Corals responding poorly, not sure why

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

Hi All,

 

I started up my reef last year and things have been going well. Recently, my whole tank seems to be upset about something and I’m not sure what it is. 

 

I had a salt spike that brought my levels to 1.029. I brought it back down to 1.025 and it’s been a week and things are still pulled in. My parameters are below:

 

alk: 8.7

cal: 420

mag: 1440

nitrates: ~5 ppm

phosphates: undetectable 

salinity: 1.025

 

I have two hammers that both appear to be pretty much dying. The tentacles are pulled in and the fleshy part has begun pulling away from the sides of the skeleton. I have a frogspawn that seems unhappy and pulled in.  My zoos are pulled in as well and I have a candy cane that’s losing its color. 

 

Oddly enough, my BTA, GSP, and rock flowers seem happy as ever and haven’t shown any signs of stress. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong here?

 

Some notes:

- recently added an orange diamond goby and he spits sand EVERYWHERE

- recently added a protein skimmer

- I’ve been having a hair and bubble algae outbreak. Used fuzz out and added emerald crabs to get it under control 

 

Any help is appreciated!

[Tamberav]

What is fuzz out? I have never heard of it.

 

Do you vacuum the sand or is the goby spitting nasty cloudy sand everywhere?

 

What phosphate test kit do you use?

 

Sounds like a lot of changes at once. 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Definitely sounds like a lot going on.  Have you tried spot feeding the hammers?

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

1 minute ago, Tamberav said:

What is fuzz out? I have never heard of it.

 

Do you vacuum the sand or is the goby spitting nasty cloudy sand everywhere?

 

What phosphate test kit do you use?

 

Sounds like a lot of changes at once. 

It’s brand is Maxout and can be seen here: https://www.maxoutaquatics.com/product/maxout-pro/

 

I vacuum the sand once per week during water changes, so it isn’t too cloudy. But it’s possible there is some cloudiness here or there as I’m not able to reach everywhere in the tank. 

 

For test kits, I use salifert. 

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

1 minute ago, TILTON said:

Definitely sounds like a lot going on.  Have you tried spot feeding the hammers?

It’s a lot all at once, so it could definitely be any one of them or a combination of change. I spot feed my favia, hammers, nems, frogspawn and candy canes once per week. 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Are the euphyllia still eating?

[Recci]

I would do a large water change like 60%. Sometimes a reset is needed.

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

19 minutes ago, TILTON said:

Are the euphyllia still eating?

The frogspawn is but the hammers don’t appear to be. 

[Tamberav]

If you stripped all your PO4, you will definitely piss off and kill corals. Sounds like you overdid it - I would remove that max out crap. 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

2 hours ago, dasoxx said:

Hi All,

 

I started up my reef last year and things have been going well. Recently, my whole tank seems to be upset about something and I’m not sure what it is. 

 

I had a salt spike that brought my levels to 1.029. I brought it back down to 1.025 and it’s been a week and things are still pulled in. My parameters are below:

 

alk: 8.7

cal: 420

mag: 1440

nitrates: ~5 ppm

phosphates: undetectable 

salinity: 1.025

 

I have two hammers that both appear to be pretty much dying. The tentacles are pulled in and the fleshy part has begun pulling away from the sides of the skeleton. I have a frogspawn that seems unhappy and pulled in.  My zoos are pulled in as well and I have a candy cane that’s losing its color. 

 

Oddly enough, my BTA, GSP, and rock flowers seem happy as ever and haven’t shown any signs of stress. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong here?

 

Some notes:

- recently added an orange diamond goby and he spits sand EVERYWHERE

- recently added a protein skimmer

- I’ve been having a hair and bubble algae outbreak. Used fuzz out and added emerald crabs to get it under control 

 

Any help is appreciated!

You know this oddly sounds like my predicament too. My favia and chalice seem to be doing the same thing as your hammers and other corals. I’m also having a hair algae outbreak, not bubble. 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

My favia seems like he’s beginning to maybe make a comeback, but I’m afraid that my chalice may be a goner. Just like Tamberav said, I think that you may have over done it, bc right before all this started happening in my tank, I was changing a bunch of things and adding a ton of stuff to the tank. I’ve started to slow down and it’s beginning to look better.

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

11 hours ago, Tamberav said:

If you stripped all your PO4, you will definitely piss off and kill corals. Sounds like you overdid it - I would remove that max out crap. 

So I removed the max out last week. Currently running just chemipure. You think the protein skimmer could be a factor?  Removing too much?

[Clown79]

Lack of nutrients.

 

0 phosphate is the worst thing you can have. Not only does it effect corals negatively but it can lead to other unwanted events.

 

Nitrates being low is another issue.

 

I just went through a crisis due to no nutrients.

 

I got my phos to 0.15 and things have never looked better.

 

The old belief of low nutrients being beneficial is quickly being proven as a falsehood by many.

If anything a lit of hobbyists with gorgeous tanks run nutrients well above what we've been claiming as ideal

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

On 4/13/2019 at 11:57 AM, Clown79 said:

Lack of nutrients.

 

0 phosphate is the worst thing you can have. Not only does it effect corals negatively but it can lead to other unwanted events.

 

Nitrates being low is another issue.

 

I just went through a crisis due to no nutrients.

 

I got my phos to 0.15 and things have never looked better.

 

The old belief of low nutrients being beneficial is quickly being proven as a falsehood by many.

If anything a lit of hobbyists with gorgeous tanks run nutrients well above what we've been claiming as ideal

Are you suggesting I remove my chemipure and shut off the protein skimmer for a time to allow these to return?

[Clown79]

5 hours ago, dasoxx said:

Are you suggesting I remove my chemipure and shut off the protein skimmer for a time to allow these to return?

Skimmers aren't always beneficial to nano tanks. 

 

You need to get your nutrients up, corals and other organisms need the nutrients. 

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

35 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Skimmers aren't always beneficial to nano tanks. 

 

You need to get your nutrients up, corals and other organisms need the nutrients. 

Noted, I’ll give this a shot and monitor the levels closely to ensure they don’t get too high. My tank was operating wonderfully before I got the skimmer and maybe it wasn’t a smart moving adding it when there wasn’t necessarily a problem. 

[Braun036]

While the salt was 1.029 were the corals doing fine? How fast did you drop the  salinity back to 1.025. If you did it fast well I believe that would be the problem since all your other numbers seem fine. I also have Nano tank and I only run my slimmer a couple hours during the day. Have you made any other changes to the lighting. What kind of lighting are you using? 

[mcarroll]

The salinity spike on top of a bad (ie too low) nutrient situation was the combined problem for your critters.  My system creeped up to 1.030 a few years ago... the algae mix in my system shifted as a result, including a first-ever algae bloom, and hasn't been the same since.  This was in a mature system full of stony corals too... super-high salinity is bad.

 

I'd consider dosing phosphates until they stop registering zero on tests....your corals will see an immediate benefit.

 

If you've removed the foundation problem (nutrient stripping media/additives) then the skimmer should be a benefit to the tank via aeration.

 

Skimmers don't really do a whole lot of nutrient removal, depending on setup, and in spite of reputation.   That is not something I would worry about.

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

My tank was probably at its healthiest when I ran one little bag of chemipure every week, no carbon filter cartridge, no skimmer and did 5-10% water changes each week. I’m going to go back to the basics and help my tank recover. After that, I’ll slowly try reintroducing the skimmer and other aspects one by one so I can watch levels carefully. I implemented too much change at once and couldn’t track what happened as a result. Terrible!

[Clown79]

2 hours ago, dasoxx said:

My tank was probably at its healthiest when I ran one little bag of chemipure every week, no carbon filter cartridge, no skimmer and did 5-10% water changes each week. I’m going to go back to the basics and help my tank recover. After that, I’ll slowly try reintroducing the skimmer and other aspects one by one so I can watch levels carefully. I implemented too much change at once and couldn’t track what happened as a result. Terrible!

It happens to a lot of us.

 

I just went through dino's because my nutrients was none existant. 

 

 

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

22 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

It happens to a lot of us.

 

I just went through dino's because my nutrients was none existant. 

 

 

Yeah, I guess it comes with the territory.  I've reset the tank back to the way I had it before all of this and I'm seeing my Nitrates up around 10ppm, but I still can't see my Phosphates.  Going to pickup a more precise test as the salifert is only picking up .3 and I'm thinking I want something better.  

 

I saw that my Ph was a little off and I'm wondering if some of my dosing might have caused an imbalance.  At this point, I'm considering doing some hefty water changes over the course of the next week to get everything back to a state of normality and go from there.

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, dasoxx said:

Yeah, I guess it comes with the territory.  I've reset the tank back to the way I had it before all of this and I'm seeing my Nitrates up around 10ppm, but I still can't see my Phosphates.  Going to pickup a more precise test as the salifert is only picking up .3 and I'm thinking I want something better.  

 

I saw that my Ph was a little off and I'm wondering if some of my dosing might have caused an imbalance.  At this point, I'm considering doing some hefty water changes over the course of the next week to get everything back to a state of normality and go from there.

Ph fluctuates all day long. 

 

Opening windows or getting more surface water movement helps.

 

I never got reading from salifert, always 0.

I got the hanna ULR and I like it. No fussing with colour charts.

 

 

[WhiteVelvetStarfish]

18 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Ph fluctuates all day long. 

 

Opening windows or getting more surface water movement helps.

 

I never got reading from salifert, always 0.

I got the hanna ULR and I like it. No fussing with colour charts.

 

 

I will definitely do that!  I also used to have a lot of water breakage and recently stopped just on a whim to see how corals liked it.  I could correct that.

[Clown79]

3 minutes ago, dasoxx said:

I will definitely do that!  I also used to have a lot of water breakage and recently stopped just on a whim to see how corals liked it.  I could correct that.

It's the easiest and safest method for ph. 

 

Often in winter ph drops because in most climates, we close our windows.

 

I don't test ph anymore because it changes all day, is effected by photosynthesis, so accurate readings is hours after lights have been on and tested at the same time. 

[mcarroll]

 if your current test kit says phosphates are zero, then they are close enough to zero that's all you need to think about. (You don't need a more accurate zero before you take action.)

 

What you need is some phosphate fertilizer such as the type that Seachem and Brightwell sells.  (eg Flourish phosphate)

 

Target >=0.03 ppm with your dose.  Test an hour or so afterward to see if you need to re-dose since during a deficit like this coral and algae both may draw phosphates down to zero again very rapidly.  Just as you would with alkalinity, does phosphates up to that level every day until you don't need to anymore. You'll have to figure out when this happens based on your test results along the way.   My guess is that you will not need to dose very much phosphate, or for very long.