Corals keep dying... What am I doing wrong?

[brilovescats]

Hello - been running my tank for about a year and a half now:
75 gal with 40 gal refugium, Curve 5 skimmer, Zeolite, Carbon and GFO in 3 reactors, RO/DI water, 10% water change weekly, Aquaforest Bio S Pro,-NP.
Parameters:
1.025 pH 8.2 at 25.5C
Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite 0 (Seneye too)
Phosphate 0
Cal 450 Mg 1275 9 dKH

Only thing that will stay alive is Ricordia; everything else always dies either in 1 day to 1 week after drip acclimation.

What the heck am I doing wrong? Why do my corals - SPS/LPS/Zoa/Soft all die? I'm getting so frustrated.

 

[1MCp]

What kind of livestock do you have in your tank?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

There's no nutrients in your tank. So there's no food for corals.

 

[pdt7361]

If your water truly is 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate, that can be too clean for many corals.
Can you give more details on the exact corals you bought, how they died, and how long it took?

 

[hybridazn]

There's no nutrients in your tank. So there's no food for corals.

Yup, water is way too clean. Running zeo along with aquaforest, gfo and skimming is way too much. Also if you want to keep your water that clean, on top of needing to feed corals you are going to want to lower your alk. On ulns systems alk over 7 dkh is too much.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Hello - been running my tank for about a year and a half now:
75 gal with 40 gal refugium, Curve 5 skimmer, Zeolite, Carbon and GFO in 3 reactors, RO/DI water, 10% water change weekly, Aquaforest Bio S Pro,-NP.
Parameters:
1.025 pH 8.2 at 25.5C
Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite 0 (Seneye too)
Phosphate 0
Cal 450 Mg 1275 9 dKH

Only thing that will stay alive is Ricordia; everything else always dies either in 1 day to 1 week after drip acclimation.

What the heck am I doing wrong? Why do my corals - SPS/LPS/Zoa/Soft all die? I'm getting so frustrated.

And Welcome To Reef2Reef!

Gotta pic of the tank?

 

[Mike220]

Simple answers
Slowly take out your zeovit system.
I had same problem, coral deat because of zeovit.
My tank running 7 months no problem, my SPS growth very good, but color not perfect. So I think zeovit will improve color. But after running zeovit for a month, my sps start dying.
Zeovit very dangerous.

 

[brilovescats]

Thanks for the quick replies!

Food -
There is, I feed them Reef Energy A+B, and Ricco food for the ricordia.

Livestock -
Roaming trochus (not sure how many)
Clown
Coral beauty
Cardinal
Mandarin (who is fat and happy)
Chromis
Orange spot Blenny

The corals that died -
ORA birds nest - went to bed and woke up and they were completely bleached like the polyps had all booked put
Steriapora - same
Zoas - various - melted over about a week
Montipora - gradually eroded over a week
Acans - happy for about two months, then suddenly one day disappeared.
Hammer - same but stayed for about 4 months... and so on.

 

[brilovescats]

Simple answers
Slowly take out your zeovit system.
I had same problem, coral deat because of zeovit.
My tank running 7 months no problem, my SPS growth very good, but color not perfect. So I think zeovit will improve color. But after running zeovit for a month, my sps start dying.
Zeovit very dangerous.

Good advice - but only been running Zeolite for about a week and a half - all my other deaths were without it!

 

[brilovescats]

Yup, water is way too clean. Running zeo along with aquaforest, gfo and skimming is way too much. Also if you want to keep your water that clean, on top of needing to feed corals you are going to want to lower your alk. On ulns systems alk over 7 dkh is too much.

Thank you - only been running Zeo for about a week and a half now, it was in an attempt to try and see if it helped. I've been feeding reef energy - I just don't get why some of them die in just one day!

 

[pdt7361]

What lights do you have?

 

[brilovescats]

What lights do you have?

2x Radion XR15 pro, run in acclimate mode when I add corals.

 

[LetItReef]

I would keep an eye on the Orange spot blenny.

 

[reefless]

There's no nutrients in your tank. So there's no food for corals.

Sorry, but lack of nutrients would not kill a coral in less than a week.

 

[Yojoe10]

Similar problem here brilovescats. Been running my system for six years and NO luck with lps. Lost a Duncan, frogspawn, and in the process now of losing another Duncan and an acan. Phosphates run under .03 and nitrates are undetectable unless I dose stump remover and feed heavy which I started doing about a month ago.
Sps seemed to do okay until a few months ago and they have all died out. One other thing you and I have in common besides the low nutrients is the Radion light and also a higher alk (mine runs 9.3-9.6.). I hope you can figure it out. The easy fix for my tank has eluded me for 6 years. [emoji849]

 

[Yojoe10]

If you have access to a par meter it might be helpful to test it out and see what intensity you're radions are putting out. I've lowered mine to about 60 percent (on a 2 foot cube tank) to try and limit my par to around 75-150 par to most of my corals and see what happens. However my goals are to keep mainly lps and softcorals and you may prefer sps so lighting needs may vary there.

 

[brilovescats]

Similar problem here brilovescats. Been running my system for six years and NO luck with lps. Lost a Duncan, frogspawn, and in the process now of losing another Duncan and an acan. Phosphates run under .03 and nitrates are undetectable unless I dose stump remover and feed heavy which I started doing about a month ago.
Sps seemed to do okay until a few months ago and they have all died out. One other thing you and I have in common besides the low nutrients is the Radion light and also a higher alk (mine runs 9.3-9.6.). I hope you can figure it out. The easy fix for my tank has eluded me for 6 years. [emoji849]

Sounds like exactly what I'm going through. I feel like I'm doing everything right, and I've read and read and read and tried all kinds of things and always end up flopping. I sometimes wonder if I hard some sort of parasite, but if I do, they are invisible, and I have no idea how they would get there - I dip like I'm supposed to.

I do have the PAR meter actually, there's one built into the Seneye, so I'll check that.

This is actually my second tank, I've been reefing for almost 4 years; had a 29 gal biocube that was also a coral flop, which is why I tried to upgrade. Wouldn't it be nuts if it was the lights - however, majority of my corals come from my LFS who uses all Radions as well on his coral tank.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Sorry, but lack of nutrients would not kill a coral in less than a week.

eh, I have definitely seen here on r2r, xenia dying REALLY fast. a lot of other mysteries. I've killed xenia in four weeks recently in my coral QT. I let the cycle stall after all the nutrints had been stripped by the bacteria. (i didnt feed the tank for 3 months), curiously the paly's just turned white and are still half hanging on. My alk was lower than his too.
SO in my book. Possible.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Sounds like exactly what I'm going through. I feel like I'm doing everything right, and I've read and read and read and tried all kinds of things and always end up flopping. I sometimes wonder if I hard some sort of parasite, but if I do, they are invisible, and I have no idea how they would get there - I dip like I'm supposed to.

I do have the PAR meter actually, there's one built into the Seneye, so I'll check that.

This is actually my second tank, I've been reefing for almost 4 years; had a 29 gal biocube that was also a coral flop, which is why I tried to upgrade. Wouldn't it be nuts if it was the lights - however, majority of my corals come from my LFS who uses all Radions as well on his coral tank.

there is a light alk nutrient relation ship with corals. On of the other reef squad was mentioning it too. Hes seen more nutrient stripped tanks in the last 2 years than in 15 before.

and there's a dimmer on leds. And your tank so your par may be very different.

 

[Yojoe10]

I can say that the ONE time I ever saw my frogspawn really take off (went from golf all size frag to about softball size in a few months) was when I actually went through a long period of tank neglect. I didn't do any water changes and just left the filter and everything go ( I run ecosystem miracle mud with lots of chaeto). It was pretty comical actually. Made me think I just try too hard when it comes to reefing lol.
However I wouldn't recommend neglecting your tank haha. You and I sound similar in reefing practices as far as trying to do absolutely everything right and seemingly failing.
I too have wondered about a weird bacteria or parasitic issue. Heck I even replaced all of my rodi filters a week ago for fear of maybe something in my water that still wasn't getting filtered out despite 0 TDS readings.
I'm seriously considering tearing the thing down, starting with all new rock, putting sand back in (instead of barebottom) and crucifying this whole ulns notion that has been hot for several years now. [emoji849]