Help: SPS bleaching and STN
 

Hi everyone

I am looking to get some help with my tank. I'm experiencing some STN and coral bleaching on my SPS. All other corals look great.

Tank Volume: 70 gallons
Lights: 6 x T5HO (1 bulb changed per month)
Photoperiod: Currently at 5 hours for all 6 bulbs
Water movement: 4 x MP10 (80%), Hydor 1400 behind rocks, Eheim 1262 return
Protein Skimmer: Bubble Magus NAC5e (rated at 80 GAL - 120 GAL)
Barebottom reef techniques
Tank was started mid December 2012. All corals and rock transferred from my other barebottom tank that was started in June 2012.

Maintenance schedule
- clean filter sock after blasting rocks with turkey baster (daily)
- clean protein skimmer cup (full cup daily wet skim)
- wipe tank walls down (daily)
- 5 gallon water change with treated tap water (weekly), siphon out detritus that collects at the bottom
- test parameters (check ato, dosing mix) weekly

Parameters
- Salinity 1.026 (refractometer)
- Nitrate 0 (API)
- Phosphate 0.02ppm (Hanna ULR)
- Calcium 450 (Salifert)
- Alkalinity 8 (Hanna)
- Magnesium ??
- PH ??
- Temperature 25 celsius

Stock list
- 2 clownfish
- 1 blue hippo tang
- 1 tailspot blenny
- 1 lawnmower blenny
- 1 scooter blenny
- 2 green chromis
- 2 yellow chromis
- 3 peppermint shrimp
- 2 mexican turbo snails

-----------
I was dealing with cyano and contributed this to the fact that my lights were on for 8 hours each day. Plus I was overfeeding the tank (did not defrost frozen before feeding fish). To combat it, I have been blowing my rocks off on a regular basis, and dosing one drop of Zeobac per day. It is working. There is a problem with red hair algae though.

This green stag colony started bleaching from the middle of the colony out. At first I thought it was AEFW but it wasn't little circles that disappeared (never verified or checked). Now as you can see, entire branches are bleached. What is strange is that the polyps are still there and at night, I get full polyp extension.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l...0/IMG_4820.JPG

This acropora colony (sorry don't know what type it is) started dying out at the tips. You can see the algae growing on various tips. My ALK levels were consistent. I'm slowing trying to bring the levels up higher to 8.5 - 9 DKH range though.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9...0/IMG_4821.JPG

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-J...0/IMG_4822.JPG

Any help would be appreciated. I do have plans to switch to an RO system, but that won't be for another couple months. I do feed my corals with reef roids 2 times a week.

Here is a full tank shot.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-L...2/IMG_4817.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-n...2/IMG_4819.JPG

Do you use anything for controlling phosphate / nitrates? You mentioned that your using Zeobak... Is it the whole system? I've had similar results when my zeovit reactor had too high of a flow rate. Also, when trying biopellets.

with the amount of rainfall lately and you using tap water I'd be curious if the water quality has changed on you?? how long ago did things start changing?

Hi Wayne

I was dosing vodka at 1ML per day, but stopped it completely when cyano appeared. That was my only form of nutrient control. Only dosing Zeobac (bacteria) to help with the battle against cyano. There is a bag of carbon hanging in the sump (passively).

Now I am just rely on wet skimming for nutrient control.

Larry, I think your onto something. It started right when spring hit. So about a month now?

I would suggest you go to a water store and buy 40 gallons of RO water and do a couple 20-gallon water changes in the next week. Also, with STN I find a lower alkalinity level is often better. Your calcium and alkalinity aren't balanced btw either.

If you have too rigorous algae growth in your tank it will starve your corals of nutrients causing bleaching. Algae also release toxins of sorts that inhibit coral growth and can really harm corals if it is out of control. I've experienced this myself.

Another thought is that I don't think those MP10s are really strong enough on that size tank for SPS. I think it would have been better to buy two MP40s. If you have any more powerheads on hand you could try adding more flow.

For feeding, feed the corals in the evening jut before lights out and turn the pumps off for an hour so they can feed. Then by morning the food will be filtered out by your skimmer and filter sock. Filter socks tend to really help with cyano if you change them out every 2 days.

Thanks for the tip Mindy. I'll give those suggestions a try.

how are you maintaining alkalinity? Are you using an auto-doser? I had problems like this on my old tank when my alk levels weren't stable over the long term.

I am using a bubble magus dosing pump, dosing two part. Using baking soda (arm and hammer).

You think 4 x MP10s isn't enough for a 70G tank ?

I'm running 2 x 10s in my 75G and can't run them @ 100% without either blowing flesh off corals/polyps stop growing on one side, or causing them to grow sideways away from the props :lol:

i've got 2 x mp10s in my 93 cube and they're at 70%. All my SPS are happy.

I have had very similar RTNs over the past 2- months. I actually tied mine to dosing Coral Snow. :(

I had similar situation lately, but now it is getting better. My issue was UV module I have installed on my Illumina fixture and introduced BioPellets in system. after a month with BioPellets and once reduced UV level to 20% my Pocci reestablished colors and Acro is purple again. Additional I have started to automatic dose Alk and Calcium. Not sure what worked best for me but all together made a change. Good luck!

I don`t think you`re setting your powerheads up very well then. :razz: Certainly you can`t place powerheads so they shoot directly at corals. The MP10s are only 1500 gph full blast which isn`t enough to push across a 48 inch tank. If the MP10s were situated on the back glass pushing towards the front more velocity may be able to be made. SPS though need a lot of water movement throughout the tank and appreciate velocity.

My 90-gallon which is very similar dimensions to a 75-gallon has two Tunze 6105 (3400 gph) and a 6055 (1450 gph) and I can run all of them full blast with the narrow outputs on them and as long as I have the powerheads situated well my corals will keep their flesh on. :D My tank has about 92x turnover where the OP`s tank has about 80x turnover. Even though these numbers are quite similar, the larger pumps in my tank create higher velocity.

The Tunzes`new wide flow output option is really cool because you can get the same amount of flow with less velocity. LPS do not appreciate velocity. :lol: In a mixed reef like the OP`s, creating flow that makes all the corals happy is challenging.

Chizer, I would try moving those MP10s around to create more velocity near the SPS. If you set them up on the back glass pointing towards the front glass you should be able to achieve this. The VorTechs can be a bit awkward though since you can`t control their direction.

It could very well be the tap water though. :)

I wish that was an option. I have a large coast to coast external overflow on that entire back wall so it limits me to placing the MP10's at the bottom half of the tank. I had thought about building my rock up with PVC and laying them on egg crate, then it would give me that velocity.

What do you think? Will this look tacky? My SPS will then be about 6" from the surface.

I am going to buy a RODI unit from BRS. Just looking at the cost of RO in my city, it's going to be $40 just to do a 40 gallon water change. That's not including the ATO water of 15 gallons a week.

Also going to try some BRS GFO in a media bag, in my filter sock. But I'll put it on the output of my protein skimmer.

I really want to get a way from carbon dosing entirely. It's scaring me off. :redface:

I am thinking it was a combination of ALK ( initially at 7 and then I slowly raised it to 8), and bad water quality. Lesson learnt, listen to people's advice as they have been there, done that.

how can that be? I have been using coral snow for a year and never had any bad effect with it.

What made you beleive it was coral snow?

If you are paying for your water, then you might want to consider a RO unit that is low on water usage like this one, which will waste no water, so cost much less at the end:

http://www.costco.ca/Premier-Zro-Pur...100016456.html

If you are using tap water I would start with using RO. This is probably your problem.

Yeah, it probably will. If you don't have something laying around you could use (like a cheap Koralia that you can put the back magnet into the overflow) then just try the RO. Your SPS are fairly small still, so it may not be a flow issue. As they grow you're probably going to get some trouble. If you see a good deal on an MP40 I would probably pick it up if I were you and replace two of the MP10s with one MP40.

Ouch. Yeah, that's a good plan. Talk to someone in your area that knows RO/DI systems really well to figure out which filters types work best. Here in Saskatoon we have chloramines to worry about, in Alberta I know many areas have really high iron content. I have no idea how that may or may not affect RO/DI systems. If you don't know a fish RO/DI expert, ask a drinking water company and just tell them you're looking at options for drinking water. They will tell you what you need for stages, and then buy it at BRS for 1/4 the price. :lol:

I don't think it is the alkalinity. Tanks that run biopellets are prone to RTN if the alkalinity is above 8 dKH. Zeovit tanks are also supposed to run around 7 dKH. Natural seawater averages around 7 dKH. My reefs both run 7-8 dKH.

Thanks for the link Daniella. That was the main reason why I didn't purchase a RODI in the first place. It just wastes so much water. I'll check out that unit you posted.

If you are running zeovit to lower nutrients then definitely get your dkh down to 7-7.5 and keep it stable there. I started zeovit in my tank 2 months ago and I can say that higher dkh than that you will start noticing burnt tips on some acros which will lead to stn. That's just my experience so I would try to work on lowering your alkalinity.

I was just looking at your pictures again...

I see some algae growth on the back glass and the pumps, are those the only places in the tank that have algae? How long since you cleaned it off last? I notice also that you have few fish and run BB. You do feed the corals some, but what I'm getting at with these new questions is maybe the corals are starving. The nutrient level is really low. Do you feed the Reef Roids at night when the SPS have their feeding polyps out? Are you getting a good feeding response when you feed the Reef Roids?

Besides Myka's good thoughts, I'll add my similar issues from the last few months (or maybe a bit longer)

It sounds like you may be having similar issues to mine and your tank is 'too' clean. I found out our corals need food, or they will bleach :doh:

My corals were bleaching pretty badly
I had zero nitrates and phosphates, so some fellow reefers helped me out
Our thoughts are that I wasn't feeding my fish enough, and not feeding my corals, so the corals expelled their zooxanthellae. Once the zoox are gone, there's nothing to protect the corals from my 8x54w light, so bleach away

I turned off half my lights, started feeding the fish double-time, and also started using coral frenzy, phyto plan and coral vitalizer
A couple of weeks and the corals were coming back
Now all are looking much better, and I'm getting the new algae under control
I've also started playing with my lights to get a happy medium between the corals and our viewing times

I see your lights are a total of 15 hours for 3 pairs
I knocked mine down from 27 hours for 4 pairs, to 19 hours for 2 pairs for a couple months. This worked very well for me and I don't think your lights are on too much
I'm currently running a total of (I think) 20 hours total with 4 pairs and all is looking good. It's been many months since I started making changes, so don't expect a quick fix :wink:

I also see you wash your socks daily. Do they plug up this fast, or are you just cleaning them 'cause ? I wash mine once a week. Maybe you're removing more nutrients here than you need to

And you run your skimmer very wet. Maybe it's of no consequence, but I run mine dry and only remove a few hundred ml/week, and the nog is very dark

Hope this helps some

Running a skimmer wet will remove more DOC from the water I think.

I would also feed amino acids from zeovit as well. A little bottle goes a long way and make the colors great for the corals that are bleached.

The algae on the back wall is very short. I leave it on there for the lawnmower blenny and tail spot blenny to munch on. When the turbo snails go over it, it's completely clean.

I used to be on top if it by wiping it down, but when the algae started growing, I couldn't get it off. It's an acrylic backing and takes so much scraping to even remove. I do wipe that wall down almost daily, using a sponge.

I started running barebottom about 3 months ago. Do you remember commenting on my build thread that I would hate Oolite sand? We'll I did. The cyano started to appear on the sand bed at that time, so I siphoned a bit out with each weekly water change.

For feeding, I give my fish NLS pellets/flakes. Then I alternate on other days with Ocean Fresh Pacifica Plankton or Cyclopeeze. I try to feed every single day, but some days are skipped based on my schedule.

The nutrient levels are very low. On Thursday I performed a 4 gallon water change using IORC.

Nitrate (API) - 0
Phosphate (Hanna ULR) - 9 ppb (0.027 ppm)
Calcium (Salifert) - 475 ppm
Alkalinity (Hanna) - 7.8 dkH

I know they are not balanced. You had mentioned before. How do I get them balanced? I am not dosing in equal parts. I am currently only dosing:

Alkalinity (Arm and Hammer) - 25 ML (8 times per day)

Calcium Chloride (got it free from another member, maybe it is downflake but they don't remember the brand) - 20 ML (8 times per day)

This is dosed through an auto doser. I'll dial the Calcium down a bit.

Part of the problem I think is that the salt mix is so high in it's levels that it raises everything up. Then it slowly drops down, but doesn't ever balance as by the end of the week, I do another water change.

I dose twice a week with a heaping spoonful from the Salifert Calcium test kit. This is probably 1/4 tsp? The polyps are out but I don't see much of a response to the feeding. I turn the return pump/protein skimmer off. But leave all the Vortech's turned on (they are at 100% now BTW).

I also dose 1 drop of Pohls CV every so often. Maybe 2 times a week?

Thanks Greg. I'll set the timers to turn the lights on for another 30 minutes this week and perhaps bump it up to a total of 6 hours next week. Dependent on how things go that is.

They plug up every 8 hours. I find that I need to clean it once in the morning and then at night. Depending on how often I turkey baster blast the live rock, it could gunk up every 6 hours.

I have the stupid Bubble Magus skimmer open all the way and the water level is overflowing. I'll try lowering the water level in the sump to less than 9" to see if that helps a difference. It's a HOB protein skimmer that I adapted to use a in sump.

Would Zeovit CV act as a replacement for the AA? How often should I be feeding per week? Follow the instructions via the bottle?

So I have even more bad news. I did a poor mans iodine dip for the one affected coral that had the dying tips and can confirm that I have AEFW. :cry:

I'm going to contact John (Rice Reef) for some help.

Here is the picture of the algae that I have on the live rock. This appeared after the cyano got under control.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-i...o/IMG_4824.JPG

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t...o/IMG_4823.JPG

And this shot shows some black algae. It's almost like black beard algae in the freshwater world.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...o/IMG_4825.JPG

Sorry Wayne, not sure why I called you John. Thank you again for the advice.

I didn't mean for you to boost your lighting at this point. I'm just pointing out that it's not as extreme as mine was. I'd suggest you leave it be for now, or even turn them down a bit until things recover
Then slowly, and I mean over weeks, turn them back up to where you want them. All the while watch for new signs of bleaching/color changes etc

Are they poly, or felt ? I had the poly ones and had the same problem as you
Since I've switched to felt they last longer than I need before washing

Perhaps you could find a way to lift the skimmer a bit, rather than remove water from the sump ? Either way, sounds like you get the idea

Aw jeez

I hope you get things under control easily

Oh crap. That's terrible. AEFW don't affect all SPS, just Acros, so that's about the best news you're going to get out of this. (sigh)

If you're wiping it down that much, then there is obviously nutrients within the system, so if you continue with your coral feedings in the evenings it sounds like you're on the right track there.

Haha, I didn't remember who the comment was to, but I remember now. :)

If you're doing a 10% or 15% waterchange it really doesn't change the values within the tank very much. Just skip dosing calcium (but continue dosing alkalinity) for a day or two to allow the value to drop.

Well I feel really silly. I ripped my tank apart and now it looks like a frag tank. Pretty much all the large rocks are outside baking in the sun. OH well, at least I can rebuild a nice bonsai tree like everyone else.

All colonies were pulled and mounted on travertine tiles. I haven't found any AEFW at all, nor any eggs. I must have confused and misidentified it with rotifiers or copepods? I saw two creatures jump out of the coral when it was in an iodine dip and die. Can flat worms run around really fast? yah!!!!!!

I believe the issue was not due to water quality but actually due to low alkalinity. I replaced the regent and it was way off. I'm hoping to run my ALK much higher now at about 9dKH to ensure I don't have these issues anymore. I'm assuming with the ALK at 6.2 dKH, the tips got burnt and the STN started.

I'm going to put all 6 banks on 6500K and just grow the coral out. Once they are large enough, i'll focus on coloring them up.

I actually wipe it down daily only to prevent it from building up into coralline algae. I hate that stuff. Sounds strange but true. Anytime I see it on the glass (including floor), I scrape it up. I don't mind it on the rocks, but would prefer if the rocks stayed white looking.

Also, wiping daily involves a simple sponge and it's a 2 minute job. If I left it to build a film up, it takes longer to scrub.

AEFW are pretty big (like average 1/2" or so), other flatworms can be much smaller. All flatworms move pretty fast, but not like pods or rots.

What are you using to test alkalinity? Maybe you said it already...I will go look through your thread again.

EDIT: Ah, Hanna Checker. You experienced a big difference with new reagents? That's not comforting. Do you know anyone with an Elos kit within expiry that could double check for you? Salifert reads about 1 dKH high.

Can low alkalinity burn tips? Mostly it is high alkalinity. Before I started dosing my alkalinity was often low, even lower than 6 and it never burnt any tips in my sps.

Burnt tips and STN are probably 2 different problems and that they happen at the same time probably means that there is something quite out of wack with your system, not sure what.

I was thinking the same thing, but OP wants to experiment. :p

Probiotics with a kH over 8.2 is just asking for it. Leave it between 7.0 and 8.0.

/experienced Zeovit user here.

Albert, I assume you're referring to this:

Just to elaborate for OP, it's not not the bacteria, but the carbon source. Using a carbon source with higher alkalinity will often cause STN or even RTN. Albert might be onto something though, did your STN and burned tips show up during your vodka dosing or before that or after that?