Nitrate Dosing

[tmz]

Well, it doesn't appear as though anything is getting better, in fact, I'm pretty sure most of my corals are now dying.

I'm not sure what's going on with my Bleeding Apple and it if you look at the right side of the Bennet Tort, it appears to be dying as well. There is also some weird stuff growing on my plating montipora, which was actually the only decent looking coral in the tank. This is so disheartening. I looked at my wife last night and said "I hate this tank..." I think it might just be time to throw in the towel. There just isn't anything else I can do. :sad2:

Lot's of people have trouble with scolymia australis. Maybe a certain trace element or organic food that is missing. haven't heard any long tem success stories yet. See this:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/scolymia-australis-the-forbidden-bleeding-apple

I've kept them and seen them kept in both heavily skimmed and fed tanks and eutrophic tanks with no skimming without long term success.



What are your PO4 and NO3 levels now? Have you stopped using adsorbents or other additives. Have you reduced lighting at all? Changes in feeding or amino dosing?

 

[Spyderturbo007]

It would seem that the issue you have is affecting everything in the tank (does this include the new frags that you recently acquired?). That suggests either water chemistry that's way, way out of whack, or lighting that's way, way too intense.

Correct. It effects everything in the tank. The problem is that the same thing happened when I was running my T5s for the first 12-14 months. That's one of the reasons I bought the LEDs. I ran out of stuff to blame.

The new frags are fine, for now. Things don't typically start to lose their color for about 2-3 weeks.

Assuming that there's not something with the water quality that's messed up (such as something simple, like a thermometer that's giving you a false reading and your tank's actually at 84 deg rather than 78), I'm guessing that you're experiencing the typical bleaching associated with light shock.

I actually just checked that yesterday using a calibrated NIST traceable thermometer I borrowed from work. The Apex was reading 80.1 degrees and the thermometer showed 26.6 C (79.88 F)

One potential thing to try is to go to the home store and purchase some plastic window screen. Tape a couple of layers of this across your tank's top surface under one of the LED arrays, and see if that prevents your newly acquired corals from bleaching. You can then gradually remove layers over a couple of weeks to acclimate the corals.

I can turn them down using the software interface. The problem is that they are sitting on the tank mounts and not suspended, so I can't put anything under them.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

What are your PO4 and NO3 levels now? Have you stopped using adsorbents or other additives. Have you reduced lighting at all? Changes in feeding or amino dosing?

I stopped using the KZ Amino acids, removed GFO and GAC. I stopped washing my food and have been using Oyster Feast everyday according to the directions and the Phyto every other day according to the directions.

Lighting was dropped to 40% from 45% max intensity on Friday.

I also stopped dosing Nitrate. Current parameters are:

Nitrate - 0.25ppm (down from 0.75ppm)
Calcium - 450ppm (up from 445ppm assume test error here)
Alkalinity - 7.45dKH (down from 7.84dKH)
Phosphate - 0ppm (same as before)
Magnesium - Didn't test. Ran out of time.

I'm totally stumped. My corals are dying and I'm powerless to stop it. :sad2:

 

[dkeller_nc]

I forgot to ask this - how are you maintaining calc/alkalinity? 2-Part? Kalkwasser dosing? Calcium Reactor?

BTW - I figured you could dim your lights, but the reason I suggested the window screen was that you can selectively shade a portion of the tank to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

I haven't had to really maintain them by doing anything other than normal water changes lately. Things seem to be pretty stable I suspect since nothing really grows.

Unfortunately, I can't put anything under the lights because of them sitting on the tank.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

I think I'm going in the wrong direction. Things seem to be dying faster now. My Montipora looks like it's about gone when it used to be the only thing that really grew. The Bennett Tort is dying pretty quickly now.


This is just two days later than the last picture and almost everything on the right is gone and it's starting to wrap around back.






The Montipora has algae growing on it, which has to be bad and it's color has changed significantly. It's all blotchy now.

 

[dkeller_nc]

The reason I ask is that I discovered a problem with my tank related to using a kalk reactor and an ATO. It worked well during the summer and fall, but it has been so cold in NC that the house is extremely dry. That, coupled with a rimless tank and an open stand resulted in very large amounts of evaporation, which was forcing a good deal of kalk slurry into the tank.

Most of my acropora and montipora weren't extended their polyps, and in some cases were regressing from the base. Removing the kalk reactor and just using 2-part has fixed the problem.

One more suggestion other than the feeding - you might consider running a polyfilter in your tank. It sounds like your RODI is functioning well (I seem to remember you'd mentioned you'd recently changed out the filters), but it's not impossible that a metallic toxin got into your tank somehow.

 

[Daimyo68]

Curious, have you checked for stray voltage?

Read through this entire thread, as I was in the same boat for 2 years. Had a beautiful 50g tank full of color, upgraded to a 75g and everything went south, and became dull/drab, and never came back while in the 75g. Water was dead on via WC's and dosing Cal/Alk and mag when needed, bio load, etc etc, everything was identical with the previous 50g. Tried everything except the nitrate dosing and no change.

Started over in a 150g with new rock and sand, and color came back. In the end, I/we could not determine the root cause, be it old rock leaching back into the system, or something I could not test for. Another thought was the grounding probe, as I did not bring that over to the new tank (not exactly sure why I didn't though), but it was in the 50g before moving to the 75g.

I'll be following along here

 

[Spyderturbo007]

One more suggestion other than the feeding - you might consider running a polyfilter in your tank. It sounds like your RODI is functioning well (I seem to remember you'd mentioned you'd recently changed out the filters), but it's not impossible that a metallic toxin got into your tank somehow.

I added a poly filter this evening when I did my water change. I also thought aggressive use of GAC might be a good idea since you mentioned a possible toxin. I went with 1c of GAC in my reactor.

Everything about the RO/DI was replaced along with the addition of a dedicated chloramine removal carbon block and a secondary DI stage.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

Curious, have you checked for stray voltage?

I have not. How would I go about doing that?

Read through this entire thread, as I was in the same boat for 2 years. Had a beautiful 50g tank full of color, upgraded to a 75g and everything went south, and became dull/drab, and never came back while in the 75g. Water was dead on via WC's and dosing Cal/Alk and mag when needed, bio load, etc etc, everything was identical with the previous 50g. Tried everything except the nitrate dosing and no change.

Started over in a 150g with new rock and sand, and color came back. In the end, I/we could not determine the root cause, be it old rock leaching back into the system, or something I could not test for. Another thought was the grounding probe, as I did not bring that over to the new tank (not exactly sure why I didn't though), but it was in the 50g before moving to the 75g.

I'll be following along here

I'm totally stumped. I've verified, checked, rechecked and calibrated.

I wonder if it's possible that the rocks I purchased are some how contaminated? Or maybe the sand?

 

[dkeller_nc]

In my opinion, the "stray voltage" thing is largely a red herring. But if you want to check for it, here's how:

Get a volt-ohm meter from the home store; set it to "AC amperes", and plug the cables into the correct ports on the meter (on most VOMs, there's a different port for "voltage" and "amperage"). Place one probe into your tank water, and the other in contact with a known good ground. If the current reads more than about 5 milliamps, you might have a problem with some equipment in contact with the water. Anything less than that, you don't.

 

[acesq]

After reading the entire thread, what keeps jumping out at me is the lights. Two 145W LED fixtures produce a tremendous amount more PAR than a 4x54 T5 fixture. Have you measure the PAR at the surface?

 

[Ink]

I think I can give some elements.
I come from a simila situatio to spyderturbo, but my tank was full of SPS. They weren't pale like his, but growth was very scarce and NO3 and PO4 have been zero constantly for 2 years.
I did about all You are suggesting: much more food, mainly frozen (mysis, brine, mussels, fish eggs) in very high doses. I gave aminos. I basted my rockwork. Corals that were surviving and someone even growing, started STN. I lost all seriatopora (one was as big as my head), all stylo are quite completely dead. Many acros have STN at base.
macros and coralline started growing (for who sustain it only depends on light quality).
Now my NO3 are 2,5 and PO4 are 0,05. Corals are still really starving. After 3 months. Tank is 4 years old, so I exclude any toxic.
Moreover, I well correlate food and in particular amino, with STN, especially on a stylo tips.
It seems like NH3 and NO2 is forming and killing corals. NH3 however is measured zero and NO2 are detectable, as they have always been in all my tank's life, even when corals were doing fine.
At this point, I can only take patience and continue on the road I've taken.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

After reading the entire thread, what keeps jumping out at me is the lights. Two 145W LED fixtures produce a tremendous amount more PAR than a 4x54 T5 fixture. Have you measure the PAR at the surface?

I had the same problem when I was running the 4 x 54w T5 fixture. I had that over the tank for about 18 months before switching. This has been a problem since the tank was established.

I purchased the new LED fixture because I was running out of things to try. There has to be something I'm missing.

 

[acesq]

I had the same problem when I was running the 4 x 54w T5 fixture. I had that over the tank for about 18 months before switching. This has been a problem since the tank was established.

I purchased the new LED fixture because I was running out of things to try. There has to be something I'm missing.

But haven't you tried a number of things after switching to LEDs? I still believe that changing the light, if not causing bleaching, may have prevented the other measures from working. I may be wrong, but I think you may have significantly increased the light intensity. FWIW I think you owe it to yourself to measure the PAR along with all of the other parameters.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

I don't have a PAR meter and honestly, don't really want to spend a few hundred dollars on one. If I could be assured that it was a light intensity issue and a PAR meter would solve the problem, I wouldn't be able to get my wallet out quick enough.

All the other parameters have been verified by using multiple test kits, ICP analysis, correlation to known reference materials and certified standards. Everything was done in our ISO 17025 Accredited testing laboratory using instrumentation calibrated with reference materials produced by ISO Guide 34 Accredited laboratories. Believe me, I have 100% confidence in my test results, so I'm convinced all my parameters are as indicated. Please don't think I'm being a snob or anything, but I'm sure of my results and thankfully have the ability to verify my testing procedures.

The only thing I haven't verified is my Hanna checker for Alkalinity.....Hummmm. Perhaps I should make up a standard quick before I got home. We should have some Na2CO3 laying around.

Maybe I should lower the light intensity? I started at 40% which is where Pacific Sun recommended I start my acclimation. It's just weird, because I have some Zoas in the shade that have terrible colors. It doesn't seem to matter where I put things, it just an overall drab color that has since become a slow death.

It's just saddening. :sad2:.

Once again, I appreciate everyone's help with this.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Another question - What kind of LR do you have in your tank?

And a comment about carbonate standards - they can be difficult to make with sodium bicarbonate, because you're never sure how dry the material is. I would use sodium carbonate (anhydrous) instead.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

I bought it from That Fish Place and it's junk. I didn't get one good hitchhiker. Nothing but pests like Nudibranchs, Vermetid Snails, predatory Isopods, etc.

I bought the following:

5lbs Rubble Rock (for in my sump)
25lbs "Real" Reef Bioactive (I didn't know that it was fake at the time)
18lbs Tukani/Totoka

 

[Spyderturbo007]

I've followed all the advice I've received in this thread and I'm sad to report that almost all of my coral is dying now.

It make me sick to see all of it just melt away for no reason at all. I'm either going to offer a reward to whoever can figure out the problem, or I'm out of the hobby. I just can't take it anymore.

I don't know where to turn or what to do...... :sad2:

 

[Bilk]

Can you post up a full tank shot and also one that shows the positioning of the lighting above the tank? If the parameters are fine and no harmful substance can be identified, it narrows it down to lighting or flow or oxygenation or a combination of these.

I read thru the thread again to see what was providing the flow. I saw 2 mp10s and the return pump but didn't see the skimmer. I may have missed it, but do you run a skimmer? Also can you estimate the flow to the sump?

Edit: The FTS is for coral placement and to see how the flow occurs relative to the corals and structure.

I have to say, and I think I'm speaking for all on RC, that seeing a fellow hobbyist encounter problems when it's evident they're not being neglectful with their husbandry and who clearly are passionate about keeping a nice reef tank, it's distressful for us to read about this as well. We've all encountered problems along the way. So hang in there. You're not alone in dealing with issues that have plagued most all of us in one way or another.