Torch slowly dying, SPS bleaching from bottom... WTF? (1 Viewer)

[evolution159th]

Okay so I know it has been a while since I have posted anything after my seemingly endless build thread (A Newcomer's 75g In-wall) finally finished, but work and babies and of course my new most time consuming, money dominating fish tank have done a good job of keeping me off the PC and ON the move.


Recently I have started having some problems with a few corals. The first problem I started having was with a branching torch coral. One day i came home and noticed that the polyps seemed to be "deflated" somewhat and didnt have the normal extension they do. Then shortly afterward i lost one of the small heads. A week ago or so I lost another one and now today it looks like I might lose a third. Even the biggest head that are sometimes over 2 or 3 inches when fully extended dont come all the way out some days. I dont know if I might lose those as well later on down the line if I dont find a solution.

The second problem I noticed was I got a tri color acro in two pieces from Naka and the larger portion of it bleached from the bottom up within a couple weeks of having it. Just started happening one day and over about a week it finally bleached all the way out and died. It didnt take long. But I had another little piece right above it in the tank and that little piece has grown some and looks healthy. After the one bleached out and died I started to notice that my acropora lovelli that I also got from Naka was starting to do the same thing. It has been about a week and a half or so since this started and it still has about half of the coral still alive but every day there is more white from the bottom up.

Now.,... today i noticed that my purple slimer that I got at the same time from the same person is starting to look like its about to bleach too!!!!!...


I dont know what the hell is going on.

HELP!

 

[evolution159th]

I will post pics in a few minutes

 

[flipside]

What are your parameters? Also, have you inspected them thoroughly for crabs, flatworms, etc... That same kind of bleaching was happening to me on some millepora that I have, and I found some crabs on them that were the nuisance-type.

 

[evolution159th]

Parameters are

Nitrates: 10-20
Alk: 8.5-9 dkh
Ca: 430
Mg: 1320
Phos: 0
sg: 35 ppt
Temp: 79-82
pH: 8.0-8.1

Equipment:
tlf 150 reactor with phosban
aquaeuro150 skimmer with needle wheel
turbo twist 250g sterilizer
300w heater with temp control.
dosing tech m mag, seachem calcium (fusion1), seachem powder alk.
15g water changes every 2 weeks using IO Reef Crystals.
I run my 2 250w halides from 3:30 to 9:00. They are hung about 14" high off the tank.



Discrepancies:
I dont have a chiller

fuge wont grow chaeto (I have a little home depot reflector with a 6500k bulb in there. Im not positive its 6500k but almost. It runs early in the morning for about 8 hours.)

my skimmer cup only fills up about half an inch a week

I noticed some little shrimp like mini white bug looking guys in my overflows

My testing is never spot on. (ive been testing every other day or so and i test everything twice and they always read a little different so getting levels spot on is hard it seems when im dosing.) Using API tests for everything but Mg. Salifert for Mg

I started dosing about 2 weeks ago and dosed very slowly. My magnesium level was low and I brought that up about 100 ppm over about a week and a half and the alk tends to want to stay around 8. I dont know if I am not dosing enough alk or what. Calcium was around 370 or so and I have brought that up to around 420-435 or so. I have been manually dosing by measuring the amount of liquid (for ca and mg) into a grad cylinder and pouring into my overflow on the right side a little bit at a time over about 5 mins or so. Then I wait for a few minutes and do mg the same waybut into my filter sock in the sump... Then I wait for about 30 mins and mix alk powder with tank water and swirl in a big cup then pour in slowly to the other overflow over about 10 mins or so. I have been dosing every day.

Dosing:
7.5mg Seachem Reefbuilder Alk
40mL Kent Tech-M Mg
20 mL Seachem Reef Fusion 1 (Ca part of Seachem Fusion 2 part.)

Eventually I will be using all Kent products unless someone disagrees with that choice and can provide good reasoning otherwise.

Tank is about 8 months old.

 

[evolution159th]

Heres Pics (taken with my iphone please disregard the quality)


My orange monti cap is doing fine and has shown great growth since the levels have been increased.

These pics show the location of the affected corals in the tank. The torch on the mid left had alread lost a head or 2 before these pics were taken. Now it has lost one of the small 2 on the back side. You can see the lovelli is brown like it has been since I got it from Naka and it bleaching from the bottom.

Better pic of the Acro lovelli. the birdsnest right in front of it is fine.

To make sure nothing gets misconstrued here. I DO NOT BLAME NAKA FOR ANY OF THIS HAPPENING. His tank is amazing I do not believe for one minute that the corals were not healthyto begin with because I WATCHED him frag them right in front of me. Just wanted to make that clear. BTW my tangerine bta is wonderful. Thanks Naka.

 

[merkurmaniac]

I have bought some stuff from him, and since his tank kicks so much *********, it tuff to expect anything to look that good when you get home. That aside, here is my experience...

My lovellie did about the sme thing, defo frag that top part nad replant, or it will likely be toast after a while. I had two large frags, one bleached rather quickly, and the other very slowly. I finally just set it behind another (out of view, out of mind) and I think its barely hanging on, but its a brownish color that I wasn't too crazy aobut anyways.

My tri-color started encrusting the blob of epoxy I put it on, and it has been growing steadily. I have another that is brownish and has dark green growth. Its right below the water surface and its doing well too. Both the ones of mine that are real high up in my tank are looking good, so I think that the light is the key.

For the longest time, I couldn't grow much in my fuge. I tried different LEDs and fluorescents. Finally, a 6,500K bulb from LOWES made the difference. I have to trim cheato now. Go and spend the $6 to replace the unknown bulb with a known quantity.

I have been dosing by hand for the last few months, and it has made a big difference in my tank. that, and a bunch of powerful LEDs. I dose Kent nano A&B and supplement MG.

Another thing that I foudn was my PH seemed low. I read a lot about dissolved CO2 levels, and figured out that I needed more aeration in my fuge. I liked it quiet, but I wasn't getting much stirring of the water. I made sure that both my returns splash into the fuge, and also added a small hang on back filter to further churn the water. These seemed to help fix the PH issue.

Also, if your API test kits are old at all, they get real inaccurate. I got test kits with used stuff I bought and compared the dKH kits. All were wildly different results with the same test water. I tossed the whole lot of them and bought a brand new bottle. The last two digits of the little number on the dKH API bottle looks to be a year code.

Good luck.
Richard

 

[evolution159th]

Yeah my father in law told me the same thing about hte lovelli, that if i fragged it above the bleached part it would probably survive. I knew when I saw Naka's tank that I probably was going to have some real trouble getting the color he has. Maybe since they were so new to my tank when i started the supplements and i acclimated them from a tank with good mg alk and ca levels to my tank which weas lacking at the time, maybe that had some adverse affects on them as well. Being a fairly new hobbyist I still have a lot of un answered questions and maybe it is my lack of experience that is making these things happen. Dont know.

My tri-color started encrusting the blob of epoxy I put it on, and it has been growing steadily. I have another that is brownish and has dark green growth. Its right below the water surface and its doing well too. Both the ones of mine that are real high up in my tank are looking good, so I think that the light is the key.

The little bitty piece of tri color i got i put up high on the left shelf on my background. It encrusted quickly and has good polyp extension and good colors. I feel that this one may be my future tri color colony. I was so pissed when my other one bleached. The tri color is beautiful.

Due to cost I was thinking of just using BRS 2 part w/Mg. I know Naka uses that and it is much cheaper than kent gallons of cb and tech m. Any advice there?

Another thing that I foudn was my PH seemed low. I read a lot about dissolved CO2 levels, and figured out that I needed more aeration in my fuge. I liked it quiet, but I wasn't getting much stirring of the water. I made sure that both my returns splash into the fuge, and also added a small hang on back filter to further churn the water. These seemed to help fix the PH issue.

What do you consider low ph? I have aeration where it drops in my fuge, where the fuge overflows into the return section and on the skimmer outlet. My overflow plumbing is submersed into the filter sock but it tends to get stirred pretty well there also. I will post a pic of the sump area.

Also, the tests are about 8 months old. I bought them new in a reef master test kit when i started the tank. I am almost out of kH tests so I will be getting more and ill compare the solutions.

 

[merkurmaniac]

My pH seemed to always be around 7.8. Now, its around 8.2. Tuff to read the colors on those tests too, though. To me the 7.8 and 8.2 look very similar.

The test kits were plenty new. A few of mine were at least 2 years old. They gave quite varied answers, bottle to bottle.

Sounds like you have pretty good aeration. Mine was much less before.

 

[merkurmaniac]

I just installed a dosing pump that I bought, and its nice to know that its doing teeny little bits all day long. I was dosing with a 10ml cup each day when I got home from work. This is similar to the one I bought. I really like it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260719477838&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

 

[flipside]

You'll probably see a difference with the dosing pump. Some chemicals are not meant to be dumped into the system. It's best to dose Ca and Alk slowly. I dose mine at 1.1 ml/minute to avoid bleaching-out the corals.

 

[evolution159th]

Yeah I have looked at the dosing pumps and i know that is definitely the way to go. This just makes me believe it is even more necessary than I thought. I was hesitant about spending the money on the pumps but i may have to just shell it out.

Also I only have one heater in my return section and im wondering if that isnt adequate enough to keep my temp constant in the whole tank. My tank is in the garage in a room that has a/c and heat from the house and it is insulated. I also run a space heater in my garage to keep the temp higher in there. I still think I may have too much fluctuation. Any thoughts? I dont run a chiller which I probably should.

As far as dosing I have been putting it in slowly. I add about 75ml tank water to my 150ml grad cyl after i put my dose in (20ml ca or 40 ml mg) and pour in my overflow about 5 ml or 10 ml at a time then wait a min or 2 and repeat. I guess that could still be too fast.

 

[evolution159th]

I just installed a dosing pump that I bought, and its nice to know that its doing teeny little bits all day long. I was dosing with a 10ml cup each day when I got home from work. This is similar to the one I bought. I really like it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260719477838&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

So you run the hoses from that to different areas of the tank and dose alk and ca through it at the same time? or at different times? Still dosing mg by hand once a day?

 

[merkurmaniac]

I just ran the tubing ,more permanently last night. I emerges thru the wall at the top rear of my aquarium. One tube goes to each end of the overflow box that extends across the back of my tank, about 15" (34 hex tank). With the rate I now dose I get barely a drop anytime the pump triggers. If they fell at the same time, they are still in a lot of water, at least a foot apart.

I was doing kent nano A&B, about 10ml per day of each. The dosing pump I have, similar to the one in that link, literally runs 24/7. The min setting was not right for me, so I dilluted the additive with an equal part of rodi water. So now, it doses 20ml each part, 24 hours a day. Were talking a drop every 5 minutes. The nice thing is its continuous, not a full dose at 5pm or so each day.

I dose MG when I think about it. I don't even measure, I just spurt some in. My mg is in the 1250-1300 range. I'd like it higher, but its probably ok for now. I also think that kent Tech-M is very dillute. quite a bit has not much effect.