Alan's 180g Reef

[alanmorehead]

Sorry guys, quite the opposite. I had a pretty depressing return home this weekend. Almost all my SPS has been wiped out! I came home to a bunch of dead white colonies :mad2:

I tested the params last night and think it was high phosphates. I had everything down to around 0.05 and thought I was in the clear. I did a few tests after I initially hit those levels and moved almost all the livestock over with no problem. Everything looked good and a lot of my corals were coloring up and turning around after the move. I did a round of tests last week just before we left and phosphates had gone up to 0.29! All other tests were good. I immediately rinsed 4 cups of new GFO and put it in the tank. Based on the readings from before, that should have easily brought the phosphates down overnight to less than 0.1 and probably ~0.05 with no problem. I did some tests yesterday and phosphates were 0.27 still. 3 days of new GFO and it didn't change?!? I added the rest of the GFO I had last night (about 4 more cups) to see if that would help. I just tested this morning and they are still at 0.26! I'm not sure what's going on or why they aren't dropping. I'm doing the same thing as before when they dropped from 0.8 -> 0.5. I'm going to re-test at lunch.

90% of my acropora and seriatopora are gone. All my pocillipora, stylophora, and digitata are gone. I just have a few acros and some encrusting montipora plugs left for SPS. My LPS and softies don't seem to be effected.

I thought losing a single colony to RTN sucked. Losing my entire collection is depressing as hell!!!

 

[lvpd186]

Re: Alan's 180g Reef

Holy cow that sucks!! I wonder if it was a chain reaction type of thing; with each new coral death there was more pollution in the water? If anything maybe I can throw some frags your way when the new tank is up and stabile.

 

[BennyFrank]

Sorry to hear that Alan. What's your theory on the phosphates?...Reactor not functioning properly/phosphates being replaced at a similar rate they are being removed/faulty tests? Is there anything else that could have contaminated your system that wouldn't show up in your routine tests?

 

[jd474]

Damn, Alan, sorry to hear. First monti eating nudis, now this. Seems like bad stuff always happens when you go on vacation. I assume that dry rock must have been leaching PO4 still, ours took ~3 months w/constant GFO and frequent water changes. Hopefully someone had some of your frags for a scenario like this?

 

[alanmorehead]

Holy cow that sucks!! I wonder if it was a chain reaction type of thing; with each new coral death there was more pollution in the water? If anything maybe I can throw some frags your way when the new tank is up and stabile.

Not sure if there was any type of chain reaction. I put in a new bag of carbon that night and pulled out the stuff I knew wasn't going to make it. It'll probably be another month or two before I started rebuilding my SPS collection. Once all the aquascaping is done and things have settled a little.

Sorry to hear that Alan. What's your theory on the phosphates?...Reactor not functioning properly/phosphates being replaced at a similar rate they are being removed/faulty tests? Is there anything else that could have contaminated your system that wouldn't show up in your routine tests?

I actually run GFO in a media bag and lightly mix it up a few times a day. I don't have a big enough reactor to hold that much media. This was the same method I used when I originally brought them down from 0.8 -> 0.05. I can't think of anything that would have contaminated the system. The only thing that was added when I was gone was a little bit of fish food and no other changes. I've considered faulty tests and had some weird readings the last day or so. I've used two different cuvets, but get consistent results with both. Here were my tests and GFO additions:
Thurs evening: 0.29, Added 4 cups of new GFO
Sun evening: 0.27, 3 days with no change?!? Added 4 more cups of GFO
Tues morning: 0.13, Finally signs of dropping
Wed morning: 0.16, Similar
Wed evening: 0.22, Going up?
This morning: 0.17, Back down?

With the odd results I'm not even that confident in those test results. Daniel suggested replacing the batteries, so I might as well try that. In addition, I'll spend some more time extensively rinsing both cuvets and test with each one. Other than that, I have no idea. Less GFO brought the phosphates down more drastically and quicker before. Now I have about 2 lbs. of new GFO and it's tough to just to bring it down 0.1ppm?

Damn, Alan, sorry to hear. First monti eating nudis, now this. Seems like bad stuff always happens when you go on vacation. I assume that dry rock must have been leaching PO4 still, ours took ~3 months w/constant GFO and frequent water changes. Hopefully someone had some of your frags for a scenario like this?

Yeah, it sucks. I had everything down to ~0.5 w/ constant GFO and thought I was fine. I have many of the frags locally. I'm not sure which ones I would like to replace or where I'm going to start w/ rebuilding my collection. There are a few out there that I've had my eye on and I guess it will give me a chance to be a little more selective this time around. Just sucks to start with 1" frags again when I was hoping to drop in a few nice colonies w/ the 300.



The 300g is sitting in my living room now. I'm using it to make water for my next water change and figured I might as well leak test it. Well, looks like there is a drip going into the overflow chamber from the main area
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16793998#post16793998

 

[hankclaussen]

That's aweful, I am so sorry to hear of your troubbles Alan.

 

[karsco]

Alan,

I am sorry to hear about the problems. I have 15 of your frags that are growing out nicely in my tank, and you are welcome to them as soon as they get a little bit bigger and are ready to frag. BTW I really like that 300G that thing is the size of my cube tank times two!:eek2:

Scott

 

[jbob]

hmmm this guy really loves your rock work

 

[lvpd186]

:lolspin: