Help me understand where I'm going wrong.

[Dapg8gt]

I agree that the carbon dose amount is excessive (I have a fully stocked 105g/w 35g sump and only use 8 ml with higher nutrients than your posted. Also I have too witnessed the shift in sps health at higher alk (8-9 is usually when I have noticed)..

Another thing no one has mentioned is a full cup of rox changed out 2x a month is super excessive imo. Rox at lower amounts can strip a tank clean and kill sps very easy imo. I stopped using it all together and switched to seachem passive vs the rox in a reactor. I noticed a serious color shift a while ago and all my notes lead me to the switch to rox so I switched it out and it did slowly get better.. I'm sold in my head that rox is too strong but I could just be convincing myself and it may have been a coincidence. I'd cut the rox in half and leave it in for a month to see if it helps as it couldn't hurt. .

[swk]

Originally Posted by Dapg8gt

I agree that the carbon dose amount is excessive (I have a fully stocked 105g/w 35g sump and only use 8 ml with higher nutrients than your posted. Also I have too witnessed the shift in sps health at higher alk (8-9 is usually when I have noticed)..

Another thing no one has mentioned is a full cup of rox changed out 2x a month is super excessive imo. Rox at lower amounts can strip a tank clean and kill sps very easy imo. I stopped using it all together and switched to seachem passive vs the rox in a reactor. I noticed a serious color shift a while ago and all my notes lead me to the switch to rox so I switched it out and it did slowly get better.. I'm sold in my head that rox is too strong but I could just be convincing myself and it may have been a coincidence. I'd cut the rox in half and leave it in for a month to see if it helps as it couldn't hurt. .

You talking vinegar Dan?!?

[Reefer07]

Ya you prolly don't have any copper if your using RODI.
I would agree with lynchmob, don't change water as much to keep it more consistent. If anything just change it once a week like 15-20 gal. I dunno if big alk swings like that are having a big impact.

[Dapg8gt]

Originally Posted by swk

You talking vinegar Dan?!?

No just specifically nopo4x (red sea carbon).. Vinegar is a lot more than that =)..

[swk]

Originally Posted by Dapg8gt

No just specifically nopo4x (red sea carbon).. Vinegar is a lot more than that =)..

Ok lol. I was like, "***?" Im down to 20 ml vinegar on my system. Seems to be a good midpoint for my system. Still some algae but I tried going lower and lost color on some pieces.

The the op - I'm very new at reefing, but what you have going on sounds very similar to me when I was running too high of a carbon dose. Try dropping it a bit and get some algae in your tank and watch the color. I also ran my all around 9.2 early on and was getting burnt tips and irritated coral. Things looked a lot better once I dropped to the low 7's. Now I shoot for around 7.7 but I have increased nutrients a bit as well.

Sps tanks are wonderfully irritating to get dialed in, but once you get there, the rewards are well worth it. I'm far from 100% dialed in, but just a taste of success made it worth it to me.

[diciple]

1 thing done and observe effects,stop the red sea nopox go from there keep us posted on results.

[Duke4130]

Everyone try's to keep their parameters above what normal sea water is. I think your alk cal and mag are too high. Especially your Alk. The key to SPS is stability. Doing excess water changes isn't always the best thing to do. Just do a straight 10% once a week. Keep your alk down at 8-8.5 your cal at 425 and your mag at 1350 and try to stay within those parameters then you will see your corals flourish. I have tried and tried to run the radiant reef in my tank and the corals just do not like it. I run a modified version of jons graph from ecotech that is great for a mixed reef system. My sps grow like crazy and have great color

[Duke4130]

Originally Posted by Duke4130

Everyone try's to keep their parameters above what normal sea water is. I think your alk cal and mag are too high. Especially your Alk. The key to SPS is stability. Doing excess water changes isn't always the best thing to do. Just do a straight 10% once a week. Keep your alk down at 8-8.5 your cal at 425 and your mag at 1350 and try to stay within those parameters then you will see your corals flourish. I have tried and tried to run the radiant reef graph in my tank and the corals just do not like it. I run a modified version of jons graph from ecotech that is great for a mixed reef system. My sps grow like crazy and have great color

[Reefer PT]

I have backed off on the carbon dosing, I'm stepping down over the next week to see what happens. I should be getting the polyfilter pad in the mail on wednesday and will try that to. I bought a 12x12 so can I cut a 4x6 section and throw it in the filter sock? Or do I have to make sure there is no water bypass? I'm going to keep up the WC's for now cause I don't want to change too many variables at once.
Thanks
Dave

[Reefer PT]

Duke, Do you have a copy of of your ecotech template?
Thanks

[Peter Eichler]

I would bet a pretty large sum of money that your carbon dosing combined with the heavy GFO and FAC use is your problem.


1.) Cut way back on the carbon dosing if not stopping altogether

2.) Run GAC only for a day or two every few weeks

3.) Cut back on the GFO use

4.) Drop your alkalinity down to closer to 8 dKH

[Reefer PT]

Ok so you all have convinced me to cut the carbon dosing down right away so I've backed off to 1ml/25gal which is the minimum recommended dose. and have taken my 2 part off line and will test daily untill alk is between 7-8 and Ca closer to 400. I want to see what that does before changing anything else.
My GFO and GAC will stay in the reactor for now but I will not swap out for a while. I am worried about phosphates climbing as some of the rock came from someone who had given up the hobby and the tank had through the roof phosphates. so I am dealing with some leaching but have been able to stay on to of it with GFO.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by Reefer PT

Ok so you all have convinced me to cut the carbon dosing down right away so I've backed off to 1ml/25gal which is the minimum recommended dose. and have taken my 2 part off line and will test daily untill alk is between 7-8 and Ca closer to 400. I want to see what that does before changing anything else.
My GFO and GAC will stay in the reactor for now but I will not swap out for a while. I am worried about phosphates climbing as some of the rock came from someone who had given up the hobby and the tank had through the roof phosphates. so I am dealing with some leaching but have been able to stay on to of it with GFO.

Well, another clue. How familiar were you with that reefer? Could there be anything else in the rock?

[Reefer PT]

Not too familiar. Bought it off craigslist. The tank was a Reef tank and had about 100# of venuatu rock in it of which I bought 30# to seed my reefcleaners rock. It had a fair amount of GHA on it. I put it in my tank, lights off and cycled for 1 month then slowly added light. I dont believe there was any metals as he did have a few corals left that he was attempting to sell. I would have bought the coral as well but with a new tank I'm sure it would have been sudden death. But I did have phosphate showing up within a few days of adding the LR. Prior to that I had the dry rock in for a week with no readings. If there is any issues I hope the polyfilter will help sort that out.
Dave

[TreyK]

Originally Posted by Reefer PT

I cant keep SPS alive for more then a month! First the polyps suck in, stays like that for a few weeks then chunks of flesh start pealing from the skeleton.
parameters for 93 gal cube 10 month old:
SG: 1.026 verify this is accurate
Temp 78-81F
NO3 1ppm
PO4 0.08
Alk 9.8-11.2 by way of ESV b-ionic 2 part dosed 25ml/day (~1.1ml hourly on apex) thats a HUGE swing, and too high for carbon dosing anyways. Stability is key.. lower it to somewhere between 7.5 and 8.0 and strive to keep it at that number.
Ca 420-450
Mg 1360-1380
Iodine 6.0
Sr 12
PH8.0-8.2
Water changes 3 gallons, 5 days a week why?
NOPOX 12ml/day dosed on the half hour maybe dial this back a bit
Light: Radion gen2 on radiant color mode at 60% 12hrs per day
Flow: MP 40 at about 50% in reef crest and nutrient transport during the day and lagoon at 30% over night
Chem: 1/2 cup GFO and 1 cup ROX GAC changed 2x/month seems a bit excessive
Fish: 8 fish feed 2x/day 2 cubes of variety of frozen food and pich of elos spirulina pellets. 1/4 sheet of sea veggies.
Coral food: Reef energy a+b 15ml each/day. papone 2x/week.

The tank has no nusance algae, good coraline growth, and I do not see anything actively eating the corals.

Any thoughts on what is going on. IS my Alk a bit too high?
Thanks
Dave

[Reefer PT]

Sorry for the misconception on the original post.
Alk has been stable at 10.6 but historically has been as low as 9.8 and as high as 11.2 over the past several months of record keeping.

B-ionic is shut down and tested at 9.2 today. hopefully will get to a better number within the next few days.

[Reefer PT]

Ok so this is wierd. Just tested ALk and CA in the tank. Alk stayed the same at 9.2 but calcium tanked at 250. In just 1 day of not dosing the calcium droped about 200 ppm. but the alkalinity did not budge. What the heck is going on? So I turned the calcium doser back on but do you suggest I add a larger amount of the calcium component to bring it back up quickly?
Dave

[sanchoy]

Sps are hard to keep, from your post more then likely a parameter issue. Check mag first, then alk+calc.

Mag is prob the culprit here since your tank is unstable. Do not add alk fast or you want skeletons

[Peter Eichler]

Originally Posted by Reefer PT

Ok so this is wierd. Just tested ALk and CA in the tank. Alk stayed the same at 9.2 but calcium tanked at 250. In just 1 day of not dosing the calcium droped about 200 ppm. but the alkalinity did not budge. What the heck is going on? So I turned the calcium doser back on but do you suggest I add a larger amount of the calcium component to bring it back up quickly?
Dave

Did you test a few times, and/or confirm with another test kit?

[markalot]

Originally Posted by Reefer PT

Ok so this is wierd. Just tested ALk and CA in the tank. Alk stayed the same at 9.2 but calcium tanked at 250. In just 1 day of not dosing the calcium droped about 200 ppm. but the alkalinity did not budge. What the heck is going on? So I turned the calcium doser back on but do you suggest I add a larger amount of the calcium component to bring it back up quickly?
Dave

Get new Alk and Calcium test kits pronto, Salifert is my go to, and test everything again. IMO. Calcium can't drop that fast.

[cugly]

My suggestion is don't make changes all at once if it fixes the problem you wouldn't know what fixed it..carbon dosing can cause issues if not done right how long has the tank been running and are the sps rtn from the base ..just like everyone says you have so much going on ..try to keep it simple

[Reefer PT]

Ok will get tests double check at the LFS. The tank has been up for 10 months now and the the SPS would RTN from tips and middle. Monties would just fade away to white.

[Reefer PT]

Update:
ALK down to 9.0, torch coral and zoas opening up a bit more. Ca holding at 390.(bad test previously) Nitrate up to 2. phosphates are 0.08. Mag is 1360. PH has been hovering around 8 but I don't have a clue on how to bump it up without increasing alkalinity as well. One thing negative, my yellow tang has now developed a bacterial infection. My guess is that dropping the carbon dosing in half has caused this. Does this sound right? Do you think this will clear up as things stabilize or should I soak some nori in antibiotics? Removing him is not an option. Skimmer has been producing less, my guess is thats related to the carbon dosing as well.
Thanks
Dave

[tang daddy]

Originally Posted by Peter Eichler

I would bet a pretty large sum of money that your carbon dosing combined with the heavy GFO and FAC use is your problem.


1.) Cut way back on the carbon dosing if not stopping altogether

2.) Run GAC only for a day or two every few weeks

3.) Cut back on the GFO use

4.) Drop your alkalinity down to closer to 8 dKH

What he said I am totally agreeing with, made the mistake off adding too much carbon which bleached my sps in less than 2 days, also done some pretty bad damage using rowaphos. I only used 1 teaspoon of rowaphos on my 75g after that and changed it out every 2 weeks....

[Duc1098]

Originally Posted by Reefer PT

Update:
ALK down to 9.0, torch coral and zoas opening up a bit more. Ca holding at 390.(bad test previously) Nitrate up to 2. phosphates are 0.08. Mag is 1360. PH has been hovering around 8 but I don't have a clue on how to bump it up without increasing alkalinity as well. One thing negative, my yellow tang has now developed a bacterial infection. My guess is that dropping the carbon dosing in half has caused this. Does this sound right? Do you think this will clear up as things stabilize or should I soak some nori in antibiotics? Removing him is not an option. Skimmer has been producing less, my guess is thats related to the carbon dosing as well.
Thanks
Dave

Your skimmate will go down with less carbon dosing. The carbon dosing actually just makes nutrients easier to either be comsumed by corals or to be skimmed out.

I am in agreement with every elses thoughts on the carbon dosing combined with the really high Alk. Natural seawater is around 7-8 meq/ml which is what you should your tank at with a low or ultra low nutrient system (ULNS). Keeping Alk/Ca stable is key for SPS to thrive, especially Alk which can wipe out a whole tank of SPS with a severe enough swing.

As for raising your ph, if you can try leaving a window near the tank cracked open.