Why the hell do my sps keep dying

[dabandit]

another pic

[o.c.d.]

ostreobium are green algae that live within the skeleton of living corals, Under nutrient poor conditions it causes no harm, but sufficient availability of nitrate or po4 it will grow faster than usual and will encroach on the coral and cause the live tissue to recede. The only way to control is to limit the nitrate on po4 levels

[Delphinus]

But what if NO3 and PO4 are already testing negligible to zero? I have the same problem. I tried running zeo to get rid of NO3 and PO4 .. didn't help. I run NO3 destroyer. NO3 is zero. It doesn't help. Acros drop dead after a few weeks. No obvious parasites. I wonder at times if it could be some kind of bacterial problem that once it gains a foothold there's just nothing you can do to eradicate it, because it's odd to me that out of 3 distinct reef tanks that I run, the same results happen in each of them. I used to be able to keep SPS - I can't anymore. Everytime I buy "test frags" or "test colonies" I get reminded within a few weeks that I am just wasting my money.

FWIW here are my numbers of the last tank I am trying SPS in. Ca 420, Alk 8, NO3 2.0, PO4 0.0, Mg 1390, SG 1.025. Source water is RO/DI. Water turnover is roughly 50x.

SPS can be one of the most frustrating and futile endeavours once it gets to the point.

[RuGlu6]

I would have to agree with high alk in ZEO system, I lost about 450$ worth of SPS when i was running ZEO.

However someone already mentioned Copper? LFS will test for free.
Even if you never treated with copper it could have come from old life rock if you got it "used".
Or a penny could have been dropped exidentally in to your sump and or tank (Kids?)
Small wire cut dropped in?
Copper screw?

At any rate i would test for copper just to be sure.
If you still using ZEO get you alk down to recommended lewels.

[dabandit]

Well it would seem my ka wasnt testing out properlly,the whole time i'd been running around 5ish. I jacked up alk in one day to 8...result my remaining 2 corals have healed over the skellies, and my latest test batch is holding strong,wish me luck lol. I dont run the zeo system by the way,I started dosing coral snow and sponge power in a previous attempt and was very pleased with it,but thats all I use. Mine is an algae driven system,along with my overcapacity skimmer and dual phosbans it seems to keep the nasties around zero. You can check out the survivors and my latest test batch in my album on here if you like.

[Delphinus]

Over what kind of timeframe did they heal over?? It seems really fast?

[dabandit]

It was real fast,my pocci had approx 1/2inch of skelly showing at tips and base with a huge dose of sponge power approx 10drops for my total of 100g,it was healed in about 2 days the color is still a little light but the skin has healed over and polyps are out in the damaged areas. At the same time i dosed sponge power I also jacked my alk. I've used sponge power in the past for sick corals results were within a week there was noticable regeneration ,though I did lose those in an unrelated system crash (snail in overflow)
I've been dosing sponge power and coral snow the whole time,I just jacked up the dosage when the die off started,and dropped it when they began to heal.
You can see pics of how my 2 survivors look now in my album