Help me figure out my tank issues

[inktomi]

Hi -

I'm at my wits end. Two years ago we moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, took down our old 150g tank, sold everything, and built a new 270g tank here in Los Angeles. It's been downhill from there.

Before dinoflagellates, our 150g tank has great success with SPS coral. Montipora threatened to overtake the tank, I had to remove large frags regularly. Millepora grew fantastically. It was so much fun, and we had such great hopes about our new tank in LA.

We sold our old T5 lights, and bought G3 Radion Pros (4 of them with space left for 2 more). I got a new skimmer, a Reef Octopus 200INT, a new biopellet reactor, and new return pump.

What's happening?
We cannot keep coral alive. LPS slowly fades, but hangs on. SPS fades, then loses flesh from the base up. 100%. Plating montipora is the only thing that survives - without any polyp extension, and never growing even the tiniest amount from the frag we get.

Water Params, Red Sea test kits
Alk - 11.76
Calcium - 445
Magnesium - 1500
Nitrate - 4
Phosphate - 0.02 (Hannah ULR checker)
Salinity - 1.026 (Calibrated milwaukee digital refractometer)
Temperature - 78 (solid)
Ph - 7.77

Water Params, Triton Labs
I had the water tested at Triton as well, to try to uncover something.. no luck
Hg 0 µg/l
Se 0 µg/l
Cd 0 µg/l
Sn 0 µg/l
Sb 0 µg/l
As 0 µg/l
Al 0.242 µg/l
Pb 0 µg/l
Ti 0 µg/l
Cu 0 µg/l
La 0.871 µg/l (dosed Lanthanum Chloride while soaking marco rocks)
Sc 0 µg/l
W 0 µg/l
Na 10166 mg/l
Ca 544 mg/l
Mg 1323 mg/l
K 358 mg/l
Br 68.664 mg/l
B 5.568 mg/l
Sr 9.335 mg/l
S 1034 mg/l
Li 679 µg/l -- this is weird, no idea where this lithium is coming from.
Ni 0 µg/l
Mo 0 µg/l
V 0 µg/l
Zn 0 µg/l
Mn 0 µg/l
I 0 µg/l
Cr 0 µg/l
Co 0 µg/l
Fe 0 µg/l
Ba 23.049 µg/l
Be 0 µg/l
Si 119 µg/l
P 4.22 µg/l
PO4 0.0129132 mg/l

Water changes/maintenance
I use an RODI filter for topoff and mixing water. Current TDS - 0.06. Need to change filters.
I use biopellets, and have since I started the tank. I have some persistent algae, but it's not a huge issue and under control.

Voltage
I can measure about 32V AC to ground from my tank. I have not been able to pinpoint it to a single source, I think it's just induced voltage from my pumps. I do not have a grounding probe.

Equipment
My tank is 7' by 3' by 2' tall.
I have 5 MP40s on the tank.
I have 4 G3 Radion Pros, and the coral has always been placed underneath them.
I have a Vertex V6 pump acting as a return pump from my sump

I'm seriously at my witts end. I'm in this hobby for coral. If I can't keep it alive, then it's just not fun or worth the expense and trouble.

Should I buy a PAR meter and ensure that my radions are not too strong? Their current schedule peaks at 80% power, and they're hung a little less than a foot over the water.

Help me Reefcentral, you're my only hope. I'm going crazy here.

 

[xanthurum]

The lights are not the issue, I in the same lights with no issues. Mine are 10 inches off the water. I have 3 on a 5 foot tank and reach 100% intensity for 2 hours. No PE on SPS is usually a sign of a pest. Red bugs or AEFW losing tissue from the base up would lead me to believe AEFW. Get a ground probe they are cheap. Find the voltage leak and fix that issue. Change your RO filters. If the tank is new there may be stability issues and this is most likely your problem.

 

[inktomi]

I should point out that this tank is going on 2 years old now. I've had basically undetectable levels of ammonia, nitrate/nitrite, and phosphate for the last year. We've been trying to figure it out for at least this last year =\

There have been no visible pests, even with a magnifying glass, and nothing from the old tank is in the new tank. It's totally a fresh start. Everything has been dipped in CoralRX before going into the tank, and all the fish have been through a TTM qt process.

I have unplugged things one by one and never found a single thing that drops the voltage to 0. Either my skimmer, biopellets and return pump are all leaking a little bit, or it's induced voltage. I've done quite a bit of googling about this recently, and it seems like the general consensus on it is that under 50V AC is not likely to be an issue. I'm willing to try a grounding probe though if that's really the best option.

The electronics are all plugged in on a dedicated 20 amp GFI protected circuit. The GFCI plug has never tripped - even when I was grounding the tank through my multimeter into another outlet.

 

[luis94]

Water Params, Red Sea test kits
Calcium - 445
Magnesium - 1500

Ph - 7.77

Water Params, Triton Labs
I had the water tested at Triton as well, to try to uncover something.. no luck

Ca 544 mg/l
Mg 1323 mg/l
K 358 mg/l

The values of calcium and magnesium doesn't match eachother from differents tests, why?
Calcium is pretty high according to Triton Labs and potassium is actually quite low (at least 380 ppm for reefs). In the other hand, magnesium is really high according to Red Sea but very well according to Triton Labs....this doesn't even make sense at all, the same water should have really close range of parameters, not that different.

Also, the pH is pretty low for a reef, it is better to have it in a range between 8,1 to 8,3.

 

[inktomi]

The Red Sea tests are from about a month ago, the Triton tests are last week.

I've tried raising the pH. There's nothing I can really do without blowing alk off the chart since I can't keep SPS alive to be able to dose anything like kalk in my top off.

I'm open to ideas. I can't realistically get an airline to the outside for outside air.

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[Grayhead]

It may be the LEDs. 100 percent that close to the water is likely bathing the coral with way to much light. Research fixture height verses intensity for those fixtures. Contact ecotech and get their advise. I know they did extensive research in this area and released programs for lighting.

 

[luis94]

I would do some water changes so the pH and calcium stabilize, before thinking introducing new livestock. Also, it is better to have low light so corals can adjust their tissues and symbiothic algae, rather than high light that will burn literally the corals off. Like Grayhead says, do some research on your lighting too, so you can know how many lumens output at least you are getting from those LED. Try to run a refugium with reverse photoperiod and open some windows of the room where the tanks is, and lets see if the pH rises a little bit.
Please, let me know what happened after doing some research and changes in your tank mangement.


Regards

 

[inktomi]

I really do appreciate the thoughts. I have a way to rig up a refugium, I'll try that. When I open windows the PH goes to 8.1/8.2 so I know it's an air quality issue there.. I can't realistically keep them open year round though

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[roli112]

I really do appreciate the thoughts. I have a way to rig up a refugium, I'll try that. When I open windows the PH goes to 8.1/8.2 so I know it's an air quality issue there.. I can't realistically keep them open year round though

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Ive read running the skimmer air line outdoors can help with this

 

[inktomi]

Yes, it would help. The thing is that I don't have a good way to actually do that as the tank is in an interior room in the house, and we'd have to be very careful about things like pesticides and such that get sprayed around the city (we even get city-wide mosquito aerosol spraying sometimes).

As far as water changes, I change about 35g every week or two. These have no noticeable impact on overall tank PH.

The game plan so far;

1. I have a 20 gallon container and a kessil aqua-sun led. Assuming it fits under the tank, I'll rig a refugium up using this and a pump over the weekend. It'll be lit reverse cycle.
2. Possibly get a PAR meter and take some measurements, though this is an expensive test to run and I'm apprehensive about spending so much unless we really think it could be the issue.
3. Possibly have a fresh air valve installed on my HVAC system to bring in outside air house wide

 

[Pittsburgh]

Nitrates at 4ppm on Red Sea test kit is what jumped out at me. I also can't see nitrates on the Triton test.

Red Sea low range nitrates test kit has 4ppm as the maximum reading, at which point it can be anything over 4ppm. I don't trust their high range version because it has to be diluted greatly and is never accurate. Also, Red Sea kit is very specific about how you look at the color. You must look through the top of the vial onto the white background.
Get a cheap API nitrate test kit and double check your results. This is what I did when I had this kind of reading and it turned out I had 30+ ppm of nitrates.

Alk at 11.76 is, of course, another big concern.

Also, do not chase pH at this point. Just don't. Same with the lights. That's not your problem.

 

[luis94]

You don't need a PAR meter to see if your light is good for a running a reef, you just need the light spectrum and lumens output so we can figure out how many luxes the corals are getting and also if they're getting them in an adequate wavelength.



Regards

 

[inktomi]

As for lighting, I'm using a schedule defined in this white paper put out by Ecotech (specifically, the SPS PHX14 schedule at 80% because I have a deeper tank):

http://ecotechmarine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ecotech_CoralLab_WP1.pdf
http://ecote.ch/phx <-- direct link to the schedule

I'll double check the Red Sea parameters tonight and post the full update on everything I can test for as-is today. I'll also post a photo of a montipora that's hanging on and can be a good indicator of when things are getting better.

 

[inktomi]

My radions are hung such that they're 14" over coral (on a frag rack right now) and 6" over the surface of the water.

 

[inktomi]

You can log into Apex Fusion using "inktomi-guest" / "reefcentral" and view tank parameters and history. I need to re-attach the Ecotech stuff after unplugging it to test for voltage leaks yesterday, so ignore that.

https://apexfusion.com/apex

 

[GSMclowns]

Well, get a small tank and hook up to your sump and put a Sunpower ATI over it.
If that doesn't grow corals, then it is your water chemistry. One of my friends also had problem with the sand. for some unknown reasons, his corals kept dying. So we took out the sand and that solved the problem. Check to see if any magnets that are rusting?

 

[Pittsburgh]

You can log into Apex Fusion using "inktomi-guest" / "reefcentral" and view tank parameters and history. I need to re-attach the Ecotech stuff after unplugging it to test for voltage leaks yesterday, so ignore that.

https://apexfusion.com/apex

You were running alk at 14????

Here's my Alk chart:

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[inktomi]

Yes, this was in a misguided attempt at fixing pH using kalk top off water. Ba idea, since there's no where for that to go and it builds up.

It has been coming down. Problems were existing before and after - though I'm sure this excursion didn't help.

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[Pittsburgh]

Well that makes sense then.
Stop dosing until Alk is under 8. Then start doing much more frequent tests and stick to it.
TDS at 0.06 or 6? If the latter, change the filter like yesterday.
Keep an eye on those nitrates.
Also, good call on anything that would be leaching bad stuff into the tank. Although, Triton kind of answered that concern. there is nothing there other than Li that is elevated.

 

[inktomi]

TDS is 0.06. I'm ordering new filters, but I don't think that's at emergency level yet.

I'll post a couple tank photos as well as an updated battery of red sea tests tonight.

-edit-
I stopped dosing kalk in my topoff water around October, and it's been coming down since. It was as high as 14 at the point when I stopped.

I have my windows open today, and you can see - the PH went from 7.8 to 7.9 before the lights have even came on.