coral receeding- need help please

[rhidien]

It's been a while since I've had much time to cruize the forums, or make it to any psas meetings, but I'm in need of some help please. I've had my tank set up for about 2 years, slowly getting things attemptively set up right. Anyway, it's an 80 gal tall tank, which is cool looking but presents problems. About a year ago I started running into nitrate problems. I pulled the sand and things started looking better. Then it crept up again, my corals started not doing so well in fluxuations, algea started becoming a real problem, so I replaced my bulbs -current 4x96watts, a couple of ballast burnt out, so I set up my 250watt hallide - now 2x96pc and one 250watt hallide, still things weren't doing so great. Finally replaced my fake dual pack, for amg 200 gal skimmer, set up another seio and sump. Lost another coral and few others fading, so replaced another ballast, now 250watt, 3x96watt pc's. I'm still having problems!
Last night I did another water change and added, carbon (which I often don't run), the corals look worse today than they had prior? Yes RO/DI water, tested, nitrate free- filters about 6months old, usually replace around a year mark.
All along, I've had nitrate problems, despite a lot of circulation I'm guessing it's having a hard time getting detritus (visible on bottom of tank) up to the overflow and into the skimmer. That's about the only thing I can think of.
only 3 small fish, 2 clowns and purple psudo
78deg
ph 8.2
alk 2.74
dkh 7.7
nitrate 50
cal 450
ammonia 0
just added some alk supliment to bring it up
I do water changes, generally once a week, of about 10 gal, in which I suck that crap out of the bottom of the tank where ever I can reach, blow off the rocks and sides of tank... In my gallery, I'll put a bunch of pictures, so you can see the receeding, and algea on the rocks.. also serious aptasia problem, tried buying a coral banded butterfly, but it died before eatting any, don't want to add anything now till I get it better in check.

 

[rhidien]

attached a few picts so you could see.. first the mushrooms and xenia started shrinking, then zoos started not opening, now fading and receeding acros

 

[ronj]

wow!!! those are some high nitrates...first of all, i would gat some serious flow going across the bottom, just to get the detritus suspended...also, i think your mix of corals could be a problem..the toxins from your mushrooms and some of the others..i would run carbon continuously for a week or two and do some serious water changes(large ones)..exactly what corals do you have in there?????

 

[MarineTeng]

ya high nitrates, do you have a fuge? if so what sort of lighting and macro u have in there? my success with my fuge has been through a common bulb, the 2700k compact flourescents u get in like 4 packs, 26w, or 13w even, and cheato, this will help a lot i think

 

[pfish]

You need to get the nitrates to zero.

 

[SueT]

I had recently gone through some base up tissue recession in my acropora and we discovered some metal may be the culprit. I think you need to do some major water changes back to back. Someone in this hobby I respect very much says that the solution to pollution is dilution.

 

[ronj]

that's a good saying Sue!!! i'll have to remember that one!!!

 

[SueT]

hey Ron, yeah, I heard that a long time ago and think whenever in doubt do a water change..

 

[rhidien]

yeah, that's my general plan, RO is filling a bucket right now.. unfortunately, everything is fading fast, wondering if it might be a better move, to set up a new small, "emergency" tank, to pack all the corals in. I was hoping for any ideas concerning the nitrate.. since, it isn't anything new, things have fluctuated for some time because of it, but it seems, since the mushrooms and zoos started doing badly, which was the inspiration for move a power head to get better circulation on the bottom as well as the new skimmer; guess it is likely that they've poisoned everything.. think it would be more harmful to set up a completely "clean" tank, with all new water to transfer them to and the rock they're on (drip aklimated of course), or just do a large water change and hope for the best?

 

[rhidien]

oh and I did have cheato, but pulled it out with the sand a year ago, as it was collecting way to much detritus in the main tank... no ref, and at the time no sump to turn into a ref... thinking about going back to that, but it's already really crowded in my sump..

 

[cheeks69]

How often are you feeding and how much ? What do you have for a cleanup crew ? Are you noticing a considerable increase in effluent with the new skimmer ? What are you dosing ? What is the total turnover rate in the tank ? How many lbs. of LR do you have ? The nitrates are very high for a tank with only 3 small fish :exclaim:

 

[rhidien]

exactly, that's what I don't understand... I'm no longer sure of the live rock weight, but it's piled from the bottom to the very top say 24 inches -30in tank; so there should be plenty -attached is a pic. Not a whole lot of a clean up crew these days, misc snails, still a couple hermits lurking around and lots of small brittle stars..
Not sure the total turnover rate, lets see
rio 3100 -900 gal per hour -3months ago replaced a second maxi 900
seio 1100 -1100 gal per hour
maxi jet -900 -230 gal per hour
and some generic return pump, can't remember and hard to get to, but I'd think, even prior to having the sump set up that this is plenty of flow (maybe not the enormous amounts some have, but I'd think plenty).. yes, the new skimmer does pull out quite a bit more, but it's also a much better skimmer so it should.. as for dosing, occasionally add alk or calcium as needed, but otherwise just IO to provide most trace elements..
as for feeding, since there have only been 3 fish for quite some time, other than the day I had the copper band, a small cube of formula one lasts for nearly a week, don't feed much, unless the occasion food to the green bubble tip, which right now is doing okay, but I'm fearful for it

 

[cheeks69]

Have you been meticulous with maintenance or did it go thru a period of neglect ? Do you usually turkey baste or use a ph to blast the LR and remove any acumulating detritus ? I would do several large water changes to lower the nitrates and if you have to take the LR out and try to remove as much algae as possible.

 

[brady816]

I have heard you need to change the filters more than once a year..if its a hob filters

 

[rhidien]

I'm pretty on top of my cleaning duties, worse case senario maybe three weeks, definately not any real time for such troubles to build up... I do use a turkey baster, at least during cleaning/water changes, occasionally during the week as well.
No, no HOB filter, used to have HOB skimmer - cpr dual pack nock off.. change the RO/DI filters yearly..
I guess I'll set up my "emergency" quarentine tank and move the corals till I have time to mix enough water to get those nitrates down... still don't understand the fluxuation in coral health and the continued battle with high nitrates.

 

[brady816]

ohh my bad man. wish i could help you out with this

 

[rhidien]

Thanks, I wish so too
looking like it's going to be a busy day.. unfortunately, not sure how I'm going to set up the quarentine tanks.. one with sps only, one with the sick softies I guess, wish I had a third skimmer for the rock.

 

[SueT]

Bryan, I think moving these already stressed corals, sps or otherwise would maybe do more harm that good. It's not worth it to push them over the edge stress wise. I think I would just try to work with them in the tank. Doing the water changes I mean. Any new tank is going to have a cycle and thats not going to be easy on these stressed corals.

 

[rhidien]

it wouldn't really cycle, since the rock is well established, but would be quite a shock, I agree, just feeling desprate. Quite a tramatic crash I'm experiencing... check out the attached picts, the milli started loosing tissue yesterday, then you can see the picture from today.. pretty much only the base left..
I ended up realizing I had a bit more of a problem, as I only have one light set up these days. So, sunk one bucket and stacked another on top of it, to set up a temp quarentine, that would at least separate the zoos, shrooms that were looking bad. There's still a section of zoos that haven't been opening stuck to the starboard, but not much I could about them for now.. did a 20 gal water change and mixing more water.
If things continue doing badly, I'll have to set up another quarentine and at least frag some of the corals before they're completely gone, of course then I'm not sure yet how I'll light them properly?
If anyone else has ideas of how to better separate them, or any ideas in the long run, why I keep getting nitrate spikes, despite such a small bio load, I'd really appreciate it.
thanks for the help so far

 

[SueT]

I am so sorry that you are going through this. Am also at pretty much a loss as to what else to suggest. You know with sps corals and acropora inparticular once they start going it's like a chain reaction. Sometimes you can stop it and others you can't. I wonder if you should try one of those nitrate sponges?? At this point I'd say it couldn't hurt. I would try to frag whats left and if you can place them in a completely different system I'd do that. One with no water thats been in your tank. You are running carbon so that should help some too.