Help with sps!
 

My 90galDT 20galsump has been running for 2yrs. Had ushio 2x250w 10000k + 2t5s til about 3 weeks ago switched to 2x250w xm20000k same t5s. Running gfo, Tunze 9005 skimmer, dsb and refugium. Have had ongoing bubble algea issues. Growth has been good in sps and clams. fairly slow in lps, zoas.

Lately, cyano has been wreaking havoc, choking the spsfrom the bottom up. the pink birdsnest doesn't look like it'll make it. My clams are also showing signs of stress I'm thinking might be pinched mantle but with everything else I don't want to assume and stress them more unecessarily.

The only GOOD polyp extension I ever get is with the Yellow birdnest.

Went through 3 days no lights cyano was still strong as was the valonia. Decided to scrape every inch of bubble/cyano I could get to and do a 30gal water change on Saturday.

The parameters today with new API tests:
Ammonia: undetectable
Nitrite: undetectable
Nitrate: 0-0.2
Phosphate: undetectable
Calcium: 360
Salinity: 1.022

Only have 2 clowns, 1 firefish, 1 mandy (finally felt I had enough to sustain his diet) and a yellow watchman.

What do you suggest to get these corals to stabilize again and colour up? I would like to add more colourful pieces of sps and chalices but not until these show better signs....

http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/...84/after32.jpg
http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/...84/before6.jpg


Parameters: last night
Specific Grav (with recalibrated refractometer) 1.025
PH: 8.2
Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:0
Phosphate:0 (asking LFS to do a test)
DKH:9
Calcium:420

Waiting for mag test to arrive at LFS tomorrow and planning to start balling method dosing.

This is after scrapping all the bubble possible.

http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/...4/P1010178.jpg

The cyano on the birdsnest looks like too much flow across the top, they tend to lose tissue easily from this. For now, since you apparently don't have nutrient issues, I'd regularly use a baster to clean the corals of any cyano and let it adjust to the new lighting. Try that for couple of weeks or so.

Oh, and what is your alk?

ummm alk/dkh is 9 still a newbie is that not the same thing?

Yup. That's within range. Try the stuff above, see if it helps.

I have been blowing the cyano off with a baster for a couple weeks. now that the parameters are good hopefully it works!!! My refractometer was completely off which means the specific gravity on 04/18 was probably closer to 1.019... :S

Too me it looks like you might have too much flow across the top BUT not enough flow through the branches of the birdsnest. From my experience, if the isn't enough flow through the branches, the tissue inside the colony dies off. This die off causes cyano in the lower part of the colony. The colony then goes up like a lit match from the inside out. Is the colony near a power head that the top of it is getting blasted?

Try switching your flow around so that you get rid of dead spots in your tank and get flow through the lower part of your colonies. To me this is a flow problem, not nutrients.

Yeah, that salinity is pretty low. Start bringing it up slowly with each water change.

I forgot to mention, if the birdsnest is still slowly dying, cut your losses (literally) and frag off all the good pieces and toss the rest. It'll regrow quickly. I find birdsnest to be sickness factories once they start going like this. I had a couple go and the others next to it went as well. Once I figured out to just frag it, all was well.

I brought up the salinity over 10 days with top off and water changes.
There isn't much left to save most pieces that come off are smaller than an inch of healthy tissue... :( Neither of the 2 colonies are being blasted by flow... I added a koralia at the complete opposite end of the tank trying to add flow but I can't see how to get flow through the colonies without blasting them.

From your picture it looks as though the colony was losing flesh from the inside out. Is this correct? Was the cyano there before or after the colony started to die?

If it was dying from the inside out, it's not getting enough flow. If it's outside in, then too much flow. I wouldn't worry too much about blasting it. It needs to be pretty intense for that. Once I figured out my birdsnest I started putting it about 8" from a hydor K3. That was the happiest colony I had... and it grew from a 1" frag from a dying colony to bigger than a melon in less than 6 months. So save a frag!

I'm pretty sure the cyano chokes the tissue. I'll try adding more flow. And ok I will!!! ;)

You don't necessarily need to add more flow (though I'm not sure what kind of flow you have), just tweak it. Move the power heads around around until you get a good flow pattern. Toss some food in the tank to see how the flow is moving around (your fish will love it!). I spent an hour doing the same last night and this morning one of my colonies that had been looking blah for months had crazy polyp extension! Just gotta find that sweet spot.

I have the Mag 6 return and 2 koralia 550gph. One is essentially stuck on the back glass... Can't take the backing off, actually bent a scrapper trying.

The valonia algae can be taken care of from emerald crabs as I had the same issues as you about a few years ago, the cyano is abit of a battle, do more waterchanges and try to reduce feeding, you can also add bright wells (slowly) mb7 to help start another bacteria culture to out compete the cyano. I tried numerous approaches to rid cyano from sugar dosing which is a carbon source to manual removal. I finally caved and used medicine the cyano disappeared but the clams didn't like it and in turn lost all the clams as a result the tank turned into clam chowder and I lost 90% of my sps. $6000 in livestock down the drain.

Not trying to scare you but from experience will never use any Meds on my tank ever again. Try the filter sock and turkey baster technique to alleviate cyano or even adding mb7 which should out compete the bacteria.

Good luck!

Every emerald crab died within a day for about a year, the LFS switched supplier and we now have 4 alive and well and chowing down the past month :) so the Valonia isn't really worrying me especially since I decided that scrapping the stuff off would probably not make things any worse than they already were. The cyano is better but I'll be doing another 3 days lights out in about 2 weeks to bring it down more. I'm doing about 15-20 gal wc weekly right now and that"s after blasting all the cyano off so I can siphon it out as well as as many bubble spores as I can get.
Thanks!

Parameters: last night
Specific Grav 1.025
PH: 8.2
Ammonia:0
Nitrite:0
Nitrate:0
Phosphate:0
*DKH:7* lowered from 9 in a day
Calcium:420
Mag: 1200

Are these the ideal parameters for these?
Calcium 380-450
Alkalinity 7-11 dKH
sg = 1.026
pH 8.1-8.3
Magnesium 1250-1350 ppm

Calc seems low but I've always kept mine high for all the sps...
Never had a problem with using chemiclean for cyano.
Although in your case the nutrients released would require heavy skimming and water changes. Do you grow chaeto or run pellets to help with extra nutrients?

I was debating using chemiclean but I just got a Mandy and I heard that it will essentially wipe out my copepod population so that will really be a last resort. A few months ago chaeto was running rampant in my DT which I'm thinking might have to do with my issues now since I ripped it all out. I don't seem to have much extra nutrients though. I feed once a day either pellets or half cube of mysis.

cheminclean don't do a thing to the pod population. It does not do a thing to anything else but cyano.

I used it from time to time to make my water crystal clear. It just make your skimmer go nuts so be carefull with this and sometime you have to remove the skimmer cup and let it run like that just to keep the water oxygenated.

It is not good to stop the skimmer if you don't have to so removing the cup often is enough to be able to still run it.

If you have that much problem with cyano, I don't beleive that you have 0 nitrates and phosphates....pretty much doubtfull.

Use the Redsea nitrates and phosphates test kit and see the result...you probably have a lot more than you think.

the cyano don't stick on healty coral. If it stick on your birdnest it is because the flesh on it is already dead and gone, maybe from something out of wack with your parameters? could be copper if you keep loosing your crabs?

All the other inverts were surviving. And now that the LFS has switched suppliers I have 4 happy emeralds :) If fixing the parameters in my tank doesn't fix the cyano issue I may look into chemiclean thank you for letting me know your pod population did fine. Gives me another option :)

NO3PO4X by red sea and good maintenance.

Lower your nitrates and phosphates levels to what is recommanded. I currently have cyano because my nitrates levels are out of wack with my phosphates so I must continue with the nopox dosing and eventually my phosphates will be at a very low level and bye bye cyano. Right now my phosphates are at 0.5, which is quite high, but all my SPS are doing great with great color. Since I started dosing nopox, the algae is diseparing and I have better polyp extention.

Well... Found a rusty hair clip in the sump last night... Let's see if things settle down now!!!

I had one of those in my Ca reactor for about a year, it didn't cause any issues.

A little update,

Cyano still a small issue, bubbles are nowhere near as bad as they were and I"m still scrapping it off whenever I do water changes.

Iodine dipped all the corals, found no pests. Acros are still looking rough but don't seem to be receeding since being fragged. The pink birdnest is actually growing! http://ovas.ca/forum/Smileys/blue/cheesy.gif The green chalice extends feeders every night, the new orange one (added on friday)has yet to do so but had not receeded or bleached in any way. The bubble added at the same time looks fantastic.

The mandy has doubled in size in 1.5mths that it's been there. The bi-coloured blenny is bold enough to stick around the mated clown pair http://ovas.ca/forum/Smileys/blue/wink.gif We added a blue-sided wrasse on friday, seemed to be doing fine. Eating mysis, swimming around and now we haven't seen him in over a day http://ovas.ca/forum/Smileys/blue/sad.gif The only thing that might have affected it is temp on Sunday as we couldn't turn on the air but NOTHING else was affected.

Parameters:nitrate 0.25 nitrite 0 ammonia 0 Phosphate 0 Cal 440 Alk 7.4 (this is the only one that I'm having an issue keeping steady!) Mag 1400

I would try to get the Alk steady but keep it at around 7dKH. If you are using pellets or carbon dosing combined with a high alk it can lead to coral tissue recession.

Is your tank open top as wrasses like to carpet surf? They usually land in the hardest spot to find them behind the tank... Murphy's law.

If you had a temperature spike combined with a new fish addition I would watch the other fish for signs of Ick or Velvet.

Cheers,
Tim

Hi Tim :)

The issue with the Alk is that new batch salt water for water changes comes out at 9DKH which is why I was trying to aim for higher but I'm having an issue finding out a regular dosing schedule since it seems so random to me. 2 hours after a WC DKH is at 9 24 hrs later it's at 7DKH then it varies between using up .5-1 DKH/day... Cal only dropped 20ppm in a week and Mag 40ppm. What would you suggest with those results?

I went against dosing anything but cal, alk and mag until I have those steady. I'm thinking it's alk swings more than anything.

The back of the canopy is a wide open space... :( Darn he was gorgeous!!! I'll be sure to add a screen before we try again.

All the other fish are doing perfectly.

Thanks!
Stef