What am i missing? Coral dying

[Greg B.]

Good evening everyone. I need some help figuring out what I am missing. I have about 14 pieces of coral in my 40 breeder. But for the last week I have not had any polyp extension and my monti cap red and green is losing color. Water parameters are alk 8.4 mag 1360 cal 442 nitrates 12.2 phosphates .8 ph 8.4 temp 78.4 salinity 1.025. Recently I noticed some zoanthid frags that were not doing so hot so I decided to dip them in some coral rx. I did a dip and rinsed with fresh tank water and placed back in the tank. I have also been running my carbon reactor incase there was still some coral rx on the frags. I have not changed lighting or water flow and my water is crystal clear. I dose all for reef as I have always done base on my calcium and dose sodium bicarb because I don't need any boost in ph. I do a 20% water change every 2 weeks. And I did a 20% change today because I feel like there may be some sort of contaminate in the water that I'm missing. Any ideas? Only thing that has changed in the last week is i started using rodi water instead of tap water ( well water not municipal) and I did the dip on those coral. Also all testing is done with hanna instruments and I confirmed them with salifert.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Can we see some pictures? Tell us about the lighting and flow? What livestock do you have? What kind of filtration?

The only clue you gave is polyps not extending and 2 corals out of 14 losing color. Need more info to help you. Definitely need pictures please.

 

[jabberwock]

How old is the tank?

 

[kyreefville]

did it start after the switch to RODI or before?

 

[Greg B.]

How old is the tank?

The tank is 18 months old. All the coral that has been in there have been in there for a while. Some of them since December and thriving.

 

[Greg B.]

did it start after the switch to RODI or before?

After the rodi switch.

 

[jabberwock]

The tank is 18 months old. All the coral that has been in there have been in there for a while. Some of them since December and thriving.

You were a little early... but not ridiculous. Can we get a full tank shot?

 

[kyreefville]

Then RODI would be my first suspect. follow me for a second before eveyone jumps on. You changed your water source and in less than a week you see signifcant change across the board. Could be bad RODI or could just be a signifcant change in water chemistry.

If your not loosing corals they may just need time to adjust.

 

[Greg B.]

Can we see some pictures? Tell us about the lighting and flow? What livestock do you have? What kind of filtration?

The only clue you gave is polyps not extending and 2 corals out of 14 losing color. Need more info to help you. Definitely need pictures please.

The lighting is a 150watt 5 channel that does cool white 2 blue channels of different spectrum a purple/violet and a warmer white spectrum. My light cycle is on 12 off 12hrs. Photo period is 3hrs blue ramped up to 75%. The 6hrs of blues and cool white to 75% and the the last 3 hrs are blues that ramp down. Everything goes into a sump that has 2 filter socks. Under the filter socks are some filter floss, and filter pads that decrease in micron. Under the filter pads I have bio balls. That runs into a refugium with chaeto and the light runs 12 hrs opposite the DT (helps balance my ph). After the fuge I run a eshopps axium 160 skimmer.(oversized i know but I'm currently cycling a 125gal with a 40 gal sump that I'm going to eventually use the skimmer on). That runs 3hrs on 3hrs off repeated because A.it will wipe my tank of nutrients and B. It raises my ph too high. Almost a .5ph difference higher when it's running for a long period of time. After the skimmer section through the bubble trap and into the pump chamber with a 1200gph dc return pump only running about 80%. I have 1 1300gph dc wave maker that is on a random mode on the opposite side of the tank. None of these things have changed in the last year except the skimmer was added back in April.

 

[kyreefville]

I changed my water source and in less than 4 hours has massive color change across corals all became muted. Those most affected it took over a week for color to come back.

 

[Greg B.]

Then RODI would be my first suspect. follow me for a second before eveyone jumps on. You changed your water source and in less than a week you see signifcant change across the board. Could be bad RODI or could just be a signifcant change in water chemistry.

If your not loosing corals they may just need time to adjust.

When ur talking about chemistry are you talking water parameters? Or are we talking what ever the rodi is taking out of the supply water? As far as alk mg cal nitrates and phosphates all of them stay in these areas with doseing the all for reef. Only thing I had to change is I monitor my calcium to control my dose of all for reef instead of my alk because my tank uses more alk than it does calcium so I control my calcium and mix up a weeks worth of sodium bicarb to make up for the difference I'm not adding in the calcium formate. Allows me to keep my alk stable.

 

[Greg B.]

I changed my water source and in less than 4 hours has massive color change across corals all became muted. Those most affected it took over a week for color to come did u switch to rodi?

I changed my water source and in less than 4 hours has massive color change across corals all became muted. Those most affected it took over a week for color to come back.

Did u change the source or just to a rodi unit?

 

[kyreefville]

I used distilled water instead of filtered tap water. 1 gallon of distilled water was inputted as top off. Immediate change. As soon as I went back some color started to return but it was slow. I'm just using simple logic here. You made a change in the most fundamental environment water. Not saying the RODI water is bad it just anecdotally appears to be a logical point to consider.

 

[Spare time]

I doubt the RODI water is the issue.

 

[Greg B.]

I doubt the RODI water is the issue.

Anything you can think it may be? I'm open to anything that is logical honestly. I even thought maybe my toddler put something in the tank. Maybe something in the sump. I pulled everything out of the sump looking for things that aren't suppose to be in there. Copper pennies etc. Even thought it may have been she sprayed windex in there and that's why I was running the carbon reactor but haven't had any change in coral extension. No tenticals sweeping from my platygyra.