So over the past several weeks many of my SPS corals have died off. The timeline of events below may or may not include valuable or invaluable information; I want to paint a full picture up front so hopefully I can eliminate the obvious questions and concerns.
Apologies for the lengthy details, but let's begin...
April/May - Replaced lighting
Same fixture, slight alteration to bulb combination, 6 bulb T5 ATI fixture. Bulbs were replaced over the course of 8 weeks. Light schedule and distance from water did not change.
June - PO4 spike
Recorded my PO4 at .75 ppm. Only affected corals were SPS. I believe this issue happened slowly over time resulting from a few issues.
The first issue was a guard insert I put on my jebao return pump. It greatly reduced the efficiency of the pump and prior to this install I was just barely turning my water over enough. I think this slowed water circulation and therefore slowed my nutrient export. FYI this guard was installed because snails kept getting stuck in the return pump intake.
I also found clumped pellets in my pellet reactor and some funky stuff growing in some vinyl tubing coming off the return pump; all were resolved. These issues were motivation to clean all my pumps, tubing, wiring, sump, etc. assuming this was all contributing to the high PO4.
Additional tasks to reduce PO4 were running more gfo, extending my fuge lighting period, reducing feeding, replacing socks daily, etc.
At this point my green birds nest, about the size of a softball, has gone bone white. Large chalice the size of a dinner plate is toast, other chalices are dying as well, but my Acros, Millies, etc are doing ok.
July - New return pump
To combat the slow return flow I swapped my Jebao 800GPH for a 1200GPH. I'm not using the new pump at full strength, but it definitely increased my turnover rate.
I also installed an Ice Cap Gyre. Simply put, too much power. It may very well be coincidence, but shortly after I installed this thing I started seeing my first reduction in my SPS. My belief is too much direct flow. So, I went back to my hydor 850gph power head after a month of the Ice Cap.
At this point my Green Tenuis colony, 10+ inches across, is half gone, Tyree Brick cyphastrea is 90% gone (baseball sized), Hulk Lepto is 90% gone (softball sized), unknown acro colony (5 inches+-) is 90% gone, Green stylo is starting to lose flesh on the tips.
My PO4 was testing at .40 at this point. So, it didn't drop to 0 over night. NO3 has always tested 0-1 ppm.
August/Today - Chemistry
I may be wrong, but my assumption is with all this coral loss, my chemistry is going to swing. I'm using a bubble magus doser. So again, IMO it shouldn't be a surprise that before all of this dosing 80ml of CA a day will now be entirely too much. Common sense tells me that with less coral you have less of a demand right?
Well my test results do show very potent water. Whether thats from the coral die off I'm not sure, this is just my guess. That being said, my CA rose from 425 to 500+ ppm so I've been cutting it back by 10ml a week and testing accordingly. Same thing happened with MG so i stopped dosing it all together when it started testing over 1500 ppm.
Now the problem child: ALK. I was dosing upwards of 80ml of ALK a day, testing consistently at 7.8 dKH. My ALK then spiked to 9.6 dKH; the spike was bad enough, but i'm running a ULNS as well. My NO3 and PO4 at this point were testing out at 0.
Since then, i've cut my ALK back from 80ml to 65ml = this dropped my ALK down from 9.6 to 8.7. I dropped it another 5 ml and it tested out at 8.6. I've recently dropped it again down to 45 ml (test is pending for this evening). My guess is i'm going to have to keep dropping it because coral are still dying out.
Side notes:
I think my issues started with the high PO4, but many other smaller issues contributed to massive die off.
The flow issue (Ice Cap) was my next contributor because it seemed that everything on the left half of the tank (where the Ice Cap was positioned) was looking rough, but a frag rack on the far right of the tank looked great. The rack had a Green Tenuis frag on it, same height from the surface as the large colony that died out on the left side of the tank, and it looked great so that told me it was flow not chemistry.
I believe the flow contributed or expedited the die off, but the core issue was chemistry swings which stemmed from the PO4 issue, it was just happening very slowly because the frags on that rack have recently started to go as well.
Strangely enough... my sunset monti, purple stylo, pink pavona, green psammacora, and all of my LPS and softies are completely unaffected. I'd like to mention that most of these listed corals are either in the shade or bottom half of the tank.
In addition to my adjustments to my doser I've started dosing acro power and phytoplankton and very closely monitoring my nutrients. I may have very well pushed my nutrients too low, but testing 0 for NO3 and PO4 is nothing new for my system.
I've also killed 4 of the bulbs on my fixture and am only running 2. I noticed with my Cyphastrea and Lepto that the die off did not occur in shaded areas. These corals may really only be suffering from low nutrients and high lighting in addition to my ALK spiking from my SPS die off...?
To conclude:
Realistically i'm posting this thread to arrange my thoughts, I debated not posting it at all, but figured it's gotta help someone out there. Also, if anyone reads this and has any ideas, thoughts or suggestions please feel free to chime in. I think i'm on the right track, but unfortunately the damage has been done and i'm going to have to let it balance back out and see what makes it.
Also, I ordered a Hana checker for ALK; I've been using Salifert kits for everything except my PO4 which i've been using the ULN Hana checker. I've also ordered some Red Sea basic salt. I do not perform water changes. Before your head explodes I promise you this is not the issue. I did debate doing a water change when I saw my chemistry go crazy, but I only had Red Sea Coral plus and it seemed counter productive t0 do a water change when I'm trying to lower my ALK and raise my nutrients.
If anyone wants some images for reference I can attach some; I haven't yet because... well its depressing as $#*!. Thanks in advance!
Apologies for the lengthy details, but let's begin...
April/May - Replaced lighting
Same fixture, slight alteration to bulb combination, 6 bulb T5 ATI fixture. Bulbs were replaced over the course of 8 weeks. Light schedule and distance from water did not change.
June - PO4 spike
Recorded my PO4 at .75 ppm. Only affected corals were SPS. I believe this issue happened slowly over time resulting from a few issues.
The first issue was a guard insert I put on my jebao return pump. It greatly reduced the efficiency of the pump and prior to this install I was just barely turning my water over enough. I think this slowed water circulation and therefore slowed my nutrient export. FYI this guard was installed because snails kept getting stuck in the return pump intake.
I also found clumped pellets in my pellet reactor and some funky stuff growing in some vinyl tubing coming off the return pump; all were resolved. These issues were motivation to clean all my pumps, tubing, wiring, sump, etc. assuming this was all contributing to the high PO4.
Additional tasks to reduce PO4 were running more gfo, extending my fuge lighting period, reducing feeding, replacing socks daily, etc.
At this point my green birds nest, about the size of a softball, has gone bone white. Large chalice the size of a dinner plate is toast, other chalices are dying as well, but my Acros, Millies, etc are doing ok.
July - New return pump
To combat the slow return flow I swapped my Jebao 800GPH for a 1200GPH. I'm not using the new pump at full strength, but it definitely increased my turnover rate.
I also installed an Ice Cap Gyre. Simply put, too much power. It may very well be coincidence, but shortly after I installed this thing I started seeing my first reduction in my SPS. My belief is too much direct flow. So, I went back to my hydor 850gph power head after a month of the Ice Cap.
At this point my Green Tenuis colony, 10+ inches across, is half gone, Tyree Brick cyphastrea is 90% gone (baseball sized), Hulk Lepto is 90% gone (softball sized), unknown acro colony (5 inches+-) is 90% gone, Green stylo is starting to lose flesh on the tips.
My PO4 was testing at .40 at this point. So, it didn't drop to 0 over night. NO3 has always tested 0-1 ppm.
August/Today - Chemistry
I may be wrong, but my assumption is with all this coral loss, my chemistry is going to swing. I'm using a bubble magus doser. So again, IMO it shouldn't be a surprise that before all of this dosing 80ml of CA a day will now be entirely too much. Common sense tells me that with less coral you have less of a demand right?
Well my test results do show very potent water. Whether thats from the coral die off I'm not sure, this is just my guess. That being said, my CA rose from 425 to 500+ ppm so I've been cutting it back by 10ml a week and testing accordingly. Same thing happened with MG so i stopped dosing it all together when it started testing over 1500 ppm.
Now the problem child: ALK. I was dosing upwards of 80ml of ALK a day, testing consistently at 7.8 dKH. My ALK then spiked to 9.6 dKH; the spike was bad enough, but i'm running a ULNS as well. My NO3 and PO4 at this point were testing out at 0.
Since then, i've cut my ALK back from 80ml to 65ml = this dropped my ALK down from 9.6 to 8.7. I dropped it another 5 ml and it tested out at 8.6. I've recently dropped it again down to 45 ml (test is pending for this evening). My guess is i'm going to have to keep dropping it because coral are still dying out.
Side notes:
I think my issues started with the high PO4, but many other smaller issues contributed to massive die off.
The flow issue (Ice Cap) was my next contributor because it seemed that everything on the left half of the tank (where the Ice Cap was positioned) was looking rough, but a frag rack on the far right of the tank looked great. The rack had a Green Tenuis frag on it, same height from the surface as the large colony that died out on the left side of the tank, and it looked great so that told me it was flow not chemistry.
I believe the flow contributed or expedited the die off, but the core issue was chemistry swings which stemmed from the PO4 issue, it was just happening very slowly because the frags on that rack have recently started to go as well.
Strangely enough... my sunset monti, purple stylo, pink pavona, green psammacora, and all of my LPS and softies are completely unaffected. I'd like to mention that most of these listed corals are either in the shade or bottom half of the tank.
In addition to my adjustments to my doser I've started dosing acro power and phytoplankton and very closely monitoring my nutrients. I may have very well pushed my nutrients too low, but testing 0 for NO3 and PO4 is nothing new for my system.
I've also killed 4 of the bulbs on my fixture and am only running 2. I noticed with my Cyphastrea and Lepto that the die off did not occur in shaded areas. These corals may really only be suffering from low nutrients and high lighting in addition to my ALK spiking from my SPS die off...?
To conclude:
Realistically i'm posting this thread to arrange my thoughts, I debated not posting it at all, but figured it's gotta help someone out there. Also, if anyone reads this and has any ideas, thoughts or suggestions please feel free to chime in. I think i'm on the right track, but unfortunately the damage has been done and i'm going to have to let it balance back out and see what makes it.
Also, I ordered a Hana checker for ALK; I've been using Salifert kits for everything except my PO4 which i've been using the ULN Hana checker. I've also ordered some Red Sea basic salt. I do not perform water changes. Before your head explodes I promise you this is not the issue. I did debate doing a water change when I saw my chemistry go crazy, but I only had Red Sea Coral plus and it seemed counter productive t0 do a water change when I'm trying to lower my ALK and raise my nutrients.
If anyone wants some images for reference I can attach some; I haven't yet because... well its depressing as $#*!. Thanks in advance!
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