Hello, I have recently joined the forum and this is my first post so hopefully I'm placing it in the correct area! Thank you for a great forum, I have read many posts and learned quite a bit from all of those who participate. Unfortunately my first post is a bit of an emergency.
I am experiencing a sudden die off of almost all of my corals. The tank has been cycled and running steady for 7 months, and up until about a week and a half ago, all corals but one were doing extremely well, great color, excellent growth, good polyp extension, etc. Then, seemingly overnight they started to show signs of stress and within a couple days started have flesh die back on most of them. I test water very regularly and keep things as stable as I can. Even my LFS is perplexed (and the shop is an excellent facility and only sells saltwater/reef related livestock and equipment) with my situation and the only course of action I am taking is water changes. Water parameters are all where they should be. They mentioned a metal of some sort could be the cause, I bought a metasorb that pulls out 6 different metals, that has not helped at all. They also mentioned stray current perhaps? I am not familiar with that though.
System:
Red Sea Max 400 (total water volume 110 gallons)
Reef Octopus skimmer
2 Reefwave gyre's
2 power heads (built into the back wall)
2 Reef LED 90 lights
Reef mat 500
Parameters:
Alk: 8.7 (I use an ecotech versa pump for dosing) it stays very steady) (Hanna test kit)
Calcium: 420 (Red Sea test kit)
Magnesium: 1360 (Salifert test kit)
Nitrate: 1.7 (Hanna test kit)
Phosphate: 0.02 (Hanna test kit)
Ammonia: 0 (API test)
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 77.8 (this does seem to swing a little throughout the day a degree or so)
Corals that started to die off or stress out at the same time:
4 different Acropora sp
2 different plating Montipora
2 different Cyphastrea
1 Duncan (the Duncan was amazing, adding heads, super wavy. Now its literally sloughing off some tissue and is entirely closed up. All in a week and a half)
Corals that don't seem to be stressed:
1 Acan
1 Palythoa
1 Hammer (it's a little less extended, but still pretty good)
When I say "die off" I mean all of the SPS have tissue receding from tips of branches with brown algae now growing on it) and the cyphastrea are not extending polyps well and the tissue on the top is dying back. The Duncan I believe is at the point of "rotting" and I wonder if/when I need to pull it. I did a 25 gallon water change 4 days ago and doing another one when I'm done with this post. Any advice as to what could possibly be causing this quick decline, or something I can test/look for would be greatly appreciated.
Apologies for the long post!
I am experiencing a sudden die off of almost all of my corals. The tank has been cycled and running steady for 7 months, and up until about a week and a half ago, all corals but one were doing extremely well, great color, excellent growth, good polyp extension, etc. Then, seemingly overnight they started to show signs of stress and within a couple days started have flesh die back on most of them. I test water very regularly and keep things as stable as I can. Even my LFS is perplexed (and the shop is an excellent facility and only sells saltwater/reef related livestock and equipment) with my situation and the only course of action I am taking is water changes. Water parameters are all where they should be. They mentioned a metal of some sort could be the cause, I bought a metasorb that pulls out 6 different metals, that has not helped at all. They also mentioned stray current perhaps? I am not familiar with that though.
System:
Red Sea Max 400 (total water volume 110 gallons)
Reef Octopus skimmer
2 Reefwave gyre's
2 power heads (built into the back wall)
2 Reef LED 90 lights
Reef mat 500
Parameters:
Alk: 8.7 (I use an ecotech versa pump for dosing) it stays very steady) (Hanna test kit)
Calcium: 420 (Red Sea test kit)
Magnesium: 1360 (Salifert test kit)
Nitrate: 1.7 (Hanna test kit)
Phosphate: 0.02 (Hanna test kit)
Ammonia: 0 (API test)
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 77.8 (this does seem to swing a little throughout the day a degree or so)
Corals that started to die off or stress out at the same time:
4 different Acropora sp
2 different plating Montipora
2 different Cyphastrea
1 Duncan (the Duncan was amazing, adding heads, super wavy. Now its literally sloughing off some tissue and is entirely closed up. All in a week and a half)
Corals that don't seem to be stressed:
1 Acan
1 Palythoa
1 Hammer (it's a little less extended, but still pretty good)
When I say "die off" I mean all of the SPS have tissue receding from tips of branches with brown algae now growing on it) and the cyphastrea are not extending polyps well and the tissue on the top is dying back. The Duncan I believe is at the point of "rotting" and I wonder if/when I need to pull it. I did a 25 gallon water change 4 days ago and doing another one when I'm done with this post. Any advice as to what could possibly be causing this quick decline, or something I can test/look for would be greatly appreciated.
Apologies for the long post!