Sps dying. Please help if you can...

[Pimentinha]

Hi everyone.

As the title says, my SPS are dying on me.

It all starts by lack of PE, development of brown algae on the tips following by STN...

I have seen STN starting from both the top and from the bottom of the colony.

I'm at loss... I'm very careful with my display tank.
I do have LPS and I like to feed them, but all my basic levels are where they should be, including nitrates an phosphates, both at 0.

Calcium- 420
Magnesium - around 1300
Dkh- 8 ( I am trying to bring it up a bit)

Temperature has been a pain to deal with. Right now sits at 79.7 but it topped 83 this past few weeks.

I am going to do a water change either today or tmrw. I will get more readings after that.

I have 2 jebao's wp 40's on my display, (120 gallons, 5 ft long)

I'm thinking that the culprit are my lights...

I have 2 maxspect razor 27" 160watts 16.000k.

The reason I say this is because I have moved some of the smaller frags into my frag tank and they are all brown but still hanging in there.

Is it really too much light killing them? I used to have my whites at around 70% and have since lower them to 60% gradually... But no change.

If anyone has a PAR Meter in the area that I could borrow I would really really appreciate it...

Not good pics but hope it helps...

http://



img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/21/gaquga4e.jpg

 

[fireshark02]

What kind of phosphate tester did you use? If you are growing brown algae on the tips of your sps and rocks then I would say your phosphates aren't 0.

 

[reefman]

how long have you had these dying sps for?

 

[Pimentinha]

I agree with you. I have an API test kit. However, I don't trust API that much so I took a sample to my local fish store and they tested my Phosphates with a Red Sea test kit. Same results...


Sps have been dying for the past 3 to 4 weeks I'd say. Some frags went first... Now the colonies...

 

[cryptics]

I would say it is the temperature swings. Only thing that seems out of wack.

 

[Pimentinha]

Thought about that too. However, my small frag tank is even harder to control temp swings and they have survived in there...

And I do read phosphates on the frag tank... About .5ppm which is more than I like/want

 

[fireshark02]

.5 is a lot! .1or less would be a more successful level to keep sps

 

[Pimentinha]

I know!! But that's on my frag tank. The only place I can put them and they somehow still survive...

On my display, where the vast majority of my sps are the phosphates are undetectable...

 

[fireshark02]

What kind of lights do you have on the frag tank?

 

[Pimentinha]

Fluval 25watts LEDs....

 

[fireshark02]

Well my second guess would be to continue to ramp the lights down to even more maybe try 40% white for awhile

 

[ValorG]

Anything else possibly fluctuate recently other than temp? Recently added too much bio pellets and my nutrients nose dived and that made my sps look horrible.

 

[piranhapat]

What's your Alk?

 

[Pimentinha]

I'm in the process of doing that... But it just seems to be so little light...

 

[Pimentinha]

8. I'm going to try to bring it up to 9 or 10 over time.

 

[fireshark02]

You're better off starting low then high but that's just my opinion. I tried increasing my leds too fast and the samething happened to me but my phos was also a little high since I changed my filtration system and my phos went up a little and now its back down

 

[Pimentinha]

Thanks fireshark. I will lower the lights and hope for the best...
I will keep you guys posted as I go...

 

[piranhapat]

What is salinity ? Alk is good don't try to change it.

 

[Pimentinha]

1.025

 

[fireshark02]

You're welcome, I know what you are going through. Hopefully things will work out!