Calling out all Chemists!!!!

[Dr. Reef]

i am leaning towards water being stripped of nutrients as i am running everything and every equipment in the world. I have nothing to lose if i take the reactors off line. corals are most sensitive to phos and nitrates and i dont have any or just few struggling ones so its not going to be a loss there. fish and inverts can handle the elevated numbers on phos and nitrates to a certain extend. i will try doing just that and see what happens.

 

[Dr. Reef]

update: i forgot to mention if i do 30% water change every 3rd day corals seem to do fine. but that is not financially vise.

 

[Sokretys]

Yeah the fact that you are putting that much time and resources into your tank still have death is maddening. Have you tried any macros?

 

[Dr. Reef]

Yeah the fact that you are putting that much time and resources into your tank still have death is maddening. Have you tried any macros?

yes i have my fuge which have chaeto in it roughly about size of 2 basket balls or a hair more. its on opposite timings from DT with a 6500k 23w compact flurescent bulb. chaeto currently is twice as much from the time i bought it few months back.(i bought about a gal of it in the beginning)

 

[Sokretys]

Soo you have ample nutrients in your water for grown. Your problems are not because of nutrient deficiency otherwise the chaeto would have died as well...

 

[Sokretys]

If it were me id run a half dose of the biopellets, run the fuge, and fun the skimmer-stop. Thats all i would do for now. And let it run that way for a while. Maybe something leaching from your chiller?? i dunno..

 

[tapio]

update: i forgot to mention if i do 30% water change every 3rd day corals seem to do fine. but that is not financially vise.

This reinforces my belief that you should keep the alkalinity constant and higher at the same level as in the newly mixed salt. I have seen SPS die in hours when moved between low and high alkalinity. Associated pH changes are bad as well. Changing your lights for a while to T5/MH is easy enough to rule out that possibility also.

 

[Sokretys]

No, its not lights. If he can't get ANY coral to live more than 6 weeks? Its not like your bioload is massive, or you have a bunch of stonys consuming all your bicarbonate. Plus you have a reverse night day fuge, which helps immensely with ph fluctuations.

You ever lose your wallet or keys or something and can NOT find it. Then it takes your buddy 14 seconds to find it. Its that second set of eyes we need here im thinkin. Can you take a thorough video of your fish room and post it? Getting it as much detail as possible?

 

[cromedogg33]

I would look for rust on anything....power heades, pumps, scrapers. This would include any and all magnets as well. If you are 50k deep into this, spend the time to check every last piece of metal.

Have you checked for stray voltage?

Personally I would take everything off line for some time. Keep your macro going. Remove all bio pellets, denitrator, ca reactor, etc. Try going simple with your approach. Get the term "ULNS" out of your head. If you can keep your n03 around 5ppm then do so. Your p04 may go up a bit if you take GFO/GAC offline, but your macro should soak up some or more of it.

I doubt seriously it's your lights. Corals can live, but not thrive in a huge variety of lighting. Many reefers keep all corals under LED's so we know it can be done.

Last thing I would check is your procedures of "dipping/acclimating" your corals. One thing you may want to try is finding a source for coral you trust 110% and not dip them. Slowly acclimate them to temp AND your water paramters....from what I gathered you are dipping, temp acclimating, and throwing them in your tank. I would highly advise against this.

 

[Dr. Reef]

no stray voltage i checked it with meter. video is not a bad idea. i am going to try to get a very detailed video made upload it to photobucket or youtube and get a link posted here.
i had a LSF owner come by and check my setup and sulfur denitrator was only thing that stood out for him but then again finding the keys for second person is a good terminology.
here is a pic of the setup till i get the video.

NOTE: pic is about few months old the only changes are sulfur is gone bio pellets in and sols are gone vegas in.

 

[Sokretys]

What is that reinforced looking blueish hosing on the left by the drain? Ive never seen that before is it "potable water safe"?

 

[cromedogg33]

Again...I really hope you read my post and reply with your findings. I've looked at your picture again, and just off a quick glance you have 2 of the veggie clips in your tank. I'm going to assume you leave these in all the time.

Just last month I had to get mine replaced from TLF because it was leaking rust into my tank constantly. Just food for thought.

 

[Dr. Reef]

What is that reinforced looking blueish hosing on the left by the drain? Ive never seen that before is it "potable water safe"?

those are flex rubber hoses from swimming pool supply. i asked them as purchase if they were potable water safe they did say yes. not sure any ideas?
they are actually my drains.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Again...I really hope you read my post and reply with your findings. I've looked at your picture again, and just off a quick glance you have 2 of the veggie clips in your tank. I'm going to assume you leave these in all the time.

Just last month I had to get mine replaced from TLF because it was leaking rust into my tank constantly. Just food for thought.

yes i did closely inspect 4 sea swirls ins the tank and 2 hydor powerheads. nothing with rust.
3 reeflo darts are external and from what i can observe there is no rust on them either. the propeller assembly on those are all plastic by the way.

i have 3 veggie clips made by 2 little fishes. they are all plastic and magnet is also covered inside the plastic. no rust either.

 

[Dr. Reef]

i made a brief video of the setup and i am uploading it to youtube right as i type.
its about 4 minutes please go through it and if there is a need to cover an area on interest i can make a detail sectional video.

 

[Sokretys]

i made a brief video of the setup and i am uploading it to youtube right as i type.
its about 4 minutes please go through it and if there is a need to cover an area on interest i can make a detail sectional video.

Roger Roger

 

[Dr. Reef]

here is the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZArThLiq7_I&feature=youtu.be

 

[Dr. Reef]

i dont know what happened but the video cut off i have 2 carbon canisters daisy chained dumping into the sump and 3 gfo reactors daisy chained then to sump.

 

[Sokretys]

From a first glance everything looks as expected-pretty bad ***. Ok...lets list everything that is artificial in your system. Its not obvious thats clear by now.

 

[Sokretys]

Theres no need for the gfo with the bio pellets. Get rid of those. When was the last time you changed the carbon. I dont really know if im glad to hear you are running carbon because i was going to make that suggestion.