Let's save Georgi's tank!

Thanks a lot Steve! Does it need regular dosing? I'm leaving in 3 days so it is probably better to start a new product after I come back and am able to watch the tank in person?
 
Good news Georgi,
For shure you should leave it for the time you are at home and when you are able to spend ten minutes every day watching your tank and dosing CS, because when you are using any of Zeo products the thingnis happended really fast (both - good ones and bad ones):)
But why you want to start with Zeo's Coral snow? It is just expensive supplementary food for corals, it will not be in big help if your corals are dying.
 
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I'd wait until I got back if I were you. But it's not really a coral food. And it's a waste of time if not used in conjunction with Zeobak. I suppose it might work with a Zeobak equivalent. And I'm afraid I'm about out of that. Will be buying more for my own consumption soon.
 
Well, some interesting development. It seems like I've managed to move the problem to the QT tank. Clam seems like is about to die, and the birdsnest that was growing has not only stopped, but also has pretty much no polyp extension. And that's almost exactly 2 weeks after I did the 100% water change in there. Any suggestions what to do with it now? (As before, the 2 zoa frags don't seem to care, happy as ever).

In the meantime, it turned out that the monti I have is actually green! I keep taking daily shots of it, and it is really cool to watch the daily growth on that frag. Here is a photo of today (compare works best if you download the first photo from above and this one and quickly flip back and forth in a image viewer).

monti-08.jpg



It would be quite the nice surprise in 2 weeks if I see a fully recovered green monti!
 
Wow!

Well Georgi, what moved with the water? I'm sure it's a long list, but IMO its that list you need to begin working through.

And the first things you can begin knocking off the list as things that have not changed in the DT, like tank silicone.

At this point your problem's solvable, or close to it - if you've got good record of your changes.
 
Ummm I think it's your LEDs... Didn't you change your lights to T5 over the display? What lights do you have on the QT? Have the QT lights changed? Didn't you move LEDs from display to QT?
 
Only the water moved. Nothing else.

Assuming the DT doesn't start going south again:

Things that are NOT causing the problem:
In DT:
water source, return pump, tank, silicone, vortechs, lights, ATO, sand, rocks, fish, bugs, cyano (if anything when the cyano showed up, things started looking better)
in QT:
water source, heater, AC50, MJ400, lights.

Things that MIGHT be the cause (all offline now):
eshopps skimmer, hydor inline heater, tubing that connects the return pump with the heater and the pvc for the return, mj1200 on reactor GFO

At this point, my best guess is something was leaching enough tiny amounts of bad stuff in the water that caused the problem. By moving that to the QT, the problem moved as well. By doing the 50% water change on the DT, it was diluted enough to reverse the process.


My current plan is to not do anything for the next 3 weeks (partially because I will not be here :) ). If the monti in my DT keeps reviving as it does now, I'll put back the LEDs. If it goes to bad state again I'll still put back my LEDs and continue with the equipment changes.
 
Georgi - all the things you listed as the possible cause are things whose effects moved with the water. That's the point. But that's just semantics...

My money is on the GFO. Corals need phosphates to survive, if low levels. I'll wager they were being starved of that essential nutrient. All the more reason to not fight your cyano with GFO. They all need a little PO4.
 
I'm back from my trip and I'm happy to report this:
monti-10.jpg


This is 4 days short of 1 month from the first photo above, taken about 2 minutes after lights on. I don't know much but that looks like one happy monti to me :)

When I get a chance later today I'll write some more about the current state of the DT and QT tanks.
 
Things are growing well, I think. They are not dying for sure, which is a good thing :).

...

I figured since I've used the monti above as a 'benchmark', here is a fresh photo of the top of it from today. That would be a little over 5 months of growth:
monti-12.jpg
 
Things are growing well, I think. They are not dying for sure, which is a good thing :).

...

I figured since I've used the monti above as a 'benchmark', here is a fresh photo of the top of it from today. That would be a little over 5 months of growth:
monti-12.jpg

That's great, thanks for the update!
 
Tank is alive, yes! The issue was either the in-line heater or the skimmer. More likely the heater since I used the skimmer in my previous tank and it was fine.

To be honest, since this issue was resolved, I've put the tank in a really low tech mode (I hope Seth isn't too angry with me for using his fixture for over a year now :-O). No controllers, no ph monitors, no automatic water changes... just a timer for the lights and ATO. That's it. I don't even dose. Just 20% water changes every 2-3 times a month.

I guess I have to continue the monti tradition, so here it is today:
monti-13.jpg
 
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