Tank is crashing :(
 

Hey guys, maybe someone here can help my figure out this crash. My tank is going through a crash right now. All the fish are fine but I'm losing all my corals (sps and lps). I've a ready lost some large sps colonies and at least a dozen smaller ones and a bunch of frags. My sps started bleaching some from the top, others from the bottom and others from the middle. My lps aren't many (mostly acans) half have died and the others look fine. My Monti caps are even getting random bleaching spots.

I have always used t5 since the beginning of this tank but in January I switched to led to get away from the hassle of changing bulbs. Everything looked great or about a month and then the sps started receding where it was being shadowed. And getting random burn spots. I figured it was the fixture not being full spectrum and not enough spread so 2 weeks and I got rid of that fixture and replaced it new ones that are full spectrum and will cover the tank more so I don't get any shadowing and also added some t5. Things kept going downhill and dying.

300 gallon tank actual water volume
Alk 8
Cal 470
Mag 1320
Po4 0.04
Nitrates undetectable
Potassium 390
Sg 1.025

I've also replaced the cal, mag, and alk kits to confirm my readings.

I was using a doser for years and worked well but I switched to a calcium reactor in January to make things a little easier. At that time I had the parameters dialed in 8 alk 420 cal and 1350 mag. Tested for a couple weeks and held stable so I only tested alk from that point. I tested last week and alk was 8.7 but cal was 490 and mag was 1320. I'm back to dosing to bring the calcium back down before I turn the reactor back on. I just tested at 470 right now.

I've replaced carbon and gfo often, keep filter socks clean and do all the maintenance to keep it clean and nothing changes.

All I can think of is that in January I bought some nori for my tangs from Walmart. I used it for about a week but I didn't like it because it would almost fall apart in the water. I then looked up the ingredients online and there was some oils that they added to it so I went back to feeding my old nori. It almost seems like my skimmer hasn't worked right since then.

Also around January my rodi filters got neglected and the d/I was exhausted. I'm not sure for how long but I'm sure some stuff got through the filters. I've replaced everything since then.

I've also checked for stray voltage and didn't get any.

Only thing I haven't done is a water change due to the large volume of water needed to make a difference.

Any ideas guy?

Hey man that really sucks

But from what from I'm reading if your fish are ok and it started with corals and your parameters have been stable the only other thing you Changed that was big was the lights, LEDs are a big change from the T5 specially if you haven't been up on changing the bulbs you could have had a massive par swing from like 300- over 1000 some lights are depending what u got and settings and height , i would start there dial back the lights % if you can or shorten the time they are on

Seems your water is good but with death water changes are never a bad thing maybe try doing a few decent % WCs to see if you can turn the tide

Hope that helps man not sure

Do you do regular small water changes? I just went through a mini crash (tips burning, some coral expelling all polyps) and it turned out my source water was high on chlorine because my RO filter couldn't handle it and it was passing through.

If you don't do changes do you replenish the trace elements?

It could be a lot of things, can you post a picture of the tank and some examples of whats going on?

Sorry to hear, iceman86.
A few questions:
Did you measure the PH before and after the addition of the calcium reactor?
Do you have a sandbed?
What light fixtures were you using and which ones are you now using?
What do you have for water circulation?
How much GFO have you been using and how often are you replenishing it?
How long has the tank in it's present state been running for?
Can you post a link to the Walmart nori?

Please post a picture as mentioned above.
I'm not a fan of GFO because it will remove trace elements, so I would recommend a larger (25%) water change sooner than later.

Can we get some pics of the tank before and after....maybe some close ups?

Thanks for your help. I changed to led when the t5 where about 9 months old so I can be shock as you mention. If I can't seem to figure it out, I'll do some large water changes to remove anything that may be in the water.

I hand done a water change in a few months but I do go through a lot of top off water due to evaporation. I was dosing trace elements from aquaforest and didnt have any issues but then I stopped when things started dying.

I'll try to get some pics up for you guys to see

My ph before the reactor is 8.3 and with the reactor it did with it it's about 8.2 and would drop to 8-8.1at night.
I also have a ph probe right in the reactor as well measuring a oh of 6.7
Yes I do have a coarse sandbed.
At first I switched from 2 tek t5 fixtures 8 bulb each to 2 vertex illumina fixtures. My latest set are 5 mars aqua fixtures along with 4 36" t5 bulbs.
For water circulation I have 2 maxpect gyres that will blow the sand around if not turned down.
I run 1000 of gfo and that lasts me about 2-3 months. I have 7 tangs who poop a lot lol
This tank itself has been running for about a year but the live stock has been with me for about 5 years while upgrading tanks .
I tried looking earlier on the Walmart page for a pic of the nori but I couldn't find that exact one sorry.

It's been a while since I posted a pic. Can anyone give me some instructions ?

Just upload to photobucket and copy and past the img tag

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ee2aqau7p...gZdnzSiZa?dl=0

I hope that helps

Have you double checked salinity with another refractometer? I've almost wiped out a tank slowly with a broken refractometer, Just a guess. looks like something is irritating everything as even the trumpet coral looks to be receding.

Sure hope you figure it out tanks beautiful.

Your tank setup looks fine, but your tank has been through a lot of changes in the last 6 months including light changes, changing from dosing to a calcium reactor, alk fluctuations and the use of carbon dosing plus you have a mixture of lps and sps. You didn't mention if you were using activated carbon, so that may be a good idea to compensate for the allelopathy (chemical warfare) between your corals.
Bottom line I think your tank needs some stability, but start with a regular water change schedule.
Turn down the lights and increase water circulation. Water circulation is as important, if not more important than lighting.
imo:smile:

I just recalibrated the refractometer and the tank is sitting at 1.024

Iceman you said you neglected the RO filters my guess is chorine got into the tank.

Just what I was thinking... How aggressively were u dosing AF? And what products?

I was dosing aquaforest reef salt
aquaforest calcium
Aquaforest magnesium
Aquafores component strong
Aquaforest reef mineral salt
Aquaforest amino acids
Aquaforest bacteria

I followed the directions for all of them and never had an issue before.

Was using the same things at full ( recommended) doses... Had a similar issue which resulted in the loss of all my sps... i think the corals got stressed and stopped using all the micro elements which then built up to toxic levels. Tank is recovering now... I think I will start at 10% of recommended doses...
I would encourage u to do as large a water change as is possible... I did 4 50g changes... Water volume is ~220g

Are you carbon dosing at all. I almost wiped my tank with a nopox overdose and experienced losses in the same manner you describe.

I totally agree with this! :)

I think the issues you're seeing is from the wild fluctuations in the tank and all the changes made. Get it stable for at least 4 weeks, then add a new coral to "test the water". Chances are that what you're seeing is damage from the past, rather than current conditions.

No I'm not carbon dosing. I've ran it on previous tanks with great success but I tried to get away from it on this tank.

I lowered my led intensity a bit as well because I've noticed that the couple chalices I have are starting to get a little pale. Should I do a large water change just in case it's something in the water?

If the issue with your tank is stability associated with all the changes that have happened how is a large water change going to help with stability. You might be better with many smaller water changes.

I don't think a large water change is a good idea.

Ok I'll let it roll for a few weeks and see how it goes. Parameters are perfectly steady so fingers crossed!!

Thanks for the help everyone!

That's the trickiest part! Keeping the numbers steady for weeks and months at a time. When the numbers are steady for a long time we get lax on testing/monitoring and we do stupid things like let a doser run out of fluid or don't test for a month and find out that growth has taken off or even tapered off and KH is at 5 or 12 dKH. Ugh. :lol:

Two months ago I accidentally turned the doser off on my own tank, and didn't notice until I could see the corals reacting to low KH. The KH hit 5.7-5.85 dKH (depending which test you believe), and the damage was already done. The first thing I did was turn the T5s down by 50%, then I corrected the KH by taking a week to slowly bring it back up, and then I sat back and waited for the apocalypse. https://www.reef2reef.com/styles/def...01k/shifty.png After about 3 weeks I started seeing the affects. It takes quite awhile to see the affects - usually just when you start to think you're in the clear. Now two months later the Acros still aren't back to where they were - maybe another month.

How long has your tank been set up?

When did you introduce the acros or they grew from frags?

Doesn't look like a lot of rock in the display, could this be happening because of a lack of nutrients/bacteria?

If they only started dying when you changed your t5 to led it is a possibility that it was the light but even usually if it's the light it takes a bit of time i.e. Bleaching, stn.

Did you check to see if predatation is a factor?

I've had some of these acros for about 5 years. I grew them out from frags and have been in this tank for almost a year. They have been happy up until recently.

I've never really had nutrients issues and I do feed lots so I don't think that's where the problem is coming from. I also was adding amino acids. I was also adding bacteria 2x per week.

I have also looked for bugs on them and I can't find anything. It's been a while since I've added any new corals.

I was sitting at work this morning and thinking about this lol I then realized that I added a clown tang around that sane time the problems started happening. The tang was fat when I bought him, but slowly got skinnier and skinnier even though I was feeding him a ton to try to fatten him up. He ended up dying 2 weeks ago. Found his skeleton on the sand bed. All my other fish and tang are healthy and happy.
Could it be that this fish brought in a coral killing disease?

are coral still dying or have things mellowed out?

I wish there were easy answers to this sort of thing. When I started carbon dosing I lost a lot of acro which was maddening because my nitrate was at 80 and they were doing fine and it was during the nitrate drop they started dying off. Now I have a nitrate and algae free tank but lot a lot.

I still think carbon dosing isn't an awesome idea even though I run a reactor. My nitrates/phosphates are super low but I loose sps coral here and there.

I have a huge red planet, the healtyiest looking coral in my tank. 4 days ago one branch turns totally white. I snap it off and the next day another. Every day one little branch (or nub as I call them) dies.

Why? NO idea. Why are all my other coral fine? NO idea. I just keep trimming and hope it stops.

What i should do is reduce my bio load (I have a bunch of big ole fish) and maintain my tank the old way, water changes, but I love my fish so I'm trying to combat their load with a reactor and I'm thinking the consequence is some sps loss.

Sorry just thinking out loud here. Maybe something rings true to your tank?

You should probably start you own thread so we can help you address your problems.

I am not aware of any disease problems that a fish can cause to your corals. I believe a large dead fish could cause a spike in your ammonia levels.

my problem is I started a reef tank...:lol:

I fed the fish the night before and that tang looked a little sluggish but still ate but next day after work I went to feed again and all that was left was his skeleton. He was gobbled up pretty quick.

It's gotta be something else than the fish....

When I neglected my tank for 5 months I basically let it run to shit, and it was a chain reaction acros went then Lps and finally I told friends to come save the rest and gave the tank away. However it took a really long time for the tank to be in a death state.

Maybe you added something that was toxic, stray voltage, sudden rise in temp, not enough oxygen, or maybe the bacteria died caused a huge spike that stressed the corals to the point they released skin....

Just thinking out loud

Got home last night and went to the basement where my tank is and it smelled terrible like something was rotting and sure enough it was coming from the tank. Im guessing hydrogen sulphide releasing from the sand bed. My sandbed is only 2" thick but its really coarse sand and easy for detritus to trap itself in there. All fish and inverts are alive. The glass was also covered in green dust algae.

I'm guessing the sand bed needs replacing? I poked a couple spot and detritus like dust come out. I know it's normal to have a little but this seems more than I've ever had in my years of reefing.

Did you start with live rock or dead rock. I don't think it should be releasing that kind of odour from the sand bed. If I had to guess I would think there is some sort of contaminant(s) in your water.

I started with both. I used the old rock from my old tank and added new dead rock. It's getting to the point that all my corals are dead and if it happens, I'll siphon out the sanded and do a massive water change and start over

I would take your water in to a LFS in Edmonton and have them do a massive test. This way you can compare to previous tests you have done. Worth a shot IMO, sucks to hear that most of the corals are toast.