SPS issues... again.
 

I'm boggled. Every frag of SPS in my frag tank is doing great. Polyp extension like I've never had before. Colors could be better, but considering what I'm using for lights, no surprise. In my display however... SPS are dying like crazy. I've made 2 changes that I wonder about, but if you have any suggestions, please chime in. first, I switched from t5 to led. Switch was about 2 months ago... I think. They are tried and tested sols... Can't see this being the issue. Also, I now have a flag fin angel. I don't think he's been a problem, but I'm only watching the tank for so long each day. Any ideas? The 2 tanks are in the same system/water, so I can't see how it would be a chemistry issue, but who knows? Everything else in the display is doing great. Lps, zoas/palys, clams, etc... Just the SPS that seem to be mad.

how are they dying? stn, rtn, bleaching, burnt tips???

Maybe basic questions but..... Are you using RO, RO/DI, tap?.....do you know what the TDS of the water you are using is?.... Have you tested the water for phosphates? .... Nitrates?..... Any leathers in the tank..... And I know you said you've never seen your angel nipping, but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening:wink:.... It seems that fish somehow know when you are watching and put their halos on:mrgreen:

Except mine........my angels make direct eye contact, open their mouths wide, chomp down and dare me to do something about it :twised:

What intensity (%) do you have the LED's at? I am not familiar personally with them but my understanding is people dial them back initially and some have burned up their coral when having them on full intensity.

No techy here but I would think the LED's are giving off too much light as Palmer suggests or insufficient light (for SPS) which was problematic for the early LEDs.

I was going to suggest you post the name and model of your LEDs and one of our lighting gurus can help you out.

T5 to LED could potentially have been a huge jump in lighting intensity. I assume your frag tank has had consistent lighting? That's a pretty obvious tell that it isn't a chemistry issue if the system is connected.

Agreed..

They are AI Sol Blues. I started them at 30 or 35% and have been slowly ramping them up at a rate of about 5%/2-3 days. They are now at 90%. Yes, the frag tank lights have remained the same... they are cheapo LEDs... not even sure the brand name. I am running RO/DI... TDS out is kind of strange... on the Vertex built in TDS it ranges from about 1-15... on my external TDS meter, it reads around 0... not sure which one to trust, but i lean towards the external one as the RO/DI unit is brand new. My phospates are below 0.05... a little higher than I would like, but not too bad. They are dying via STN, and some have damaged/burnt tips.

I've been trying to pay extra attention to what the fish are doing lately, and I'm going to say the the flag fin may be nipping after the lights go out and the moonlights are on... it's been tough to catch him, but I'm starting to lean towards him as the culprit. Maybe. I think I may have to break out the fish trap and get rid of him... and my Lyretail jerk face Anthias while I'm in there. That said, any ideas...?? Keep 'em coming!

+2
That just leaves your lights, predators, stray voltage or SPS voodoo. You haven't said how they die.

When you say that your sols are at 90%..... is that the whites and the blues? cuz the ones on the display at work are like 18 inches off the tank and I still have the whites at 70% and the blues at 100% and everything is doing great! crazy growth and color.... well as you have seen....

Steve

if its coral specific say all your sps and not your lps then i would lean towards the angel as well if its not chem.

I've got the whites at 90%, and each of the blues at 85%. The bottom of the fixtures are 15" above the water. I started to notice these issues while the lights were at low intensity... I've been hoping that there wasn't enough light and once they ramped up these problems would go away. No such luck. I should also mention that I got the angel at around the same time as the lights... so that doesn't really help for troubleshooting.

I had mentioned earlier... they are dying via STN and some have burnt /damaged tips. It's really frustrating to have the frags doing/looking so good, and the important stuff (display) looking like crap. I've even taken a few pieces out of the display and put them into the frag tank and they look like they are healing already.

Yes, it is only the SPS. All of my zoas (except for a melted CAR frag... damnit) are looking really good. LPS... really good. Clams... better than ever. As for the chemistry, I'll have to run the test gauntlet soon, but like I had mentioned, the frag tank looks great which eliminates this as a possibility in my head. Last time I checked, all parameters were right around where I want them... Ca ~400, dKh ~7 Mg ~1250-1300 (I know, a little low) PO4 0.01-0.05, no measurable nitrates, nitrites or amonia. I'm running GFO, and Carbon 24/7... and full Zeo.

If it was a chemistry issue, it would be both tanks. Your numbers look fine.

When I switched to LEDs I pretty much wiped out all my SPS (STN). I think the switch into LEDs is stressful on corals no matter what, even if you start low and ramp up, but how the coral ultimately adjusts depends on the other key ingredients to healthy SPS such as water chem, flow and stability. I started at a low percentage as well but my perimeters were not perfect and although things were doing fine before the LEDs that extra stress pushed them over the edge. All my LPS, clams, zoos, ect. on the other hand handled the transition just fine, a few lost some color but overall still seem healthy and many better than ever.

I think those who had success transitioning to LEDs probably had everything else nailed down pretty well first.

agreed chem is fine, since its only sps and its on the tips, and the same frags are doing fine in the FT ....hate to say but you got a angel with a taste hehe:ppp

I am running the Sol Blues and like most ramped them up over time.
But I only made adjustments (either 5% or add 30 min to a cycle) every 7 to 10 day increments. Perhaps the 2-3 day period was just a little too fast for them to adjust.

Even now at 5 months in I am not over 80% and that peak setting probably only for about 3 hours per day.

I'm at 12" above so far as well.

Are you running ULNS?

Yes, full Zeovit.

Ok, this is just my opinion here, so take it with a grain of salt...

ULNS keep corals "trim and fit" to keep those nice colours, meaning they have little "fat" (aka excess zooxanthellae) to help them ride out system disturbances. With ULNS, we are essentially keeping them on the knife's edge. This is why so many people in the beginning of biopellets were having recession problems: the corals were starving.

The dramatic change in lighting conditions (not just intensity, but spectrum) probably caused the SPS to freak out a little while adjusting. You didn't spike the lighting, so it's not shock, but being at the intensity you are now they might not have enough zooxanthellae or pigmentation to handle the increased photons rates. This can cause photoinhibition (meaning too much light is causing them to shut down) or they're heating up at the skeletons due to the lack of skin pigmentation (ie. coral sunscreen). This can (and does) happen when you swap to new bulbs, new fixtures, etc. The change in intensity from T5 to LED is probably what triggered it. Corals that aren't pushed to the limit by ULNS can usually ride this out without ill effect.

Also, a shift in spectrum (LEDs are narrow spectrum compared to halides and T5) can cause a shift in which zooxanthellae clade is dominant in the coral. Each clade has it's own specific absorption spectrum; if you switch to a different lighting spectrum, you can have a shift in clades as one is no longer being favoured over the other. This transition period might cause issues as there is a change over between the dominant algaes (ie. dominant food source).

If you are seeing basal STN, that signals to me starvation which makes me think the above. Try turning down the lights a little bit and feed a bit more. Try amino acids if you haven't already; I have found them to be particularly good at fighting STN.

+1 Good call Steve. I think you hit the nail on the head.

ScubaSteve:

You think that this would happen almost immediately after changing the lights though? (I started them out at 30%) I have been using KZ Amino Acids... but not religiously. I will try to use it daily instead of a couple of times a week. What would you suggest for 'food' for them? I dose much of the KZ line, but no phyto, or food per se. There should be some mulm coming off of the Zeo rocks though. I do have a couple of types of coral food... NLS powder and Acan plus... Acan plus is likely too big..? Maybe the NLS stuff would help?

I appreciate the write up... any opinions are gatefully accepted... I'll try anything.

Something else that I should mention... many of the corals that I'm having problems with are towards the bottom of the tank... still lean towards the lights as the issue?

I would say it's light related although not intensity and like I said before something else must be at play as well. Many of the SPS I lost were next to LPS corals which seemed unaffected.

As for zeovit IME it doesn't push coral health to edge, when I used it my SPS corals were much healthy and resilient than before. While some products can cause brief coral stress for long term benefit for the most part vitality was increased. I use to change halide bulbs all the time without any adverse effects on the SPS and no acclimatization was required. I even use to be able to kill off algae with controlled kalk overdoses so the corals were the furthest thing from the edge.

I think we have much to learn about the true effects of LEDs on coral, especially SPS. While many do just fine there are many of us that bleach and loose corals from LED transition and it simply can't just be intensity or spectrum as switching halides and T5s is common practice, often going to a completely different spectrum and doubling par without ill effect.

Colour me confused then. It's strange that the corals lower down are struggling. If all else was equal, it's either the lights or neighboring corals wreaking havoc. I'm leaning toward the lights. Has your flow changed so that the SPS down low aren't getting as much flow?

Lighting effects don't always change things immediately. I had an SPS frag only recently begin to show light related stress after being in high light for over a month (everything else was stable and constant). I moved it just a little bit over out of the intense light and it's starting to come back to normal.

Just to rattle off some ideas of what might be different to try and spark a discussion:

-The spread of the LEDs may be different the T5, so light distribution might be different
-Different spectrum from the LEDs
-Intensity (not likely the issue)

The best SPS food is fish poop IMO. I have very few fish, so I feed Acan+ (to the LPS, but it floats around the tank), ReefRoids, Powdered Euphasia and CoralAmino. I know people say you get the bacterial mulm off the zeo but really, I make a ton of bacteria with VSV and I've never seen my SPS behave any different when I blow the mulm into the tank (no obvious feeding response... and this is after staring at single sections of branches for LONG periods of time).

I'm not a ZeoVit guy, so I don't know the whole range of products (I'm a VSV guy). My observation of ULNS as a whole is that if the system is well fed, ULNS makes things strong. If it's underfed, they can crash quite quickly from disturbances. Biopellets really prove this point in tanks with low fish population or low feeding. I stayed away from ULNS for so long because of all the horror stories until I started understanding why they had issues. Again, this is just observation, not hard science.

I agree with you though. Once I went to ULNS, everything became much healthier and damaged areas began to heal. However, because I have a small fish population and was underfeeding, once I hit low, low nutrients I started to get STN. Up'd the feeding a bit and all was right in the world. I think Zeovit may have its merits now that I'm thinking about it because, if you use the full suit of product, you are introducing all the nutrients and minerals the corals need (aminos, etc). In other words, Zeovit keeps things further from the edge.

or his flagfin angel has the best access to the sps farther down in the tank???:wink::mrgreen:

My angels have never caused stn in my sps, unless the stn has distinct bite mark edges. The polyps quite extending and the tips are bitten off if the angel is to blame

The more of all of your excellent input that I read, the more that I starting to think that it is in fact a few things at play. There are some corals that have tips that are bare, and the polyp extension tank wide is CRAP. Then there are some other corals that are STN from the base/inside. I have seen the angel nipping a little, so I'm' sure that he's not helping the situation. Now, come to think of it, the first few corals were all in the same area... directly under lights. In retrospect, I guess I should have ramped slower to be safe... I thought the ramp of 5%/3days would be ok.

Anyways, I havedropped the LED output to 70% for the whites, and 65% for the blues... I'll start with more religious coral feedings, and dosing. Also, I have about 20 fish in the 250gallons of water, and they are well fed to keep the angels happy and not nippy... I'd say that there is lots of fish poop.

Thanks for the inputs everyone!