UPDATED: Any Help is appreciated

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

...

I had no idea sps could starve to death because they are photosynthetic.

...

Photosynthesis only produces sugar. Corals still require protein.
(Think of non-photosynthetic corals)

Mitch

[reefcanada]

You may be running to many bio-pellets, I have found that they work well on tanks with a nutrient problem. I run them on my softie tank with great results, but took them off my sps tank as they were causing stn and rtn of my sps. This all stoped with days of removing the pellets from that system.

I also think less is more when dealing with the bio-pellets. I run half of what they recomend on my tank, The cheato is still growing(with a little die off when adding new pellets), this just means that I add more on a more frequent basis.

You could try feeding the pellets as you would with zeolites. I have found that the pellets need lots of food to work well. Just my two cents, hope this helps.

[Ya Dude]

circulation and water changes.count the number of Tunzes on successful acro tanks

ya heard!

[kien]

Been there, done that, waiting for Brett on the T-Shirt!

Ya, sorry, I won't be much help here either, but I too feel your pain and frustration.

To this day I have no clue what caused my die off. After a few hefty water changes it seemed to sort itself out whatever it was. It certainly was not anything I could test for. Was not the parameters, light, flow, or pellets, all of which are completely unchanged to this day and all my corals are more or less back to their former glory (growth and colour). Go figure.

Sure I would like to know what happened, but I am not going to lose sleep over it. It is what it is and trying to chase it is just an exercise in complete and utter frustration. Do your due diligence and test what you can, water, equipment, etc. and rule those out. If all of that checks out, then there is a variable that you just can't account for.

If I had to guess, my money is on sickness. Animals get sick. Animals that are clones of one another living in a colony are at a higher risk because if one gets sick, they will all get sick very very quickly. Some animals can fight off the illness, some can't. Even in this scenario there are so many variables. As suggested already, an ULNS is a virtual state of starvation for many SPS as we try to keep them alive precariously on the edge. On one hand we strip them of as much nutrient as possible while on the other hand dosing just enough of the nutrients that WE want them to take up so that they look pretty. This in my personal opinion is not their natural state of existence. Out of all the books and programs that I have read on SPS, the conclusion that I have drawn for myself is that some (or many) SPS corals are a lot darker in their natural habitat. They have the exact amount of zoozanthellae that they need to flourish. Some will take up more some less. The most common colour of zoozanthellae is brown! If a particular SPS needs or wants more zoozanthellae to survive, great, it will store more and thus get browner and is perfectly healthy and happy now. However, we as hobbyists don't want that. Instead, we try to get them to expell as much brown zoozanthellae as possible in order to bring out their colours, even if this puts them into a state of starvation.

The bottom line is it is a delicate balance that can tip either way.

Oops! Sorry for the essay/verbal diarrhea.

[Zoaelite]

Kien you save me the hassle of posting every freaking time! Ya pretty much what he said and it's for those reason's I cut back my SPS completely, just got tired of loosing things and not knowing the reason.

Good luck either way Rick, I understand your pain and frustration.

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by don.ald

what about electrical shock or something in the tank?

I do run Titanium grounding probes in both the DT and sump. I personally don't think that is an issue as in the DT the only electrical would be the 2 Koralia #4's on the wavemaker. Otherwise the other powerheads are Vortechs, so the power is outside the tank.

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

I vote you pull the plug on those bio-pellets

Seriously dude

Sorry man, I personally feel that isn't the problem. so not going to do that.

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by reefcanada

You may be running to many bio-pellets, I have found that they work well on tanks with a nutrient problem. I run them on my softie tank with great results, but took them off my sps tank as they were causing stn and rtn of my sps. This all stoped with days of removing the pellets from that system.

I also think less is more when dealing with the bio-pellets. I run half of what they recomend on my tank, The cheato is still growing(with a little die off when adding new pellets), this just means that I add more on a more frequent basis.

You could try feeding the pellets as you would with zeolites. I have found that the pellets need lots of food to work well. Just my two cents, hope this helps.

OK, something to think about... Can anybody else give this same type of proof. I just don't remove things cause, but if others can pipe in, then HMMMMMM

[globaldesigns]

K, also want to post that I added some Seachem Prime to my tank yesterday.

I have some Softies that were all hidden, today, they are coming out some. Not perfect, but they are reacting differently.

I added some more prime today and will see what happens.

Also I bought some ZeoStart2, between the PRIME and the ZeoSTART2, both I started yesterday, my skimmer is going crazy, very yucky foam, more than normal. Again, HMMMMMMMM.

Before removing the BioPellets, I am going to see what the ZeoSTART2 and Prime does. I need some quality control, don't want to change to much at once, cause then I don't know the change/effect of what I do. What do you think?

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by kien

Been there, done that, waiting for Brett on the T-Shirt!

Ya, sorry, I won't be much help here either, but I too feel your pain and frustration.

To this day I have no clue what caused my die off. After a few hefty water changes it seemed to sort itself out whatever it was. It certainly was not anything I could test for. Was not the parameters, light, flow, or pellets, all of which are completely unchanged to this day and all my corals are more or less back to their former glory (growth and colour). Go figure.

Sure I would like to know what happened, but I am not going to lose sleep over it. It is what it is and trying to chase it is just an exercise in complete and utter frustration. Do your due diligence and test what you can, water, equipment, etc. and rule those out. If all of that checks out, then there is a variable that you just can't account for.

If I had to guess, my money is on sickness. Animals get sick. Animals that are clones of one another living in a colony are at a higher risk because if one gets sick, they will all get sick very very quickly. Some animals can fight off the illness, some can't. Even in this scenario there are so many variables. As suggested already, an ULNS is a virtual state of starvation for many SPS as we try to keep them alive precariously on the edge. On one hand we strip them of as much nutrient as possible while on the other hand dosing just enough of the nutrients that WE want them to take up so that they look pretty. This in my personal opinion is not their natural state of existence. Out of all the books and programs that I have read on SPS, the conclusion that I have drawn for myself is that some (or many) SPS corals are a lot darker in their natural habitat. They have the exact amount of zoozanthellae that they need to flourish. Some will take up more some less. The most common colour of zoozanthellae is brown! If a particular SPS needs or wants more zoozanthellae to survive, great, it will store more and thus get browner and is perfectly healthy and happy now. However, we as hobbyists don't want that. Instead, we try to get them to expell as much brown zoozanthellae as possible in order to bring out their colours, even if this puts them into a state of starvation.

The bottom line is it is a delicate balance that can tip either way.

Oops! Sorry for the essay/verbal diarrhea.

Very well put, I will have to see what happens with the couple new additions I made in treatment. If things don't change then maybe I will have to decide on just letting them be happy, Brown (YUCK), but healthy. Or just remove them and do softies and Zoa's.

Very frustrating.

But I will say, from yesterday to today, there is a huge difference in water clarity. Even cleaner, cleaner than clean, and as stated before a couple softies are reacting better. Maybe I had too much chlorine, cholarmine or whatever Seachem PRIME takes out.