Acropora tip burn

[Delphinus]

I'm begging for suggestions here. Everytime I try SPS, this is what happens within a couple weeks:









Notice how the damage appears to start at the tips and works down.

Here are the parameters:
SG: 1025
NO3: 2ppm (Elos test kit)
PO4: 0.000 - 0.008 (D-D/Merck test kit)
Alk: 8 (Elos, 2 different test kits)
Ca: 390 (Elos and Salifert)
Mg: 1200 (Elos)
Lighting: 250W DE Ushio - 12 months
Volume turnover: 50x

Tankmates: orchid dottyback, Z. desjardini tang, purple tang, scopas tang, some kind of damsel, 2 doliatus rabbits, a green urchin, a diadema urchin and an abalone. Hallowe'en hermits, blue leg hermits.

So what could do this damage? It seems limited to acroporas right now. There is a porites in there that seems OK. I never see the fish go at the SPS, and the damage doesn't look or sound right for AEFW.

So what's left? The crabs maybe?? There may still be hitchhiker crabs in the tank as I sometimes see their molts. What could do this kind of damage? Look how systemic the damage appears too. It's not localized. I would have guessed alkalinity or lighting but neither of those seem like plausible explanations.

I'm at my wits end with this. I went 6 months without a single SPS in this tank and finally I succumbed to temptation and this is what I get after 2-3 weeks with the new corals. Every single one of them is letting go!!! What gives??

[niloc16]

i think you mg is too low. i have seen that with high alk too

[Delphinus]

I'm working on raising Mg. I think Mg is closer to 1280 right now. Isn't seawater at 1300? So this damage can be low Mg??

I forgot to list Potassium. I did test for it and I *think* it's between 350-400. (Extremely hard to read test results..)

[niloc16]

i'm not sure if mg would be the cause. but its worth a try to bring it up

[Snappy]

Tony I see recession at the bases too. I think there must be something toxic in your water or the air getting pumped into the system.

[Jason McK]

I agree with Greg. I'd run some Carbon and if you have a UV get it going. Do you run Ozone? or any bacteria based addatives (Zeovit)

J

[Reefer Rob]

Are you running any nitrate reducer or chemical filtration? Some of these will strip the water of trace elements. Just a thought.

[Delphinus]

I am running carbon now.

I don't have a UV. If this was your tank would you consider buying a UV? Or ozone? ..

I was running Zeovit for a while, also ran Reef-resh before that. Not currently running either of those at the moment though. But I am using Taylor's "NO3 Destroyer".

I did in the past try a sulfur denitrator on this tank, but it never worked, so I gave up on that idea. That was nearly two years ago, would there be any residual sulfates? Even if there were, I thought they were supposed to be inert?

Throw some polyfilter into the mix maybe?? If it's something toxic I don't know what else I can do. Basically all I can think of is things like Chemi-pure, copious carbon, and polyfilter. I guess I can try UV but I don't just have the understanding behind it to know what size and flowrate to look for.

[Samw]

I had the same problems in the past. Things turned around for my Acroporas when I started running a UV while all else stayed constant and I was finally able to keep Acroporas alive and growing for about a year. Then, they started slowly dying again. My theory was that some kind of bacteria/vibrio was killing them and the UV sterilizer helped. When I neglected to change the UV bulb, the bacteria came back and I slowly lost all of my Acropora.

[fencer]

I prefer ozone because it will also take out any (some)toxins UV is only biological. You didn't say if the pieces died eventually or they just suffered that tip burn and lived.