I need MAJOR help please

[MaintenanceMan]

I need help! I am so frustrated with my tank, i don't know what to do! I'm fairly new to the hobby, had a nano and wanted bigger! got a 230gallon RR tank. I want a reef so bad but everything dies! Fish do great, every coral i have had is either gone or heading south!

Ill give you every detail i can think of and maybe someone can give me an idea! I would be so thankful if someone can help!

the tank has been running since the beginning of oct.

its a 230g with a 50g sump. my filtration is filter socks on the drains that i keep clean. reef octopus xp3000 skimmer. just added 300ml of ecobak in a reactor. 300+lbs LR.

lighting is a diy led setup with 125 cree 3w leds ran 12 hrs/day

parameters are:
salinity 34ppm
ammonia 0
nitrates/nitrites 0
ph 8.14
phosphates 1.2ppm (high di was worn out and didnt realize it)
alk 10dkh
calcium 400
mag 1240

fish (all doing great)
9 chromis
4 clowns
1 blue damsel
2 wrasses
1 mandrine
1 fire shrimp
1 cleaner shrimp
hermits/snails

corals: still alive/maybe
gsp- no polyp extension but the mat still has color
zoanthis has not opened since it came from nano
candycane- alive but looks bad
ricordia- doing ok

corals- died
another gsp colony
green birds nest
pocilapora
small monti
button plops
small xenia
red mushrooms

i dont understand what I'm doing wrong! everything thats not dead looks very sick, most things head south quick! all live stock was floated at least 15 minutes prior to a slow drip.

Anyone have any ideas at all? One other thing i have noticed, coraline is at a very slow growth as well.


Someone please help!

[D-Captain]

Copper?

[MaintenanceMan]

I thought about that, don't know how it would have gotten in there. never used any. I got the tank new unless it came from LR. I would think my shrimp would have problems? i will probably get a copper test kit tomorrow. if i find i have it any way to get rid of it?

[Playa-1]

Are you dosing anything to the tank for any reason?

How much flow do you have in the tank?

[MaintenanceMan]

no dosing, nothing in the tank that i don't think water changes get. plenty of flow, 3 mp40s that get things going very well.Im just stumped!

[agruetz]

Is it possible the nights are not putting out the correct spectrum/colors?

[MaintenanceMan]

well i haven't thought of that, could be possible, i have 1/1 cool white to RB. half came from rapidled and half from reefledlights.

[jinks]

Check to make sure no metal of any kind is in the water or getting wet and dripping into the water(hose clamps and what not). i would also check for a electrical short. If its a small one it might not be enough for you to feel or to kill the fish but is damaging corals flesh. Could also be some sort of parasite.

[agruetz]

I am just throwing possibilities out there, I am not even sure how you would test it. jinks, hose clamps in the water can cause issues? Do the leach metal's into the water or something?

[jinks]

A metal one in the water would be a very bad thing. A metal one that is getting wet (rusting and leaching) then dripping into a sump would also be bad. The plastic ones are fine to be in water. If you have metal ones check to be sure they are dry, or not over anything where they could drip or drop rust into your tanks water.

[MaintenanceMan]

checked electrical tonight, i have a very accurate meter for work, it reads .3v. doesn't seem like enough to hurt anything. i will admit back in oct. i had a pipe clamp get wet, less than a week though. no metal at all around the tank. how could i detect/eliminate parasite?

thank you for all the ideas so far!

[jinks]

You will just have to look to see if you have any parasites. Find some pictures of the common ones and go give a look.

Didn't see this before. Your phosphates are very high. 0.1ppm is where things can start to go bad. It's going to be hard to guess on anything till they come down. If i had to bet i would say this is the problem. I would do as large of a water change as you can. I know its a big tank to do a huge one on, but it will be worth it. If you can swing 25% twice, a day apart, would think you would be in good shape again.

[Playa-1]

salinity 34ppm

How did you come up with this number?

[MaintenanceMan]

I'm sorry I meant .12 ppm phosphates, sorry. I did a 20 gallon water change tonight, got 20 more mixing for tomorrow. The salinity I checked with a refractometer from my brother and a conductivity probe, both came up the same.

[Playa-1]

If you haven't already, then I would suggest taking a water sample in to the lfs to verify your test results and compare notes.

Another consideration would be acclimating the corals to lighting.

[bigdaddystar]

Very strange...honestly you really almost cant even kill softies...I have 2 very different tanks..one I do absolutely nothing but water changes to...alot of fish and just softies the other is top of the line garbage..all sps..calcium reactor BK skimmer...blah blah...

Its got to be something irritating them...Like already said if its not metals or something in the water its got to be lights...no other reason for it. I would double check your salinity...

I am going to assume you are topping off your evaporation water with ro water right not saltwater...Just to make sure you say your new...but I am sure not that new

[FragIt Dan]

I would think the shrimp would show signs of stress if it were copper. As for the hose clamps, depending upon what metal they are made of, rust is just the FO of GFO, but there may be other contaminants in there too, not a likely culprit IMO. Is this a sudden change, or have your corals always done poorly? As was suggested already, I would start by bringing a water sample and having a full run of tests done to verify your results. I have seen many issues trace back to inaccurate test results.
Dan

[fishgate]

Is there a top on the tank? Does it perhaps filter UV?

[MaintenanceMan]

Its a drive to my lfs but it might be my only option. Corals have always done poorly in this tank, gsp isn't even doing well at all! Top off with ro water. No top, I heat tank to 77. when I had the clamp in the water it was no more than a week, I realized what I did before it got nasty!

[Reverend Reefer]

how deep is the tank? is it possible that the leds aren't penetrating enough, like is there a correlation between the corals dying and their placement in this tank (i.e., are all the ones that died placed lower in the tank and the ones that are higher are surviving?)... just throwing out ideas.

[imolaragazzo]

What are the dimensions of the tank? With a tank that size I would be using more like 200 LEDs. Have you tried to move up your corals higher in your tank?

[tangs_tank]

If water tests come in ok, I have to agree with some replies here, the lighting might be an issue. BTW, you might want to get a refractometer, they're great.

[bamf25]

I am not sold on the lights. I have 65 cree xm series leds 4 inches from water, no optics on a 4 x 2 x 2 120g, and all my softies, and lps are just fine. It is not enough for sps on the very low levels, but middle to high in the tank is no issue.

Do you have a fualty heater? Look for any cracks in the glass, or condensation in the heater tube.

[Preble]

whats your temperature?

[MaintenanceMan]

Have not looked at the heaters closely. I did check for.stray voltage. I agree with the lights, when I add new corals they go down hill way too fast to be lighting alone. I do want to add a few more leds but I dont think that's the culprit.
Temperature is 77.

I plan to get a copper test today.

[Sport507]

Are you seeing any coralline growth in the tank?

What type of substrate are you using?

Did you build the tank with live rock, dry rock or both?

[Preble]

Hmm.
I hope it gets right soon.


Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

[FragIt Dan]

Copper test might be a waste of money if you can just bring your water in and get the LFS to do it, I doubt you would ever test for it again.

I have NO experience with LED lighting but have been reading up on it over the last year or so. The symptoms sounds suspiciously like a lighting issue and at this point I would bet you an acro frag that's what it is (I am in Canada so can't ship it to you so this is a hollow bet ;). As your lights are DIY, I would double check which CREE LEDs you installed as there are multiple choices:
http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLamp7090XR-E.pdf
I am under the impression there are a lot more than just the few listed in the link, as well as multiple generations of them with different specs... my point is that you might have a light that will not grow corals, but would be no problem for fish. It would be nice if you could borrow a halide or quad T5's and rule your lighting out as the issue.

If you can't borrow a light maybe try this... No idea how well this would work to rule your lights out as the problem (others following this thread please comment on this idea), but if you turn the lights in your room out at night (no other sources of light), put a white piece of plastic in your tank, and take a photo of it with your tank lights on, your digital camera, or possibly some after market software will give you a color spectrum on the photo (make sure nothing else is in the photo other than the white plastic). You can DIY a color spectrum analyses and post it up for review here or on a new thread to see what people have to say. I have thought of doing this myself and might try it on my lights tonight and compare it to the manufacturers specs to see if it works. Mmmm... weekend project!
Dan

[Playa-1]

The salinity I checked with a refractometer from my brother and a conductivity probe, both came up the same.
Have these devices been calibrated lately?

Are you filtering your water? Have you tested the water that you are using lately for Chlorine or Chloramine? Could it be a water filter failure?

[disc1]

As for the hose clamps, depending upon what metal they are made of, rust is just the FO of GFO, but there may be other contaminants in there too, not a likely culprit IMO.

This is only partially true. Hose clamps are never made of pure iron. They are usually galvanized. That means zinc which is just as bad as copper.

[wilsonreefs]

Look at night after the lights have gone off. Let things settle out and see if there are any "varmits" eating your corals. We just had a Polycheate worm wipe out all the corals in a 300 gallon tank here in my hometown. Well actually it was two worms, one was about 3' long the other was just over 4' long. (yes, thats feet!)

Carl

[00Warpig00]

When you add your fish you mention bag floating and then drip... then what... do you quarantine or straight into the Display? If you go straight to the display do you net the fish and add to the display or dump your drip bucket with Display tank water AND the bag water in? Just curious how you are adding if while adding fish you get some water with something in it (copper metals etc from LFS) and enough gets into your display tank water could this be an issue?

Nick

[Crkbaby]

I am not convinced that just your DI is bad the DI stage is just for making RO water DI. RO water should not have phosphates in it. Sounds like your membrane on your unit is bad.

[FragIt Dan]

This is only partially true. Hose clamps are never made of pure iron. They are usually galvanized. That means zinc which is just as bad as copper.

Yeah, I wasn't sure on that. Thanks for clarifying :). Any idea about stainless ones? I can't see anyone using galvanized in a tank, but there are lots of bits of pumps made of stainless, so I am assuming a stainless hose clamp would be fine.
Dan
PS- comment on Cu from fish store water was clever, didn't think of that! And crazy giant worms, I'm going to have nightmares now!

[00Warpig00]

PS- comment on Cu from fish store water was clever, didn't think of that! And crazy giant worms, I'm going to have nightmares now!

Yeah. What is in the LFS water scares the hell out of me too. :) Thats the problem with letting LFS water get into your system. YOU have no idea what it's contents are. Good/Bad/Parasites/Disease/Copper/Ammonia, Other additives etc. God only knows whats in that water.

Nick