My SPS are all having a horrible time all of the sudden. I'm just about to get all new readings on my tests, and I will post them here. I have had a horrible time in the last few weeks and things are getting worse. My SPS that were growing like gang busters are either receding at the base, losing tip flesh or losing all of their flesh overnight. There are some that are not showing issues, but a large number are doing this.

My most recent tests were:

Alk 8.73

Mag 1420

Cal 445

Sal 1.026

Temp 78.2

Phosphate .02

Im running nitrite and phosphate again right now and will post.

I haven't added any new GFO or Carbon in about 1.5 months, and haven't dosed anything for about the last two months. About two months ago I brought a Calcium reactor online. I did have a low alk swing when I was tuning the reactor in for about a week and a half the alk got down to about 7.0. That was 2.5 weeks ago.

I am posting here because I have been just trying to keep everything stable to see if it snaps out of it, but it is getting worse.

Does anyone have any thoughts about what other questions should be asked. What other tests are interesting. Or is there anyone that diagnoses for hire? I'd happily pay for help on this (hourly money or undying friendship LOL).

Thoughts? Questions?

Thanks,

-Adam

I canned all the hanna checkers and have been testing with Red Sea and Salifert on each of the tests.

You SHOULD have hollered at me, there was nothing fun in Seattle, was just there for the day for business so seeing a friend would have been much better LOL. I was probably lost in my own world there.

Ca 450

Kh 9.2

Mag 1520

Nitrite 0ppm

Nitrate 5-10ppm

Sal 1.026

There is a chance that the color is actually 10-20 ppm now that I let it sit for longer.

How much of your coral is SPS? 

What other coral are in there?

May we see a pic of the tank?

What were the Alk and Ca before starting the Calcium Reactor?

Was lighting changed, even slightly, in the last month or two?

Just FYI, AC(activated carbon) can get saturated/exhausted in about 2 weeks. For SPS especially, AC should be changed regularly every 2-4 weeks.

There is a difficulty with having Alk and Ca perfectly stable. The animals get accustomed to the perfect stability and may have issues, even delayed issues, whenever it strays from perfection.  Huh? What I'm saying is, rather than trying to keep Alk, Ca, Mg, PO4 pollution, and N pollution at ideal numbers, simply make sure the numbers don't go outside the acceptable ranges. Allowing Alk to go down to 7 dKH, when the bottom of the range is 8, causes coral stress, especially with SPS. Do you know the acceptable ranges? Feel free to ask.

Acceptable ranges can also be an indirect source of trouble when conditions outside the tank have an influence.  What?

 I do not run my systems at 78 degrees, especially in the summer. In the wild, water temperatures can be in the low to mid 80's, but for various reasons, in the long run the coral animals in our tanks don't do well above 80 degrees. At a base temperature of 78 it's so very easy for tank temperature to spike into the 80's. Even one temp spike into the 80's can send SPS into a tailspin. Summer weather can be disastrous to our tanks.

What to do in the summer? 

Remove/unplug the heater and let the tank run at normal room temperature, in an air conditioned room of course.  All coral can do just fine at 70 and even a little below that. Sure, growth is not as strong at lower temp, but preventing death issues like we are seeing here, is well worth the slower growth. When I do plug in a heater, I set it to keep the tank at a base of 74-75.

Feel free to ask questions.

Aloha,

Mark  

P.S.

I'm available for in-person evaluation/consultation for small fee or trade. 

1. Like I said above, too much "perfection" can lead to trouble when conditions vary from perfect.

2. Saturated DI resin releases the impurities it had collected.

Animals can handle just a few things being temporarily out of whack and can actually get accustomed to dealing with things that swing, as long as they swing within an acceptable range.

Aloha,

Mark  

In between times when I'm not online, I may be reached at 808-345-1049

I have changed the lighting in the center part of the tank, I reduced it by 5% basically at the highest part of the day (about a 3 hour span) down from 45% to 40% on a Radion XR30 Pro. The two side Radions were not changed.

I do weekly water changes of 30 gals (about 245 gals of total system volume) and have done so since the tank started, and I change the media every 3 months in the RODI system (long before any color change happens in the media). I have heard of so many having trouble with AC changing too frequently that I haven't been changing it as often as I used to. I used to do it every two weeks, but slowed to 4-6 weeks. Sounds like the preference would be to do it more often?

Ranges, yes, I'll tell you what I "think" and you can correct as necessary. Kh range is seems to be ok from about 8.0 to 9.8, Ca seems to be from 400-450ppm, Mag seems to be fine from 1300-1550ish, PO4 needs to be .05 and lower, salinity I am not aware of a range apsect, I try to stay at 1.026.

As far as temp goes, 78-79 is what the tank is cycling between with the heaters off and the AC of the house regulating everything. I had thought of adding a chiller but have not done so yet. Even with a fan blowing across the sump lightly I can't get the tank temp to match the room ambient temp of about 72. Not trying to, but 78 is about as low as it will go.

Before the calcium reactor, the Ca was running about 435ppm and the Kh was about 9.1 always. I dosed two part through an Apex DOS and turned that off to bring the reactor online.

The tank is about 75% SPS and 25% LPS and "other". I will add pics as soon as the light comes on for the day. My normal cycle is about 8.5 hours with only about 3 hours being in the highest PAR setting, it ramps up and ramps down through that 8 hours.

Thank you for all the things to think about and look for. Will keep at it.

-Adam

Above is a link to a youtube video that shows the current status of the tank. The iphone takes weird video under LED lighting, this is about an hour away from full light that runs from 10k-14K-20K. I'll get out me DSLR and see if I can get some better pictures, but this should give you an idea on what I'm talking about.

Thanks,

-Adam

In my experience, running the tank at a lower temperature(72-75) has two very beneficial effects. It slows animal metabolism and improves oxygenation. These two good effects combine to slow the speed of bad things happening and/or stop bad things altogether.

10% weekly water changes.  This opens up a whole new situation that could have set this all into it's downward motion. Has the same exact salt from the same bucket/box been used for the last 2 months? If not, please explain. For that tank, I would recommend less frequent water changes for good reason, that I would be happy to explain.

Temperature-wise, I think the only way I'll drop any temp is to add a chiller. I have been looking into them something fierce since this raised its ugly head. I was thinking a 1/5 HP might be good enough. What would other's thoughts be?

Definitely planning for a AC change back to the two week mark I used to run at. Reality is that in the year I did it that way, I never had an issue.

For the water changes, it has been the same bag of salt for the past 4 water changes. I use the Red Sea Coral Pro in the contractor bag that does 200gal of water. I have used the same salt mix for almost a year now.

There are many ways to avoid the expense and trouble of some of the maintenance activities that may seem so essential to newer hobbyists. I think what happens is that a hobbyist decides what they think should work and if it does work, they then hesitate to change the formula. That's perfectly normal since it follows the old adage "if it's not broke, don't fix it." 

As a hobbyist sets up more and more aquariums, spends extended time in the hobby, listens to the experts (who sometimes disagree on some of the most basic matters), the more that hobbyist comes to realize that a beautiful reef can be grown in lots of different ways.

Aloha,

Mark  

I am always nervous of the checkers. Next time I see you, I will say hi. I'm pretty nervous on flights anyway, a drink and Xanax is what gets me through it. Ha.

That is one of the reasons I get anxious! Haha! I get uncomfortable when the something I am sitting in is bending at 30k feet in the air. 

Oh I realize that. That's the crazy part. Its all in my head. I fly a dozen roundtrip flights a year and still freak out. Thankfully, Xanax works. But I digress. Sorry to mess up this thread! 

An update on the situation:

After much consultation with Mark Peterson, I am continuing the plan of doing very little other than keeping the carbon fresh, feeding the tank more, and keeping those numbers on the alk and ph from ranging too far. 

The tank has begun to bounce back quite a bit and it is getting tested morning and evening to make sure the main thing it is getting is stability.

I think the worst may be past, but am crossing my fingers!

Thanks all,

-adam

It's great that you enjoy testing. You may eventually find that weekly or biweekly testing gives sufficient data to "check the pulse" of the Calcium Reactor. It might not hurt for me to mention again for all readers; perfectly stable parameters can create a situation where the tank can seriously stress when something changes by just a fraction. Instead, strive to keep parameters in range and trending toward the equilibrium of the tank. Each tank will have it's own equilibrium and the equilibrium of a single tank will change as it matures.

Yes you do! By the way, do you still have that pink and blue mushroom? I brought in hundreds last week, and I do not have anything that cool!

How is your tank doing? Time flies inside of our little boxes of water.

General update is that the die off has stopped and most of the corals have re-grown tissue. Some that I thought were 100% lost, like the sunrise monti and the setosa, both have recovered and look about the same as before.

In the end, I believe higher frequency carbon change and stabilizing the calc reactor were the biggest factors in stopping the carnage. Have just been super focused on stability for the last two weeks and it has delivered marvelously. I knew it was important, but now I know just how critical stability is.

I do test all my water change salt when I mix the first batch from a new bag or bucket. Red Sea has always been perfect for me, but it stands to reason that anybody can have a processing issue, therefore I test each new batch of salt.

Thanks all, have loved all the help that came to the rescue here. Sincerely appreciate you as well, Mark, for coming over and sitting in front of it and scratching your head with me :-) Was great to get such a straight forward perspective and benefit from your years of seeing it all!

-Adam

 The one that got away...