SPS STN/RTN one by one, total head scratcher!

[2Wheelsonly]

Background:

I am losing SPS acro and mili corals one by one, it's odd because if one starts going and I pull it early then it seems the next one up starts to go the next day. I have dipped many times and see no pests falling off nor do I see bite marks, just STN/RTN to a white skeleton; STN/RTN seems to happen in random spots (sometimes at base, or right in middle of colony). I have lost 15 frags/colonies and am down to my last 4. I fully expect to lose them all but still would like to know what caused this or if running fallow will solve this to allow me to add more in the future.

All of my monipora/purple stylo/gonipora/zoa have great vibrant colors and growth.

Tank Details:

Had a 300G SPS tank running 7 years, moved rocks and fish over to new 450G (current tank) and kept my choice colonies/frags. New tank is 1 year old with good light, flow and params.

SPS was growing, encrusting and everything was going well; the only change I made was carbon dosing about 3-4 months ago to lower nitrates as I like to feed heavy. I made sure to go very slow with my vinegar dosing and do find myself having to dose po4 as I feel my rock is absorbing. The only area of concern would be my low po4 but it's never hit "0" as far as I can tell.

Params:

ALK: 7.5
CALC: 400
MAG: 1300
No3 (20 3 months ago, down to 7.5 today)
po4: 0.02-0.05
Salt: IO
Salinity: 35ppt
Temps: 77.9-77.4 daily
pH: 8.2 - 7.9 daily
Potassium: 430 (slightly high probably from potassium from po4 dosing)
Flow: 130X in display
Lighting: Potentially too much? Par is 400-430 near middle top (I don't stack my rock past the upper middle portion of the tank) 190-220 in the sand bed, 250-390 in middle.
Good 36 inch lifereef skimmer
Chaeto in sump growing but mainly used as home for pods which I feel I have a good population.

Right before this situation happened I had a GHA explosion out of nowhere (lots of the walls of the tank and rocks). I figured maybe I hit equilibrium with my rock absorbing po4 and now it's starting to leach? I manually cleaned the tank and pulled the GHA since then but I found it odd that after doing nothing other than my no3 slowly dropping from 20 that I had this GHA outbreak.

Is SPS disease/bacteria a thing? Could that be my issue? I don't want to run out and spend $3,000 on UV so i'd like to explore resolution that doesn't involve doing that.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

I can’t make a specific diagnosis. Everything looks fine. I doubt there’s any disease process, especially “bacterial”. I can just relate my experience upgrading my reef. I used 1/2 old rock and tank bottom muck from my previous tank that was doing well with acros. I thought acros should do well in the new reef immediately. But they didn’t. A large A. nana/valida that I placed very early on initially grew and encrusted then stalled then STN’ed in a year. Some frags survived and grew. Many did nothing or STN’ed/ RTN’ed. I did nothing different for another year. No additives/trace elements/nitrate/phosphate. Just 2 part and water changes. At year 2, acropora thrived.
My recommendation is to stay the course and retry once STN stops or after a few months break.

 

[Lavey29]

Although I'm not an expert I agree with the above and stay the course. Every little tweak you make changes the environment stability and we all know stability is the name of the game here. The tank upgrade was the biggest stability change and there will be SPS losses due to that but some will crossover and acclimate unless you are making constant tweaks chasing numbers then they may go south. You have the experience. Give the new system time to find its eco balance.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I do agree with the responses but the biggest thing that's odd to me is that over the course of the year the acros I did move over flourished and had good growth. It's just odd to me that all of a sudden two weeks or so ago they ALL went downhill rapidly one by one.

Like a giant wrecking ball I can't stop.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

I do agree with the responses but the biggest thing that's odd to me is that over the course of the year the acros I did move over flourished and had good growth. It's just odd to me that all of a sudden two weeks or so ago they ALL went downhill rapidly one by one.

Like a giant wrecking ball I can't stop.

I agree it’s hard to make sense of things at times. We just don’t know everything that there is in allowing SPS, but more specifically Acropora, to grow in a captive reef. It’s not just the chemical and physical characteristics but also some magical biological element that takes time to develop and doesn’t always transfer. Definitely exhaust all possible explanations first. But don’t take any drastic measures unless there’s clear evidence of a cause.

 

[BigTimeIssues]

I just happen to be listening to reef bum right now about this very subject(rtn and stn without a definite cause) Give it a listen.. hate that you are having trouble. The topics on that podcast are way out of my league but maybe it can give some thinking material.

 

[Lavey29]

I do agree with the responses but the biggest thing that's odd to me is that over the course of the year the acros I did move over flourished and had good growth. It's just odd to me that all of a sudden two weeks or so ago they ALL went downhill rapidly one by one.

Like a giant wrecking ball I can't stop.

I'm sure everyone in this hobby for awhile has had losses for which they have no explanation. Corals seem to decline from the inside out so yours might have been under duress for many months before the outward STN signs appear. You describe some of the abnormalities in your post. Maybe the tank was balanced at 20 nitrates but you introduced carbon dose and dropped it leading to a GHA outbreak. That alone to me could upset some acros from their usual stable environment. I'm looking ar a large stylo that has been thriving for a year now have STN starting and I'm scratching my head wondering why because nothing has changed. It's just the nature of the hobby but I do suggest an ICP test and check all the variables like rusty magnet in the sump or something.

 

[matt_work27]

Acro eating flatworms? I had an experience that was similar where it was AEFW, all my acros looked good but one by one they were bleaching and dying. Try using a turkey basters to blow off your colonies and see if any AEFW detach. Just saw in your original post that there are no pests, but maybe somehow eggs got into your system

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Acro eating flatworms? I had an experience that was similar where it was AEFW, all my acros looked good but one by one they were bleaching and dying. Try using a turkey basters to blow off your colonies and see if any AEFW detach. Just saw in your original post that there are no pests, but maybe somehow eggs got into your system

I have experience with AEFW as older tanks in the past have gotten them. Definitely learned from them and it was the first thing that came to my head when I saw my first STN, I am confident it's not them as I can't find a single trace.

 

[ilikefish69]

I wanted to do the miley cyrus but that was way too x rated there are adults here sheesh

 

[Rams]

I have experience with AEFW as older tanks in the past have gotten them. Definitely learned from them and it was the first thing that came to my head when I saw my first STN, I am confident it's not them as I can't find a single trace.

A microbe bacteria test in new tank vs old tank may solve the issue

 

[Biggestfish]

Sorry to hear that. I’d send in a ATI ICP test...run some fresh carbon. Stop dosing aminos if you do. Have you been able to save any of them by fragging?

 

[rusgum]

Background:

I am losing SPS acro and mili corals one by one, it's odd because if one starts going and I pull it early then it seems the next one up starts to go the next day. I have dipped many times and see no pests falling off nor do I see bite marks, just STN/RTN to a white skeleton; STN/RTN seems to happen in random spots (sometimes at base, or right in middle of colony). I have lost 15 frags/colonies and am down to my last 4. I fully expect to lose them all but still would like to know what caused this or if running fallow will solve this to allow me to add more in the future.

All of my monipora/purple stylo/gonipora/zoa have great vibrant colors and growth.

Tank Details:

Had a 300G SPS tank running 7 years, moved rocks and fish over to new 450G (current tank) and kept my choice colonies/frags. New tank is 1 year old with good light, flow and params.

SPS was growing, encrusting and everything was going well; the only change I made was carbon dosing about 3-4 months ago to lower nitrates as I like to feed heavy. I made sure to go very slow with my vinegar dosing and do find myself having to dose po4 as I feel my rock is absorbing. The only area of concern would be my low po4 but it's never hit "0" as far as I can tell.

Params:

ALK: 7.5
CALC: 400
MAG: 1300
No3 (20 3 months ago, down to 7.5 today)
po4: 0.02-0.05
Salt: IO
Salinity: 35ppt
Temps: 77.9-77.4 daily
pH: 8.2 - 7.9 daily
Potassium: 430 (slightly high probably from potassium from po4 dosing)
Flow: 130X in display
Lighting: Potentially too much? Par is 400-430 near middle top (I don't stack my rock past the upper middle portion of the tank) 190-220 in the sand bed, 250-390 in middle.
Good 36 inch lifereef skimmer
Chaeto in sump growing but mainly used as home for pods which I feel I have a good population.

Right before this situation happened I had a GHA explosion out of nowhere (lots of the walls of the tank and rocks). I figured maybe I hit equilibrium with my rock absorbing po4 and now it's starting to leach? I manually cleaned the tank and pulled the GHA since then but I found it odd that after doing nothing other than my no3 slowly dropping from 20 that I had this GHA outbreak.

Is SPS disease/bacteria a thing? Could that be my issue? I don't want to run out and spend $3,000 on UV so i'd like to explore resolution that doesn't involve doing that.

Phosphate dips are to blame. Enough sharp declines