So the past week has been a bad one for my reef tank. Everything was looking good until about a week ago. Almost all my LPS, especially my euphyllia, are receding/not opening up their polyps at all (see pics below). Some of the soft corals are doing terribly; my kenya tree and ricordia mushrooms are all shriveled up. The tank is 6 months old and started with dry rock and live sand. The tank is a 14 gallon IM AIO. I run a skimmer, filter pads, carbon, purigen, and a little GFO. I run an AI Prime HD 16 at about 35% instensity, 9 inches above the water surface. I have been battling a small dino outbreak in the sandbed lately and I'm worried that some of my corrective action may be hurting the tank.
I have been siphoning out the dinos from the sand bed almost every evening, running the tank water through a filter sock and returning it to the tank. This has helped keep the dinos under control. After siphoning I have been dosing Dr. Tim's waste away at half the recommended dose before the lights go out. I have never had cloudy water/bacterial bloom from this. My skimmer pulled out a lot more junk than usual while doing this and actually lowered my nitrates from 12 to 3 over the course of a week or so without doing any water changes. I have also been dosing about 8 ml of phytoplankton per day because I read that it helps combat the dinos. Generally, this seems to be reducing the dino population dramatically but during this time the health of my corals has declined significantly. I'd say more than half the corals in the tank are doing terribly, some look close to death.
For dosing, I started using kalkwasser in my ATO and half a tsp. per gallon was plenty for the last couple months keeping my Dkh at about 8.5 up until recently. In one week, my alk went from 8.5 to 9.5 so I cut the kalkwasser in half and only used a 1/4 tsp in ATO for the next week. Despite that, my alk shot from 9.5 to 11.2 in the following week! This leads me to believe that my tank is no longer consumer alkalinity so I am no longer dosing until the the level comes down. Oddly enough, my calcium and magnesium remained stable during this time. I did a small water change to lower the alk slightly.
Oh, and here are the current tank parameters:
Salinity: 34.3 ppt
Temp: 77-79 F
Ph: 8.2 (daytime)
Alkalinity: 10.6 Dkh
Calcium: 430 ppm
Magnesium: 1340 ppm
Nitrate: 3ppm
Phosphate: .03 ppm
I sent out an ICP yesterday and I have stopped dosing bacteria and phytoplankton as of today. I also don't plan on disturbing the substrate anymore for a while. I have included pics of all the corals that are suffering. Take note especially of the walling hammer (up front) and kenya tree (in back). It has been several days that they have looked like this but none of corals look very healthy EXCEPT THE SPS AND ZOAS. For some reason, they still look fine.
What is going on? Why does my reef seem to be dying? I am desperate for help, I cannot afford to tear down the tank and start a new one. If this tank dies, I have no choice but to leave the hobby for the time being. PLEASE HELP!!!
I have been siphoning out the dinos from the sand bed almost every evening, running the tank water through a filter sock and returning it to the tank. This has helped keep the dinos under control. After siphoning I have been dosing Dr. Tim's waste away at half the recommended dose before the lights go out. I have never had cloudy water/bacterial bloom from this. My skimmer pulled out a lot more junk than usual while doing this and actually lowered my nitrates from 12 to 3 over the course of a week or so without doing any water changes. I have also been dosing about 8 ml of phytoplankton per day because I read that it helps combat the dinos. Generally, this seems to be reducing the dino population dramatically but during this time the health of my corals has declined significantly. I'd say more than half the corals in the tank are doing terribly, some look close to death.
For dosing, I started using kalkwasser in my ATO and half a tsp. per gallon was plenty for the last couple months keeping my Dkh at about 8.5 up until recently. In one week, my alk went from 8.5 to 9.5 so I cut the kalkwasser in half and only used a 1/4 tsp in ATO for the next week. Despite that, my alk shot from 9.5 to 11.2 in the following week! This leads me to believe that my tank is no longer consumer alkalinity so I am no longer dosing until the the level comes down. Oddly enough, my calcium and magnesium remained stable during this time. I did a small water change to lower the alk slightly.
Oh, and here are the current tank parameters:
Salinity: 34.3 ppt
Temp: 77-79 F
Ph: 8.2 (daytime)
Alkalinity: 10.6 Dkh
Calcium: 430 ppm
Magnesium: 1340 ppm
Nitrate: 3ppm
Phosphate: .03 ppm
I sent out an ICP yesterday and I have stopped dosing bacteria and phytoplankton as of today. I also don't plan on disturbing the substrate anymore for a while. I have included pics of all the corals that are suffering. Take note especially of the walling hammer (up front) and kenya tree (in back). It has been several days that they have looked like this but none of corals look very healthy EXCEPT THE SPS AND ZOAS. For some reason, they still look fine.
What is going on? Why does my reef seem to be dying? I am desperate for help, I cannot afford to tear down the tank and start a new one. If this tank dies, I have no choice but to leave the hobby for the time being. PLEASE HELP!!!
