Acros Paling - Need Insight/Suggestions

[pisanoal]

Hello All,

I Have a 125 gallon with a 75 gallon sump that has been set up for about a year and a couple months. It has been stable for the last 6 months and growing coralline algae like crazy. Fish load is moderate.

A couple months ago, my system started looking really good, I have a green slimer, a blue/green tort of some kind, a myagi tort and a few other acros that I don't remember what their names are. Everything was coloring up and the two torts and slimer growth exploded for a couple months. I ordered some more acros thinking my system had finally settled in. A few weeks ago, corals started paling out. It started with the slimer, I noticed its dark vibrant green was slowly getting a brownish hue, and now is a very light brown. Polyps are still very green. Myagi tort is still purple and green and growing, but pretty pale. I have a pink lemonade that has good PE but is steadily paling, and a few others that a starting to lose some tissue.


What I believe to be the heart of the issue:

I discovered this weekend that my RO output TDS is 50 ppm (incoming is 550) when my freshly regenerated DI resin lasted for about 60 gallons of water. I'm not sure what caused it to go bad so fast, but I changed prefilters a few weeks ago (which I do about every 6 months). I did not mess with the RO itself. I put a fresh canister of resin in and am getting 0 TDS out of it (conductivity reads 0.17micro mhos), but its rapidly depleting. I have ordered a new 99% removal membrane from spectrapure, but it wont be here for a couple of weeks.

I did a large 45 gallon water change with paramaters matched a week ago with no improvement.


So now my question - even with 0 TDS out of DI, I know my RO is not functioning well. Do you believe this to be the cause? Any suggestions on fixes/improvement before the membrane gets here?

I am currently topping off with this water and am considering another large water change. Should I wait for new membrane, or do the water change as I am up-cycling any bad stuff i'm putting into the water via topoff.

Additional details below on other possible causes if you are interested>>>>





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My alkalinity hasn't changed much. It has stayed between 7.0 - 8.0 (Hannah dkh crosschecked with salifert) for the last 6 months, and really steady day to day, with changes coming about over a couple weeks. I dropped it from 8 to low 7's because my system is very low nutrients. I have since started bringing it back up to around 8.

My first thought with the paling was low nutrients (always undetectable), and I started very slowly dosing some phosphate and nitrate with seachem flourish nitrogen and phosphorous products. I am maintaining about 0.3-1.0 nitrate (salifert), and 0.005 - 0.01 phosphate (Hannah ulr). I am also feeding more often. It is worth noting that when my tank started looking good, my nutrients were still undetectable, but I thought that maybe what little was there was being absorbed faster by the new growth. Apart from a small cyano outbreak, nothing has really changed except my corals continue to pale.

My bulbs are about 7-8 months old and I started replacing them (6 bulb 5 ft LET retro t5, with led supplementation) a few weeks ago as part of maybe the issue. I am changing 1 every 4-5 days - 2 more to go.

 

[reefmutt]

Hm.. tough to say..
As for the ro, I don’t really think it’s that. I guess it could have played a role.. if your current tds is low, I don’t see any reason not to do the large wc..
I think is sounds more like a nutrient thing..
When did you start dosing n and p in relation to when you started having the paling/changing acros?
Have you considered adding another fish or two?

 

[pisanoal]

Hm.. tough to say..
As for the ro, I don’t really think it’s that. I guess it could have played a role.. if your current tds is low, I don’t see any reason not to do the large wc..
I think is sounds more like a nutrient thing..
When did you start dosing n and p in relation to when you started having the paling/changing acros?
Have you considered adding another fish or two?

Thanks for the reply. I think ill do maybe a 25 gallon wc and wait for the membrane which should be here Wednesday (i just noticed i said a couple of weeks in the original post, i meant a couple of days) to do another series of larger changes. I figure if it gets here Wednesday, ill have usable water by Thursday evening, and i can change water Saturday after mixing, knocking down alk, and aeration. Ill probably do 2 45 gallons changes in a week to week and a half and see where that gets me.

I started dosing n + p close to a month after I noticed the paling start. And I have actually added one fish since then. I haven't added any more since, although I may try to add a few more in a little bit. But it will be at least a month before they go in to the display due to my QT procedure.

I have thought about turning my skimmer off for a few hours a night, but I am feeding more as well and haven't noticed a change in corals yet. From what ive read, I should have seen at least some sort of positive change by now (3+ weeks of raising nutrients) based on what I've seen from others. I guess that's why I came here looking for some help.

 

[Geeray]

How many fish do you have? A moderate fish load is subjective. How much were you feeding per day before and how much are you feeding now? Also what are you feeding?

 

[dirland]

It is amazing but i am having they same exact issues as you are right now....my tank is about same age and I have same amount tds coming in and coming out....ive been messing around with more feeding and adding more fish...
When I start to feed more I get cyno and a small of dino that start coming...when i test nitrate and phosphate they read zero too.
I just started dosing microbacteria 7 again and turned off my halides and went to just t5 and led...i have seen some improvement in color but still have many pal acro but some look great
Weird thing too I have good growth on some corals but almost none on others...my zoas initially were going like crazy and have stopped sprrading but look good...

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[biecacka]

i agree with Matt, sounds like a low nutrient thing. you definitely want some in there to feed the corals.
maybe feed a bit more...

corey

 

[reefmutt]

I think that if I were in this exact same position, I’d try come coral food. Maybe some reef roids..

 

[pisanoal]

It is amazing but i am having they same exact issues as you are right now....my tank is about same age and I have same amount tds coming in and coming out....ive been messing around with more feeding and adding more fish...
When I start to feed more I get cyno and a small of dino that start coming...when i test nitrate and phosphate they read zero too.
I just started dosing microbacteria 7 again and turned off my halides and went to just t5 and led...i have seen some improvement in color but still have many pal acro but some look great
Weird thing too I have good growth on some corals but almost none on others...my zoas initially were going like crazy and have stopped sprrading but look good...
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I had some cyano and a little bit of HA where my tangs couldn't reach it. But after getting the nutrients in better balance (I had no N, I started with dosing P), the cyano got a lot better. Still a few patches but i'm good with that.

How many fish do you have? A moderate fish load is subjective. How much were you feeding per day before and how much are you feeding now? Also what are you feeding?

2 tangs, 1-5", 1-3.5"
1 large melanarus wrasse
2 clowns
2 anthias
1 adult hawkfish
1 adult splendid dottyback

I was feeding 1 cube/day of frozen Butterfly/Angel blend from when I couple pyramid butterflies in QT that didn't want to eat. I forget the brand, maybe hikari? And I would add half a sheet of nori every couple of days. Plus a few pellets in the sump for the dottyback that got banished there. Now I am trying to feed 1 cube in the morning, 1 in the evening, and I try to keep nori in at all times.

One thing I have working against me on the feeding is vermetid snails. Right now the population isn't too bad, but I need to be careful.

i agree with Matt, sounds like a low nutrient thing. you definitely want some in there to feed the corals.
maybe feed a bit more...

corey

Thanks for the input.

I think that if I were in this exact same position, I'd try come coral food. Maybe some reef roids..

I just so happen to have some reef roids. I also have KZ spongepower and their aminos. Not sure if I should try using some of that as well.



Anyone think I should back the lights down a bit until I can get the nutrients steadily up? I have read that it might help to have a reduced lighting period to keep from damaging the coral more?

I don't know that I'm entirely on-board with the low nutrient thing since my efforts to raise them over the last few weeks haven't had any positive results. But I also definitely don't disbelieve it as the possible cause, especially with you guys saying that's where you would put your money. The main reason im not entirely on board is there a good possibility I topped up with some 1-2 TDS water for a week or two before I discovered the RO issue. Normally I check it pretty regularly, but I run 2 DI canisters in series and had changed both of them within a couple of weeks, so should have been good for a while.

Anyways, I will continue to feed more and add some spot feeding with reef roids, as well as dosing N and P until the levels are maintained through feeding alone. When the new RO gets here ill do my wc's just to be safe.

 

[dirland]

I have noticed some difference in coral health and colors on mine with less light....i just have 4 t5 and 24 blue green led

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[reefmutt]

Re the r. o. I know all water sources vary a bit but 1-2 tds seems negligible to me.
I frequently forget to replace my di resin only to see the meter on my ro unit flashing 50 at me.
No issues in the tank from that..

 

[pisanoal]

Re the r. o. I know all water sources vary a bit but 1-2 tds seems negligible to me.
I frequently forget to replace my di resin only to see the meter on my ro unit flashing 50 at me.
No issues in the tank from that..

Yeah I can understand that. The only reason I came to the conclusion I did is it seems that when I would get 1-3 TDS in my topoff water, my corals would start STNing. My slimer has gone through a couple growth/stn cycles and has luckily pulled through each. Most haven't been so lucky. This appears like another cycle. It could just be coincidence, but I'm thinking my water has something in it that is first to get by the RO/DI that is causing issues.

I know correlation is not causation and could just be coincidence or I happened to notice high TDS at that time because I was looking for answers. Regardless of what the issues turn out to be, ultra clean RO/DI water seems like a good place to start from. Its probably worth sending some off for ICP analysis in the near future.


Dirland - thanks I will try shortening the light period or unplugging a couple bulbs for a little while.

 

[murphreef]

^ a few weeks ago I did not notice my color change silicate buster DI filter was dead. I only noticed and checked once my tank was starting to get taken over by Dino's!

Obviously not a fun experience and my corals really suffered but luckily nothing died, just slowed growth and some coral irritation.

I checked my TDS and it was reading 33 ppm. I purchased a new spectrapure DI cartridge and my levels were back to 0 ppm and after about 5 decent water changes (10-20% each time) and changing out my top off water, running extra carbon, gfo and dosing h202 once daily for a little over a week all the Dino's are gone and tank is back to normal.

I will never let my DI cartridge expire like that again, what a headache!

 

[pisanoal]

^ a few weeks ago I did not notice my color change silicate buster DI filter was dead. I only noticed and checked once my tank was starting to get taken over by Dino's!

Obviously not a fun experience and my corals really suffered but luckily nothing died, just slowed growth and some coral irritation.

I checked my TDS and it was reading 33 ppm. I purchased a new spectrapure DI cartridge and my levels were back to 0 ppm and after about 5 decent water changes (10-20% each time) and changing out my top off water, running extra carbon, gfo and dosing h202 once daily for a little over a week all the Dino's are gone and tank is back to normal.

I will never let my DI cartridge expire like that again, what a headache!

My TDS never got that bad out of the DI resin, but its hard for me to wrap my head around how bad is bad. Lots of people will say if it isnt 0, you need to do something to get it there. Obviously that's different with different water sources and contaminant levels, but I can understand some truth to that.

 

[Softhammer]

Anything awry with your lights?

 

[pisanoal]

Anything awry with your lights?

I started changing bulbs slowly after this started happening. Nothing other than that, and they were only about 8 months old.

 

[pisanoal]

Update: I changed my membrane and am now getting 5 tds out of RO. Out of DI is 0.05. I did a 40 gallon water change last week and unfortunately lost one of my more colorful and healthy looking acros, go figure... It literally melted in front of my eyes the morning after the WC. Was "fine" when i was looking in the tank, walked away to get fish food, came back and flesh was peeling away. I matched params pretty close, but left alk about 1 dkh higher to raise the tank as I found my alk measurement was low by about 1 dkh. Shouldn't have made that big of a swing to cause the issue, but shows how on edge my system is. Everything else has little to no change.

My myagi tort that has been in my systems for 2 years, went through one growth spurt about a year and a half ago and done nothing but look like its going to die since, has suddenly decided to grow a new branch crazy fast. I would be excited about this if everything else around it didn't continue to decline... It only adds to my confusion.

I checked N and P yesterday. N was at 0.3 (very slight pink on salifert), and PO4 was 1 ppb on Hannah ulr. I dosed both N and P. I think i'm going to shoot for 2-3 ppm nitrate and 20ppb phosphate. I also shut down my skimmer for 24 hrs and I'm only going to run it for 12 hours at night. I think im also going to pull the rest of my chaeto ( a very little bit that isn't growing anyways) and shut off my fuge light.

If I am having to clean glass every 3-4 days, is that an indication I should have enough nutrients? Or not necessarily?

 

[pisanoal]

Raised Nitrates and Phosphates.

Phosphates now at 0.035 ppm, nitrates at 1. I dosed a bit more nitrate last night.

 

[pisanoal]

It looks like I'm turning a corner. Several acros are starting to show some growth around the bases, and a couple look like they are starting to get some color back.

Thanks for all your input!

 

[reefmutt]

Nice! Good to hear.

 

[pisanoal]

Nice! Good to hear.

Thanks!

Anyone else decorate their tanks gor Christmas? I have some nice red and green cyano to go with my nutrient addition!

Sorry for the horrid picture. I was too lazy to get out my camera doe this so I used my cell phone. I used a flash to counteract the blue leds, so the colors were somewhat visible...

Side note. If anyone has tips for taking better tank pics with a cell phone under blue lights lights, let me know.

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