Mass LPS (Acan and Euphyllia) Death

[HKAVR45]

I’d like to preface this post by saying that I have scoured reef forums for answers and found that others had similar symptoms with LPS decline, but everyone had different setups and parameters. And there were no conclusive findings. I hope by laying all the information out up front someone will be able to point me in the right direction.


Issue:

• Slow systematic decline and demise of all LPS. Started with a series of euphyllia dying presumably due to brown jelly. 2 Octospawn and 2 torches.
• Acans then started to show signs of stress. Starting on one side of the coral head by head would shrink and then slowly slough off the skeleton. Then onto the next closest head, then next closest coral. Wiped out about 10-15 acan frags and small colonies. Only a few in random places have been spared so far. I have tried the usual dips as well as an iodine bath. No pests were removed. There is no brown jelly. Heads just shrink and fall off while the remaining heads are open, feeders out and accept food.
• No fish/snail/crab deaths other than an occasional wrasse victim.

Equipment:

• RedSea Reefer 525XL (Running 1 year and 10 months)
• 3 Hydra 26 HD Was running AB+ at 75% of suggested values
• Two MP40QD’s running at max 35%
• Vertex Omega 180i skimmer
• DOS AWC: 2.6 gallon change daily (50G reservoir replenished every 2.5 weeks)
• Salt: Combo Blue and Black Red Sea and have been alternating in Fritz blue.
• Tunze ATO w/ 20G reservoir
• Air Water Ice 6 stage RODI Prefilters and DI changed on schedule. Always 0 TDS water.
• Chaeto refugium w/ Kessil 160. Located in chamber before filter socks. Not ideal, but I get tremendous chaeto growth. Pulling volley ball size amounts out every two weeks
• Kalk Reactor which was taken offline mid September because Soda Ash alone was meeting my consumption needs.

Critical Parameters (tested 10/7/2020):

• Temp – 79.5 - 80
• pH – 8.15 to 8.24 summer windows open 8.04 to 8.14 winter
• ALK – 8.0 (Hanna) Consistently +-.05 of 8.0
• Ca – 405 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
• Mg – 1440 ppm (red Sea Pro)
• PO4 - .09 (Hanna Phosphorus ULR) Consistently between 1.1 and .07 use GFO to regulate
• NO3 – 32ppm (Red Sea Pro diluted method) Nitrates always this high or greater
• NH3 – 0 untraceable (API test)

Dosing/Feeding:

• GAC swapped monthly
• GFO swapped when phosphates are above .1
• Soda Ash 10ml daily
• Various trace elements + Iodide (Value was 0 on ICP test 9/14/20)
• NOPOX 8ml daily
• MB7 half dose (1 cap) weekly
• Fish: Mysis/Krill 2 cubes in morning, LRS 1”x1” LRS in evening w/ Selcon & Garlic
• Coral: mixture of Reefroids/Gonipower/Benepets/other mixed w/ Coral Amino. Directly fed weekly

Fish Stocking List:

• Yellow Tang (Large)
• Foxface (Large)
• Tomini Tang (small)
• Blue jaw trigger (small)
• Clown (med)
• Striped blenny (small)
• Neon Goby (small)
• Sleeper Goby (Med)
• Yellow watchman Goby (small)
• Royal Gramma (small)
• Talbots Damsel (small)
• Domino Damsel (Med)
• 2 x Yellow tail Damsels (small)
• Algae Blenny (small)
• Purple Dottyback (small)
• Neon Wrasse (small)
• Christmas Wrasse (med)
• Melanarus Wrasse (med)
• Checkerboard Wrasse (med)
• Yellow Coris Wrasse (Med)
• Seagrasse Wrasse (Med)
• Fairy Wrasse (Med)

Notable Events:

• April 2020: Noticed light mounts were corroded near the waterline with black paint flaking off into the tanks. In September I sanded them down with a wire brush and repainted with rustoleum.
• April/May 2020: Decline and demise began
• May 2020: Aiptasia infestation really started to take off. Was using Aiptasia X as well as the Tropic Marin product
• July 2020: Salinity dropped from 1.025 to 1.019. My AWC supply line was blocked from salt sediment. Water continued to be removed from tank and was replaced with ATO. Increased salinity over the course of 1 week.
• August 2020: ALK increased to 10.4 from 8.5. This occurred over time due lack of maintenance and testing. No immediate casualties.
• August 2020: Added Berghia Nudibranchs. Haven’t seen one, but have noticed the aiptasia population slowly declining.
• ATI ICP test performed: High NO3 – 30.10 mg/l (reference 2mg/l), elevated Chrome 4.02 ug/l (reference .48ug/l), very low iodine 14.9 ug/l (reference 62.57 ug/l), Aluminum 6.57 ug/l (reference .1ug/l)
• October 2020: No fish deaths this year, but just noticed Fairy Wrasse with white feces, not eating and now hiding in the rock. All other fish acting normally.

Potential Hypotheses:

• Bacterial infection and or an imbalance of good and bad bacteria
• Nutrient issues: High Nitrate or imbalance between Nitrate and Phosphate
• Tank Overstocked
• ALK swings (although has remained consistently between 7.7 and 8.5 for several months)
• Switching Salts frequently between Fritz and Red Sea Blue (however they have almost identical numbers)
• Light mount corrosion added contaminates to the tank in form of Chrome. This coincided with the beginning of the coral decline.
• Lighting/flow too high or too low
• Chemical Warfare: Have a giant toadstool probably 10-12 inches around.

Next Planned Steps:

• Add bacteria: Dr. Tim’s Waste Away Gel and Eco Balance Added at quarter or half dose. Also add PNS Probio probiotic to encourage “good” bacteria growth
• Triton NDOC or Aqua Biome testing to determine bacterial make up of tank.

Thank you for reading my novel. Hope someone can help.

 

[metzer]

Sorry to hear your loses but i would be interested to see the test results in your next steps.

 

[MERKEY]

Hey there, I'm so sorry to see you go through this.

It sounds like and looks like from the reading that you had a few things change/happen all within a short period.

It is going to be hard to pinpoint 1 general thing that made this start. So finding the actual fix could be frustrating.

I think you are headed in the right path. A lot of people think bac in a bottle is a waste but I still add it every water chang. A test to see what actually is going on in the diversity of said bac would be interesting to see for sure!

Here's some answers to the questions but I'm sure more knowledgeable people will chim in!

Bacterial infection and or an imbalance of good and bad bacteriaNutrient issues: could be and the test will tell. Some say using it withing the first couple years really helps establish diversity of bac.

High Nitrate or imbalance between Nitrate and
Phosphate: yes this has a great deal to do with any coral. This swing with other swings and changes could very well contribute.

Tank Overstocked: possibly but if nutrients are being exported correctly the corals shouldn't care. Maybe a nipper in the bunch..

ALK swings (although has remained consistently between 7.7 and 8.5 for several months)Yes this is small enough of a swing with the other switches to cause what's happening.

Switching Salts frequently between Fritz and Red Sea Blue (however they have almost identical numbers) also a good reason for corals to be p offed and mixed with alk swing and phos swing we have a bad recipe cooking..

Light mount corrosion added contaminates to the tank in form of Chrome. Possibly....icp test is only way to really tell and you would need 1 from before and after.

This coincided with the beginning of the coral decline.Lighting/flow too high or too low: lighting wouldn't cause this on its own but the lack of proper light nutrients combined with other stressors mentioned above is absolutely not out of possibilities.

Chemical Warfare: Have a giant toadstool probably 10-12 inches around. Softies do kick off some nasties but alone they wouldn't do this much damage.

All of this combined with a salt swing is probably causing all of the issues. But time will only tell unfortunately.

For now I would add the bac and keep things as stable as possible.

Give it a couple weeks with hard core stability in alk, phos, and salinity and see what things start to do.

Unfortunately in reefing their is no quick fix and it s ucks when we see things die and have to "wait" for them to get better.

I'm sorry I can not be more help but perhaps @ReefSquad can help a bit more!

 

[Bleigh]

All your hypothesis seem plausible.

The phosphate imbalance doesn't seem crazy enough to me, but it can cause some issues and can definitely be a contributing factor with other stressors present.

As @MERKEY said, I might consider an ICP test also. It may give you some insight on the contaminants you are concerned about. It may be able to rule them out or let you know you have a problem.

So this is purely from my experience, but I had some similar issues. And was going through all the potential issues, like you are. I came down one night and was shocked by how many asterina starfish there were. I had seen 2-3 that I always picked out, but I was infested. I'm not sure if they were actually eating any of my corals, but I'm certain the corals did not like being crawled over. I got a harlequin shrimp and he went to town.

My corals are doing much better, but I have no idea what to attribute it to. Maybe it was that I finally started dosing regularly, cleaning the sand bed a little each water change, adding in carbon and GFO reactors, or getting my alk stable within +/-0.15 or if it was a pest issue. Keep at it. As the saying goes, it's a chess game you'll eventually lose, but it sure is fun playing.

 

[glb]

Sorry you’re having a tough time. You’ve got a lot going on. I’d say your nutrients being that high is a big problem even apart from how your corals are doing. You need to find the source so you can reduce them to better levels for LPS (in my tank that’s nitrates between 5-8ppm and phosphates between 0.02-0.07. Note that these numbers will work for a softie/LPS tank but not if you have SPS. Also, I would change out your gfo way before it gets to .1 (is that ppm?). I’d change it when it gets to 0.05, just my personal opinion but that works for me.

As far as changing salt mixes around, I would pick one and use it consistently. That inconsistency makes it difficult for corals to thrive. Also, the swings in salinity are going to irritate the corals. I’ve had some swings like that after my AWC went empty and RODI pumped in instead. The swing wasn’t as much as yours but the corals were very unhappy for a bit.

For a while at least, I’d test alk every day. The swing from 7.8-8.5 is still too much. I’d pick an alk number and stick with it. So if you picked 8dkh, test every day and then dose if needed based on the results. I started this way, testing every day, until I saw a pattern. I averaged the daily doses I was doing and programmed a dosing pump to do the work from then on. I use a Hanna Checker and aim for 8.5dkh for my softie/LPS tank. I’m convinced that the several months I tested daily made a huge difference in finding balance.

It‘s going to take some time to figure things out. Take it slow, evaluate everything you mentioned and make corrections slowly. Good luck, and ask a lot of questions here!!

 

[swiss1939]

Anecdotal from a noob who is also struggling with this.. i had some lps sps deaths with what i thought was safe nutrients. I've come to the conclusion in my circumstances it was two things.. salinity jumped fast from ato instability compounded by too low flow. I have a reefer 170 with three power heads in it which i turned way down after adding hammers and seeing them swaying a lot more than i thought was acceptable. Few weeks later i had half of my lps sps die with the salinity swing. Just took a chance and replaced the lps and sps again and while i was at my lfs i noticed that every single tank there had much higher flow than i thought was safe. All their lps were really swaying and the current in each of their tanks was strong. So i went home and turned up the flow on everything almost to full and adjusted aim to prevent them from being hit dead on with the stronger flow. Everything seems way happier and the hammers despite being blown around much more seem to be expanding and looking a lot healthier! Maybe turn those heads up above 35%?

My fish also seem much happier now as they are more active.

 

[Tastee]

I would consider raising the Iodine level. This is an important element for some corals for tissue growth and regeneration, particularly Gonioporas. You obviously don’t want to change too much at once, but your ICP test has this measuring very low so raising it back to around 0.06 ppm (60 ug/l) may help.

 

[HKAVR45]

I really appreciate everyone's detailed replies. I've just finished up some significant and long over due maintenance. The sump was fully siphoned out and moved rubble rock from a pretty much enclosed basket to a container made of eggcrate light diffuser. There was so much detritus in the bottom of the container and sump. I removed about 15 gallons of brown water. The skimmer and other sump equipment was given a citric acid bath. Its amazing how much I had to dial back the skimmer after the cleaning.

In response to a few suggestions posted in this thread:

- Bacteria: Dr. Tims waste away in the sump and PNS Probio and Yellow Sno dosed once per week. We'll see what affects this has after a month.

- Parameter swings: These acans are tough. Some have been through 2 tank moves where I'm sure parameters were all over the place and they came from smaller tanks without ATO's subjected to huge salinity swings. Not saying this isn't a contributor, but I think something else is at play here.

- ICP test: I did have a test performed towards the end of September. The only notable issues were basically zero Iodine (which I've started dosing Seachem Iodide) and Chrome which I'm assuming came from the corroded light mounts (which have been repaired).

Asterinas: I have a billion of these guys. I do notice them around the edges of the acans and euphyillia, but its always up for debate. Are they eating the coral or the decomposing flesh. Unfortunately the harlequin isn't an option for me because I'm heavily populated with wrasses. I'm sure the shrimp wouldn't last 24hrs in the tank.

Sand bed: This is an interesting one. Its only about 2inches deep in the tank and I personally prefer no sand, but need it for the wrasses. I do not really clean it because I do have a sleeper goby that's constantly sifting. It looks immaculate. but maybe its not. Hopefully the bacteria I am dosing will help if there is an issue.

Nutrients: The high nitrate could definitely be the issue here, but this is also a subject of debate. Some people run LPS/Softy tanks with nitrate on the higher side. Maybe the bacteria will help bring these numbers back down to more reasonable levels. What I can say on this topic is that I am stopping NOPOX dosing. I was using half the recommended dose and immediately after dosing everything in the tank looked terrible. Between this and the fact that it hasn't moved the nitrate number down, I'm going to look for other ways to control nutrient numbers.

ALK: I Funny you should mention testing daily because I've never used so much Hanna reagent in my life! I am checking ALK every day and phosphate every other. I just can't seem to dial in a dosing schedule that keeps things constant. I have two ALK tools at my disposal. I have a DOS, one head for soda ash and the other pushing water through a Kalk stirrer. I like Kalk because it also helps maintain Ca, but its very difficult to dial in for ALK especially since the concentration inside the stirrer is constantly decreasing over time.

Flow: I do run a variety of programs Nutrient export, reef crest, etc. I've been running these programs at the 35% long before I started having issues and the corals do have good movement. I have been toying with the idea of running Lagoon at a higher rate.

Iodine: As mentioned above, this parameter in particular caught my eye on the ICP test. With the smaller tanks I had I can remember adding lugols to the saltwater just before the water change. Something I should explore as opposed to the Iodide.

Thanks again everyone. This has been very helpful.

 

[HKAVR45]

One other thing I forgot to mention. I started another thread a while back about AWC lines getting clogged with salt sediment. As a preventative maintenance measure I cleaned out the lines again after only 3 months of usage. Take a look at this garbage in the bucket. Its literally black stuff, not the typical brown rusty colored residue that some salt leaves behind after mixing. I'm wondering if this has something to do with my issues. I just ordered TM Pro and will be switching to that next time I make water.

 

[AquaBiomics]

This sounds like something I've seen in one of my tanks. I've found a single bacterial species consistently associated with the symptoms in my infected tank (an undescribed species in the genus Arcobacter)... it'd be interesting to see whats in yours!

 

[Bleigh]

I really appreciate everyone's detailed replies. I've just finished up some significant and long over due maintenance. The sump was fully siphoned out and moved rubble rock from a pretty much enclosed basket to a container made of eggcrate light diffuser. There was so much detritus in the bottom of the container and sump. I removed about 15 gallons of brown water. The skimmer and other sump equipment was given a citric acid bath. Its amazing how much I had to dial back the skimmer after the cleaning.

In response to a few suggestions posted in this thread:

- Bacteria: Dr. Tims waste away in the sump and PNS Probio and Yellow Sno dosed once per week. We'll see what affects this has after a month.

- Parameter swings: These acans are tough. Some have been through 2 tank moves where I'm sure parameters were all over the place and they came from smaller tanks without ATO's subjected to huge salinity swings. Not saying this isn't a contributor, but I think something else is at play here.

- ICP test: I did have a test performed towards the end of September. The only notable issues were basically zero Iodine (which I've started dosing Seachem Iodide) and Chrome which I'm assuming came from the corroded light mounts (which have been repaired).

Asterinas: I have a billion of these guys. I do notice them around the edges of the acans and euphyillia, but its always up for debate. Are they eating the coral or the decomposing flesh. Unfortunately the harlequin isn't an option for me because I'm heavily populated with wrasses. I'm sure the shrimp wouldn't last 24hrs in the tank.

Sand bed: This is an interesting one. Its only about 2inches deep in the tank and I personally prefer no sand, but need it for the wrasses. I do not really clean it because I do have a sleeper goby that's constantly sifting. It looks immaculate. but maybe its not. Hopefully the bacteria I am dosing will help if there is an issue.

Nutrients: The high nitrate could definitely be the issue here, but this is also a subject of debate. Some people run LPS/Softy tanks with nitrate on the higher side. Maybe the bacteria will help bring these numbers back down to more reasonable levels. What I can say on this topic is that I am stopping NOPOX dosing. I was using half the recommended dose and immediately after dosing everything in the tank looked terrible. Between this and the fact that it hasn't moved the nitrate number down, I'm going to look for other ways to control nutrient numbers.

ALK: I Funny you should mention testing daily because I've never used so much Hanna reagent in my life! I am checking ALK every day and phosphate every other. I just can't seem to dial in a dosing schedule that keeps things constant. I have two ALK tools at my disposal. I have a DOS, one head for soda ash and the other pushing water through a Kalk stirrer. I like Kalk because it also helps maintain Ca, but its very difficult to dial in for ALK especially since the concentration inside the stirrer is constantly decreasing over time.

Flow: I do run a variety of programs Nutrient export, reef crest, etc. I've been running these programs at the 35% long before I started having issues and the corals do have good movement. I have been toying with the idea of running Lagoon at a higher rate.

Iodine: As mentioned above, this parameter in particular caught my eye on the ICP test. With the smaller tanks I had I can remember adding lugols to the saltwater just before the water change. Something I should explore as opposed to the Iodide.

Thanks again everyone. This has been very helpful.

sounds like you’re doing all the right things. I’m sure things will start looking better for you soon.

I honestly don’t think my asterias were eating my coral. I just think they were irritating the daylight out of them. So much so they stopped opening like they should, and went downhill. But who knows. I also got my alk a lot more dialed in around the same time I put in my harlequin. It’s purely anecdotal.

 

[HKAVR45]

This sounds like something I've seen in one of my tanks. I've found a single bacterial species consistently associated with the symptoms in my infected tank (an undescribed species in the genus Arcobacter)... it'd be interesting to see whats in yours!

I've been looking into your service because I think a bacterial imbalance is the root of this issue. If something suspect like the acrobacter is found are their specific actions that can be taken against just that species? Or do you nuke the tank with an overdose of chemiclean and buy stock in bacteria in a bottle?

I guess I'm just curious about the custom strategies mentioned on the website. Is there an example you can share? I have to imagine its a little more detailed than start using MB7 and get a piece of live rock from someone else's tank.

 

[tymo92]

Old thread, but did you get ever find a solution to this? Very similar issues in my tank with euphyllia (slowly dying now) and acans/favias/chalices (all dead).

tried dosing the tank with ciprofloxacin and a more concentrated couple day cipro bath for the euphyllia, but no dice.

 

[Harold999]

Old thread, but did you get ever find a solution to this? Very similar issues in my tank with euphyllia (slowly dying now) and acans/favias/chalices (all dead).

tried dosing the tank with ciprofloxacin and a more concentrated couple day cipro bath for the euphyllia, but no dice.

How did this end? Euphyllia dying of brown jelly despite the use of cipro?

 

[tymo92]

How did this end? Euphyllia dying of brown jelly despite the use of cipro?

Euphyllia heads slowly receding, and eventually dying. I’ve tried concentrated Cipro baths for 2 days in a 5g bucket, h2o2 dips, nothing seems to work.

 

[Billys_reef]

I seem to be having the exact problem and I am concluding that it may be a bacterial infection of some sort.

My tank is a mixed tank packed with acros/zoas/frogspawn/acans/chalices/torches and they are all thriving except torches. For the past year all my torches will start out healthy and then slowly start receding their flesh. Being in Canada it is very hard to get cipro so I have tried chemiclean to help with maybe a possible bacterial infection but it did not work.

 

[ZoWhat]

I think most ppl read brown jelly...then say