Why are my SPS dying?

[Nemo Niblets]

So, all my SPS are dying.

 

2 and a half weeks ago, i did red bug treatment and everything was fine. All the acros started looking better.

 

4 days later, I did a flatworm exit treatment. I did 40% more of the treatment than recommended because not all of the flatworms were dead; as the instructions recommended. I put in a HUGE bag of carbon, and a 30% water change. the water became crystal clear.

 

I took out the bag of carbon after 24 hours because I figured the light shock would hurt the acros, I've heard of it before.

 

A week later, I put in about half as much carbon, and phosban.

 

By the end of the week, all my monti's were dead. Today, I woke up and my favorite millepora was dying.

 

I kept up with my dosing, and my weekly water changes. For the past 4 months, my water parameters have been PERFECT.

 

Today's water test gave me..

 

Nitrates: 0

Phosphates: 0

Calcium: 410

Alkalinity: 9.3

Magnesium: 1330

Salinity: 1.026

 

I'm sure the FWE was a problem, but why are MY SPS STILL DYING.

 

I should add that my equipment is a 250w Lumenmax 3 pendant w/ an EVC 20k bulb powered by an icecap ballast. I have a Warner Marine H1 HOB skimmer, and two Vortech MP10s creating perfect flow.

[Nanobuds]

damn, nemo... that sux

 

pics of the SPS? how much water do you take out for ur waterchanges?

[Nemo Niblets]

Bumpers.

 

5g weekly water changes.

 

I threw out most of the SPS that died. I have one colony I can get a pic of.

[organism]

How many flatworms did you have? Usually a lot get stuck under the rocks and slowly poison the tank, I lost like 3/4 of my farm due to that little oversight one time. Another possibility is that you put way too much carbon in there, it cleaned the water too much too fast and the zooxanthellae died in your acros. Maybe a combination of the two?

[Nemo Niblets]

How many flatworms did you have? Usually a lot get stuck under the rocks and slowly poison the tank, I lost like 3/4 of my farm due to that little oversight one time. Another possibility is that you put way too much carbon in there, it cleaned the water too much too fast and the zooxanthellae died in your acros. Maybe a combination of the two?

That's exactly what i was thinking, a combo. I didn't have many flatworms. I had some, but I had very good flow and made sure to blow off every crevice.

 

I've heard of the carbon thing happening too, I just wanted to confirm it. That's why I took out the carbon later.

[Nanobuds]

hmm... knowing that fact, thats probably ur problem..

[lakshwadeep]

You might try adding more food for increased nitrates/phosphates. It could be nutrients are too low.

 

Do you have pictures of the corals? Were they bleached?

[Dani3d]

Each time I read something like that I am liking my flatworms more and more. I think I will keep them rather than use such detrimental treatment and kill everything in my tank. What about biological control for flatworm? The blue velvet nudibranch or a 6 line wrasse? I think that the medicine was worse than the disease here.

 

I have loads of them now..loads and loads. If only I could find a nice velvet nudibranch, I would buy one right away but no such luck.

 

 

 

So, all my SPS are dying.

 

2 and a half weeks ago, i did red bug treatment and everything was fine. All the acros started looking better.

 

4 days later, I did a flatworm exit treatment. I did 40% more of the treatment than recommended because not all of the flatworms were dead; as the instructions recommended. I put in a HUGE bag of carbon, and a 30% water change. the water became crystal clear.

 

I took out the bag of carbon after 24 hours because I figured the light shock would hurt the acros, I've heard of it before.

 

A week later, I put in about half as much carbon, and phosban.

 

By the end of the week, all my monti's were dead. Today, I woke up and my favorite millepora was dying.

 

I kept up with my dosing, and my weekly water changes. For the past 4 months, my water parameters have been PERFECT.

 

Today's water test gave me..

 

Nitrates: 0

Phosphates: 0

Calcium: 410

Alkalinity: 9.3

Magnesium: 1330

Salinity: 1.026

 

I'm sure the FWE was a problem, but why are MY SPS STILL DYING.

 

I should add that my equipment is a 250w Lumenmax 3 pendant w/ an EVC 20k bulb powered by an icecap ballast. I have a Warner Marine H1 HOB skimmer, and two Vortech MP10s creating perfect flow.

[PODPIMP]

Were you running phosban before?

[Nemo Niblets]

You might try adding more food for increased nitrates/phosphates. It could be nutrients are too low.

 

Do you have pictures of the corals? Were they bleached?

The ones that bleached are fine. They bleached out, but are brown now. Just stressed. The dead ones RTN'ed. Very slowly though.

 

Each time I read something like that I am liking my flatworms more and more. I think I will keep them rather than use such detrimental treatment and kill everything in my tank. What about biological control for flatworm? The blue velvet nudibranch or a 6 line wrasse? I think that the medicine was worse than the disease here.

 

I have loads of them now..loads and loads. If only I could find a nice velvet nudibranch, I would buy one right away but no such luck.

Yellow coris wrasse is great, but my BSJF killed mine. My six line was no hit. If I could find a velvet, I'm getting one. I think I may just get one in a few weeks to give it a shot....

 

And I know many people who have treated multiple times. My tank wasn't ready for the carbon treatment; there was more stress than just the FW toxins and the FWE.

[PODPIMP]

How long was the phosban in before you changed it? How much were you running before, how much now?

[Nemo Niblets]

How long was the phosban in before you changed it? How much were you running before, how much now?

 

About a month i think. I don't remember the exact amount. Probably around 100 grams, around 50g now.

[Nemo Niblets]

I've been leaving the RTN'ing/STN'ing acros in the tank until they became a 100% white skeleton. Is there a possibility that the tissue flaking off killed the other acros? I've heard of a few cases where too much flow on a colony sent the tissue flying all over the tank, killing other acros in turn. It even happened to me with a nice montipora digitata colony a while back. Could this be affecting them?

[revaltion131]

IMO, that's a bunk theory and, I can sympathize, grasping at straws. I don't think that there's much chemical release and the flesh that's departed is usually dead, which means it can't sting or anything. Is it possible that there's a disease or something being passed around by contact? I suppose so. As long as your skimmer is effective I would not be concerned that their RTNing in the tank is an issue. I think what you're seeing is all of them just going at once in response to the same stimuli.

 

When I had my SPS crash, there was nothing I was able to do to stop it. How the two corals that survived managed to do so, I still don't know, other than discovering that psammacoras seem to be tough mf'ers. I wish there were something I could say to help/encourage you but I have had the same thing happen over the period of about a month and it was just miserable. All I can say is to do your best to make changes slowly while doing your absolute best to make/keep the water quality as high as possible.

 

Remember the series of changes you made for the future. I am still inclined to believe that it was something related to the carbon. Activated carbon that is too strong can easily cause major problems for corals, more delicate ones such as SPS in particular. Look into maybe buying something like Zeovit's carbon. It still does the job but it's nowhere near as potent.

[PODPIMP]

I've been leaving the RTN'ing/STN'ing acros in the tank until they became a 100% white skeleton. Is there a possibility that the tissue flaking off killed the other acros? I've heard of a few cases where too much flow on a colony sent the tissue flying all over the tank, killing other acros in turn. It even happened to me with a nice montipora digitata colony a while back. Could this be affecting them?

 

Nemo, this sucks. Sorry this is happening to you. I believe corals will STN/RTN because of a common flaw in water quality, not because of flesh eating bacteria spreading from corals.

 

What I would do.

 

1) continue doing large water changes to reduce any possible toxins in the water.

 

2)Raise alk between 10-11dkh. When I GFO after not not using for a while or replace old gfo I would get a little STN if my alk wasn't 10-11dkh.

 

3) clip off all receding parts of SPS and remount. If it recedes again clip

 

Eventually the RTN/STN will stop and you can rebuild again.

[organism]

There's a chance that it could be the flesh floating around, much more likely is that leaving them in there caused a mini-cycle that took out the rest. Usually if the flesh is falling off you've gotta take them out and do an iodine dip along with some fragging to save parts of the colonies, if you leave an rtn'ing colony in the tank 99 times out of 100 it'll just die and foul up the water.

 

I'm not sure on the zeovit carbon recommendation though, the same as other carbon just crushed finer, which means it's actually harder on the corals if you accidentally use more and not the other way around due to its higher surface area. It's also about 10x more expensive... Regular carbon is fine, just use it sparingly next time around and you should be good.

[Nemo Niblets]

Nemo, this sucks. Sorry this is happening to you. I believe corals will STN/RTN because of a common flaw in water quality, not because of flesh eating bacteria spreading from corals.

 

What I would do.

 

1) continue doing large water changes to reduce any possible toxins in the water.

 

2)Raise alk between 10-11dkh. When I GFO after not not using for a while or replace old gfo I would get a little STN if my alk wasn't 10-11dkh.

 

3) clip off all receding parts of SPS and remount. If it recedes again clip

 

Eventually the RTN/STN will stop and you can rebuild again.

 

Will do! Number 3 doesn't work for me, once the colony starts to go, no part of it will live...

 

There's a chance that it could be the flesh floating around, much more likely is that leaving them in there caused a mini-cycle that took out the rest. Usually if the flesh is falling off you've gotta take them out and do an iodine dip along with some fragging to save parts of the colonies, if you leave an rtn'ing colony in the tank 99 times out of 100 it'll just die and foul up the water.

 

Alright, thanks again Org. I shouldn't have left the colonies in there

 

IMO, that's a bunk theory and, I can sympathize, grasping at straws. I don't think that there's much chemical release and the flesh that's departed is usually dead, which means it can't sting or anything. Is it possible that there's a disease or something being passed around by contact? I suppose so. As long as your skimmer is effective I would not be concerned that their RTNing in the tank is an issue. I think what you're seeing is all of them just going at once in response to the same stimuli.

 

When I had my SPS crash, there was nothing I was able to do to stop it. How the two corals that survived managed to do so, I still don't know, other than discovering that psammacoras seem to be tough mf'ers. I wish there were something I could say to help/encourage you but I have had the same thing happen over the period of about a month and it was just miserable. All I can say is to do your best to make changes slowly while doing your absolute best to make/keep the water quality as high as possible.

 

Remember the series of changes you made for the future. I am still inclined to believe that it was something related to the carbon. Activated carbon that is too strong can easily cause major problems for corals, more delicate ones such as SPS in particular. Look into maybe buying something like Zeovit's carbon. It still does the job but it's nowhere near as potent.

 

It does feel helpless.. I doubled the carbon and phosban i had previously, i just had another bubble algae outbreak. The zoas and LPS are growing like crazy, which is good I guess.