Approaching total coral wipe-out

[brotherd]

This scares the crap out of me. For you to be baffled is disturbing for sure. I wish I had the knowledge or experience to help you.

[jason604]

Terrible!! I can't imagine what will happen if this happened to me.

[Spyd]

Time to go old school and keep things simple as you try to get through this. Take the pellets off line completely. Run carbon and do plenty of water changes.

The ALK spike can definitely hit corals hard. Really watch your levels in the mean time. I would check for ammonia as well. When things rapidly die off nitrates and ammonia can spike. Only way to fix these levels are through large water changes.

[asylumdown]

Thanks for the responses guys.

Since I posted the last message I've pulled 4, 19 hours work days trying to get a paper finished and ready for publication, and I'm giving a talk at a conference on Friday, so my tank has had to sit there slowly dying while I try to attend to the busiest time in my life so far. Murphy's law I suppose. 6 months ago I had all the time in the world to deal with something like this.

My phosphate levels were 0.06ppm last time I measured as checked by the hanna ULR test, which was last Tuesday.

The other thing that I did shortly before this carnage began was switch salt brands to a cheaper option. I started using the fluval brand of reef salt because it was $25 cheaper.

One of the things that I've been terrified of is that I'm not 100% confident on my alk readings. Many a moon ago when I had my first tank and I knew nothing about reef chemistry, I was stupidly using seachem reef buffer without understanding what the product was or what it really did. At the time I kept getting 'normal' alk readings for a high nutrient tank of around 9, and I dosed accordingly. What I didn't realize was that 'reef buffer' is a borate salt, which contributes to total alkalinity, but is effectively useless from a coral's point of view. I had similar SPS problems then, and when I bought the Seachem test kit that allowed you to test for borate alk vs. total alk, I discovered that my carbonate alk (the only alk corals care about) was 4.5.

As far as I know, seachem doesn't make that test kit anymore. Part of me has been wondering if the fluval brand of salt has a high percentage of borate salts in it, which has been making me think my alk is normal, as the only test kits I have access to now test total alkalinity.

I went back to H2Ocean because I figure it's one less variable.

Myka - as to your question, it's not sliming, it's burnt tips one day (as in I wake up and all the tissue on the growth tips is just gone), then over the following days, more and more tissue just sloughs off. My worst hit coral now has one piece of one branch left living, the rest of the previously dinner plate sized colony is a white skeleton, with cyano starting to take hold in places. In one case a coral that never even had burnt tips looked fine, with normal polyp extension one day, then the next day literally half it's tissue was hanging off it in sheets. Other corals that have a different colour growth tip from the main body have turned monochromatic over the course of a couple of weeks, and once the whole piece is exhibiting zero signs of growth, the tissue closest to the tips starts to slough off.

Water is clear, fish are fine, snails and crabs are fine.

What I'm considering doing is taking every piece of equipment except the skimmer and water pumps offline and doing a 100% water change using H2Ocean salt. The other thing that's making me think there's some sort of contaminant in this tank (or disastrously lower alk levels than what my test kits are showing me) is that I have a 4 gallon pico tank. It has been doing fantastic with 100% water changes, but I've been using my display tank water as it's water change water. Shortly before I went out of town, as a test, I did a 'normal' 100% water change on the pico using my display tank water. 9 days later every single coral in that tank is exhibiting serious tissue recession, I'm going to lose one acan frag for sure, and probably a medium sized open brain. There's prolific brown 'slime algae' (the kind your snails would normally eat, but the mantis shrimp that tank was set up for eats all the snails) growing, so I know it's not a nutrient problem.

Ugh. The worst. I didn't even have time to type this reply.

Does anyone in calgary have rubber maid bins totalling 300 gallons that I can borrow? I don't have that much water holding capacity and I'd like to have all the new water mixed in advance.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

One of the things that I've been terrified of is that I'm not 100% confident on my alk readings. Many a moon ago when I had my first tank and I knew nothing about reef chemistry, I was stupidly using seachem reef buffer without understanding what the product was or what it really did. At the time I kept getting 'normal' alk readings for a high nutrient tank of around 9, and I dosed accordingly. What I didn't realize was that 'reef buffer' is a borate salt, which contributes to total alkalinity, but is effectively useless from a coral's point of view. I had similar SPS problems then, and when I bought the Seachem test kit that allowed you to test for borate alk vs. total alk, I discovered that my carbonate alk (the only alk corals care about) was 4.5.

As far as I know, seachem doesn't make that test kit anymore. Part of me has been wondering if the fluval brand of salt has a high percentage of borate salts in it, which has been making me think my alk is normal, as the only test kits I have access to now test total alkalinity.

With all your chemical mixing and dosing, are you sure you are ending up with the correct ionic balances?

Also, your comments re Seachem Reef Buffer are a surprise to me! I have been using that all along for my alk dosing, and the Seachem Advantage Calcium. My only complaints have been they are expensive and am looking for a replacement. But my SPS growth and colour couldn't be better.

Seachem also has/had Marine Buffer and Reef Builder, which I don't use.

And I just use Instant Ocean salt. Cheap, and seems to work well for me. I did use H2Ocean salt a long time ago (before I had SPS), but didn't like the expense.

From what you've said so far, can't say what your problem might be. Sounds almost like they are being poisoned by something. So would certainly confirm all your chemical parameters.

[Reef Pilot]

Also, what brand carbon are you using? I remember people having corals dying a year or two ago, because of some impurities that got into the supply. I think Kent carbon was one example, with copper.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Magickiwi

As to seachems reef buffer it is only to adjust pH and it says it contributes to Alk. You need to use reef builder to boost your carbonate Alk. I think it evens says on the label that it doesn't boost carbonate.

Don't know where you get that from?? The only difference between reef buffer and marine buffer (which only boosts carbonate alk) is that it has a higher pK buffering agent which provides better pH stability in heavy bio load systems. But it still has the same carbonate alk as the others.
http://www.seachem.com/Products/prod...eefBuffer.html
It does say if pH is not an issue, then you can get away with just using the carbonate only buffers.

I do measure my alk (and other parameters) religiously and adjust my dosing as required to keep them in the desired range (and maintain the ionic balances). And as mentioned, my SPS has done great using the Reef Buffer, so can't argue with that. I don't know how important pH is to good coral growth, but it certainly can't hurt, I figure.

[Magickiwi]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

Don't know where you get that from?? The only difference between reef buffer and marine buffer (which only boosts carbonate alk) is that it has a higher pK buffering agent which provides better pH stability in heavy bio load systems. But it still has the same carbonate alk as the others.
http://www.seachem.com/Products/prod...eefBuffer.html
It does say if pH is not an issue, then you can get away with just using the carbonate only buffers.

I do measure my alk (and other parameters) religiously and adjust my dosing as required to keep them in the desired range (and maintain the ionic balances). And as mentioned, my SPS has done great using the Reef Buffer, so can't argue with that. I don't know how important pH is to good coral growth, but it certainly can't hurt, I figure.

From Seachem's website:

Reef Buffer™ will also raise carbonate alkalinity; however, it is intended primarily for use as a buffer in a reef system where the maintenance of a pH of 8.3 is often difficult. When pH is not an issue, Reef Builder™ or Reef Carbonate™ should be your first choice for a carbonate alkalinity supplement.

Second, I didn't reference a product name Marine Buffer, I said Reef Builder, which is a carbonate supplement. And I don't know exactly what you're disagreeing with? Your post said you were surprised that Reef Buffer doesn't manage your carbonate levels?

[canadianbudz604]

I've been searching the interweb a bit to try and help out, but haven't come up with really anything. I did run across a thread about bad batches of fluval sea salt but they ended up going nowhere. One thing I noticed that whenever someone's bio pellets failed, they're tank crashed not long after. Any progress with the tank?

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Magickiwi

From Seachem's website:
Second, I didn't reference a product name Marine Buffer, I said Reef Builder, which is a carbonate supplement. And I don't know exactly what you're disagreeing with? Your post said you were surprised that Reef Buffer doesn't manage your carbonate levels?

Well, when you said this "You need to use reef builder to boost your carbonate Alk. I think it evens says on the label that it doesn't boost carbonate.", that is what I disagreed with. It does not say that on the label or on any of the directions, that it doesn't boost carbonate alk. It indeed does add carbonate alk. Like I said it does both, adds carbonate alk and a pK agent to stabilize pH.

And if you look at the Reef Builder instructions, it says to use Reef Buffer in higher bio load systems where you also want to stablize pH. Here is the quote from their directions. "Use Reef Builder™ to raise carbonate alkalinity without affecting pH. Use Reef Buffer™ to raise carbonate alkalinity and pH". It also says you can use both together, but nowhere does it say that you have to use both to boost alkalinity or that reef buffer does not boost carbonate alk.