General Reef Issues (1 Viewer)

[Nezw0001]

I really hesitated to post here but am now at my wits end and willing to pursue any solutions. I need help.

Tank details: approx 1200 gallon total system water. 450 gallon reef tank (was predominately SPS), 750 attached FOWLR. I use filter socks, an well sized skimmer, refugium, ATS, 400 watt halides (generally bulbs are changed Jan 1 each year) supplemented with Gen 3 radions, 4 MP60s provide in tank flow, Large UV for the whole system. I feed heavy. All of the reef system was moved from my old house and has been thriving for several years. Last summer (2020) I had an anemone get sucked into a powerhead and kill all my fish. Since then I have slowly rebuilt my fish population and am now back to where i was one year ago. Unfortunately early this spring many of my old SPS colonies STNd on me. It seemed to spread by proximity and even took out a few of my LPS that were close to a death event. My gonis have not opened since this started. My clam slowly withered away. In the last couple of months nothing more has STNd but several of the remaining SPSs are slowly fading or going pale. Gonis still wont open all the way.

Parameters: Nothing has changed! I have done two ICPs and all the outliers are within normal limits. N - 15-20, P - 0.1-0.15, Alk 8 - 8.5, Ca 400 ish, Sal 1.026, temp 81 degrees max.

I've checked all the magnets in the tank for rust. Not sure what else to do. The strange thing is, the newer frags i have added seem to be doing fine.

 

[Flounder]

Someone will probably suggest looking at the tank at night to see for pests or other potential strange things..

 

[Nezw0001]

I see no evidence of flatworm bites nor have I observed red or black bugs or any variety of nudies.

 

[Ben Nicholls]

You did not mention it, are you running carbon? I currently have a what appears to be a coral warfare problem which carbon is mitigating. If it runs out or is taken off the system corals start to die again.

Could anything be falling into one of the tanks? In the past I had an issue where flakes of particle board where falling into the sump. that killed off most my corals and took over a year to figure out the cause.

 

[spsick]

No tin or heavy metals on the ICP? That wiped a lot of my SPS colonies a year ago.

How often are you changing Carbon blocks on your RO? A few years ago I had a bad event I traced down to chloramine blowing through my carbon blocks like crazy. I now have to change my first one every 2 months and this is just on a 75g system! I got the nice Hach chlorine/chloramine test to dial in the change schedule but just the free chlorine test strips will show if you have an issue.

Also worth testing your RO water for ammonia.

 

[Nezw0001]

Good ideas!

I'm on a well so I shouldn't have chlorine or chloramine, right? I change carbon blocks maybe 4x per year.

Tin and heavy metals were zero. Aluminum and Lithium were elevated but i attribute this to using ceramic media in the sump. I worry about something falling into the tank/sump but not sure how to run this down with a normal ICP.

I run carbon in the sump off and on, I'll put it back in.

 

[RSnodgrass]

Carbon for sure is a start, if nothing else it could be a minor issue that was escalated by warfare. Not sure about your well water. It definitely didn't seem like Hendrix water that lights on fire when I was there.