SPS help
 

Need some help/suggestions for my SPS....never ran into this problem before and did everything I could think of. I upgraded from a 50gallon tank to a 90/130with sump tank and everything was perfect for the first 2 months of the transfer. I hadn't changed my routine and upped my dosing to a my new tank size all the same chemicals I was using prior. Starting a few days ago I lost 1 SPS coral (acro) within 24 hrs and I've lost 3 more in the last week. There was no symptoms they were fully open all day everything peachy and Just out of no wheres they turned white within a few hours. My parameters check and are as follows (as some may ask what exactly they are)
PH- 8.3
Salinity 1.024
Ammonia- 0
Nitrite -0
Nitrate -0
Phosphate - 0
Copper -0 tested just in case
DKH -11
Calcium -400
This is what I've been dosing for the last 1.5 years in my previous tank and have kept dosing since the upgrade.
Calcium, strontium/magnesium, iron, potassium, DKH buffer, and lugols....I might be missing one but not currently home to check. Here's what I've done so far to attempt to rectify the problem....water change, change the carbon, clean out all the filter pads in my return pump, cleaned out the entire skimmer, cropped out some cheato. I can't think of anything else I could do. all my softies and leathers are fine and the sps that are alive are all open with no sign of stress. The only measure I can think is to stop dosing everything except calcium and see if it's maybe it's a balancing issue since I don't have a test kit for stron/mag and hope that it sorts itself out. I've also checked for parasite like redworms and nudi branches however haven't seen anything. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If you're inquiring about my tank setup It's a standard 90g drilled tank to a 30gallon sump with cheato night light cycle. I've got a wavemaker2 and a coralia 125 skimmer. lighting is 2 400watt MH 20k bulbs and my temp doesn't fluctuate more than 1deg by night. Night lighting is a 20 LED strip for visual effects only it's not bright enough for corals to stay open at night. light timing is 11 on 13 off. Not really sure what other info you would need but ask away and I'll provide what I can.

Cheers
and thanks for your help.

DKH is high......whats your Mg at?

Nothing you have told us here would explain this event IMO. You alkalinity is higher than I like but if its been stable than I dont think it to be the cause.

Sometimes we never know the cause (although Im sure it's something/or a combination of things). All I can suggest is to do lots of water changes for a period and do not let the dieing SPS linger in the aquarium too long. Many people believe that it can be bacterial/virus and can go from colony to colony. I think its more likely that they are all in the same environment and react similarly to the negative stimulus, but you never know. And the dead SPS tissue can't be good for water quality.

waiting on a mag test kit....... none are available in my area, so water changes and the waiting game is all I can currently do. Thanks for your input.

Tagging along, Im having the same issue

I've had this happen in the past and I later discovered it was caused by a dying birdsnest colony. As soon as I took the birdsnest out of the tank everything stopped dying. I suspect you may have something similar. As soon as you seer a colony start to go, cut your losses and rescue the healthy parts of the colony, if any, and toss the rest. Who knows what caused the die off in the first place.

Alk is high. While it's not catastrophically high, I've had mine this high before and found the colonies to be more susceptible to weird things... In fact I suspect high alk was the cause of my birdsnest collapsing that triggered everything else.

While I now believe a lower alk is better, I used to routinely run mine above 12dkh for years, no issues. I don't think 11 is going to trigger die-off.

Just re-read your OP...... how many leathers are we talking about?? And how big are they?

What is a birdsnest colony? and what does dkh stand for?

1 toadstool about 5 inches in diameter...that's the only one.

I never liked mixing any leather with sps, they do release toxin into the water which can trigger rtn. dkh seems to be okay if you are not on any probiotic system, if in any case you are or just started running pellets or zeovit then that could be a major part of your problem.

Also take a sample of your water to the lfs and get them to check your cal, dkh, and mag just to get a extra set of reading. This way there will be no mistakes on you readings.

Frag what ever is alive and tossed the rest, I have very little luck try to save dying sps colonies, but with that said I have done it before.

sorry for the lost, good luck.

what does the dkh have to do with probiotics?

ULNS systems typically do best with a lower dkh, around 7. However, mine has been above 10 for months running zeo with no ill effects. Not a really important value, other than stability. If yours is 11 and stays there, you shouldn't have a problem. A noted issue with high alk and ULNS is tips burning, but that doesn't sound like the issue you're having.

no ill effects?.....wernt you just posting about your polyp extension?:wink:....

This is more what I was getting at before. whether you are intentionally ULNS or not, high alk with low nutrients can cause tip burn in acros and I have found it to cause birdsnests to die from the inside out. So if you're doing a good job at keeping nutreints low, well then alk might be an instigator of this.

probiotic systems like biopellet or zeovit needs to run the parameter close to nsw which is 7dkh 380-400 cal and 1250-1350 mag. in my own experience as well as several other reefers I talked to who run probiotic systems wether its pellets, zeo or prodibio has encounter issue when dkh jumps above 9, usually alk burn will start to show at the tips and or paleness of the coral tissue, then if dkh goes above 10 stn and rtn will soon follow. When that happens, it become an irreversible domino effect. :sad:

Also when running probiotic system, the bacteria stripes potassium out of the water so fast, with the combination of high alk, it will for sure wreck havoc. I use redsea to test my potassium, when I first tested it, it was arond 360ppm since then I've raised it up to 430 using zeo k balance as I found that to be more effective than other products.

Those 2 problems really caused me a lot of headachs in my tank, it caused 3-4 colonies that I had for over a year to die off over the course of couple of days. I did a lot of research finally narrowing it down to those 2 problems. I spent the next week or two lowering my alk and boosting my potassium, it took a bit but everything has finally starting to turn around. It seem that around 7dkh and 430 potassium, even if my calcium is lower everything still seems to be doing well. I had one colony that has been with me from the start that was at the brink of death, I just couldn;t bring myself to toss him out, its now starting to make a slow but steady come back.

if I were you Milad I would give that a try, but remember to go slow. You risk more issues if you drop your alk too fast.

how did you lower your alk?

Well, we're still not sure that no polyps is bad. But by my statement, I mean other than no polyps, my colors are great, growth is as expected and none of my SPS went white :)
Previous tanks ran with alk above 11 or 12 for years, no issues (again, other than PE).

I was dosing BRS Alk with a aquamedic doser at the time with kalk, I took kalk off-line and dialed back my doser about 45 sec, test the level every 2nd day and adjust accordingly. like I said, it took about a week or 2 to finally settle on 7.5 ish, some say it is better to run it even lower but as of now everything is on the rebound so I just left it there.