High ORP (>500) Causing poor SPS polyp extension?

[Oldtimer]

Hanna read 24 today so the water change really brought the phosphates down (now 0.074 mg/l). I'd be happy with this P04 reading any day. Salinity, pH and temp continue to be stable and well within normal range. Ca is in the 390's and Alk is 10 dkh. I'm going to change another 60 gallons shortly due to the progress I'm noting...

I have a piece of encrusting monitpora that has been almost completely devoid of polyps for the last several days. It's now fully covered in polyps. All of my Seriatopora is exhibiting good polyp extension. My red A milliepora is showing polyps as is my red planet. I'm convinced my A Youngi and Joe the coral are gonners because the STN is too far spread, but hoping the others are going to pull through. I also noticed that my Acans have excellent extension. All in all, things seem to be recovering. I'll continue to post updates as things progress.

 

[Boomer]

Good to hear things are getting better

 

[Oldtimer]

Me too. Thanks for the input!

Last night I completed another 60 gallon water change and glued the base of a couple Acro's that were just starting to STN since a couple days ago. I hope I can stop these now that the water quality is getting better. The A. milli had some really nice extension during feeding so yet another nice sign. I just hope whatever was just in the water was not leaching from somewhere. If it was, then I could very well have the same issue in the future. At least I know water changes are the proper course of action if it does reappear. Still clueless about the cause.

 

[jmoney]

im pretty convinced you had a foreign contaminate in the water, especially since you started to notice an improvement on things after adding fresh carbon. Just a thought, run down to the lfs and grab a poly pad and place it somewhere in the sump, let us know what color it turns and maybe we can identify whether or not there is a source of continual contamination.

For example 4 years ago when I started my first reef tank and couldn't identify what was causing the issues in my tank, we dropped in a poly pad and identified that there was a problem with copper getting into the tank. Source? old copper plumbing in the house, used ro unit, and I had no experience with them, did not know that the filters needed to be changed or checked often then . Solution? Heavy metal sponge in a media bag dropped in the sump, new ro/di filters, and reconnected to a source without copper plumbing.

Hope my little experience helps those poly pads can be pretty useful, and if memory serves they are under 10 dollars

 

[Oldtimer]

I happen to have a poly pad at home so I'll just drop it in and see. Thanks for the tip.

As for my house, it is old - circa 1937 and has old plumbing, but I'll note that my RO/DI unit (BRS Stage 6 Chloramines) was bought brand new and I change filters well in advance of them expiring. I monitor TDS closely. The water supply to the house happens to be 5 feet from my RO/DI unit so there is little in house plumbing leading up to it, but that's not to say it couldn't still be leaching something. I will note that my sediment filters get replaced very often. They start to turn a pale rust like color within 30-50 gallons of clean water and are dark colored and what I consider saturated by no more than 150 gallons of clean water. Looks like iron oxide to me, but I never had it tested... if you've ever had a main break in your neighborhood and your water gets turned off for a while. When it gets tuned back on, you noticed that yellow to rust colored water coming out for the first few minutes... my sediment filter looks very much the same color.

 

[jmoney]

Whats your incoming TDS looking like?

 

[Oldtimer]

I only have an in-line sensor after the RO membrane and one after the DI. I suppose I could move one and see what it looks like into the RO unit. Typically I see 0-2 out of the membrane and 0 out of the DI.

 

[tmz]

The "bird of paradise" birdsnest should be a good bellwether; mine grows quickly. I have frags of it it different lighting and flow and it does well with it. The red planet is very hardy and a quick grower too.

Poly filter may not turn color with small but lethal amounts of free copper ,etc.

 

[Oldtimer]

Thanks. Bird of paradise is doing very well and the red planet appears to be recovering (looking a little more hairy as time progresses).

I'll pull out my old Salifert Cu kit tonight and see what shows.

 

[Oldtimer]

Corals continue looking better. I only had a short window after work to mess with the tank and checked P with the Hanna meter and found P04 to be about 0.1 mg/l today. Will check all parameters tomorrow including Cu.

 

[jmoney]

Let us know if that poly filter turns any color after its been in for 72 hours or so

Also be sure to continue changing your carbon every 30 days, i'm really thinking it was a foreign contaminate at this point that somehow drifted into your aquarium.

 

[Oldtimer]

So it’s been a few days since my last post… an update is in order. I’ve kept an eye on the poly filter. It hasn’t changed color at all. I also checked for Copper and it’s undetectable by the Salifert kit (< 0.05 ppm which is the lowest it will read). So it’s still a mystery to me, but at least my SPS continues to show signs of improvement. I pulled the screen off my frag tank and took one of the 2 screens off the display tank to allow a bit more light through. I’m just watching a couple acro’s for STN and trying to stay on top of it so I don’t completely lose them. The Birds of Paradise that I purchased 2 weeks ago to the day looks just like I bought it with excellent polyp extension. P measured a whopping 6ppb yesterday on the Hanna meter. That’s 0.018 ppm P04 so very low. I checked it twice just to be sure it was accurate. I’m going to change another 60 gallons this weekend and continue weekly water changes for the time being.

I setup my QT tank over the weekend and purchased a couple fish… a beautiful Sailfin that I could not pass up and one chromis. I initially just wanted a small school of chromis, but my lfs had just sold out of all but one so I used it as an excuse to get the Sailfin.  The new fish are doing great in the QT and I’ve alternated between Herbtanta and Artemiss for a couple days as an immune system support and destressant. They are eating well and look forward to adding them to my system in a few weeks. I also added a handful of SPS frags from a local reefer who just started selling his stuff. Amazing frags. I could have waited and lost the chance of picking these up, but I believe things are going to continue to do fine now. I’ll keep up with the water changes and replace carbon regularly. I have to believe it will be out of the system within a few more water changes. I’m still looking for any foreign objects, but have not found any. Still baffling.