Need Expert advice on tank problem...

[Buckaroo2000]

Hello guys,

I need you guys to troubleshoot my tank problem. My problem is that most of my corals are dying and I CAN't FIGURE this out...

little background.

I have a 15G display and a 10G sump.
ATO with 2 floats switch + 5G RO/DI water.

The display tank as about 20Lbs of LR and not sure how much sand but more than 10lbs.
Sump has a 24Hrs light with some Cheteo(SP?) and a CSS65 (in sump/24Hrs).

Lighting is done with a 70W DE MH and a 36W CF actinic.
Schedule is as follow: 09:00 Actinic, 13:00 MH, 18:00 MH Off and 21:00 actinic Off.

Water parameters are:

SG: 1.025
Temp: 79
Calcium: 380-400
Alk: 9.00 DKH or 3.3 Mq/L (?)
Amonia: 0

Also I have NO bad ALGEA problem at all...

Inhabitants are:

2 clown fish
1 blood shrimp and 1 cleaner shrimp
1 emerald crab
5 hermit
2 Astrea snails

All doing good.

Corals: NOT DOING GOOD.

Bubble coral - (location: side, middle of tank)
Frog spwan - retracted (bottom of tank)
Brain (not sure what type - from Ivan) - started to want to retract (kinda) (on sand)
Zoa (but the Red one is doing good) (not opening) (middle of tank)
GSP - losing some flowers (not all) (sand)
Pom pom Xenia - Melting. (sand)
Acan - lost a couple of heads (skeleton showing) (bottom)

Is my light a problem (less than 6 month of use), missing nutrients?

Any clues.

[kathainbowen]

How old is the current tank setup? What are your readings on nitrites and nitrates? What's your water chang schedule like? What is your "dosing" schedule (what do you use, how much, and how often)?

Also, the bubble coral sounds like it's the only one not being bothered by anything. I am reading that right? Is it being affected? If not at all, how much berth does the bubble have from other corals?

There are just so many possibilities at the moment.

[Travis L. Stevens]

What is your temperature? How much flow do you have? How old is the bulb? What temperature swings do you see in 24 hours? How often do you feed? I would reduce the lighting on the chaeto to 12 hours a day. Chaeto needs a dark respiration period to function properly. How often do you do water changes? What are your nitrates? Phosphates? Your Calcium is a smidge low, but in an acceptable range. Do you dose anything? If you dose anything, what do you test them at?

[MarksReef]

A long shot but do you burn smelly candles?

[kathainbowen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9188961#post9188961 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MarksReef
A long shot but do you burn smelly candles?

Not actually a long shot or as far fetched as it might sound. But it does raise a valid point that I had forgotten about. Do you burn smelly candles, burn incense, use oil diffusers/burners, smoke (cigarettes, cigars, pipes, or anything you are not obligated to disclose at this time), or spray ANYTHING aeresol in the vicinity of your tank?




*suddenly feels back for OP with all these questions and grilling*

[Buckaroo2000]

Temp is stable at 79F

The current setup is 5 month old. Water changes are done monthly with a 10-20%.

the flow is down with a Mag3 pumping water back thru a SCWD.

Light is less than 6 month old (old setup revived).

Dont's smoke or burn candles. This tank is in the basement and temp there is steady at 21C

I was dosing Liquid Calcium only and stopped for the last month.

as for the bubble coral, It is ok under actinic only but when MH kicks in, it shutsdown.

At a lost...

[Fish'InMN]

Do you have a glass shield under the MH to filter out the UV?

[Buckaroo2000]

now that is funny..I was going to write that and changed my mind :)


Yes I have a square glass that I took from the Shop light from HD :)

Don't think it's the UV as the Coraline would loose it's color?

[Fish'InMN]

A few other random things to check:

pH. If the tank is in your basement, there could be a build up of gases related to heating, etc., equipment. Just a thought, and its always helpful to have on hand.

NitrAte. Again, helpful to have on hand, but your corals should be relatively immune to moderate nitrate levels.

I'm not a big fan of crabs or hermits, but they can not be stressing all of your corals that much. How big is your emerald?

Anything else you were going to write and changed your mind on? :p

Good luck!
Marty

[Buckaroo2000]

I'm leaning towards 2 things....

1- Would running a skimmer 24/7 of this size tank take nutirents out...
I'm I running out of Nutirents (water change would fix this and already tested)

2- Bad Salt


Ph is on the OK side 8.3

Nitrate I will test tonight.

Bucky.

[Jocko]

Seriously if things like GSP and Xenia are having problems, then it has to be something pretty significant. I really doubt it will be something like the color temp of the lighting or the lighting schedule. Yeah I know, thats really helpful. :-)

Question: How long have the corals been in the tank?

[MarksReef]

It sounds like the glass is your trouble. On double ended bulbs, they MUST have a UV shield. Single ended bulbs have them built in.

[Doglover_50]

Sorry to hear this--must be very frustrating. A few more ideas.

1) I'd say most importantly, water changes are your best friend--panacea to all problems, even when they cannot be identified. I'd change as much as often as you can that won't harm tank (can an expert comment on this? Could he do 2.5 gallons per day for a week?)

2) Related to that--at monthly water changes, does anyone think a problem could be depleted iodine levels?

3) Related to candles: Do you have any glade air fresheners or the like anywhere in the basement? I lost a whole tank to this years ago

4) Are you feeding the corals? I doubt this would be the source of problem, what you are describing is too severe in a short time.

5) A wild stab--does anyone know if radon gas could settle into water? ALSO----if you have a furnace down there, do you have a carbon monoxide monitor? Possible slow gas leak or CO there.

6) Possible salinity problems. You THINK your salinity is 1.025. You should cross check your hydrometer, etc... versus another one--take yours to LFS, etc..., or buy another plastic one.

7) What salt do you use? A change may be warranted just to rule it out if in some freakish case bad chemicals got into yours.

8) Do you use Homer style buckets to work on your tank, or other buckets? If so, are they all new--never used for ANY other purpose? If not new, stop their use, get new ones.

9) Even more wild---anything on your hands that could get in tank? Do you rinse of hands before they go in, and if you've put suntan lotion, etc..... on, do you thoroughly soap it off then thoroughly rinse off soap?

10) Where did you get rock and sand? Are you sure they are pure. I saw someone selling rock in Phoenix from a swim tank and he discussed that there was some residual copper content on the rock? I guess you could buy a copper test, if you thought it worthwhile.

11) I'd lean in direction of offing the MH halide for now (you mentioned one coral is bothered by it). Less light might irritate them less, and you need to figure out problem asap, so a week or two of lowered light I'd doubt would cause damage. Others can comment on that if they disagree.

12) I absolutely would put a skimmer on there. There may be some chemical (medication or something) in there and if your skimmer foams like mad the moment it starts up, that's a sign.

13) There are filters call polyfilters that people swear by and take out chemicals, etc... I'd invest the six bucks and add one of those.

I'd say--whatever's going on, you have something in there that needs to get out--whether it's copper, air freshener, incorrect salinity that needs adjusting--so I'd change that water as often as possible!

[Fish'InMN]

He mentioned that he did indeed have a glass shield for the halide, but I am wondering if the glass is not the correct "type"? I have no knowledge of the different glass types nor any idea what kind they use/sell at HD.

I don't think overskimming is the problem, as your corals wouldn't all be reacting a seemingly equal amount. You mention bad salt, what type of salt are you using?

One other thing, you don't have any copper, brass or other metal fittings/pieces in the tank?

[mahalamata]

hmm..
is your tank grounded properly?there is the slight chance that a piece of equipment is leacking charge into the tank and without a grounding probe it will seriously stress the inhabitants eventually killing them.
just a thought.

[Buckaroo2000]

WOW, now this is what I was hoping for...

The skimmer is running and not acting up. It is pulling out green/brown skimate...

I am using IO salt

I am using all new food grade plastic for all anything touching the water. Bought a new bucket when I restarted this tank. Rocks was bought from a LFS here that have been in business for a while...

Is the tank grounded, well everything is plugged into a computer rated powerbar...Is it working good!!! can't really say.


I will try closing my MH for a couple of weeks...just to check. But I wouild think that if I had a UV issue, the coraline would start to fade a certain area?


This part of the world, we are all electric (heating) so not CO2 or gaz. no candles as well... But good to know :)

Is my Refractometer - RHS-10ATC bad.....??? This could be but I did test someone elses water and had the same reading as them...

hand lotion, This is a possibility as I have dry skin during the winter. Would this get skimmed out?

Hoped I answered more question...

Re-tested ALK, Calcium and Nitrite.

Alk at 9.00 dkh, 400 Cal and 0 nitrite.

I did modify the sump's lighting schedule to 12hrs


again, I would like to thanks all for the comments...

[Doglover_50]

I live in Arizona, I know about those dry hands.
To beat a dead horse, water changes, water changes, water changes.

Good luck!

[kathainbowen]

The hand lotion might not entirely be skimmed out. I would do some aggressive water changing to rule out hand lotion, and get more definitely about washing hands both before and after being in the tank (*salt can also dry your hands out- so wash and lotion your hands after, especially if you're proned to dry skin!). And, boy, from personal experience, it can do some real damage in your tank- almost as bad as soap, but not quite as bad as hand sanitizers.

I'm going to beat the horse into a grease stain on your drive way. Be aggressive with your water changes. I love smaller tanks. I really do. But I more often suggest 5% a week at a minimum to 10% each week.

However, on the same note, with the GSP and Xenia tanking, I do wonder if the tank could potentially be lacking in iodine. Especially if you're not adding any supplements or trace elements to the tank. My Xenia pulsates like crazy when the tank is dosed. But, until I add my Nano A/B (from Kent Marine) in the morning, it just kind-of sits there in the current.

G'luck!

[cratylus]

A couple thoughts...

1) I didn't see mention of your using a chiller or not. With that much lighting over such a small tank, heat and consistency of temperature have to be issues (even if your tank is located in a basement). I would double check your temperature reading with a different thermometer... just in case.

2) I think it's probable that the Xenia meltdown is causing the problems with your other corals. Notice that your sensitive inverts (shrimp and snails) are doing well. That should tell you something there: it's probably NOT the general water parameters.


If it were me, I would remove the Xenia to a separate tank, immediately do a 50% water change and see what happens.

[kathainbowen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9194153#post9194153 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cratylus
2) I think it's probable that the Xenia meltdown is causing the problems with your other corals. Notice that your sensitive inverts (shrimp and snails) are doing well. That should tell you something there: it's probably NOT the general water parameters.

I will agree with you on the Xenia being an issue (when is it not an issue?), and on the suggestion of removing it and doing a water change, but I also believe that there could be an underlining subtle issue that might not be the Xenia. Once established in a tank, Xenia usually only goes through random die-offs, not always whole meltdowns, but that is not as common as everyone fears. The Xenia certainly isn't helping, but something caused that to start melting down in the first place.

Understandably, if the water quality were poor, the inverts would be croaking, too. However, these animals are fairly hardy as per invertebrates are concerned. I truly wonder, since they seem to be doing fine at a deficiency of a trace element. Hermits, snails, and shrimp have all been known to live and appear to thrive even with a lack in trace elements that the crustaceans otherwise need to properly molt (*like iodine, something Xenia generally craves, or calcium).

We've ruled out the calcium levels by the readings above, so we can ignore that for a moment. I've just got a nagging suspicion that something else is afoot to cause the corals to be all going foul and so quickly at that.

Oh, oh, I've got an idea! To rule out iodine deficiency.... how regularly do any shrimp in the tank shed (molt, whatever?)? Shrimp need iodine for proper shedding (*at least, that's what I've always seen and heard), and specimens in a tank with proper iodine levels will regularly- and cleanly shed (*unless the clown pokes at it, you should see a relatively whole exoskeleton shed- like looking at a glass version of your shrimp). My shrimp generally shed once every 30 to 60 days, to give you a rough idea.

If the shrimp are molting pretty regularly, then we can put the iodine theory on the backburner. :twitch:

[cratylus]

Have to agree with Kath on the iodine possibility. Both the Xenia and the shrimps need it, so if your shrimps aren't molting regularly that's a confirming indicator about the lack of iodine. If you're doing regular water changes with Instant Ocean salt mix, you're replacing the used iodine... but that may not be enough, especially in a small tank with Xenia and two shrimps.

I don't know if anyone has determined what causes the periodic Xenia die-offs. But it is definitely well established that they need iodine. And it's also established that when they do melt, they release a toxin that is seriously deadly to other corals. So get it out of the main tank, do the water change like I suggested, and definitely consider iodine deficiency as a trigger to your problem.

[kathainbowen]

I've actually heard tons of differing opinions on the regular die-offs. It seems to be a fairly seasonal and regular thing in the wild, with explosive growth in the spring and slowing growth/colony die-off towards the fall. However, I don't know many captive reef enthusiasts who go so far as to vary their tank conditions. I've heard just about every theory in the book, but, as you pointed out, cratylus, sadly, no one truly knows exactly what causes the die-offs.

I played a bit with some of the theories, but never so much to intentionally cause a Xenia crash to see what does it. Mostly, the things I played with just reinforced what we already knew about Xenia. It's fast growing, kudzu-like in nature, sensistive to iodine, and, at times, downright calcium sucking!