At a loss... thoughts, advice, etc?

[swk]

At a loss... thoughts, advice, etc?

That's an absurd statement. Thousands of people have success keeping sps with red sea blue bucket, including me. And I have up to 600 par in some areas. If it's the exception rather than the rule, it's not the salt.

Thanks!

Are you a club member, or just trolling?

Have you seen the other 2 posts in THIS thread alone where I said "if I read my post I'd think was full of sh.."?

Thanks for contributing to helping this guy out!

 

[BigJohnny]

Hey, James... assuming the digital thermometer on the chiller is accurate, temp is usually in the 79.4-79.8 range (though been testing the upper limit at 81 for the past few days ).

To be honest, haven't tested NO3 since I don't have a kit, but will explore that too (never had an issue with it in the 10 years prior, but I suppose a problem could have set in?).

I never had a problem with Red Sea Coral Pro, but I'm feeling more and more like the die-off may have occurred shortly after switching to their other (blue bucket) salt...

Thanks for the thoughts - will keep you posted!

Wait a second, you've never tested for nitrates? How can you possibly start thinking about other problems when you haven't even confirmed one of the most basic. ESPECIALLY because you took out a deep sand bed, all kinds of crap probably got in your water column.

Also, I doubt your whole tank crashed initially due to that much phosphate. That's not what would happen.

 

[swk]

Wait a second, you've never tested for nitrates haha? How can you possibly start thinking about other problems when you haven't even confirmed one of the most basic. ESPECIALLY because you took out a deep sand bed, all kinds of crap probably got in your water column.

I find that nitrates play a pretty small role in the health of most tanks, unless we are talking over 80ppm. Look at WWC show tank for example.

 

[BigJohnny]

I find that nitrates play a pretty small role in the health of most tanks, unless we are talking over 80ppm. Look at WWC show tank for example.

If your talking fish only.......otherwise, are you kidding? NSW levels of nitrates aren't even .1 ppm. Are you saying you keep sps with up to 80 ppm nitrate?

So now red sea salt fries corals under 150 par, and nitrates don't matter below 80ppm? Next your gonna tell this poor guy about the latest zeitgeist conspiracy theory.

He needs to measure and keep track of nitrate, especially because he used to have denitrification in a DSB and now he doesn't. So what may have kept him at low nitrates in the past, wouldn't now. It's 100% worth checking.

 

[BigJohnny]

Randy holmes farley, the leading reef chemist, recommends targeting less that .2ppm nitrate. Quite a difference than your 80. It makes a huge difference in coral growth and health, invert health, algae/dinoflagellates, etc. It's just science.

 

[swk]

Randy holmes farley, the leading reef chemist, recommends targeting less that .2ppm nitrate. Quite a difference than your 80. It makes a huge difference in coral growth and health, invert health, algae/dinoflagellates, etc. It's just science.

Have you seen Randy's sps tank?

Your attitude sucks. Nowhere did I recommend nitrates at 80 but go ahead and carry on buddy.

Have you seen WWC display tank? No3 is around 40. Would 80 make coral not look so hot, perhaps, but I don't think it would kill them so quickly.

I actually add nitrate to my tank to get around 5ppm.

So carry on being a helpful, polite person. I'm sure your tank is amazing and you're the most amazing person ever. Cheers!

Ps - send hedgedrew a pm and ask him about what I was saying...

 

[Ssteve]

Removed.

 

[swk]

Plus, according to homeboys build thread, he added his FIRST acro to his tank on september 4th. So...yeah....come back to me in 2 months and let me know how that coral is doing for you....unreal

 

[coralfarmer]

Nate invite me over for a beer and we will figure this out .

 

[INOKEA]

What was that all about?


Sean you might be right, I switched salts not that long ago and now I'm growing corals again, didn't change anything else.
Switch from Red Sea Coral Pro back to Instant Ocean.

 

[frost0fractal]

Everybody relax.

I do agree that it's likely not the salt, that would be the last thing I would blame after testing everything else first, too many out there have great success with that salt.

I also agree that Nitrate doesn't need to be non-existent in your tank, algae and the micro-algae that corals host symbiotically are plants, and plants need nitrogen to survive. This sums it up rather well at a high level, with some additional links for further details.

http://www.britannica.com/science/nitrogen-cycle

Before making claims, test as much as you can.

 

[woodnaquanut]

What was that all about?

I think the OP was having problems with coral dying. Can we get back to that? :dance:

Seems like it would be worthwhile to test for Nitrates. Just to rule that out.

Any chance there has been some unintentional contamination with metals? Something like chemi-pure should deal with that.

If your surviving corals are not doing well or have not recovered from the crash that tells me you haven't solved the crash issue completely. Switching salts and doing regular, frequent water changes wouldn't hurt just in case the salt is an issue. And there's the bonus of diluting any other possible pollutants.

"What's your salt mix" is a hot topic. Mac vs. PC, Nikon vs. Canon will also get a few flames going! With all the single salt mixes I think it's important to give the container a stir to make sure components haven't settled in shipping.

 

[elensius]

UPDATE: First off, thanks for all the thoughtful responses and suggestions...

Second, I took a water sample in to Caeser's today to have them test everything, just to see if maybe I had a bad test kit that was hiding something. The good news is that almost everything tested ok; the bad news is that one item did not... and it almost certainly explains the problem, both in terms of current conditions, as well as the timing as to when the problem started!!

In a nutshell, after visiting Caeser's (and then researching the possibility a bit more online when I got home), it appears that my swing arm hydrometer has most likely been giving lower and lower readings as time has gone by (supposedly due to salt crystallization on the arm - it IS pretty old, and I saw this phenomenon mentioned a few places as a possibility).

In the old days, I kept my salinity on the lower end of what I thought was acceptable (around 24), but when I first posted about the original round of die-off and shared my numbers, was told by a number of folks on here that it was "a little too low, was probably causing the die-off, and should be closer to 26 or 26.5"... so I went ahead and slowly raised it.

HOWEVER...

I'm guessing that the die-off at the time was actually due to my salinity already being TOO HIGH... and thus, raising it made things even worse!!

As it stands, my current hydrometer is showing 26... but my new hydrometer (which admittedly has not gone through the recommended 24 hour "seasoning" period yet), is showing 32 (and Caeser's said 30.5 based on their visual hydrometer)!!!

What a crappy reason to have lost several hundreds of dollars worth of coral over the past 2 years, eh?!

Anyhow, no guarantees that this is the problem... but I'm hoping that once I've brought the salinity back down to where it is supposed to be, things will turn around (and "blue bucket salt," NO3, and "hard to detect forms of phosphate" will be exonerated ).

Thanks again for all the help you guys provided - I'll be both angry and glad if it turns out to simply be a case of literally cooking things chemically with salt due to incorrect hydrometer readings!!

 

[BigJohnny]

Removed.

 

[BigJohnny]

Removed.

 

[BigJohnny]

Sorry just saw you found your salinity was the issue. Ignore prior posts. I recommend buying the Milwaukee digital refractometer since you have to buy a new one anyway. It's so easy and accurate. Worth it in the long run IMO

 

[frost0fractal]

Just while I'm thinking of it, those of you using Conductivity probes for monitoring salinity, be sure to not only calibrate them at the recommended interval, but also purge them of air bubbles that build up, this will cause a lower salinity reading slowly over time due to the air.

 

[swk]

That's great news if it's that simple of a fix OP. IF you find that you're still having issues, switching to a different salt is an easy thing to do to at least rule it out. Plus, it's cheaper. Win-win.

 

[cprice]

Definitely get a refractometer. I made the mistake of relying on a hydrometer for too long and had the same problem. Even a $50 cheepo refractometer will be better than the hyrdrometer

 

[coralfarmer]

Nate when was the last time you did a gravel vaccum ?