Slow Tissue Necrosis - Mystery

[puffermike]

I've been battling some issues with STN for a very long time and I'd like to get some insight on it. I'll first give the specs on my old system where it happened and the new specs on my upgrade to compare.

My old tank params

Sal - 1.026
Nitrates - 10
Calc - 420
Alk - 9
Mag - 1250
Temp - 75
PH - 8.0

This tank ran a relatively small HOB skimmer, two Hydor powerheads that pushed about 1200G each, a canister filter with chemi pure, purigen and diligent water changes to keep the tank stable. Lighting was LEDs set to a max of 60%.

With these params in my old tank I was able to lose quite a bit of colonies. First it was LPS only pertaining to Euphlyia and then eventually it made it's way onto my SPS. Frogspawns and torches went down very slowly at a rate of 2 weeks to 2 months. When it did hit my acros it took about a month to kill them off. What remained unaffected was a good bit of my other LPS such as Lobophylia, Elegance and Acans. The SPS that survived was a few varieties of Stylophora and Birdsnest also.

I made a substantial upgrade to a 125G tank with a sump over the winter. I transferred over some of the live rock from the old tank but the majority of it was new.

New Tank Params

Sal - 1.026
Nitrates - 5 or less
Calc - 480
Alk - 10
Mag - 1350
Temp - 76
PH - 8.0

The livestock in the tank are a blue hippo tang, desjardini tang, naso tang, yellow watchman goby, mandarin goby and a copperband butterfly. I recently took out a niger trigger just in case he's been nibbling on any of the SPS. I have a tank cam that I can go through and watch the majority of activity in the tank and I've never seen him put SPS on the diet.

This tank runs a very large skimmer rated for 300G's, two X150 Gyres that I have set to push about 6,000GPH total, 3 - DM165P LED units and the only media that I use now is GFO and Carbon.

I just recently installed a dosing pump because I'm still struggling with STN. My dosing pump is set to dose a total of 2 DKH weekly and the equal measurement of calcium. I programmed this last week so I don't believe it has anything to do with the STN issue.

However to clarify I'm dosing the following as of a couple weeks ago.

Calcium
Alkalinity
Carbon - Red Sea Formula

The new carbon dosing has done substantial work in decreasing my nitrates down but the STN has not changed at all. The colonies of birdsnest I transferred over from my old tank into this one survived well and even got some great growth on them for the first couple months but after those two initial months they slowly lost all of their tissue and died.

As of right now I can not keep any type of birdnest or branching montipora.

My large Stylophora colony is losing tissue on the tips and on the bottom but it's been fighting back very well. Whatever the issue is it hasn't been strong enough to take out this colony.

It hasn't effected any of my LPS in this tank at all. In fact the LPS in here is doing amazing. The gorgonians and even my flower pot corals are growing well. It did however attack my chalice coral to the point where it ate away all of the flesh on the underside of the coral but the moment it reached the upper lip it stopped and has begun to heal.

You can clearly see the line of flesh growing back down towards the base.

I am a bit perplexed at this issue as I've been trying to go down the line and figure out what exactly is causing this. I've checked for parasites on numerous occasions and I haven't been able to spot anything. I've only been able to save a few random colonies through vigorous iodine dipping but the issue comes back only to attack other specimen in the reef.


If anyone has any advice or experiences like mine please give me your advice it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[DaveK]

I don't see anything specific that your doing wrong. Here are a few ideas of things to check out.

You have 3 tangs in the system. These tend to be big dirty fish, producing a lot of waste products.

What kind of lighting are you running? It looks like some corals are failing in the darker areas of the coral.

What corals do you have in the tank? Could they be reacting with each other?

I'm not sure about the carbon dosing. While it may keep nitrates down, it may also be causing problems in other areas. You might try running with out it for a time and see what happens.

Carbon filtration has it's supporters and detractors. You might try not using it for awhile or using it only a day or two a week.

As I said, none of these ideas are solving a specific problem, since I don't see anything obvious wrong, but one or more may help.

 

[puffermike]

When I posted this I recently started carbon dosing to see if it would fix the issue and it hasn't. It's stayed the same. I've lost more specimen than I'd like to say. All primary sps... The LPS seems to be doing fine. The only parameter out of whack after thorough testing is my PH.

It stays at a constant 7.8 all day. I've tested to see how much CO2 is in my house and low and behold, no matter how much water I turn over the PH doesn't rise in my house. However it does rise when I aerate the same tank water outside. It rises to 8.2. That's .4 off of what I should be shooting for.

Has anyone else had issues with bleaching relating to low PH?

 

[Oxylebius]

The only parameter out of whack after thorough testing is my PH. It stays at a constant 7.8 all day.

Make sure your pH meter is calibrated. Having a range of 7.8-8.5 pH is a normal range for most tanks. Swings in pH happen from day to night as well.

pH is tied to the amount of CO2 in the water and is also tied to Alkalinity.

I've tested to see how much CO2 is in my house and low and behold, no matter how much water I turn over the PH doesn't rise in my house. However it does rise when I aerate the same tank water outside. It rises to 8.2.

I seem to remember some posts about issues with pH during the winter months where CO2 levels rise in homes b/c of lack of ventilation to the outside. You should do a search on this forum for those threads.

The CO2 of the air in the room will affect the pH levels in the tank. Sounds like you might have higher then normal CO2 in the room where the tank is being kept. This is definitely something you should look into, particularly b/c aerating the same water outside raised the pH to 8.2. I think you found your issue.

An alternate item to consider is that Alk also plays a part in pH levels. Using sodium carbonate to raise your Alk levels will raise your pH as well. You said that you are dosing Alk and Ca in even parts. Another suggestion is to bump up the Alk - slowly over the week and testing all three params (CA, Alk and pH) everyday to see how they balance out.

I wouldn't do both of the above at the same time. First look to fixing the CO2 of the room by providing more aeration with fresh outside air to see if this fixes your problem.

Has anyone else had issues with bleaching relating to low PH?

I haven't had these issues, but pH absolutely affects hard corals and other calcified organisms. Have you heard of ocean acidification? Low pH makes it harder for calcifying organisms to create calcium carbonate skeletons (corals, snails, etc.). At a low enough pH, the skeletons will actually begin to dissolve, which is what is happening in some parts of our ocean areas where ocean acidification is happening.

 

[puffermike]

Make sure your pH meter is calibrated. Having a range of 7.8-8.5 pH is a normal range for most tanks. Swings in pH happen from day to night as well.

pH is tied to the amount of CO2 in the water and is also tied to Alkalinity.



I seem to remember some posts about issues with pH during the winter months where CO2 levels rise in homes b/c of lack of ventilation to the outside. You should do a search on this forum for those threads.

The CO2 of the air in the room will affect the pH levels in the tank. Sounds like you might have higher then normal CO2 in the room where the tank is being kept. This is definitely something you should look into, particularly b/c aerating the same water outside raised the pH to 8.2. I think you found your issue.

An alternate item to consider is that Alk also plays a part in pH levels. Using sodium carbonate to raise your Alk levels will raise your pH as well. You said that you are dosing Alk and Ca in even parts. Another suggestion is to bump up the Alk - slowly over the week and testing all three params (CA, Alk and pH) everyday to see how they balance out.

I wouldn't do both of the above at the same time. First look to fixing the CO2 of the room by providing more aeration with fresh outside air to see if this fixes your problem.



I haven't had these issues, but pH absolutely affects hard corals and other calcified organisms. Have you heard of ocean acidification? Low pH makes it harder for calcifying organisms to create calcium carbonate skeletons (corals, snails, etc.). At a low enough pH, the skeletons will actually begin to dissolve, which is what is happening in some parts of our ocean areas where ocean acidification is happening.

Thank you for the detailed reply! I have been dosing a bit more alk for a few weeks now and although it rises with the dosing my PH does not. I've been considering running my skimmers intake line outside to pull fresh air but I will be disappointed if rising the PH doesn't seem to aid the problem at all.

Recently instead of doing a 20% water changes bi weekly I've done a 50% one instead. Some of my corals have responded well to this while the STN has also affected a couple new specimen, one of my chalices and my hawkins echinata. I'm going to try and save them through vigorous iodine and coral rx dipping.

I've also just dialed my lights down even more than what I did before. I originally started with the white leds at 70% then to 50.. and now to 20% power. The blues have gone from 90 down to 70 and now to 50%. I'm grasping for strings here but who knows. Maybe the LEDS I have are too powerful and having some long term affect on the corals.

If all else fails I'll just have to chalk this up to a bacterial infection that's been spreading for quite some time. Only Iodine and a bit of luck will help me then.

 

[puffermike]

Over the past couple months I've been able to locate the problem. I changed all of my testing dates and water changing schedules to see if anything was going out of wack at different times. I use to test every 2 weeks but now I do it twice weekly.

My water change schedule and detritus removal schedule has changed from every 2 weeks to weekly. Low and behold by giving the tank more love I stumbled upon a few different issues over the past couple months. Through vigorous testing and close attention to every thing that was going on I found my Alk was swinging down low. Only by changing my test dates did I find this.

So, I dosed accordingly and got it up to par but tissue recession continued days later. Then, I found that my dosing pump for the Alk line was clogged more than halfway at the end causing the Alk to not dose properly. I got this issue fixed and changed my dosing pump method to dose alk every hour to stop it from clogging.

Thinking I had this one in the bag a couple of weeks went by and everything was fine until I noticed my sps struggling again. Testing showed my Alk dropped again. It had gone from 10 to 6. This time the line wasn't clogged. instead I found pinholes all through the dosing pump line forcing it to leak out.
I was really at the end of my wit with this issue and ready to rip my hair out. I'd lost my hawkins echinata and my big stylo colony was dying.

So then I put two and two together...

Seems one of my cats was jealous of all the time I was spending on the tank and decided it was time to sabotage the operation. I wish I could have caught one of them chewing on the line. It would have been funny to see them get a mouthful of alk in the process.

No longer can I leave the small door open to the sump to remind myself I've unplugged something.

There you have it. The mystery is solved. I guess the moral of the story is pay close attention to detail, waste lots of test kits and never ever trust your damn cats.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Cheers for sharing & best of luck on the recovery & steady alk !

 

[Oxylebius]

HA! funny

 

[DaveK]

Over the past couple months I've been able to locate the problem. ....

Great job at finding the problem. This may be why some people have a problem with some types of corals.

To others - Some salts run low on alkalinity when you mix them. If in doubt test your newly mixed SW.

Regretfully, there are very few fish kept in home systems that can eat cats. (evil grin - just teasing)

 

[Oxylebius]

Did you happen to catch the Sunday morning 8:30am macna presentation (I know too early, but I couldn't miss Sanjay Joshi's 'Perspectives In Reefkeeping'). Any way he did go into STN/RTN a bit. He had to deal with it at times like the rest of us. There really isn't one reason why it happens. Many factors can cause it and there are just as many ways of dealing with it. But, sometimes there is nothing you can do but watch your corals get wiped out. He relayed a story of watching most of his sps, one by one, getting wiped out by it. Then having to start over again. So, even the most knowledgeable in the hobby deal with issues like this and don't always have all the answers either.

BTW, it was a super funny presentation. It was all about making mistakes and learning from your mistakes. He even said at one point, that he probably killed more fish the kept alive (jokingly of course ). Sanjay had invited Richard Ross (Senior Biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences) to join him on stage and between the both of them, they shared some interesting stories.

 

[puffermike]

Did you happen to catch the Sunday morning 8:30am macna presentation (I know too early, but I couldn't miss Sanjay Joshi's 'Perspectives In Reefkeeping'). Any way he did go into STN/RTN a bit. He had to deal with it at times like the rest of us. There really isn't one reason why it happens. Many factors can cause it and there are just as many ways of dealing with it. But, sometimes there is nothing you can do but watch your corals get wiped out. He relayed a story of watching most of his sps, one by one, getting wiped out by it. Then having to start over again. So, even the most knowledgeable in the hobby deal with issues like this and don't always have all the answers either.

BTW, it was a super funny presentation. It was all about making mistakes and learning from your mistakes. He even said at one point, that he probably killed more fish the kept alive (jokingly of course ). Sanjay had invited Richard Ross (Senior Biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences) to join him on stage and between the both of them, they shared some interesting stories.

I wish I would have went but I was sound asleep in the sheets. I'm guessing someone will upload the presentation on youtube at some point. A lot of last years were posted up by BRS so that was pretty cool.

Joe Yaiullo did a cool presentation on Friday I believe and he mentioned that the reason some corals can strive in some tanks and die in others remains a mystery to even the most esteemed reef keepers so that makes me feel better somewhat too. For years I struggled with elegance corals and a few different species died no matter what I did. I would feed them and so forth but no luck. So, with a new tank setup and a new aussie elegance, it's growing like a weed.