Acros very slowly bleaching?

[Rockster2599]

O.K. My friendly Neighbourhood LFS owner has found the culprit (thanks Snowy). Basically I had been storing my RO in a container previously used to store salt water, this meant salt was leaching into my RO.
Not a major problem until I started using that RO to zero my Refractometer.
When I saw the bump in my Kh, it was actually a bump in salinity. My SG had crept up to 1.029, as my Kh dropped back down to 8.6 my Ca had risen to 550 and my Mg to over 1800
Live and learn.

 

[whitemarlin]

Yeah you should get the 35ppt calibration solution for calibrating a refractometer, you just can't trust rodi water to be right.

 

[sminker]

O.K. My friendly Neighbourhood LFS owner has found the culprit (thanks Snowy). Basically I had been storing my RO in a container previously used to store salt water, this meant salt was leaching into my RO.
Not a major problem until I started using that RO to zero my Refractometer.
When I saw the bump in my Kh, it was actually a bump in salinity. My SG had crept up to 1.029, as my Kh dropped back down to 8.6 my Ca had risen to 550 and my Mg to over 1800
Live and learn.

Hate to be negative. But I don't think that's the problem. Besides its way too early to tell. Your increase in salinity could of been from a miscalculation/bad reading during a water change.

Besides if you are using food grade containers there should be no leaching.

 

[sminker]

Yeah you should get the 35ppt calibration solution for calibrating a refractometer, you just can't trust rodi water to be right.

That is absolutely correct. You should NEVER use anything but 35ppm solution to calibrate a refractometer. Refractometer is only accurate to +/- 5ppm of what they are calibrated for.

OP it's time to sit in front of computer and just start reading. Read about every tank subject you can think about. Just because someone owns a LFS doesn't mean they know everything. I have met very few LFS owners that actually knew what they were talking about.

 

[SPotter]

is it possible that youre starving your corals? how often do you feed your fish? what are your phosphates and nitrates levels?

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

 

[TucanSam007]

I'm gonna suspect kh swing or aefw after having the same problem myself

 

[Rockster2599]

Just because someone owns a LFS doesn't mean they know everything. I have met very few LFS owners that actually knew what they were talking about.

Thats a bit of a generalisation, I know a few LFS owners who are ill informed or ignorant but on the whole LFS owners are like hobbyists some are good some are bad and some are plain ugly.

This guy is good and is the only person who could give me a valid reason for my issues which correlates with my test readings.

Thanks all for your help, I have ordered a 35ppt calibration solution. I doubt I am starving my corals as I feed my fish twice a day and supplement AAs

 

[SPotter]

what are your phosphate and nitrate levels?

 

[Rockster2599]

what are your phosphate and nitrate levels?

My levels are normally lower, I think I posted them earlier but when the problems started I stopped dosing NoPoX and removed my rowa so Im currently at 5ppm Nitrate and 0.5 ppm Phosphate.

 

[Rockster2599]

Sorry, I thought I had posted them earlier.
The Nitrate normally sits at around 1ppm and the Phosphate hasnt been measurable but that is with a crappy Salifert kit.

 

[SPotter]

I know a few guys that used the NoPox product and stopped because they said that their corals looked pale and almost bleached. They were only using NoPox but werent adding anything back to the tank. How long ago did you stop using it?

 

[Rockster2599]

About a week but I add the reef energy products + Phyto to hopefully compensate. I also feed my fish twice a day with food containing oyster eggs and pods.

 

[blackthunda77]

I had the same issue a couple months ago. No STN or RTN. Just light bleaching and paleness. I shut off my phosban reactor and my activated carbon reactor. I believe i had too much media of both. I also started dosing amino acids. I had considerable color back within 1-2 weeks. esp in my montis and acros.

 

[blackthunda77]

I also went thorough the same thing with not having to dose much alk and almost no calcium from my 2 part. The reason was that my corals were not growing. I have a huge derasa clam and numerous sps frags. Corals wont suck up all your alk and calc all the way down to 0. They pretty much stop growing when they reach a low enough level. Which is why you dont have to add very much 2 part. Figure out the issue that is bleaching your corals, as stated before, mine was too much carbon and phosban. (also the more nutrients you have in your tank the more you can blast your corals with light. If you have a ULNS then too much light can bleach the corals and inhibit growth. again, speaking from experience) Once the coras start coloring back up then you can adjust your alk and calc levels and use the 2 part calculator to see how much you should be adding based on your tank.

In my scenario i was only adding alkalinity from the 2 part, my calc was being used very rarely. once i resolved the issue with the phosban and reactors and started adding ammino acids and got my color back i bumped up my calc and alk levels and adjusted my magnesium. since then i keep adding pretty much equal parts of both alk and calc and they stay right on the mark and its almost like the more i add the more the corals grow (as long as i stay within range). Hope that kinda makes sense. Made more sense in my head. HAHA. you can message me if you need any more info.

 

[jjk82901]

high salt was exactly what I was thinking. I had mine drift to 37ppm and started seeing color loss. Make sure to gradually change it back to 35, so you don't cause another swing issue.