Sps not looking good

[fizzball]

Hey there,

 

over the past few months have started keeping acros in my tank with good growth and colour, however over the past week or so they have started to all deteriorate slowly with all of them releasing what seem to be menesterial filaments showing that something is clearly stressing them out. they are not dying from the bottom up like typical rtn or stn but are all showing very burnt tips plus weak polyp extension. i thought initially this was an issue of too little nutrients, however have had fuge off for a week with phos around 0.02 and nitrates around 1ppm. also lowered alk slowly from 8 to around 7.5. could there be some other contaminant in the water? i had a whole bunch of pineapple sponges that have also all died seemingly out of nowhere too at around the same time this started happening. have a triton icp on the way which will hopefully show if it is indeed chemical related.

 

Lps also not out fully and just look a bit weak overall

 

fyi tank is red sea reefer 170 running for about 8 months.

lighting is a radion xr30 running coral AB at 40% and a vitamini actinic strip

flow 2x mp10s running reef crest at 60%

all water top ups and changes done with ro/di water 

tropic marin pro reef salt

 

would much appreciate any advice over what might be the cause of all this

[Clown79]

How old is the tank?

 

Did your alk spike?

 

Is alk stable?

 

Why lower it from 8 to 7.5? 

 

Most causes for this is alk instability,

 

high alk (8 isn't high) with low nutrients(your nutrient levels are fairly low)

 

Contaminated water

[fizzball]

tank running from jan this year... no alk spike that im aware of. Lowered it down from 8 thinking that 8 may have been too high with low nutrients, this was done gradually over a week and a bit though. alk is usually pretty stable just dosing red sea 2 part... ill definitely keep a closer eye on it though 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

Have you stuck your hand in the tank? Feeling any stray voltage? 
 

Any places that metal might have gotten in your tank(metal clamp, razor blade, etc)? 

 

Any large temperature fluctuations? 
 

Have you checked the TDS on your RODI water? 

[fizzball]

no stray voltage that i can feel... nothing metal other than pumps and just checked heater for cracks. have not checked tds of ro/di as i always assumed it to be good as i switch out the medias regularly... maybe this is something i need to start doing ill look into an inline tds meter now. as for temperature, room fan usually mitigates afternoon heat via evaporation... tank and coral were fine during hotter months though when i assume temp would have been more of an issue

[seabass]

Instead of lowering alkalinity, I'd probably try to raise nutrient levels (like between 0.03 to 0.05ppm of phosphate, and 2 to 5 ppm of nitrate).  That's twice current levels.

[fizzball]

yeah will do ill feed a bit more each day

 

[Inspgadget]

3 hours ago, fizzball said:

yeah will do ill feed a bit more each day

 

Will it raise the nutrients fast enough to rescue the coral? 

[seabass]

2 hours ago, Inspgadget said:

Will it raise the nutrients fast enough to rescue the coral? 

Hard to say.  Feeding more is a good idea if not feeding enough, but I'm not really of fan of overfeeding to raise nutrient levels.  I prefer dosing inorganic nutrients like NeoPhos and NeoNitro.

[ninjamyst]

There's not much you can do to instantly turn this around overnight.  Feed more, let tank stabilize, and avoid making too many changes at once.  Are you running carbon?  If you suspect water contamination, carbon can reduce that.

[Clown79]

You dose 2 part red sea, how often do you test the alk?

 

What is your target alk level(should be what your salt mixes at)

 

Its very easy to have alk fluctuations if you are dosing but not testing to determine alk consumption.

[fizzball]

thanks for the replies...will keep a closer eye on alk every day to see if it is indeed fluctuating. salt mix tests at 7.8 so will strive to keep it there. have been running carbon since the tank started so i wouldve hoped most contaminants would have been pulled out. sent off triton icp today which should show if there is any contaminant that could be causing this.