Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail

[reefmutt]

Wow that was a lot of things going on a lot of us have been down that road for sure..my tank as of now I tried to make it as simple as much as possible so I can keep track of what is going on without chasing some problems I probably caused my self..your old tank was beautiful man you got a lot to live up too..keep the update coming its gonna be great for sure..

ha! yes indeed.. a lot to live up to..
yup, doing things slow and one at a time is really important to be able to track the consequences of your actions not to mention that most sudden shifts in a reef are what corals react to the worst..
simple, small changes are the best way to achieve or keep the balance, it seems to me..

 

[reefmutt]

Hey reefmutt here is a project that may help..

Michael

thanks, Mike.. i do almost everything on a mac so getting that to my mitres is beyond my extremely limited computer skills.. i guess thats not really true.. i could log into reef central from the cheap, crappy laptop i bought only for programming the mitras, but it would take forever because it is such a slow and lousy laptop.. and really, i think i have a pretty good program, myself.. like i have said, the mitras are amazing leds and are fully capable of keeping any and all corals alive, well and coloured up... however, they do not colour up ALL acros equally, in my opinion.. and that opinion is based on the many, many hours I've spent staring, studying.. maybe drooling a little, without noticing, into my tank as i looked from the top down..
many acros get fantastic coloration, but some do not..
ill post a few of the nice looking corals from my old tank which were under mitras when i log on from my phone.. these will be corals that are all dead now, because of my negligence..

 

[markalot]

don't get caught up in the madness.. it drives you crazy when corals start to die and it is then when you make desperation moves, but really, by the time a coral is rtning, the damage is more often than not already done, I'm my experience..
what is your p? i had mine over .2 for quite some time, near the beginning, before i really started doing crazy things and the corals were fine.. it was me that was not fine.. now is the time to stop everything and concentrate on only one course of action..
knowing your p is a good thing but knowing it compared to n i think is even more important. this allows you to use one against the other when employing a carbon source.. i very much like the vinegar/kalk combo.. can be very effective at lowering p, providing you have a little n in your system
feel free to throw up your numbers if you want any help..

I'm still climbing up the learning curve but I had awesome coloration on a coral that is thought to be sensitive to high P that went from this:

to this

over 5 days and at the same time my Alk started to rise and the tank completely lost any stability I thought it had. Once I finally tested P and N I was at .2 P and 10 N. I still have no idea if that was the problem or if it was something else. So far I've only lost 2 small frags and any STN appears to have stopped, but I'm not confident it's over. I'm running GFO in a reactor for the first time in my 3 years of reefing and I'm honestly not sure where to stop or what to reset too.

I definitely agree that once damage is evident it's already happened. Zombie acros.

Sorry for junking up your thread with pics but thanks for asking.

 

[reefmutt]

So, after my tank leaked and i was only running my side system, i really neglected the whole thing.. i fed the fish once a day.. mostly and did nothing else.. the system did ok.
when i finally got around to paying attention to it and did some tests, i had an n of 0 and p of about 1.5..
from day one, i assumed that my excessively high p, in relation to my n (which was usually 0) was because of the old live rock i had used.. i still think this..... AND I'm using that same rock again! why? because i think i have the tools to better control p, now..
when i decided to pay attention to my system again, i went back to my favourite thread, "dosing nitrate to reduce phosphate" in the advanced forum.
i started running about 500 ml of all in one biopellets for a couple of weeks to really get n down to zero but needed a bit more so i added another 250-300 ml of the aio pellets once n was below 1ppm, i began adding a small amount of vinegar and calcium nitrate and began testing n and p weekly.. once i got the n to come up to around 1-3 ppm- i didn't want it any higher- i started to see my p begin to fall. in the middle of that i raised the vinegar a bit, saw my n drop below 1ppm and saw my p jump right back up. once i corrected my cano3 addition to get a stable n of around 2ppm, my p has come down to .03 and stays very steady there.
that thread is a great and sometimes longwinded read but well worth it.. most of my grappling with n and p is documented there..
so, i have achieved a balance in my side system, now.. obviously, when the display comes on line with a hundred pounds of that same old rock, i will have to wrestle with nutrient levels again but i am reasonably confident that i will be able to achieve a balance in the display, before i let it run on the whole system.. so that is my first goal.. to get the display water as close as possible to my side system water before i mix for two together..

 

[reefmutt]

I'm still climbing up the learning curve but I had awesome coloration on a coral that is thought to be sensitive to high P that went from this:

to this

over 5 days and at the same time my Alk started to rise and the tank completely lost any stability I thought it had. Once I finally tested P and N I was at .2 P and 10 N. I still have no idea if that was the problem or if it was something else. So far I've only lost 2 small frags and any STN appears to have stopped, but I'm not confident it's over. I'm running GFO in a reactor for the first time in my 3 years of reefing and I'm honestly not sure where to stop or what to reset too.

I definitely agree that once damage is evident it's already happened. Zombie acros.

Sorry for junking up your thread with pics but thanks for asking.

i really don't mind.. i have learned so much from reef central over the almost 10 years i have been a member and i really intend this thread to have as much helpful info as possible in it..
with those n and p numbers, it is a very common outcome to see vividly coloured corals (super nice frag by the way!) turn brown... i think most would agree with that...
so how did your alk jump? I'm sure that a quick stress like that could also cause a coral to brown out...
If i were in your shoes i'd buy a huge skimmer for at least$700 and start adding trace elements........KIDDING!
actually, i would do something close to what i just detailed in my last post..
but first stabalize your alk and calcium.
and if you are already using vinegar and kalkwasser, these are two pretty good methods of pulling down nutrients and adding alk/calc at the same time, but you really should be adding small amounts often..
in your case, i think i would really NOT concentrate on the n and p right now, but make sure you can deliver steady water chemistry for a while. once that is worked out, you can start addressing the n and p..
running gfo, out of the blue can cause a bit of stress to acros, if it dramatically shifts the p level, so go slow with that stuff as well..
if i remember correctly, gfo can also play with alkalinity (lower it) if a lot is used..

 

[reefmutt]

Here's a bunch of nice frags I killed..








Ouch.....

 

[reefmutt]

Tomorrow, I will detail my ssystem, as it was and how it will change for the new set up..
Markalot, feel free to ask any more questions..
And anybody who wants to chime in on a course of action for him.. The more the merrier!

 

[stonecold]

And anybody who wants to chime in on a course of action for him.. The more the merrier!

Matt, thank you for taking time to share your experience with everyone. I'm sure a lot of the hobbyists including myself will benefit from this thread.

over 5 days and at the same time my Alk started to rise and the tank completely lost any stability I thought it had. I'm running GFO in a reactor for the first time in my 3 years of reefing and I'm honestly not sure where to stop or what to reset too.

Alk - If you are using a calcium reactor, the following will increase your Alk: Please check your:
1. "Dripper" - if your drip rate is too slow from the start, over time it will calcified and reduce the "output" drastically.
2. CO2 Regulator - Some of these are not very precise which could inject more CO2 than what you have desire.

GFO - I concur with Matt's assessment. Sudden usage will have effect on your parameters/SPS. First initial usage should be half the recommended dosage.

Hope this helps.

 

[markalot]

Thanks Matt.

I'm glad i was forced to look at the timing again. I switched from LED to T5 but after the browning happened, so I can hopefully discount that change.

I have a timed topoff system since my evaporation is fairly constant. I was using saturated Kalk (no vinegar) and 90ml two part a day.

I started adding 45ml per gallon of vinegar to gallon of Kalk topoff water and that's when the troubles began. My Alk had been a constant 8 - 8.5 for two months and then over a week the Alk rose from 8.5 to 10.0 before I turned off the doser. It continued to rise, slowly, to 10.5 and I diluted the topoff to start a very slow fall back to 8.0 over 2 weeks.

I measured my topoff amount for the first time and calculated just a bit over a gallon a day topoff, which means I was dosing 45ml of vinegar a day.

I have this FTS, links to the fullsize pic, that shows that coral still having good color even after the rise to 10.5. According to what I wrote on another forum my dosers were turned off and Alk was dropping from 10.5 to 9.8 over 4 days.



4 days later my KH hit 8.6 and I commented that I was losing .25 KH a day and the coral above had browned out completely.

2 days after this I measured P and N for the first time and got the high readings. Over the next week every SPS lost color, some more than others. One acro had significant tip dieback, others had some basal STN, some more significant STN. Too many changes to really say what happened, which is why I'm lost at the moment. Do I go back to what I was doing before, ignoring P and N and figuring it was elevated all along? Do I get P under control, stabilize Alk, and wait it out?

 

[reefmutt]

Nick! Thanks for the help!
Sounds like the vinegar in the kalk caused the alk spike. I've heard many people say alk spikes have caused browning, burnt tips and stn... And it seems to me like your n and p were probably at those levels for a long time if you've never tested before..
I would go back to how you had it before the vinegar.... For starters..
Let alk get back to where your tank remembers it.
Go easy on the gfo as well.
Once those parameters are stable, then you can debate wether to tackle n and p..
That's how I am leaning on your situation...

 

[reefmutt]

Markalot, in case you are not aware, the acidity of vinegar allows for more calcium hydroxide to dissolve into the water when it is added the the mix, I assume this is the cause or your alk spike..
There's a saying I have heard and used a lot in this hobby.. The bad things happen overnight and the goods things take forever in reef keeping..
Like I said, go back to what your were doing before the issues and then wait... The patience will go a long way to fixing things.

 

[markalot]

Markalot, in case you are not aware, the acidity of vinegar allows for more calcium hydroxide to dissolve into the water when it is added the the mix, I assume this is the cause or your alk spike..
There's a saying I have heard and used a lot in this hobby.. The bad things happen overnight and the goods things take forever in reef keeping..
Like I said, go back to what your were doing before the issues and then wait... The patience will go a long way to fixing things.

Thanks Matt, and sorry again for the thread hijack.

I think I'll stop testing N & P for a while and go back to what I was doing, as suggested.

The only way to cleanup your thread now is to photo bomb us with pictures!

 

[reefmutt]

I'll post some pics of my system later, today I hope.
I'm not advocating not testing.. Just don't get too concerned by the results if your tank has been doing fine that way..
I might even say that over the long term, you could benefit from the vinegar you were using, but maybe not in the Kalk, unless you take it off the outdo top off and put it on a doser so you can better control the additions..

 

[MisterP]

Good luck on the comeback.

Sidebar- Where do you get calcium nitrate and how are you dosing it?

 

[reefmutt]

Good luck on the comeback.

Sidebar- Where do you get calcium nitrate and how are you dosing it?

Thanks for the luck.. Need as much of that as patience and knowledge.. I guess one has to strike the balance there as well..

I got my cano3 from a hydroponics shop in Montreal..
They are not thrilled to sell it to strangers because it's big sister, sodium nitrate can be used to make bombs, I guess. Maybe cano3 can as well..
When I called to inquire about it, the person on the phone said they had nothing like that, but once I went in and talked with the guys a bit and they learned what I needed it for, they sold me some..
People say sodium nitrate is easier/better to use because it doesn't impact calcium levels like cano3 but in my experience, the quantity needed, generally, to raise n to just above 0 has little effect on the calcium level.. Maybe in a huge system, you might have an issue..

Oops, as for dosing, I dissolve it in ro water along with my vsv mix and add two doses a day- morning and night.

 

[reefmutt]

Ok! Lighting.. I personally believe that for sps specifically, mh/t5 is the gold standard. There is something, something missing in LEDs to keep SOME sps from colouring up to absolute perfection.
I also find that sps.. in general become more finicky about water conditions and nutrient levels under leds... Just my personal experience and opinion..
When I set up this system two years ago, I knew that heat was going to be an issue and I wanted to give leds a try. I bought 3 GHL Mitras. I think they are fantastic lights. I probably only needed two but since I was going sps and being a strong believer in multiple point sources of light to reduce shading and base die off, I got three. I also wanted to make sure I had a cr-p load of light. Well, these light could probably completely fry any coral if they were turned up to full blast. I never ran them much above 50% of their capacity..
This time around, I am revisiting what I know and love... But keeping the mitras as well..

And when on.. The iPhone doesn't handle all that light very well so it tuned it all way down..

The mh are only 150 w and the t5s are 2 giesemann actinic+ and two giesemann true actinic.
I will probably only run the mh for about 6 hours in 2 hour intervals. The t5 will run all day and the LEDs will ramp up and down and have cloud coverage so that the corals will get random peaks and valleys in intensity and spectrum... Much like actual weather over a reef..

 

[M007]

So Mitras, MH, and T5?

 

[reefmutt]

Yessir! I'm taking a global approach to this reef..
I probably won't be using the white leds in the mitras much over30% at any given time in the program.
Definitely going to run the tank on the blue side and attempt more deep water acros... They've always been my favorite.
I keep editing this post and adding more info..
This is all gear that I already had..
In a year or so, if/when I have the results I want, I will experiment with removing the t5 and mh..

 

[M007]

LOL, global approach . I like your style!

 

[reefmutt]

. Glad you like it..
I'll also be using the global approach to nutrient/bacterial maintenance as well.
As I've said, I am using aio biopellets atm with a mixture of vodka, vinegar and honey (to pull down nutrients) but mixed with my cano3 to keep n up a bit.
I am using all three carbon (or 4 if you include the pellets) sources to cultivate as many different types of bacteria as possible. It is my understanding that each type of carbon; acetic acid, sugar and alcohol get consumed by different types of bacteria... Please correct me if I am wrong..
As my aio pellets reduce a bit, I will replace about 1/3 of them with ecobak plus pellets, again so as to cultivate as many different types of nutrient reducing bacteria as possible..
Sounds pretty complicated, but really, the pellets are tumbling in a reactor and the liquid carbons are mixed in to ro water which will eventually go on a doser. I test once a week and adjust my mix as needed..