Banner image

Corals receding - slow tank crash (1 Viewer)

Tested the Brute batch after 24 hours and 11.4 dKH @ 1.026! What gives? The sticker on the salt container reads 8.6 max. I was thinking it might be my refractometer but I checked and it is spot on.
Click to expand...

Oops, read that wrong. 8.6 refers to PH on the lable and 3.8 meg\L is the ALK (10.64dKH). That explains things better. I guess I'll remix to 1.026, shut off ALK dosing and give it a go. I did a large water change before I left for my honeymoon so I wonder if this contributed to my ALK spike...


:swear:
 
lesson from before and from others experience..dont make a large change of any type before leaving for a vacation or a longish trip of any type. ok done rubbing it in. :beerchug:
 
The alk spike brought on by water changes is actually a pretty frequent complaint by many people I speak to. Grigor says he turns off his dosing for 48 hours around a water change. I personally set my dosing to be a little on the low end so that if it goes anywhere, it goes low and the water change will bring it back up. I also limit the size of my water changes.

Something else I do is I will mix in a decent amount of magnesium solution from BRS when I mix up saltwater. I have heard magnesium is the most common element in the water, no? Anyway, by doing this, I get to my 1.025 with less salt from the bucket, which helps keep my alk down and it helps keep my mag where I want it too.
 
lesson from before and from others experience..dont make a large change of any type before leaving for a vacation or a longish trip of any type.
Click to expand...

Seems so backwards! :biglaugh2:

I personally set my dosing to be a little on the low end so that if it goes anywhere, it goes low and the water change will bring it back up
Click to expand...

Good idea. I'll try this out as well.
 
Update:

I've left the ALK doser unplugged after the water change on the 12th and I'm still around 7.8 dKH four days later. I'm going to leave it off for now until I go below 7.5.

On the 14th, I tested phosphate at .12 (up from .08) so I figured I'd change out the GFO and go back to 1.56 cups. I tested again this morning and now I'm at .15! How does that work?

I'm not sure my Hanna Phosphate checker is reliable or reading accurately. I can't imagine how 1.56 cups of high capacity GFO is not making the phosphate go down but rather up. I have been very careful to clean the vials and hold them only by the cap when testing.

It may be possible that the checker is not clean itself but I am leary of trying to clean it less I disturb the inner components.

On the positive side, the tank looks better after the 32 gal. water change and sand vacuum. The corals seem to have perked up a bit.
 
I don't trust my Hanna phosphate checker to be reliable. It just seems so inconsistent. Nevermind I didn't buy the right one in the first place and it has way to wide of an expected tolerance range. Running repeated tests in a row can yield very different results :(
 
I've decided to leave the ALK completely disconnecting and b\c I am doing 30 gallon water changes every week now, there seems to be no large swings. It generally gets down to 7.3 dkh and will go back up to 7.9 after the water change.

After each water change the corals seem to be doing very well but by the end of 7 days, they seem to start sliding backward.

I spent some time the other night analyzing my GFO setup and I noticed two things. The filter was not completely perpendicular and tended to only move the GFO granules on one side of the filter. I've since righted it. I also noticed that every other day I needed to add more flow to the filter to cause the granules to move, so I pulled out the GFO and cleaned the sponge then placed the pump intake in the cleanest area of the sump near the skimmer output.

As far as testing goes. Alk is good, Calc is good, added Mag to center around 1330. However, the phosphates continue to creep up even after GFO switchout. It got to .19 via Hanna before I looked at the GFO filter. I will be testing tonight or tomorrow to see if the changes I made to the filter have an effect. If not, I will swap out the GFO again and do a water change Sunday.

I have some powdery looking brown detritus collecting in several areas of the sump and will try to suck that out during the weekend water change.

I've now lost my remaing Garf SPS through recession though all other corals seem to be doing well including the chalices which seem to be growing back.

I'm wondering if part of my issue is that all live rock used to be in my 90 gallon bowfront and most likely absorbed lot's of phosphate over that time. I had poor circulation in that tank and one or two mini crashes before moving on to the 200 gallon.

I also have an L4 algae scrubber on order from Bud and hope to have that by the end of the month. (New build thread for that)

pics

picture.php



picture.php


Put lighting over the frag tank and cleaned it out last night. Now just need to put some frags in it. It's been running for 4 months empty with just some live rock and CUC so I think it's cycled. Threw a small leather in there to see reaction.

picture.php
 
The brown looking detritus is likely the start of cyano or slime algae... Thinking its cyano though.. May want to keep an eye out for that...

The ats is will take sometime to get going so I think continuing the water changes until it's in production mode will be a good idea
 
Gotcha, it doesn't look like algae. More like really fine dust. It is the same color and consistency of the crap I vacuum out of the sand bed. I will definitely continue with the water changes until the ATS is established. Incidently, I tested last night and after the first read was .24 ppm for phosphate. I tested again 1 minute later and got .18. I have been testing with the same vials twice each time I use the Hanna and get the same results. My second test after waiting a minute or two reads .02 - .06 ppm lower. I'm not sure if it is the reagent not settled or if it just degrades in that short of time. My bet would be on settling...

While futzing around with the GFO and pump placement I noticed a lot of fine micro bubbles in the sump. I think that will be my next direct task.
 
On a postivie note, the only algae problem I have in the tank is this reddish stuff that coats the live rock. It seems similar to stuff DG was describing on his. I have seen it in pictures of other peoples tanks as well. It won't come off easily unless scraped. I'm hoping it will go away with the ATS.
 
When did you start running only LED lighting? Is there a possible correlation?

When I switched to LED, at first my corals thrived, but then 6 to 8 months into it they started fade. Could have been other factors, but when I added T-5's and went back to normal. I am no expert by any means, but just a thought.
 
board_rider said:
When did you start running only LED lighting? Is there a possible correlation?

When I switched to LED, at first my corals thrived, but then 6 to 8 months into it they started fade. Could have been other factors, but when I added T-5's and went back to normal. I am no expert by any means, but just a thought.
Click to expand...

Same thing. We put T5's back on and everything popped back within a week. Not saying it's everyone's experience, but it was definitely my experience.
 
I'm committed to the LED's for now and do believe they worked for me but I also had success with MH. I may play with the height some if I can get my hands on a par meter. It won't tell the whole story but would at least help identify the spread.

Replaced GFO on Saturday since it had crept up to nearly .2 ppm. Yesterday, was down to .06. I am amazed that the high capacity GFO absorbed all it could in 2 weeks at 1.5 cups volume. Since I have the filter hanging more evenly improving flow, I hope to get more out of this run. Also added carbon on Saturday because I cut my Fiji leather and wanted to neutralize any toxins. The water cleaned up nicely though I don't plan on running carbon 24/7.

Water change tonight.
 
Not likely an issue with high capacity, but you talked about fine brown dust....

I do this and I always recommend to others--run the output of your GFO reactor through a filter sock if possible.
 
Good idea, I generally avoid filter socks b\c it's one extra step to clean them but maybe, I'll see about simplifying the process.

"Dust" is probably a bad word to use as this definitely appears to be organic in nature. I'll throw up a picture soon.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top