Mass Coral Death
 

Having a hell of a time lately trying to figure out what is going on in my tank. I have had a costly loss of corals including: duncan, 2 trumpets, hammerhead, some mystery agro, yellow polyps, torch coral, brain and now my green palys appear to be next.

Water parameters have been off, nitrates and nitrites plus ammonia elevated. Been water changing like crazy and it does appear to be settling down.

Have some dynos and cyano. Fish are all ok and eating well. Yellow tang, rabbit fish, 2 wrasses, 2 clowns, blue cheek trigger and a file fish.

Tons of snail die off and lost my cleaner shrimp (had him for 3 years).

Had a huge infestation of aptasia and was treating with Kalk. Got all new lights in April. Lights are on timers, 12 hours blues, 11 hours whites. No sump. 75 gallons.

Just at a loss and sitting and waiting things out, I'm just seeing more and more die off. I'm starting to want out of the hobby. This has all happened pretty fast -- in the last 4 months probably so I'm pretty bummed about it.

Any thoughts? Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

snail die off is a good indicator of heavy metals being introduced. Do you use rodi water? Whats your salinity/ph/phosphates/alk/calc/mg/temp sitting at?

Have you been keeping param records ?
What are you test results right now ?
Give us lots of results

Think back real hard about what has changed with anything you do/don't do since this all started. Have you changed anything ? Different brands of stuff ? Something failed/got neglected ?
Different water source ?

Die off of snails is a big indicator, but your shrimp was probably just old

Elevated ammonia and nitrites will cause the gills of the fish to burn and eventually the fish will suffocate. Continue with the daily water changes but please re-home the fish immediately

Protein Skimmer vs canister filter
 

What a bummer! I feel for you.

Are you using a canister filter? A hang-on- back protein skimmer would help as canisters can be nitrates producers in a salt water system.

Did you introduce something new into the tank just as the problems started?

Don't do too many big water changes too close togethers. Twice month, I think, is max.

I have found Instant Ocean Nitrater reducera big help. Brightwell Reef Fuel (which is really a safer commercial verson of Vodka Dosing) is also very effective but you MUST

A ball of Chaeto Macro Algae stuffed into a corner where it will stay put is also extremely effective. This is all I use in my sump.

Everything mentioned in the previous thread is very important advice to follow.

Good Luck - hang in there. Once you get through this, you will be a hardened seasoned Reef Warrior.

AquaAddict

mass die off
 

do you have a copper test kit sure killer of your inverts might be time to change your r/o membranes.

Yes, I keep a log of everything.

pH is between 7 and 7.5
dkh is usually around 8
Ca has been a little higher because of the Kalk at 450ish
Mg has been around 1300-1400
nitrates up to 0.5
nitrites up to 0.25
ammonia up to 0.5 (now less than 0.25)
temp (without the a/c) hovering between 80 and 82. Have had a fan blowing on it. Just last weekend we put the a/c in so the ambient room temp has been cooler. Now around 80 consistently. Tank is 3.5 years old here but was cycled already when we got it, just moved it 4 houses down the road.

The snails that died off were the nassarius snails. I also had tons of spaghetti worms and they are pretty much gone now. Now I have lots of sponges, serpent stars and bristle worms. My astrea snails are breeding like crazy. I have a ton of babies. Tube worms are making a come back.

I use tap water, usually made up the night before, with vanquish, heated, with powerhead. h2ocean salt. Basically the same process for 3.5 years.

I will test again tomorrow when I get home from work and post exact levels.

Did you just move the tank recently? Or am I misunderstanding.
If so. Did you disturbed a deep sand bed?

Just a thought

Been watching the gills of the fish closely and looking for labored respiration, etc. but all is well.

My green Hawaiian palys have been closed for 3 weeks now and have white flecks on them. It kind of looks like bubbles to me so I'm thinking dynos. I have had them before so no surprise there. I will do the blackout again once I know I'm a little more stable system wide. Been scouring the "coral pests" online too and have had no luck with possibilities. I just don't have a trained eye, I guess. Everything is so friggin' tiny, LOL.

No, the move was 3.5 years ago. Been stable since.

Yes, I run a canister filter, run carbon all the time, change it about once a month. Running an nitrate reducer in there now but can't remember what it's called off hand. It's a rechargeable packet like thing.

The powerheads have the sleeves. I wasn't running them and then ran them the last 2 water changes with brand new sleeves each time. They are now out again because my friend who owns the LFS said they can be a source too.

I'm pretty sensitive to the taste of heavy metals in water and I drink our tap water so I'm not sure that is a source.

Wow, this sucks, I feel your frustration! In my opinion you should ditch the canister. They are ok for fish only but personaly I would never use one on a reef system. Nitrate factory. Open a window or two and get some fresh air in, this will help raise your Ph some. I am thinking you may have too much bio-load for a 75gal. What with the population explosion of your snails and the 7-8 fish your filtration can't keep up. Also, invest in a RODI system, you may not be able to taste metals... but they are there. Hope some of this helps and good luck!!

I feel your pain as i'm going through the same thing.i'm losing my sps one after the other,i'm fighting a losing battle:cry: fish and inverts are all doing fine except for my corals...

Is there a way to test for heavy metals besides copper?

TDS meter for the tap water. Your pH is surprisingly low. What WarDog says actually made a lot of sense, your over consuming bioload from your snails may be a culprit. I had this actually happen in a planted tank with my fish dying off. I had a pond snail break out, and it got so overwhelming I couldn't keep up anymore (damn hermaphroditic snails) I found my tank went through another cycle just based off of the amount of bio load I had in the tank. I had about 70 fish in a 55g, with doubled filtration. Once my fish started dying off, I found that too much bioload was the culprit.

I ended up taking my entire tank down, cut all the leaves off, changed my substrate and replanted and moved my fish back into the tank and all was well after that - and I eventually, after several years - got rid of my snail problem. (Thanks to clown loaches, actually..)

Not saying that this is a direct cause, but it's a acute possibility.

I know you're not new to the hobby by any means, however; try perusing this forum thread: http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6...ed-160389.html - it might answer some questions you need answering.

I am a bit of a nube though.

I'm surprised it may be bioload though in a tank that has been stable for 3 years with the only addition of a file fish basically. I was wondering if my clean up crew starved actually. I have turbos, astrea, nassarius, urchin, conch, cleaner shrimp (now missing), coral banded shrimp, hermit crabs. I have been putting algae down on the bottom for them. As soon as a fish poops in my tank, it's a feeding frenzy. It doesn't even get to the bottom of the tank.

Could that die off alone cause the spike?

Wow, Neoh, that's quite the thread. One I could get lost in, for sure. Thank you for sharing it.

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_educationcenter.html

Here is an article on getting rid of dinos, scroll down to knowledge base.
I had an LPS die off a while back, never figured out why, I ended up fragging all the dead stuff and removing it and eventually it ran its course.
the ammonia is probably aggravating your situation, Amquil will detoxify the ammonia.

If you can get a hold of a bottle of Prime and also Stability from the lfs or a local reefer do so. Both assist in getting the bugs into turbo.
At peak time how many snails and hermits did you have in your tank.

i didnt see you post your salinity, double check your refractometer against a fellow reefers, or local store, fish can handle lower salinity, everything else suffers.... i see this all the time, someone thinks their refractometer is ok and it turns out to not be and that fixes everything

Steve

You are so right Steve. Can't say it enough, calibrate regularly! Also a good ro/di should be your very first purchase before anything else. I went for a year without one on an existing tank until all of a sudden phosphates went up in my source water. Took me a year to get over the algae outbreak! With the current flooding I am going through the color changing DI resin at an alarming pace! Something is getting through Calgary's water treatment plant that would be in my tank without ro/di

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I would see if you can get a copper test, copper is one thing that really affects corals and inverts but seems to be not bad on fish.

Sorry with your amm and nitrite up it looks like you are having a cycle again ? im not sure why but those suggest that

Trigger died this morning. I cried....I admit it.

Ammonia is going back up to 1, ph is 7.9 first thing in the morning (turned lights on early to get the trigger out). I'm going to do another water change now and then test again. Got an ammonia remover to put in the canister.

This will be my 3rd water change in 3 weeks, Purigen is the nitrate remover filter medium I have in there. It's a week old. Carbon is 2 weeks old.

Sorry to hear that man. That sucks. Have you tested the source water for everything? Just a thought. I know there is something extra in my source water just haven't tested it yet. Burning through DI resin at an alarming pace!

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Going to test the tap water now before I do another change tonight. I have to be sure. I just have my typical tank test kits though, nothing else.

Someone also mentioned that I forgot to post SG and it has always been in the 1.024-1.026 range when some evaporation happens. Currently at 1.025 though.
Plus, I do calibrate my refractometer whenever I change the carbon, so every 2nd water change on average.

At highest point I had 10 large nassarius probably, 10 mexican turbos, 10 astrea, sand sifting star fish, conch, 1 blue hermit, 2 halloween hermits, cleaner shrimp, banded shrimp, pom pom crab, urchin.

MIA is the nassarius (they all used to surface when I fed the fish, now I only see 2), cleaner shrimp, pom pom crab, plus I'm down probably 2 turbos and 3 astreas (but tons of babies). I think my one wrasse is eating my snails too. It seems to harass them.

Huge spaghetti worm population die off (even on the rocks), minimal algae in the tank, some cyano and dinos right now. Now I have probably at least 10 red serpent star fish show up out of nowhere.

Do you have a second tank (QT) you could set up for your primo livestock whilst you figure this one out? Maybe a fellow CanReefer in town?
Perhaps something is dead behind your rocks? Also live rock doesn't last forever, it's always a good idea to add/change out a piece or two every year or so. Keeps diversity in the good critters.
I still recommend a RODI system, this would only be good for you and your livestock.
Take some water to the LFS and have it tested if you don't have a master kit.
If it were my tank I would be going crazy right about now, as I'm sure you are! GOOD LUCK!

Well if u have been doing large water changes and its keeps going maybe its your salt and the water. You are In Alberta were u close to the flooding of any.

Yes, I have Chaloupa. I officially worship the lady, LOL. She has helped me through so much ****. I have had everything go wrong with this tank and she has helped me pick up the pieces. This one is baffling her too. She's leaning toward the kalk treatments that I did for the aptasia. I stopped them 3 water changes ago (about 5 weeks) though so I'd be surprised if it's still having an effect now. Feeling like I have to blame it on something. I have limited corals so it's not likely that something has fallen down in behind. Plus, I have my rock away from the back wall so I can see down and through with no real problem.

It could be that my live rock needs to get switched out a bit. I haven't added anything in 3.5 years. I'm too scared to with all the other problems I've had. I have very little coralline algae.

My test kits are Nutrafins and Elos. Moving towards all Elos if I can.

Campbell River, BC. Pristine water here for the most part. No flooding.

Elos kits are great for alk, ca and mag

You can pay a bit less and use Seachem for ammo, nitrites/nitrates and copper. Their phosphate kit is useless, to me anyway

I'm switching to Salifert for everything as J&L appears to be dropping the Elos line

You need to use an ammonia binder to get ammonia back to zero. Prime or AmQuel do this by converting toxic ammonia to non-toxic ammonia. When you use these products many ammonia test kits will give you false readings. The API ammonia test kits are cheap, reliable, and are compatible with ammonia detoxifiers. SeaChem offers an "Ammonia Alert" tag that sticks to the inside of the tank. Although I find these badges to be terribly inaccurate as far as the readings go, I do find they will accurately let you know there is ammonia present by changing color. Dose as much AmQuel or Prime as you need to in order to get ammonia to zero. Follow the directions on the bottle for a good dose size, and re-dose as many times as you need to.

I am also skeptical about your use of tap water. You never know what is going into your tank. What is ok for drinking water definitely isn't always ok for a reef tank. Since waterchanges aren't helping, and almost seem to be making things worse it makes me wonder if the water isn't the culprit. It's an unknown for sure.

Another thought is the kalk treatment for the Aiptasia. How much kalk paste would you add to the tank each time you treated? How often would you treat? I'm wondering if you caused a pH spike which led to a "rock slide".

If you're testing pH with a drop test kit, then the reading is almost as good as useless since these test kits are not very accurate, or at least not very reliably accurate. Imo, the best thing to do with pH is to either a) don't test it at all, or b) test it with a calibrated digital pH meter. Did you double check specific gravity as Steve suggested? Just take a sample of your water into your LFS and get them to check it with a refractometer, not a hydrometer. Which refractometer do you have? What do you use to calibrate it?

Did you say that you turned off the powerheads because they could be a source (of something?)? Don't turn the powerheads off! The corals need water flow.

Also, as a side note...live rock doesn't "wear out". There are many, many tanks out there with 10 or 20 year old live rock that are still going strong.

Yes, I use drop tests for pH. I will get a digital reader, no problem. The thing is, my pH is a bit low, not high. Is my light cycle long enough without a lighted sump? 11 hours white, 12 hours blue.

I'm not sure the water is the problem -- maybe more that I'm not identifying the actual source of the problem.

I realized tonight that I had not retested my levels of usage with this new brand of salt. I was dosing based on the old brands levels. Also, I test AFTER the water change usually, not before, so the water would seem to be pretty good each time. Then I dose with the same pattern. Tonight, instead of changing the water, I prepped some for tomorrow night and spent time thoroughly testing and cleaned out the filter canister again. Sucked up some skanky water from the bottom of my skimmer canister too. I put in an ammonia filter in the canister tonight too, so now I'm running that, the nitrate filter medium and carbon. I will try to get some of the liquid stuff too. I want to start having on this stuff on hand.

Right now I program my phone to alert me when to dose what. Maybe it's time to invest in some sort of dosing control system. Our next tank will be drilled for sure -- if we can survive this issue and be stable for a year. Hubby promised. :)

Powerheads have always been on, just the "filter sleeves" on the inside have been removed.

If I read your post correctly, you test after a water change
I prefer, and recommend, you test your paramaters before a WC

Personally, I like to know what's been used and other stuff before a WC so I know what is going on and what I may need to do to keep the Big 3 stable
Earlier in my venture, I also tested a day after a WC to see what was up

Testing after a WC doesn't give you enough info as it's just what you've changed now, not what's been going on in between the changes

Maybe others have different opinions, but, when I'm adding New Salt Water with readings of 10-11 Alk, 450 Ca and 1400-1450 Mag to my system, it makes a difference to me how much and how often I do WCs

Changing 15% bi-weekly is very different for me than when I do 10% weekly
This is because of my NSW content

Hope this makes sense, I'm tired and off to bed :wink:

So, my approach now will be:

• a good ro/di
• digital pH meter
• copper test kit
• ammonia binder

Anything else pressing?

I'll test again tonight when I get home. I have water prepped and will be 24 hour old by then so will do another smaller water change. Probably 20% at most.

Thank you again for your help! Everyone looks alive this morning so it's already a better day than yesterday. :)

Does your test show zero nitrite and ammonia? How are your fish?

No they aren't but I have filter mediums in for both and dosing with binders now too. I have Nitrate Destroyer and just picked up Prime yesterday.

Trigger died Thursday morning. The rest are all doing fine, so it appears. Trigger looked fine the night before was up trying to get algae out of my hand, was eating, etc. I have the QT out and ready to go, water made up, etc. just in case.

I didn't test today but will again tomorrow. Everything appears to be perking up. Clam still looks fine internally and none of the snails are hanging out near it and the wrasses are leaving it alone.

I might be on the upward slope again. Hoping...Thanks again!

Get some Stability too. Test every 4 hours and if tests show ammonia and nitrite is going up add more