Los
New member
This site is like family and I really appreciate so many people altruistically helping out folks like myself. If you can help me understand the following, I'd really appreciate your input.
I've had a periodic bout of slow tissue necrosis on some of my sps, going from the base up. The first time I had it, I tried everything and eventually concluded it might be phosphates. I rigged up a reactor with carbon and GFO and the problem was solved. A couple months later, after not having changed the GFO and carbon, I started experiencing the same thing along with some of my corals becoming quite faded. At this point, I still didn't have any fish in my main display (360 gallons, 600 total system) and was only adding a small amount of food for the corals and cleanup crew, but I figured since GFO had worked before, the problem was likely phosphates again. This time, though, I had a test kit and I had ZERO phosphates (Hanna - low range). I started thinking maybe the problem was too little phosphates, but since GFO had worked before, I replaced the media in my reactor and noticed an immediate improvement. The STN stopped and the colors once again started improving. I was left scratching my head at how such a low nutrient system could have a phosphate problem, which was unmeasurable by Hanna, but figured if it worked it worked. That was a couple of weeks ago.
Today I was reading about allelopathy. I checked my notes and the STN problem started around the time that I introduced some softies into my system and it wasn't lost on me that every time I "fixed" the problem with GFO, I was also replacing my carbon. Maybe the problem had nothing to do with phosphates and instead it was the carbon cleaning out some allelopathy chemicals. I had a large toadstool in my tank, a decent sized mat of green star polyps (GSP), and a large green kenya tree type coral. Before I get too many warnings on the speed at which GSP will spread, I should note that they are isolated on a rock which prevents them from spreading. Could it have been allelopathy all along?
What doesn't make sense to me, though, is how allelopathy could evolve in animals that are in the ocean. Most of these critters come from very large bodies of water (the ocean) with plenty of current (the ocean) where any energy spent on waging chemical warfare would be totally wasted. As soon as the animals release their chemicals, they would immediately be washed away and diluted to the point of being totally irrelevant. IF they were so incredibly toxic that they could work even diluted to the extent you'd expect in the ocean, you would think they would immediately fry anything in a closed system. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Can someone explain to me how allelopathy can be effective in the wild yet have such a relatively mild impact in a tank? I'm really scratching my head on this one. Also, what is the most likely offender? I got rid of the toadstool today and am wondering if the GSP need to go as well.
I've had a periodic bout of slow tissue necrosis on some of my sps, going from the base up. The first time I had it, I tried everything and eventually concluded it might be phosphates. I rigged up a reactor with carbon and GFO and the problem was solved. A couple months later, after not having changed the GFO and carbon, I started experiencing the same thing along with some of my corals becoming quite faded. At this point, I still didn't have any fish in my main display (360 gallons, 600 total system) and was only adding a small amount of food for the corals and cleanup crew, but I figured since GFO had worked before, the problem was likely phosphates again. This time, though, I had a test kit and I had ZERO phosphates (Hanna - low range). I started thinking maybe the problem was too little phosphates, but since GFO had worked before, I replaced the media in my reactor and noticed an immediate improvement. The STN stopped and the colors once again started improving. I was left scratching my head at how such a low nutrient system could have a phosphate problem, which was unmeasurable by Hanna, but figured if it worked it worked. That was a couple of weeks ago.
Today I was reading about allelopathy. I checked my notes and the STN problem started around the time that I introduced some softies into my system and it wasn't lost on me that every time I "fixed" the problem with GFO, I was also replacing my carbon. Maybe the problem had nothing to do with phosphates and instead it was the carbon cleaning out some allelopathy chemicals. I had a large toadstool in my tank, a decent sized mat of green star polyps (GSP), and a large green kenya tree type coral. Before I get too many warnings on the speed at which GSP will spread, I should note that they are isolated on a rock which prevents them from spreading. Could it have been allelopathy all along?
What doesn't make sense to me, though, is how allelopathy could evolve in animals that are in the ocean. Most of these critters come from very large bodies of water (the ocean) with plenty of current (the ocean) where any energy spent on waging chemical warfare would be totally wasted. As soon as the animals release their chemicals, they would immediately be washed away and diluted to the point of being totally irrelevant. IF they were so incredibly toxic that they could work even diluted to the extent you'd expect in the ocean, you would think they would immediately fry anything in a closed system. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Can someone explain to me how allelopathy can be effective in the wild yet have such a relatively mild impact in a tank? I'm really scratching my head on this one. Also, what is the most likely offender? I got rid of the toadstool today and am wondering if the GSP need to go as well.
