SPS Tank O Death
 

I need some help, this is my last ditch effort at not shutting down my 28g long nano once I get my 180g up and running.

This is my tank journal for the 28g nano.

The problem is that my tank kills SPS, and only SPS. I can keep all types of livestock with no problem, clams, fish, inverts, zoas, LPS. When I put SPS into the tank its usually fine for about a week, good polyp extension, good color, then after that I start to see no polyp extension, then bleaching, and finally RTN (which usually happens over night).

I have a theory that the cause is the glass. I used appropriate silicone, my water parameters have always been in line, and I'm not seeing anything picking at the SPS. Everything else in the tank seems normal; I have coraline growth, macro growth, etc. I use RO/DI, and have no problem algae. In short everything seems normal, but something is out enough to kill SPS and only SPS within 2-3 weeks of being placed in the tank.

Some quick details about the tank;
-Been running since Nov 07, upon my move from my previous cube ALL my SPS died, along with the bulk of my clam collection. All inverts, fish, lps, and zoas all survived.
- Parameters are as of April 15; SG 1.025, Ca 440, dKH 10, Mg 1300, Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia, and Phosphates are 0.
- No cleaners around the tank.
- Regular weekly maintenance schedule
- Running 175w MH in Luminarc reflector
- Tank is 12"x33"x18", and water height is actually 11"

I've posted this on RC and got a pile of suggestions, I explored most of them, but nothing came of any of them.

i'm definitely tagging along this thread my blue tip acro frags were all doing great this morning ,when i came back this evening one was ghost white, totally RTN'd before my eyes, and i'm thoroughly stumped:neutral: my clam and all my other inverts & corals are doing great-

Wow thats must suck. Man those were also nice frags.

Hi, I just posted in your journal thread but I'll post again in here for the sake of completeness.

I suspect something pathological in nature - either a form of boring algae (are the skeletons greenish after an RTN event? If so, it's a kind of single-cell algae that bores into the skeleton), bacteria, virus, or fungus.

If that is the case then essentially there is no solution short of running a fallow tank and hoping it eventually dies back to the point it can't come back.

It thus may be easier, emotionally, financially, practically ... to simply shut the tank down and start over. (I probably should have done so a long time ago myself, but pressed on due to having fish and other livestock that continued to do well.)

I know it's not much of a suggestion, sorry. It's just that there's really nothing obvious regarding the science that we can do (ie., check parameters, look for obvious stressors, etc.).

I read from time to time about people who simply can't keep LPS/softies/zoas in the same tank as SPS. I don't know what the issue is, though.

Catherine,
Do you have softies in the tank?
Also what kind of SPS are you loosing. Have you tried Digitata or Montipora?
Are the corals STNing ot RTNing or just never showing signs of polyp extension and then just bleaching out.
could you give us your water perameters.

J

Skeletons are always white once they've died.

I just wish I knew why some tanks can't keep some things. For years I've been unable to keep GSP, and now I have some and its growing and spreading!

I have zoas, and no more softies. I had xenia, but gave it away. Parameters are above in the original post. Corals all start with polyp extension for about a week, and around the end of the first or second week the polyps no longer extend. Then over the course of a few days I will start to see bleached tips, and finally one evening/night they will just RTN. The RTN always happens after the MH is off. I've seen the RTN happen both with the lights in the tank completely off and with just the actinics on.

SPS that I've tried after the crash; montipora digitata, birdsnest, cap coral, cactus coral, and a few general acros.

What makes you think this?

Where did you get your rock from? How old is the rock?

Hi Catherine, did i read in your other thread that you are running a calcium reactor? I'm beginning to believe that some of my acro problems are tied into a new co2 bottle.
Here is a brief ( :razz: ) description of my problems

In Nov Anthony had found a good deal on a 35lb co2 bottle for me, he had it filled and brought it up (just to start the time line).
The second week of dec I treated the whole tank for red bugs and did the second treatment a week later. 2 days after the second treatment I had an outbreak of cyano and dinoflagellates. One acro RTN'd, some turned brown, one bleached and couple had issues were the tips fell apart, skeleton and all. I blamed the inteceptor treatment and started doing massive water changes.Because growth had slowed or stopped in most corals, my alk climbed a bit too high so I stopped the reactor to let levels fall back down again.
Everything started improving and I assumed it was because of all the water changes I've done. I started the reactor back up, things went down hill, growth stopped, reactor was shut off. This pattern repeated itself over and over for the next three months (I'm a slow learner).
As it stands now, for the last 2 weeks I have been using kalk and 2 part to maintain levels. I still have one millie that is stning but the other has finally started puting out the long polyp tentacles and looking kind of millie like. I have 2 corals that appear to have lost all polyps (just holes were they used to be) but the tips look healthier. The only other sps corals that were affected were 2 of my large pocillipora colonies. Every thing else was unaffected.
I have reached the point now where my cal/alk demand is climbing and I would of started the cal reactor up. It will be interesting to see how everything goes without it
I have no proof that it was the co2 but I think I will stick with dosing 2 part for now it's safer.

I'm running the same CO2 bottle that I was running on my 24g cube since I started it. So your CO2 bottle before your dud bottle didn't cause any problems?

Rock is all years old, came from reputable sources, LFSs or came dried. The bulk of it is stuff I've had since 2004.

The glass is the only thing I can't account for. Everything in the tank aside from the display tank glass was previously in use in one of my other systems. None of my other systems had any problems with SPS. I only know part of the display tank's history, I was told it was used as a macro grow out tank and that no chemicals were used in it. Although for all I know the glass was previously used for another purpose and could have been exposed to something that may have leeched into the glass.

Have you tried running carbon? Could be alleopathy from the LPS/softies in a small tank.

As far as Marie's possible issues with CO2, the two possible issues that could be caused are a lowering of pH and then ORP as more CO2 enters your system. Having a pH controller and solenoid is the preventative measure. Running a kalk reactor or an extra effluent chamber to counteract excess CO2 is the reactive measure if problems persist.

I run carbon 24/7, and used to run GFO 24/7 as well. I don't have that much for zoas, maybe 10-15 heads total. I have a small head of frogspawn, and a small patch of GSP.

I've been running a calcium reactor with great success up till this point. The problem was that a 10lb co2 bottle was only lasting me a few months (I was also going through 5lbs of reactor media a month) and there is no place around here to fill. The 35lb bottle was the answer to that problem.

I do have a ph controller hooked to the solenoid and I dripped kalk at night as well

I wonder if it might be the CO2 inside the bottle, if not the bottle? I've always wondered where the CO2 is coming from. If you buy CO2 from a fire extinguisher place, is it going to be the same CO2 that is used in say beverage making?

hey tony, the acro did have a green tint to it after the RTN was finished, i'm thinking theres not much i can do about this, i've dipped them a couple times in tropic marin thinking it could possibly be AEFW's, but nothing-

I would suspect any toxin from the Glass or Co2 bottle would also effect other corals and inverts.

Mind you. Where did the glass come from when you constructed the tank? I see why you may think it was the glass.

bv_reefer Start your own thread. Catherine has provided a great deal of information relating to her problem while you have provided none. This is called high jacking and it's not an acceptable forum practice. Just start your own thread and everyone can concentrate on your issue. This thread is for Catherine's issue

J

If anything it would probably be something in the silicone .

So this rock was previously run in another system of yours I assume...? If it were my tank, especially considering it's only 24g, I would pull the rock (and sand), and replace it with different stuff from one of your other systems possibly. At this point, I think the biggest suspect would be the rock. Even if it was run in a different system before... I know you had some GHA issues in the tank previously.

I'd have a really hard time believing it was the glass. Possible...but unlikely for sure.

I would also suspect the silicone before the glass.

However, I doubt it's the glass or the silicone, as I believe if that were the issue it would affect all the corals. Honestly, I doubt it's the rock either (although that's an easy try). If I ignored all the information I know about your tank (I skimmed your journal), and was just told, "hey my softies and LPS are fine, but my SPS are dying, what's wrong?" I would immediately suspect parasites, flow, and micronutrients first. Do you know what red bugs, and AEFW look like? Have you seen them in person before? Can you test for Strontium, Iron, and Silicates? Can you take a short video clip of your tank that will show the polyps waving in the flow?

Yes I do know what AEFW and Redbugs look like. I also have a QT procedure for those things before any SPS even goes into my tank. SPS receive a dip in TMPCC, an interceptor bath, and they are inspected for flatworms.

I only have one system running at this time. All the rock that I have started out with me when I began this hobby and have moved through my various tanks, 29g, 46g, 77g, 230g, 90g, 24g, 28g. I only ever keep one system running up at once. There is no more hair algae in this system.

At this point I'm trying to find reasons not to shut down this tank permanently when my 180g goes up. The cost of switching out my rock, and a whole brandnew sand bed isn't worth it. While I would like to keep running this system, I would rather put my money into my 180g.

I don't have video capabilities, or at least I don't think my camera does. I use a Nikon D40x.

I've never tested for Strontium, Iron, or Silicates. What makes you think I should be testing them? Does something stand out about my problem that makes you think of these elements?


The back and side panes came from a previous tank. The front pane and overflow box were glass I had cut for me specifically for this project. I can account for the 20g sump/fug, it was my SPS QT/dipping tank on my 230g system.

Silicone was the non-anti-fungal type made by GE. Although someone recently sent me a PM letting me know that they had seen a thread where there was something wrong with the silicone itself. From what I understand anti-fungal silicone was packaged and sold as the non-anti-fungal variety. I'm still looking into this, and waiting on a link to that thread.

At this point, I'd be suspicious of anything that's going into the tank; CO2, reactor media, food, carbon, supplements, salt, filter socks... If I were fighting this fight, I'd take every one of those things offline, go buy small amounts new of all the things you need to add (ca, alk, food, salt). Then I think I'd try one frag for a week or two -- something you can afford to lose -- and start adding the other stuff back in, one-a-week. I really doubt it is the rock, glass or silicone (although that's a possibility).

I know a lot of this stuff has already been discussed and perhaps cleared, but (and this is only if I were patient enough to not toss a rock through the glass), that's how I'd trouibleshoot it.

I am watching this thread with great interest as I too have a similar problem. I hope you can isolate your problem and share with all. I have talked to many fellow reefer's and had similar advise. Carbon, Magnesium, too much softies, Calcium etc. I have given up on SPS as my softies are thriving and I am ok with that. I am eventually going to try an SPS only tank and hope I have better luck. The one thing I didn't notice on your thread was does your temperature fluctuate a lot or does it stay constant? It's only a theory but I am wondering on SPS if this affects them much.

Myka
Catherine is a very experienced reefer. enough said about that. It is strange only your SPS's are affected. I would have expected your clams to be affected too. When I saw the tank there was plenty of flow and sps polyps were waving in the current. It might be the carbon your running or phosphate media that is causing your problem. Did you try ozone yet ? What is the redox level of your tank. SPS seem to repond very well to high redox levels,

I haven't actually ventured into ozone. I've never used it before and am a bit afraid of it. I have actually ordered a ORP controller/monitor for the 180g. I should arrive today or maybe even tomorrow assuming the weather doesn't hold it up.

What should I be looking for when testing the redox level? I think I should be watching for swings, and low numbers, but is there anything else?

I actually started doing that after Marie originally suggested taking my reactors offline to see if they were the causes. I purchased new media for everything, once I determined it wasn't the reactors I put them back online. I also changed salt brands, from Ocean Pro Pure back to Red Sea Coral Pro (I've had lots of success with it in the past).

I changed foods, and I went two weeks without filters socks. However when I did the filter sock test it appears (I log everything) that the SPS in the tank at the time were already in decline. Maybe I should try that again.

I too have been having a lot of difficulty in the past few months keeping SPS. I've had several new colonies and frags RTN shortly after introduction to the tank. I've read Marie's earlier posts on the CO2 and have planned to change my Reactor return to feed into my skimmer to help burn off any residual gas.

I was also looking back at some photos of my tank from a couple years ago and was shocked to see how much it has changed, and not for the better. In looking back, I found that this all started about the time I began with the Reefresh system to try to deal with a briopsis outbreak. I have not been able to find anyone local carrying the product anymore anyway. I talked to J&l about why they dropped it, and they said they had less than favourable feedback from users. I have run out of some of the product, so I have decided to take my tank off drugs for a while to see if that helps.

I was also reading the links and info on the potassium dosing and the symptoms of low K levels. It all seems to fit what I'm experiencing as well, so it too may be a factor. I tried to find a K test kit, but so far have come up with notheing, but in the meanwhile I am trying dosing K-balance to see if thing improve.

I suspect the real answer is that it is not really any one thing, but a combination of factors. I suspect that the Reefresh system has possibly depleted my K levels. There may also be some other long term effects of the probiotics that eventually causes a decline in the system since it requires you to balance the water paramaters on a knife edge to keep it working. Also, its possible a new colony that is not aclimatized to the ultra low nutrient environment may not have the resources to deal with it when introduced. I do have one acro that has been in the tank for quite a while and is doing OK (not great though) Further, it is possible that the non-food grade CO2 has just enough impurity in it to add a final blow to an all ready vulnerable system.

I will be following this thread as well and will try to keep track of my success/failure with these steps and post the results.

I vote for the silicone or something chemical in nature. I've had SPS issues myself over the last few months (or really lets face it the last few years, granted they were never any single thing). Anyway, this last one was definitely chemical in nature and resulted in STN of many frags and colonies. I'm at the point now where I think I've diluted it enough and things are turning around. However if you suspect the silicone, it will be leaching out whatever toxic chemical for quite some time before it is exhausted. I think at this point you need to realize that either you can't keep SPS in that tank or that you need to get everything out of that tank and into a different one to save yourself the headache and heartache.

Perhaps you could resilicone the tank with the proper silicone? (ie. get some more from Bow Valley)

Don't know what to suggest about the rock. I would imagine at some point it would stop leaching whatever its been sucking up (if it has been sucking up anything for that matter) however I wouldn't want to take the risk.

Oh and personally I think its good to be nervous of ozone. Less chance of buggering it up. However its not as scary as you think, you don't need all that much to get the job done, IMO, and the amount doesn't harm a thing (well nothing you don't want it to anyways :wink:). I aimed for an ORP of about 425 (although I've heard 360 is "better") using 25mg/L. Clean the probe in vinegar/water every week or it will throw your readings off.

A redox level of 380-400 is good. Ozone might help the problem by destroiying anything agent that is organic in nature such as hydrocarbons but not the algacide in the silicone unless it is organic in nature. You would think the carbon would eventually adsorb/absorb all the nasties. This is also true of water changes. Having said all carbon can remove good stuff as well. Maybe if you go the water change way you could supplement the water with trace elemnts too.

I think that the problems are viral or bacterial, combined with tank conditions which weaken the corals immunity to attack by virus or bacteria. The viruses and bacteria may be unavoidable, or they might be introduced.

My basis for this conclusion is an experience I had a couple of years ago. I transferred RTN into a tank by bringing in a "sick" coral that I was trying to save. RTN moved outward from the spot where I put the dying frag, killing SPS around it. The closer the SPS was to the frag, the faster it died.

That's my thinking, FWIW.

While i have the monitor/controller on order, I still have to buy the ozonier itself, and its an expensive purchase. Still though maybe just getting the readings from the monitor will help turn things around.

I figure in a month maybe 6 weeks this tank will come down, and everything will go into the 180g, save for the rock and sand. I'll seed the new system with rock and sand from other trusted sources. I will also have to figure out a method to transfer my clams with as little of my current tank water as possible.

So for people who've had bad silicone or an unknown chemical in their tank how did everything react? Was it just your SPS that had problems?

This morning everything is still holding on, all the frags have color, there are four of them, and one of them has good polyp extension (this frag almost seems immune to the situation).

Can I also ask what I would see if I was seeing light burn? Is it possible that my light is too strong? Its a 175w SE MH in a luminarc reflector. I'm debating switching it out back to my badwing. I assume if it was light burn I would see bleached tips, although I'm not sure about the polyp retraction.

I take it these bacteria or viruses you are suggesting would be SPS specific in some way? Maybe just leaving the tank fallow isn't enough to kill something like this off. Would this be something that ozone may take care of?

Since I already plan to run ozone on my 180g it can't hurt to try it out on this tank. I think that might be my next step. What I'm hearing is that the issue could be one of three things; equipment/food/drygoods/etc. (I'm starting to doubt this though since I'm almost run through everything I can test), chemical contamination (silicone, the glass), or third a biological contaminant.

This (Red Sea Aquazone Plus 200mg/hr) was what we were thinking of buying for the 180g. Do you think it could be controlled enough to use it on this 28g system for a few weeks? If ozone was the solution to the problem I would buy a more appropriately sized ozonier for this system.

I thought you had other tanks running, so I thought it would be easy (and cheap) for you to try changing the rock and sand out.

Corals are sensitive (and SPS are obviously more so) to both high and low readings of Strontium, Iron, Silicates, and Potassium (which I forgot to mention). I don't test for these regularly, and I don't suggest you do either, but it is something that I would check if there is someone or an LFS around that could test your water for you.

I really don't understand why people use silicone that isn't specifically meant for aquariums. What's a few bucks?

I thought of this as well, but figured the more likely culprits should be questioned first. As far as whether there is SPS specific bacteria/virus, I'm no biologist, but I would assume that is quite likely. There are SPS specific parasites after all.

When I've light burned my SPS they just bleached out, but they did it very quickly. Like in a day. Once I covered them with half a dozen layers of screening and slowly acclimated them they took about 4 week to color back up. I never left it unattended though, so I don't know what they would look like if the burn wasn't stopped (by screen or w.h.y.).

I would strongly suggest that you do not put any of the livestock from your nano into your 180g. I wouldn't put the rock or sand in there either. I'd be WAAAAAAAAAY too paranoid to do that. Could you imagine this battle on a 180g tank?

Actually the silicone I used and continue to use is aquarium safe, and actually DESIGNED for use in aquariums... :confused:

If you scroll up you would know that I've already decided to not move over the rock or sand and to seed my new system from other sources. But what would you suggest I do with the fish in my system? I'm holding fish in this tank that cannot and should not stay in the system much longer. :rolleyes:

Could there be an unknown situation within the walls of your home? I'm sure Tony will elaborate more, but I remember reading some of his historical threads on the issues that he has had with SPS after he moved into his new house. If I recall correctly after his move, his long established tank was no longer able to sustain SPS in the new location.

As odd as this may seem you could have issues with the new tank as well?

I know, not much help but just a thought to throw out there. :)

I don't think so, I wouldn't even know what to look for. Ideas?

This is the primary thread I was thinking of http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...ronment&page=4 , page 4 specifically Greg's comments.

It's a long shot but if you are considering the glass as a source of contamination it could be something else in your house (paint, plastic in the microwave etc.), or in proximity to your home. (gas station, cell phone tower etc.)

This would be so very hard to pin down though, but it could be along the lines of animals sensing thunderstorms, or people sensitive to telepathy and so on.

Well we've never painted here, and while we have a microwave, its really just an expensive clock to us. Around us is all houses, no plants or gas stations or anything like that. I just don't even know how to go about testing something like that. Ideas?

I'd probably set-up a small frag tank. Good clean water in a brand new ten gallon tank. If they survive it rules out enviromental issues in or around your house, If they don't survive.. back to square one, but at least you have ruled out one or more possablilities

Do you mean setting up the tank elsewhere, like at someone else's house?

That's a good idea... cheap and cheerful, and excellent diagnostic value. Especially a great idea before there's a lot of water and [more] money in the big boy that they're building.