Dieing SPS
 

A few months ago I purchased some SPS from someone. As I was putting one of the SPS pieces in, i dropped it and it broke in a few pieces but I still put most of it back in.

A few weeks goes by and it looked like it was doing fine and then boom, white in one day.

Next SPS that ive had for about 8 months which was around 8inches wide turns white in one day.

Last week, one more of my sps goes white and today another went white.

Any ideas what could be causing it? All of them look like they encrusting at the base, growing at the tips. Could it be because of high calcium? Should I be looking out for some critters? Should I changed my lighting faster (150mh that are almost 2 years old, i know i know)?

Nitrates 0
Phosphates 0
calcium 450
Alk 8.7
K 450

critters are not going to take down a large colony in one day. it sounds like rtn or a beacking episode. a contaminent may have enterd your tank. Something like a rusting metal or copper may cause sps to bleach that fast, or a really high ammonium spike could do the trick as well. its hard to say becuase it could be any number of things. that is kind of the risk you run with trying to sps. they will be great forever and then one die out fo norwhere they might die.

It could be the old bulbs. Swapping them out for new ones won't bring anything back from the dead. But I'd do it anyways.

What is your flow like? I've found that many species of coral both soft and stony can appear to do fine for months with inadequate flow and then suddenly die.

Double check your salinity and temperature just to be sure. My old Neptune controller was once out by 2 or 3º which caused me some problems until I re-calibrated it.

flow is high. two tunze 6105s and 1 large wavebox

double checked temp and salinity, 78 degrees and 1.025

I guess ill just speed up this major light change

Your light upgrade is LED tho. Personally I'd want to make sure I knew what was up currently before throwing another wildcard in there.

If you change out your MH bulbs, make sure you don't light shock the corals. Add egg crate or raise the lights or reduce photoperiod for a week or two.

sometimes SPS just go white...............I had a tank with perhaps 125 different SPS, and if 90-95% were happy, well the tank is doing fine IME. remember that these corals come from all over the world, and it is impossible for them to all be in their ideal environment as it pertains to light, current, salinity water temperature etc.

I guess I should have asked, when you say they go white do you mean they're bleaching or is the flesh disappearing to reveal the white skeleton underneath?

I doubt very much that old bulbs would cause rtn......maybe loss of color or browning, but not rtn ( if thats whats happening).....your calcium is a bit high and that could be the cause.........whats your Mg at?

+1

I find alk/ca are usually the culprits in my own experience.

Very important question.........these are two very different ball games. Another very important question is how long these SPS have been established? If they are fairly new....well that changes my answer as well because some SPS just do not do well in a captive reef.

I agree that old bulbs will likely not cause RTN....but loss of colour. I dont think calcium would be the culprit though either......alk maybe....either out of wack or not stable. Other possibilities is a nutrient problem or some kind of contaminant in the water.

white as in flesh disappearing and skeleton showing. They all have turn super bright white on the first day, then starting going yellow brown by the 3rd - 4th day. When they are brown, there are about 20 hermits that show up and chill out on them.

The first large one to go was from a tank tear down of reefer rob i believe. I got two corals from him, the second one is still going strong.

The second large coral to go was from oceanic corals thats was in my system for several months.

The last two are from whatcaneyedo, they are smaller but were really doing well.

ill have to check the mg, as I havent checked it in awhile.

I'd blame the bulbs. I had the spectrum on both my MH 150's go at the same time (thus I didn't notice it because each looked identical) until 2 Acro's bleached whiter then white. After a week or so they turn into a algea farm :)

Death of a single coral/colony will sometimes spread to nearby corals. This has led me to conclude that there may be a bacterial component at work.

I'll provide an example...

I was running two isolated systems. Both had healthy populations of SPS. A colony began to die in tank A. So, thinking that tank A had some kind of problem (lighting, CA, Alk etc.)... I moved the colony into tank B.

When I returned to tank B less that 24 hours later, 4 SPS closest to the imported colony had died.

There was nothing wrong with any SPS in tank B. The addition of a single piece of dying coral killed others within 24 hours and it killed corals closest, first.

It has nothing to do with tank parameters.

WTH!
I just lost another SPS. This one was 12 inches directly under a 150w MH. White in under 24hrs. It was about 6inches round.

Im thinking I better get the new light over this tank ASAP.

had that happened to me few months back.

I believe it was the low alk cause the initial die off. And since I was away from home during that time, more SPS was dying. Came from from holiday, only to find that I already lost 1/2 of my SPS and die off continued for another week of so.

not sure what fix my it. since I did a multiple thing at that time

1. lots of water changes
2. correct the low alk issue
3. add in carbon reactor

hope any of these helps

Going with this as well. It's not the light, which should be changed anyway, and Ca and alk are not at levels that I would consider harmful. I've run my Ca close to 500ppm before, and alk anywhere between 5 and 14dkh is fine (as long as it's stable). I've had colonies that just go, and often take others with them, even when moved to another tank. Anytime this happens now, I quickly remove the colony, try and salvage a frag from the tip furthest from any recession, and pray to the reef gods. Sometimes SPS just do this, and too much mucking around with tank parameters can make it worse. Go for stable water, get a new bulb because you should have last year, and ride it out. A nice water change never hurts either.

Well I consider my parameters stable but within the next couple months ill have my new fish room up and running so that should be a extra few hundred gallons to stable it out.

What i dont get is all these colonies that have died were flourishing the day before. Just doesn't make sense. The one that just died was a small 1 inch frag and it grew into a 6in ball in under a year. SPS is starting to drive me nuts. None of my LPS/softies have died

Welcome to the club :) IME, when one goes poof, it often takes others with it. In my tank I have about 80 pieces of acropora. One day I get up, check tank, all's good. Go out for the day and come home to a large colony completely gone. Just went poof. Everything else was and still is fine. Who knows why this happens, but again, IME, mucking around trying to fix an unknown is just asking for more trouble. Do a good water change, clean your filters/skimmers, etc, and replace carbon. Then hope it stops. I've gone through this and lost half my tank, then everything was fine.

From my experience, sps rtn isn't caused by pests because no animals can consume a large colony in one day. I had some sps rtn before, some were wild colonies and others was due to heat in the summer with temps rising above 89f. I also had a tank crash because of meds and disturbing the sand bed. But since you don't have wild colonies and run a chiller there's definitely something in the water. Have you been dosing anything new when you started to notice the symptoms of rtn? Something in the water that the sps don't like for them to die off so suddenly. Hope you get the problem rectified soon, I would say like others have suggested maybe some water changes to dissipate whatever is poisoning the sps.

The interesting part is Ive been messing with the tank much much less. Since I got the pellets online and my nitrates and phosphates are zero, Ive basically left the tank alone except for emptying the skimmer every few days. My zoas are growing like wildfire, only one colony died which was attacked by a aptsia. The purple death i bought from you at last year's frag meet has gone from 3 heads to about 40ish and its in a low light zone.

Did you dip the SPS that you got off of that somebody with something like Coral RX. I have read from other peoples journals that you should take any remaining bleached corals out, frag out any white spots on existing sps and give them a dip.

Really? I have my SPS in very low flow for 2 years now...everything is growing like weeds and beautiful. Some SPS have so little flow that you can't really see the polyp move.

I had a tank crash in my nano where both montipora cap bleached in one day and a few LPS died, not sure why but probably because that tank was very much neglected. But I had a colony of acropora millipora in there and it survived without a glitch... When I closed down my nano I took the millipora out and wam in the main tank with no acclimatation at all. It almost totaly bleached overnight and in 2 weeks it's almost back to its full color again. These things are really tough!

Months? like how many months?

Your Potassium is high. It should be 390 - 400 and not 450. IME Acros(only acros and not other SPS) are very sensitive to Potassium. I would do some water changes to correct it.

I'm having a very simalar problem. Over the past two weeks, I've lost about 1/3 of my SPS. All of the parameters that I have tested are in range and stable.

I agree with Brett. Don't put your LED lighting over the tank until you have it stable.

I would look closely at the biopellets as a possible cause? If not directly, then perhaps indirectly. Low nutrient systems are know to be less stable. Your Alk is also high for a bioplellet system. Others have reported problems when their Alk climbs over 7.

I do have a question for the other posters - perhaps it will also benifit the OP. I changed salt about 3-4 weeks before my problems began. I'm not convinced the problem is the salt itself, but could the change in chemistry have caused the problems? Should I change back (another change in Chemistry) or should I ride it out?

Good luck with your tank Milad.

- Brad

I agree that ULNS plus high alk = bad... either drop the alk or stop the ULNS, id bet money it fixes your problem

Steve

I almost lost all my zoanthids when I changed to H2O salt. Other people have reported they lost a few of their SPS when switching to H2O salt, especially digitata. When I returned to IO Reef Crystal my zoanthids came back. I never saw any effect on my SPS though.

Just curious but what salt did you use before and why/what did you cange for?

I changed because I thought that I would not have to dose any more with a stronger salt but I was wrong..it was more expensive and I had to dose just the same. Why did you change?

My experience comes from a salt mix change from Reef Crystals to Marinium. It was only a 20% water change with Marinium and I started losing Acros the next day. Only acros were effected, no other SPS. After 3 x 60% water changes with RC in a week things started to stabilize. The manufacturer did admit that the Potassium was low.

I had a similar episode last summer. Lost 80% of my SPS over 5 days and I hadn't even changed anything for months. My conclusion is the same as untamed and aquottro's. Some infection or illness perhaps. Remember that these are close nit colonies. All it takes is one Polyp to catch a cold and the colony is hooped :-(. You can actually see it as it unfolds. It usually starts with a very small area that gets bigger and bigger from that point as it spreads like wildfire. If you nip off the tips or branches before the infection has reached it you can sometimes save it.

Anyway, I never changed anything during and after that even. Tank still has the same flow, biopellets, carbon, gfo regime, same old same old. Although over the past few months I have been using a new salt with every water change. I rotate through Reef Crystals, H2Ocean, Royal Nature and Aquavitro. This is not for the faint of heart :-). Everything seems to be okay though.

this is common in the summer, whats your temp been doing?

Steve

Well there ya go..... You've got ten different potential causes..... Hopefully that clarifies things for ya..... Aren't you glad you asked for advice:mrgreen::lol:

You just summed up the sps experience lol.

... and we still haven't scratched the surface on the variables associated with SPS, ha ha!

I might have missed it but has anyone addressed the fact that he's trying to grow light demanding coral under 150 watt bulbs? I wouldn't even attempt it. I know it has nothing to do with RTN but that's not much light for SPS.

I did see that but 150w even over my little solana started to not cut it. Can't imagine over a 180 unless they were those super bright iwasakis.

150watt HQIs are enought light, to low of light would tend to show up as browning and slow growth unless you go extreamly low light. people used to grow nice SPS under PC's and VHO's for some of you younger guys you might have to look thoes up :mrgreen:

Steve

Depends on which 150HQI bulb is being used. My sps sucked under a bluer 150. Seemed ok under a cheapie 10k but not great. Now under led, growing like crazy with tons of colour.

However I agree with Steve. Not enough light would show up as he said, at least in my experience. My opinion on rtn, is just looking at them the wrong way causes it. Of course thats ridiculous but its how it seems.

Thanks for the input guys, im going to try to lower DKH. I know that the light is low for SPS but I was suppose to have the LEDs up by now but have run into a few life issues every time im about to build them, but soon they will be up over this tank and my SPS should grow faster hopefully and love the color.