Coral Death Please Help!!!

[Paintball1313]

I have a somewhat new reef tank that has only been up about a year. Everything was going really well until about two weeks ago. My fish are doing awesome but my corals are not opening and two of them are bleaching. I have had an outbreak of cyano that i am starting to get under control. For livestock i have a yellow tang, a firefish goby, a clownfish, a lawnmower blenny, an arrow crab, two emerald crabs, a tuxedo urchin, and a rbta all of which are doing great. All of them are eating and growing like crazy. I also have a pretty hefty cleanup crew. My corals are two types of zoas, a candy cane, a staghorn, a birdsnest, a hammerhead, and a cabbage all of which are frags. The birdsnest and staghorn are startibng to bleach and the zoas and hammer aren't opening. The only one doing well is the cabbage. Everthing even the corals were doing great up until two weeks ago which was also the time that the cyano appeared. All of this happened so fast. Does anyone have any idea whats going on?

Equipment:
90 gallon tank
100 pounds live rock
40 pounds live sand
T5HO lights. (2 10000k, 2 actinic)
2 powerheads (1600gph each)
250w heater

Parameters:
Ammonia-0ppm
Nitrites-0ppm
Nitrates-10ppm
PH-8.0
Calcium-400ppm
Phosphates-0.25ppm
Salinity-1.025
Temp-78.5F

[sasharotty]

Po4 is high. And with cyano usually means lack of flow and dead spots in the tank. I dont see a # for your alk? That could be the cause of your BN bleaching if thats out of whack. And when you say your getting it under control how did you do that.(chemicals?) Do you run any gfo?

[skeeter_usaf]

Phosphates are a little high. How long did you have those stony corals? Where were they placed in your tank? Thats not alot of lighting to support those type of corals IMO and your calcium is a little low. Might need to stick with the softies until you can get better or more lighting.

[Touring]

Skimmer!!!

[kismetsh]

10k and actinic just refer to spectrum, what is the wattage of your lights?

Recommended phosphate levels in a reef tank are .03 or less.

[jpruitt]

What is your alkalinity. Are they bleaching from the base or from the top.

[Cymonous]

How old are your bulbs? If older than 8 months, need to replace them. Are you using tap or RO/DI water?

[Paintball1313]

I am using rodi water that i make myself so I know it is 0 tds. The bulbs are 54 watt each, They are probably about six months old. I had these stonys for about a month and a half before they started bleaching. As to the bleaching, the birdsnest is bleaching from the bottom up and the staghorn is bleaching from right to left. I dont know what my alk is, Ill check that now.

[Sk8r]

Your calcium is way low, your nitrates should be about 5, and your magnesium has probably crashed. Your alk is also a shade low. I'd like to see 8.3. Alk/cal/mg are all related. Read the sticky on Dirt-simple Chemistry

[Paintball1313]

Sk8r how do you know that my alk is low when i posted that i didn't know what it was

[Paintball1313]

My alk is about 8.5dkh according to my test kit but i dont know if i trust it

[kismetsh]

Sk8r how do you know that my alk is low when i posted that i didn't know what it was

Not only that, your calcium is not "way low". 380-450 is recommended and yours is 400 (NSW is usually about 420). Wondering if Sk8r thought they were replying in a different thread, I've done that before. :spin3:

[jpruitt]

Alk is good. I had the same problem last month. I thought I was dosing enough alk for my needs but I had a couple of sps start to bleach from the bottom. I remember somewhere on this sight I read that more than likely if bleaching starts at the bottom it's a water condition problem. If it starts at the top more of a flow and lighting problem. Anyways checked my alk and it was at a 6. Turned up the doser and all corals are back and healthy. Good luck finding out what it is.

[kismetsh]

Unless I missed it you didn't answer sasha's question about what measures you took/are taking to get rid of the cyano? That could be relevant.

[Paintball1313]

i have been sucking the cyano off the rocks every couple days and doing frequent water changes. Usually i would see it starting to grow back with in a day. Now i sucked off the cyano and there has been no sign of it for over two days. I also added a couple emerald crabs and they are eating any I missed.

[Ron Reefman]

Sk8r must have been having a bad day. Bad info is rarely a problem.

Your cal is OK, your nitrates and phosphates are a bit high and I'd be a bit concerned because you say you have been doing a lot of water changes. That should be bringing them down. You made be feeding too much or not filtering out uneaten food well enough. And you haven't posted a magnesium level yet. Corals need magnesium in order to properly use cal & alk to make their skeleton. They don't use as much, but it is important. Please tell me you aren't carbon dosing (vodka, vitamin C, etc).

I've never seen an Emerald crab eat cyano. Not in my tank, not in friends tanks, can't even say I've read it before here on RC. Emerald crabs are algae eaters and cyano isn't algae, it's a bacterial bloom. I could be wrong, but I've never heard of it.

[Paintball1313]

I don't dose vodka or anything and i don't have a mag test. i haven't tested since Saturday so those numbers are probably lower now. i guess i have odd emerald crabs because they are defiantly eating the cyano. tomorrow i will bring a water sample to my friend that has a mag test kit and a more reliable alk test kit to check that for you guys. Also tomorrow i will retest all the other things to in order to update you guys.

[seapug]

Phosphate is high but if the Cabbage is doing well but everything else is suffering, you may also have some chemical warfare going on.

[Paintball1313]

Like what?

[markalot]

Like what?

Leather corals can fight by dumping nasty chemicals in the water that can irritate and damage other corals, depending on their sensitivity. Carbon is always a good thing to have if leather corals are in the tank.

I feel like something is missing here. In cse it helps I'll relate two mistakes I've made in my 1 year of reefkeeping.


I did serious damage to my 40 when it was about 8 months old by not correctly calibrating my refractometer, then doing a lot of water changes when things started o look bad, which exacerbated the problem.

My other tank had issues when I had too ow of flow and then removed too much media from the filter at once. Because my flow was too low most of the nitrifying bacteria apparently setup in the filter and I caused a mini cycle. I never measured ammonia but I lost all my sps in the tank plus a couple of LPS.

[Spyderturbo007]

I would attack that phosphate number if it were my tank. Most people suggest PO4 numbers <0.03ppm in tank with corals. You might have to suck it up and buy a reactor and some GFO.