45 gallon help

[arbaugh]

Hey all, this is going to be a long post. But I thank you ahead of time for anyone who decides to read through it and give me advise. Brett has been trying to help me with this for months with no luck. I was I watch my last one die I have to reach out and see if someone has an answer. I'm on the brink of quitting hobby already given up my idea's of a larger tank just because of this tank.

First off equipment:
Aquatop Canister filter (cf400-UV (UV is broken doesn't work)
-Bottom layer 3 white filters by a blue one
-Rock (forgot name of them but they are small live rock pebbles)
-Carbon (been running carbon for months (no breaks) I recently was told this can cause problems
-Phosguard
top tray are more rocks


Remora AquaC HOB protein skimmer

Lighting- set of AI LED's
Blue's don't go higher then 60%
White's don't go higher then 40%

Fish livestock-
clown
1 chromis
blue/yellow tang
bi color blenny
sandsifting goby (forgot exact name)
6 line wrasse

Problem Euphyllia won't stop dying- Started a few months ago with the nicer ones like my aussie torch, has spread to every hammer/torch anything Euphyllia in my tank. I have one last 20 or so head hammer that has 4 heads left and I can see the skeleton of one so it's dying also. They all seem to dye very slowly, one head at a time. As soon as one dies, another starts to die. Even if on the previous day it looked great.

I've went through a few learning curve problems with keeping everything consistent but last few 2 months it's been going really well only to see more die. As of last night:

MG-1300
Calcium- 420
Alk/dkh- 3.3 9.2
Phosphate (was high now its lower then it's ever been) somewhere between .03 and .1 hard to see by just the light blue
Nitrites- 0
Nitrates- are always just below 20
Salinity- 1.26


I do regular water changes once weekly and clean the filter out every other week because it being a canister. I understand canister are not the recommended setup. I set this up going off of a LFS and have regretted that.

Now every coral in the tank doesn't die. I have zoa's in there that are growing, my rastas are growing very fast. Other palys int here that are growing just not fast. Other zoa's that have had the same amount of heads for 4-5 months. There has to be some chemical, something I am missing. I am out of idea's. I thought it was the phosphate problem because it was around .5 but it has dropped so much over the last 2 months, yet I am still seeing heads die. Maybe some parasite? But what? I have the little worms that are attached to the rock, they come out from time to time while feeding with the strings and grab stuff. But I try to break as many off as I can when I clean.


I'm writing this in a stream of thought just let me know what I miss and I'll answer any questions.

 

[iifeainteasy]

how long are lights on? flow? how high are they in tank...im not an expert but i have a frogspawn and hammer. both at bottom of tank. hammer has low flow enough to move its tentacles a tad bit. already split into 2 heads. my frogspawn likes high light with medium high flow. i know this as fact because when i only have blues on high and whites very low or off. my frogspawn doesnt open up totally or sway in the flow. my blues are at 100% majority of the time. whites are between on but all the way low to 40-60%

 

[iifeainteasy]

no sump? do u dose?

 

[arbaugh]

No sump. And yes we dose every day if not every other day depending on what tests show.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[arbaugh]

Most all of them that have died were bottom of tank. This last one is middle left side. I've tried and adjusted flow many times. Not sure if it's a flow issue. It's not as if they open or don't open. They just die. One day they are fine. Next day you'll see the skeleton and closed up. Within 2 days later they are gone. Head by head


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[arbaugh]

any advise? Anyone?

 

[seth the wine guy]

Tough to say what your issues are. I have no experience with canister filters. I wouldn't want to try running a reef with one though. Each media exhausts itself at different rates. So, having them all crammed into one device isn't a good idea. Keep in mind, the smaller the water volume on a reef, the harder it is to keep consistent on parameters. Stability and consistency is more important than hitting a number. We have all been guilty of chasing parameters.

If you like baseball, think of your tank parameters like you would the ump behind the plate. You would rather him incorrectly call the ball 2 inches off the plate a strike every time than to only call it every third time. Coral is the same way. If you're doing something wrong, at least be consistent so the coral knows what to expect. Make a regiment and stick to it.

Did you buy anything used? If so, was it possibly used in/on a system running copper?

 

[brick fish house]

Echoing Seth.

Canister filters are good... up to a point... But they don't allow for oxygen exchange, and I don't think I can recall seeing a reef successfully run with one.

It sounds like you are doing everything you can to make it work, and are just hindered by the equipment.

It's kinda like if I were to try to win the Daytona 500 in my truck. It's a good truck, but it's not built for racing.

Euphyllias are weird. They can be really temperamental, but then I have also seen them flourish in a tank that shouldn't have anything alive in it.

That having been said....

Is the filter the only source of flow in your tank? Are there any powerheads?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[arbaugh]

There is a top power head in the corner facing downward, there is also a good amount of flow coming from the HOB combined with extra coming from the canister. I see plenty of flow in the tank I believe.

My problem is just how these Euphyllia started to die. Not all at once, not even one coral at a time. It has literally been head by head. Soon as one dies, another starts to die. It's as if something were doing it to them. I just can't figure it out.

 

[camellia]

Just grasping here but I've heard many talk of this jelly disease that is pretty devastating to this type coral species and can be relentless! Sounds like this guy had some luck stopping it.
I'm going to paste a post from Reef2Reef because I don't know how to share the link. Perhaps this will sound familiar to you or will give you some ideas to try.

alt="" />

<span style="font-size: 17px">Also someone called these black bugs the death of theirs. See if you can see anything like that on your corals.</span>

alt="" />

Sorry about the bold large font but didn't know how else to get you to just look at the bugs on the coral, lol.

As far as the little worm you talked about coming out of your rocks, sounds like Brittle stars that are not a harmful pest. They are good filter feeders and should not hurt anything whatsoever.

I wouldn't worry too much with phosphate and nitrates being the problem as these corals need some dirty water, unlike SPS coral. In reading, magnesium has also been mentioned as important for their growth.

There are many beautiful corals species that you are not having a problem with. Don't let this get the best of you and ruin the hobby for you. If it's the jelly disease it appears very difficult to do away with it. Perhaps go forward with your upgrade, good skimmer, get prams level, then try them again. I'll even give you some when your ready.

Please don't let one type coral take the fun out of the hobby for you! Stay strong and move on to a different coral species that you like just as much for now

BTW Welcome and Good luck!

 

[arbaugh]

I've looked at a good bit of pictures of jelly disease on google. I haven't seen anything like that. And I just went and looked at the last one that's left to see if I could see any of the bugs you mentioned. I can't see any of that.

So once this last Euphyllia is gone do you think this will spread to zoas? Will an amount of time kill it from tank if it is something like this?