Purely speculation, but I wonder if the issue is related to the fact that your acros were apparently not using any calcium? Seems odd that a tank with so many hard corals would suddenly stop using calcium. Perhaps a shift in water parameters changed the corals ability to calcify and grow?

I suspect that it was partly due to too many changes to the tank over the last several months. Changing salts, changing zeovit, changing Ca reactor to dosing, etc.

Could have started with a bad batch of new salt but then all the other changes simply compounded the problem and created a downward spiral effect.

Just some thoughts discussed with other local reefers.

BTW, do-over tank is available anytime for borrowing.

Anthony

Ok lets just speculate here and accept the tanks are failing because of some "Three year old Syndrome". What is causing the failure? Rocks getting too full detritus? Sandbed is breeding some micro nasty? The corals themselves reach a point in growth that they somehow cause a tank to fail?

If it was a sandbed issue then tanks without sand would not be effected. If "Three year old Syndrome" were real then some comparison might reveal a common denominator in the failed tanks. Perhaps someone with time and skill could troll the boards looking at failed tanks and do some comparison analysis.

When my tank went down hill last year, I suddenly stopped using calcium. I had to take my calcium reactor offline completely and was only using a little bit of kalk.
I have no idea what happened or what turned everything around again...I blamed it on the interceptor treatments I was doing at the time but...

Thanks for all the help everyone. I'm tending to agree with Anthony on this one. I believe is was too much change too quickly. Or at leaste I hope that is what is going on. I really don't want it to be OTS

Any pictures?

No I won't take any pictures, it's too depressing
and I think everyone knows what dead coral looks like

Your frustration level must be sky high:sad:

This grabbed my attention from your mention of extra corraline growth. I've been having an algae and coral dying problem for quite a while, but corraline has been showing up more.

I have tried everything in my arsenal and it hardly seems to make a difference:sad:

I have convinced myself that it is due to the 10+ year old rock in my system. I think the rock and coral skeletons have simply become saturated and are now releasing whatever it is back into the water column.

I'm getting close to taking pieces of rock and placing them in a container of fresh water for a few months, getting the stuff to leach out and starting over again with base rock. I have a number of corals that overgrown the rocks, so it won't be pretty.

Mitch

My Thoughts on the Coraline issue has to do with the fact that my corals are not using CA at all. Plus I think using the DOW Bulk CA has caused a huge increase in Borate levels this could effect the SPS but not Coraline.

J

I dont agree with all the OTS, including the rock. When Dr. Shimek discussed this, I said when the day comes I have to throw out $10/lb. rock, I,m packing it in. :lol:

I have some rock thats 20yrs. with me alone. Some of its is in Mikes beautiful sps tank and see no problems from it. There,s many European tanks with rock older than many on here :lol:

I could certainly see OTS, {if there is such a thing}, coming from an older sandbed. Still think so many little things come in to play here and with many tanks suffering the same. I also think most are impossible to track down to one thing.

My 225, for those that can remember back then, :lol:, could never grow sps but could grow coralline so thick it was in layers on the back. That ended up being a combination alkalinity problem, between Instant Ocean, {which I still use and swear by}, and my well water and the use of RO.

However, all that being said, I have been know to be wrong before.

My heart feels for Jason though and any others going through this. Its so sad to see.

My main tank is a BB, and has a 1 year old remote 2" DSB.
The bacterial turgor that takes place in the LR is only in the upper few millimeters, isn't it? That's what makes me think that the bulk of the LR mass is saturated.

Of course, I could be wrong too.:mrgreen:

Mitch

sorry to hear about your losses.

I am just wondering what kind of KH test kit you are using? You might want to get a sample of the water to the LFS for a complete test (especially the KH). Test kits do go wrong even with high end brands like salifer or elos.

My mother had similar problem, all her corals shivered up and declined rapidly when all the parameters were all good. She was grieving for a few weeks. We could not figure out what is going on.

So I took my complete test kits and tested her water. It turned out that her ELOS KH kit was bad; her read 7dkH, but it was actually 3.5dKH. The LFS also confirmed it was 3.5.

I think it might worth while to let someone else test it.

From what I can remember, if the rock is highly porous (or you are talking about a substrate like sand or gravel) the aerobic portion of the bacteria can be up to 1" deep. After that, the fauna turns to anaerobic... this wouldn't happen too deep in relatively dense rock.

Its the loaded rock theory in general that I have some doubts about Mitch. I suppose it could happen in specific tanks, depending on what the rocks like. Some of my old stuff has grown a fair bit from coralline growth. I wonder if its even porous anymore.

With the LR being broken down and being porous it just makes sense to me that hidden/stagnant/anaerobic areas may have concentrations of chemicals being released that would otherwise be diluted and removed via our various export mechanisms. I have no scientific data to back me up... just MYHO.:smile:

There was mention earlier of a lot of changes happening in Jason's tank over a short period of time;
I haven't been following his tank history, but I did come across an article that indicates that changes in a coral's environment can actually turn the coral against itself.

Here is the article:

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archiv...se-coral-reefs

Mitch