My tank crash

[eddi]

Let me apologize in advance, this is a long post.

 

As some of you know over the past two weeks I have experienced a rather severe (in my opinion) tank crash.  I don't think the count is final but as of today I have lost 17 pieces:

 

11 Acro colonies

2   Stag colonies

4   Acro frags

 

Before I go into what happened, here my setup.  I have (had) a 125 gallon rather well stocked tank.  I have a 20 gallon sump and a 60 gallon refugium.  I drip kalk 24/7; due to a lack of space I do not have a skimmer or a calcium reactor. Before this incident I had not lost a piece in quite a few months and my water parameters were all fine (Ph 8,1-8.4, no Ammonia, Nitrate or Nitrite, Calcium >460, Alk 9.6-10.0; I stopped testing for phosphates after installing the refugium).

 

Here is the sequence of events and possible reasons.

 

Sometime in the middle of February, I do not have the exact date but it was just right around Presidents' day, I changed my bulbs (2 250W 10K and 1 20K) from the 10 month old Hamiltons to brand new Coral Vues.  I immediately liked the color, a crisp clear white for the 10k, a nice blue tint in the 20k.  Much brighter than my Hamiltons; I was very pleased.

 

The week prior to Presidents' day I started losing a 4" deep purple acro to what I thought was RTN.  I should have pulled the colony out and either try to frag it or simply get rid of it, but I did not.  On Presidents' day I went to Roozens and bought a feather starfish and therefore started feeding cyclop-eeze as I also have a sun coral and figured both would benefit.  I was feeding a pencil eraser size piece every night.  Since this was my first time ising this food, and knowing it could pollute my tank if overused, I started testing my water twice a week for phosphates, on Monday and Friday.

 

On the first Friday, my second test, I noticed the test seemed to be a bit blue, but did not worry.  The next Monday my phosphate jumped to somewhere .25 and .50 (I have a real hard time distinguishing between the various color shades).  I thought I had a false reading so I did it again with the same result.  I then tested my RO/DI water and did not get a reading, validating the kit.

 

I started doing water changes. I changed 20 gallons each day, Tuesday through Friday and brought my reading back to 0 but the damage was done.  That Friday I pulled out all the dead pieces.  A puzzling occurrence was that none of my shrimps were affected, and I always thought they were very susceptible to high phosphates.  Also, it worth noting that none of my LPS or clams were affacted at all.

 

In the beginning I said the count was not final as one of my blue torts has started to go, my three Hydonophoras are still very bright but do not have any polyps out, and my other stags are less than half opened up.

 

OK, so what happened?  I have 2 theories; the first is that due to the overwhelming concentration of Acros lost, I introduced some kind of pathogen with the feather starfish that targets Acroporas and the high phosphates were either a by-product of the decay or a coincidence.  

 

The second theory is that the losses were caused by the new bulbs.  I did do some reserach on Coral Vue bulbs beforeb uying them but, but did not find much as they are new bulbs.  Today David (Chideloh) tells me that there were a number of posts on Reef Central with people experiencing my same outcome after switching to Coral Vue bulbs.  I did a search but could not find them.  Actually I found a number of posts that were positive.

 

So I am looking for some help.  Are the bulbs really the reason?  Did I kill so many beautiful corals just because I wanted to save a few bucks on the price of bulbs?  I am more than willing to order new Ushios or some other well known brand, if that would help.  Does anyone have these bulbs?  What have you experienced?  Or did I really overfeed my tank and caused the problem on my own?

 

As you can imagine, I am more than bummed.  If I do not understand what happened, I am simply going to repeat it sooner or later.

 

 

Thanks for any/all suggestions.

[quazi]

The bulbs may be the reason.  The UV in these bulbs may be higher than your corals are used to.  Any new bulbs should be phased in, by limiting exposure (reducing the time the bulbs are on.)  I here lots of UV buring stories about 20k buls in general.

 

Were the corals that died under the 20k or where they equally distributed amongst the three bulbs?  Were the dead corals high up in the tank?

 

Sorry about you "crash."  Frankly, it does not sound like a crash when only a few corals had a problem and the rest of the tank is ok.

[eddi]

The corals were fairly well spread out; a lot of them were under the 20K, but enough were under the 10K not to pinpoint the cause on one bulb.

 

Tell you what, Quazi.  You lose 17 pieces, maybe more, then come back and tell me whether it was a crash or not.  Call it what you want, the result is the same.

[chideloh]

Here's one Eddi.

 

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=314378

[eddi]

OK, I did find a few negative posts on reef Central about the Coral Vue bulbs as David said.

 

Quazi is correct, I did not 'acclimate' the bulbs, but two people on reef central did and they had the same problem.  It os started to look more and more like it's a bulb issue.

 

I guess I'll start using Ushios.

 

 

PS Thanks David, we must have posted at the same time.

[Guest tgallo]

wow, i dont know what to say eddi besides im sorry.  I know how much your tanks meen to you and all the hard work you put into them .

[Guest tgallo]

eddi, how long has this tank been setup.

[Sph2sail]

Eddi, thanks for the detailed post.  Did not know about the lighting, but reading up on it, I suspect that is the source of the problem.  When I switched from Coralife 10K bulbs (old) to new Iwasaki 6500K bulbs, I had to really work the acclimation process.  Corals shrank back, did not extend, zounds.  Took about four weeks to acclimate back to a full lighting cycle.

 

Again, sorry about your losses.  Glad the post here had the detail to start work on the solution.

 

Of course there are many of us willing to frag stuff to re-stock your tank...:D

 

steve

[chideloh]

I am also looking for someone that is having problems "right now", preferably with a CV10k, rather than in the past and wouldn't mind being a guinea pig. You will need to be having issues on both sides of the tank as I will only send you enough material for 1/2 of the tank to see if it makes a difference treated side v. untreated. What I would like to order and ship is a Roscolux light filter that has nothing to do with UV filtering but would go a long way towards answering the second possibility that I would like to look into. The sheets come 20" x 24" standard so tanks with a 2ft. width like a 120 or 180gal. would be ideal. I can't really do anything on my own tank as I have been running these bulbs since late July and everything is more than acclimated with no problems.

 

 

_

Justin

 

Eddi, interested?

[krish]

Eddi,

I have setup the CV20K in the middle of the tank and still

run the sakis on either end. Will see how it turns out.

 

One question is, did you add any SPS recently.?

When you came over to visit and saw the bleached monti

frag and you and i know the source it came from.

Subsequent to adding that piece, it bleached, followed by

a tricolor secale, followed by another acro with pink tip.

These happened back to back within a few days. The

rest of the SPS are doing fine.

 

I tried to save the tricolor by fragging it and remounting

the frags and positioning it at various locations. But it

was gone. It was doing just fine for a few months before

i added a new one.

 

I doubt if your phosphates are an issue. I test positive on

phosphate with my RO/DI water after 2 stages of DI. The

TDS is zero after the first stage of DI. I feed the tank twice

a day with flakes and the skimmer only runs at night.

 

Of course, i have large fish, but not as many corals as you

do. But in short, my take is that it probably was not the

phoshpate.

 

I can only think of some kind of pathogen.

 

A few months ago, i introduced xenia from a friend. We

thought that it was dying in his tank due to water quality

issues.

Introducing it to my tank took down my perfectly healthy

pulsing xenia, also took down another non pulsing type

xenia. I lost one of the heads of the hammer. Was a good

idea to move the hammer closer to the current,

away from the

location where the xenias were present. I then dosed some

fresh garlic juice with the fish food and that contained

any more causalties. Don't know if the garlic had any

effect. But just another variable in the equation.

 

In short, having seen this kind of stuff happen twice, i guess

it definitely is some kind of pathogen.

 

-krish

[michaelg]

Eddi- I had some severe bleaching/burning of the acros that received direct light from my 400W coralvue 10K when I first put it in.  It took about 3 days to notice.  I did not change my timing cycle, as I should have as it was a 12 month old bulb that I replaced.  After a couple weeks I increased the cycle. Even within a coral it was extremely localized to horizontal surfaces.  Never seen anything like it.  It did not spread through on the corals either.   Those that were not totally fried (only a couple) have completely recovered and coloration is great in the corals.  Perhaps there is an excessive amount of UV initially given off by these bulbs- who knows.  I am happy with it now though.  Just my experience.

Michael

[eddi]

Thanks everyone for the replies, let me try to answer your questions.

 

Tony, the tank has been set up since last April/May.  I have actually had the tank for three years but took it down because I had to move it to install a new floor.  I kept the rocks in a large trash can with a heater and flow and a light, when I set the tank back up I experienced only a short cycle due to the new sand.  In theory I could have waited a couple more months before changing the bulbs, I was actually trying to be proactive for once.

 

Steve, thanks for the frag offer and while I usually do not turn free frags away, if it turns out that all of this was just because of my stupidity and lack of acclimation I simply don't feel I can accept frags.

 

David,  I am not sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish.  What is the second possibility you are looking into?

 

Krish, while it is started to look more and more like it was a bulb issue, I am not yet 100% convinced.  If it was such a drastic change in light r UV exposure why weren't my 5 Croceas affected?  Why weren't all of the corals that were high in the tank affected?

 

Michael, so what you experienced was a sort of 'burn in' period and the bulbs are fine now?  I really like the color and would prefer not to replace them, as long as they are done doing damage.

 

 

Thanks again everyone.

[michaelg]

From my experience- they are fine now.  I plan to let the bulb run it's course. New additions have not had any problems.  A frag craig gave me went directly under it, and it turned completely purple in 2 weeks.   A tiny chip of a acro effloresence went under them high in the tank and they are fine as well. BTW- the ones most affected in my experience were 2 different plating montiporas.  All have completely healed over now- the initial damage was bad though.  I never had base erosion as seen with RTN.

[chideloh]

Eddi,

 

I copied part of posting from the thread I sent you. Everyone is trying to find out what's going with the bulbs.

 

As you have mentioned, the whole thing is kind of crazy and doens't make total sense, so some people are trying to find out the real cause for the problems that people are experincing.

 

Justin guy is tring to find out if UV is causing the problem and he is looking for someone who is having problem right now to run some "tests" to find some answers. If you go and read the whole thing it make more sense.

 

Although, it doesn't make total sense, I am convinced it's the bulbs. Exactly what about the bulbs that is causing the problem is what people are trying to find out.

[Guest SohalTang]

I have coralvue 20K bulbs in my tanks. 3 20K coralvue DEs on my 180 reef and 2 20K SEs on my 375 fish with some softies. I got plently of frags from John and none of them bleach. My tank have been re-boot since beginning of the year.

 

I don't think it's the bulbs. May be it's your phosphate.

[AquariaUSA]

Anything happen around the tank, externally? Cleaning company, power outage, painting? Do you have a ground probe in the tank? Anything besides the feather star added within the previous 3 weeks???

 

I doubt it is the phosphate reading. Reason being we have at least 25+ tanks out there with elevated PO4 and NO3 readings due to excessive feedings by the client (what many would think are deleterious to the aquarium environment). I would check your I2, Sr and Dissolved O2 levels if possible. Do you use ozone? Skimmer go nuts at all?

 

I personally run my own tank without a skimmer, and have done so since the CMAS tank tour back in 2003. Periodically we use carbon and UV sterilization if I make new additions to the system, and then I remove the carbon and UV. No deep sand bed in the main tank, but one that is about 18"x30" in the 125 sump below. No reactor or kalk drip~been using Seachem Reef Advantage Calcium and Reef Builder for more than two years on this system and many others with no problems maintaining levels (actually forget to dose all the time, and CA drops to about 320, KH to 6-8). The use of Seachem products was actually started after running a few test tanks comparing similar CA and KH products, both liquid and powder to find an easier application for our client base that did not use automated systems. Sponges, tunicates, sea squirts, dendros, and a few clams are the only filtration we use. Anemones split monthly, and some not-so-hardy species are thriving. Have not finished reading Tyrees books on systems like this, but sounds like a lot of the same thing we have been doing with the home "hobby" tank. I must admit, waterchanges have been on the back burner for a month but hope to do one this week

 

Sorry to get off subject, but I always jump on it when I see that water quality is suspect. The only time we consider water quality as a cause for problems is if undesirables have taken over a tank (problem algaes, aiptasia, cyanins, disease, etc.) or if a coral or fish has been taken from a "pristine" tank and placed into one that is not so "clean." As a company though, all of our client systems receive weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly water quality maintenance and thorough (not just a few titrations) testing and analysis, and everything goes under a strict QT regimen prior to placement. This has kept mortalities under 5% on a rolling 90 day period, and includes shipments. If we see any bleaching, it is no more than 1 piece at a time (usually due to terpenoid warfare, wandering anemone, or a hungry fish). I dread the day of a tank crash

 

On the mention of a feather star...unfortunately they are regularly imported, although survival rates (more than 6-12 months) are very low. It is very possibly that a pathogen or secondary infection could have been introduced with this critter (the source does not QT, or because it was recently imported). They are also known to hang out amongst sps during the nocturnal hours of the tank to "catch" food, which something could have been transferred to a few, but not all. When the first colony/frag went, did you remove it, or let tissue slough off and find its way to neighbors?

 

Now for the lighting, it is very possible that excessive UV irradiation was the culprit, but I would guess a few things happened to cause the problem. I doubt you would ever see bleaching with 20K bulbs (no matter the brand) unless they were extremely close to the water surface. 10Ks are another story though!

 

We all appreciate the post however, and please keep a detailed record on the events going forward. Would like to see how some species were ignored, or if regrowth occured. It would be something of a benefit to all if we all kept record of bleaching events inside our captive environments (record tank parameters, new additions, odd events, equipment (lighting) upgrades/changes, disease, RTN/RTD, etc.

 

Goodluck and we wish you the best on recovery

[ReefMon]

Dana Riddle is running tests on the CV 10K's to look into the amount of UV the bulbs are emitting.  From what I read, it sounds if the outer glass is either the wrong kind of glass, or the glass is to thin to block UV.  Seems lots of folks are burning the tissue right off their corals, and giving themselves a good sunburn at the same time.  Some folks are reporting better success by shielding the bulbs with UV blocking glass.

 

Until these tests are done, I'd be very careful with shielding my eyes from the direct output of  these bulbs (through the tank should be fine).

 

Your elevated P04 is more than likely from the dead coral tissue decomposing in the tank.

[michaelg]

One thing I wonder is if the UV drops after the bulbs burn in for a while.  Seems that way in my case....

[ReefMon]

One thing I wonder is if the UV drops after the bulbs burn in for a while.

 

Or do the corals become more adapted to it?

[michaelg]

great question- hopefully some one will run some tests both from new bulbs and ones that have burned in for a couple months- heck I'd donate my bulb if it will be used... My corals have colored up a lot :D and most pigmentation (other than the brown from zooxanthalae) is thought to serve as a UV protective sponge of sorts....  Haven't had tumors develop in the corals yet though- but that might take years....  Wondering if I shouldn't order a new bulb now...Yeah- I totally experienced the "burn the tissue right off"- was only on horizontal surfaces and tips- which to me totally indicates radiance of some sort. [nana]   Sorry the bannana is way to cool- just had to use it.

[AquariaUSA]

Nice banana! But I would rather be here  ild