Frags dying
- Thread starter Ab129
- Start date
For starters you system is still maturing or in the "ugly" stage, this can take 8-12 months. I would not be doing anything more than water changes and maintaining alkalinity, calcium and magnesium. Do not let you PO4 go below .03 mg/l the threshold level reseachers have found can create a PO4 deficiency in corals that makes them very susceptable to changes in lighting conditions and temperature as well as increases in nitrogen. I have a bunch of links to the research in this post:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2678397 post #14
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2678397 post #14
mcgyvr
New member
Are you using RO/DI water?
Are you disturbing/vacuuming the sandbed?
You "should" be out of the ugly stages by now and should not have such a diatom problem unless you are disturbing the sand bed or are having silicate problems from not using 0TDS water..
As stated expect problems with corals until your tank gets past this and becomes more mature..
And yes... keep practicing on taking better pictures.. those suck
Are you disturbing/vacuuming the sandbed?
You "should" be out of the ugly stages by now and should not have such a diatom problem unless you are disturbing the sand bed or are having silicate problems from not using 0TDS water..
As stated expect problems with corals until your tank gets past this and becomes more mature..
And yes... keep practicing on taking better pictures.. those suck
stingythingy45
New member
You need to check alk. Ph means very little in this game.
I'm guessing your phosguard stuff caused this.
But first of all the 3 big ones need to be checked alk/ca/mg.
Are you checking SG with a refracter?
I'm guessing your phosguard stuff caused this.
But first of all the 3 big ones need to be checked alk/ca/mg.
Are you checking SG with a refracter?
I agree it "should" be but the OP either changed lights in the middle of the maturing process or didn't have lights for quite awhile, he wasn't clear. Making a big change in lighting will force an ecosystem to go through a maturing process as it establishes a new equilibrium and this is especially true if a system is still relatively new and hasn't finished its' initial maturation. That's what happened with this rimless system I setup. Because of the 5 month process working with an engineer and metal fabricator to make steel housings tehn actually building the fixtures for the remote recessed lighting even though we had corals doing well with just the hour or so of sunlight once the remote lighting was installed it reset the clock and we had to go through all the "uglies" a second time.
Also, I use RO and RO/DI water on my systems in my maintnenance business but I also use tapwater and from my experience diotoms are just another part of the maturing process and not caused by silicates in tapwater/well water. This system started in '94 and maintained with just tapwater after it was rehomed 10 years ago is an example.
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In contrast to other opinions I would be tracking pH as well as alkalinity on a weekly basis and calcium and magnesium at least monthly. In many of the systems I've setup and maintained over the last 3 decades pH often rises or falls with alkalinity but not always an pH can drop as alkalinity rises. Long term trends with pH can be used as an indicator of how a system is doing, particularly a gradual drop of pH maybe indicating increased in the eutrophication of the system.
stingythingy45
New member
Lights on PH up/ off PH down.
Windows open in house, PH up/ windows closed PH down.
Skimmer running full efficiency, PH up/ not so good,PH down.
PH= just a rough summery of how the aeration and alk effect the tank.
I've seen more system crashes over new hobbyist chasing PH over the years than I care to talk about.
Dosing baking soda till it precipitating out of the water.
Windows open in house, PH up/ windows closed PH down.
Skimmer running full efficiency, PH up/ not so good,PH down.
PH= just a rough summery of how the aeration and alk effect the tank.
I've seen more system crashes over new hobbyist chasing PH over the years than I care to talk about.
Dosing baking soda till it precipitating out of the water.
In my two tanks I've owned I had ugly or new tank syndrome for about 8 months I also ran into problems with my softies not growing at all turns out my tank was too clean as far as nutrients I won't run down everything I had as far as filtration to save myself some embarrassment lol but the poor corals had nothing to support thier growth lol now my tsk is doing quite well
