms of the nickel and zinc?

I checked the electrical stuff and them all seems intact. But i suspect that was a scholar paint brush that I used to clean the corals and the rocks everyday. It has this metal plate that holds the stick and the hairs together, and at some point it started to open cuz the wooden stick was swollen because the water and it was all rusty inside. Is it possible to be from that ? I thrown it away sometime ago already.

Similar to this one.

 

[Lavey29]

I checked the electrical stuff and them all seems intact. But i suspect that was a scholar paint brush that I used to clean the corals and the rocks everyday. It has this metal plate that holds the stick and the hairs together, and at some point it started to open cuz the wooden stick was swollen because the water and it was all rusty inside. Is it possible to be from that ? I thrown it away sometime ago already.

Similar to this one.

Not unless you leave it in the tank for long extended periods of time as in weeks. Quick in and out does nothing. Zinc affects coral color mainly so slight elevated is not an issue. You have low iron which can affect corals and your nutrients are bottomed out which means corals are starving to death. Have you par tested your tank?

 

[Torretti]

Not unless you leave it in the tank for long extended periods of time as in weeks. Quick in and out does nothing. Zinc affects coral color mainly so slight elevated is not an issue. You have low iron which can affect corals and your nutrients are bottomed out which means corals are starving to death. Have you par tested your tank?

Well, was a bit more than quick in and out. It was around half hour every day for more than a month, not sure if was enought to make any harm. And yes, most of the traces are lower than expected, it weird to get those values after a 60% water change. Apart from the iron, i was thinking to bring iodine a bit up aswell.
The 30ppt salinity it the one that worried me the most, it was supposed to be at 35ppt. I just bought a 35ppt solution and recalibrate the refractometer. Regarding the par, yes I tested it. the stylophora and montipora are at around 150 and the LPS around 100, the softies around 80-100.

 

[alanr3]

Had this battle before. If Dinos they usually stripped the water of nutrients and corals suffered. Some chemistry imbalance on my part was to blame and allowed them to take over. I did water changes and manual brushing to remove them every day in blackout for a week while doing aggressive water changes, did this for a month and slowly brought the tank back to balance. Second time it happened I said screw it, took the fish and nuked the tank in hydrogen peroxide out of frustration

 

[Lavey29]

Well, was a bit more than quick in and out. It was around half hour every day for more than a month, not sure if was enought to make any harm. And yes, most of the traces are lower than expected, it weird to get those values after a 60% water change. Apart from the iron, i was thinking to bring iodine a bit up aswell.
The 30ppt salinity it the one that worried me the most, it was supposed to be at 35ppt. I just bought a 35ppt solution and recalibrate the refractometer. Regarding the par, yes I tested it. the stylophora and montipora are at around 150 and the LPS around 100, the softies around 80-100.

My scraper has some rust on it and my long tweezers to. I still use them in and out. Yes salinity plays a role to. Not sure if that is low enough to affect corals. Watch your alk as you bring salinity back up because it will rise to. Most likely your corals have been struggling due to lack of nutrients for months. They decline from the inside out. One day everything just starts looking bag. Of course your algae issues contributed also. We have all been through similar situations. An 8 month tank is still very unstable. I would not invest much money into corals until after a year and your tank becomes more stable and predictable.