Blue stags white overnight

C

Cronamator

New member
I'm not a newbie, but I'm neither an expert. Just any quick thoughts on this. I have a new 68 gallon cadlights tank and a hydra 52 HD LED lights still set on acclimation schedule. The tanks been cycled over a month or so. The tank is zeovit driven and I cycled it on the 10 day zeovit cycle. Mind you I gave it a few more weeks. Periodically I get what I believe is an bacterial bloom from over dosing on zeovit. I see that, back off, and it disappears. Recently I acquired several acropora. Several ORA varieties from Unique corals which OMG ( another thread they're so awesome). And a few frags from a local reefer. All seem to be doing well w great polyp extension and coloration. Of the frags I got from a local reefer, two of them were blue stags. Seemingly doing great then I added a second wave maker , boom first one white over night. Second one granted and fell of rocks. I re attached it. Again seemed fine. Boom, overnight it went white. Now I'm concerned lol. Everything else seems fine here's my water check from tonight before I do a water change.

SG- 1.0235
Nitrate -0
Ammonia- 0
Phosphates- .02
Calcium- 382
DkH- 9.968
Magnesium- 900

I use H2O ocean pro formula salt. I have additives but in reef tanks past seldom have I ever had to use them.
 
You have a freshly cycled tank, with parameters that are very low and added a bunch of Acro? Sorry to tell you that but you will probably loose them all.

First SPS Need stability, second, they need stability. say again? Your MG is quite low, should be around 1350, Your CA is also quite low, should be around 430. Your salinity is also low, shoot for 1.025-1.026.

What test kit are you using?
How do you top off? RODI? ATO?
The worst thing to have not stable is alk and top off with acro.
What are the power on the hydra? on my 60g I had 2 at almost 80-90% max
 
He did full zeo cycle so if it was done correctly he could drop SPS right after.

Although from what OP posted I think either his test kit is broken or he has a bad batch of salt. So to recap:

Salinity - too low, you want 1.025-26 for SPS
Nitrate - fine since you running zeo
Ammonia - should always be 0 on a cycled tank
Phosphate - level is fine
Calcium - a bit low but still within specs to not cause anything catastrophic
dKH - way too high, zeo system recommends a dkh of ~7.5 and SPS in general
Magnesium - way too low and this leads me to believe either your test kit is broken or you have bad salt
 
All of my testing equipment is Hannah instruments digital. Ammonia is API. The magnesium kit was a bit a pain and tedious. It's RedSea. Can you suggest an easier more accurate one? I use only RODI which test 0 ppm, the highest it's ever read is 3 ppm. My tap water comes out at 43 ppm.
 
It they RTN'ed (rapid tissue necrosis) then something is very wrong with the water quality IMO. In newer tanks the usual result is paling and slow withering away from parameter swings or not enough food in the water.

Remember that with SPS not only do you want good parameters but you want them to stay as stable as possible. If you stick to only using salt with a high KH and have growing SPS odds are your KH will spike on water change day and stress the corals, especially the acros.
 
Sounds to me like he just didn't add enough salt. Plus he probably doesn't have a whole lot of DOC's for the corals to feed on being a new tank. Also that new of a tank probably is going to have unstable parameters so spikes and dips probably played a role. One thing I don't see mentioned is temp, check the temp and monitor for temp swings. Try to check it during the night and see if it drops, more of an issue if you turn the temp way down at night.

Could also be a bacteria infection, or coral warfare. Try running carbon and run the skimmer a little more wet. Also check corals for signs of pests. Could be flatworms.
 
The alkalinity had remained the same give or take .2. The calcium was about 500 until the coral additions. That's the 1st and only Time I tested for magnesium. I thought the SG at 1.026 was high I lowered it intentionally.
 
Wet skimming is incase of bacteria, it you are not pulling a lot out and nitrates and phosphates are low then I would continue to skim dry. Should have mentioned that in the previous post.
 
If Ca was 500 and dropped to 382, Alk would have dropped even more (2.8 dkh per 20ppm Ca).

Red sea pro test kit for Mg is not bad, why tedious?
 
The test seem confusing so I'm not sure if my results were accurate I added the drops i until the water turned purple I kept going until I saw what was blue. From what I'm reading so far I think my high alkalinity on a low nutrient tank may be the cause as well as the salt
 
But in reference to what you said, the DkH did drop some. It was in the 11's when the calcium was 525. It's dropping slowly. This morning it was 9.4
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

BigEZ77
Urgent Help Requested - Wrasses Won't Come Out - CB Blue Tang Arriving Today (NO QT)
Replies
7
Views
335
BigEZ77
BigEZ77
Jyetman
Why do my Grandis Palys look like this
Replies
0
Views
1K
Jyetman
Jyetman
Jyetman
Why do my grandis palys look like this?
Replies
2
Views
795
Jyetman
Jyetman
rrrrob
Blue Damsel
Replies
7
Views
1K
rrrrob
rrrrob
E
Refractometer woes….what would you do?
Replies
12
Views
1K
jrill
J
Back
Top