OLD liverock

Have you ran a poly filter to check for metals? Might be worth a few bucks. That is where I kept going to when reading your posts as well.

Also, do you run carbon? Olddude has an interesting thread on a similar issue - I believe it is in the chemistry forum.

Good luck,
 
tropills said:
3 carbon filters and a 3 micron cartridge coming into the house, then I also filter 2 carbon a 1 micron then the RO membrane then thru the DI resin beds. all filters are changed every 6 months and the Membrane is replaced once a year. No basement, just a crawl space.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm, couple things here.You mentioned you dont have a TDS meter ,so I assume you dont know when to change DI resins?
Also, what type of membrane do you use in your R.O? I know their are 2 types TFC AND CTO. CTO is usually used on well water and not as effective at removing TDS.I believe they have a rejection rate of 90-94%.Your other prefilters will do very little if anything to remove TDS.This leaves your DI resin to polish off quite a bit.Its likely that it is being exhausted before your changing it out.Anything above 2tds can cause problems IME.
-Graves
 
Gravesj1s said:
Hmmmm, couple things here.You mentioned you dont have a TDS meter ,so I assume you dont know when to change DI resins?
Also, what type of membrane do you use in your R.O? I know their are 2 types TFC AND CTO. CTO is usually used on well water and not as effective at removing TDS.I believe they have a rejection rate of 90-94%.Your other prefilters will do very little if anything to remove TDS.This leaves your DI resin to polish off quite a bit.Its likely that it is being exhausted before your changing it out.Anything above 2tds can cause problems IME.
-Graves
Click to expand...
I use TFC membranes. My DI resin is color change so I change that when it just starts to show signs of exhaustion, way before it totally changes color.
 
flamron said:
Have you ran a poly filter to check for metals? Might be worth a few bucks. That is where I kept going to when reading your posts as well.

Also, do you run carbon? Olddude has an interesting thread on a similar issue - I believe it is in the chemistry forum.

Good luck,
Click to expand...
I run a lot of carbon do to having a mixed reef. I have not ran a poly filter ever. no good reason why I guess. All I can say everything was fine till I woke up that one day and everything went down hill from there. Then only metals that may be in the tank is iron from my well water but my water system and RO/DI system should remove that. But it my be that a small trace amount has made it's way through the water systems and into the tank over the years ?
 
tropills said:
I use TFC membranes. My DI resin is color change so I change that when it just starts to show signs of exhaustion, way before it totally changes color.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I should have assumed you had checked the obvious,especially considering you have a 650 gal tank.
Baffling and interesting in its own kooky way.Wish you the best.
-Graves
 
I just wanted to mention that the poly filter will only remove copper when levels are 30ppm and higher. Iam not sure about the others.
-Graves
 
Hey Greg, since everyone here is grasping at straws....I don't think the subject of light has been explored. Are you running the fishneedit 72inch over your tank? I struggled for a year with both of mine, over my 150. I didn't lose fish like you have, albeit I did lose a few. No idea if it's connected, but I think the general deterioration and loss of corals all contributed to a general malase in the tank. Even though I replaced all 16 36" T5 HO bulbs, it really didn't make much diffence. Still never even got any coraline. I got my hands on an Apogee PAR meter. the numbers were unbelievably low. Literally 30 an inch under the water. 0 a few inches under! I now use the FishNeedIts for color only. Added 2 250 mh and things are looking better. I wish I could anecdotally say I am 100% sure, but I also did an aggressive Interceptor treatment at about the same time.
Just a thought. Maybe check that PAR. Who knows?
 
No Steve, I stopped running the fishneedit lights after a week or so on the lagoon system.

ALL this trouble began over a year ago in a perfectly running reef tank. I went to bed that night it was great, woke up the next morning to melting corals. didn't dose anything the day before or do anything out of the normal to the tank.
 
Ok that is odd. That suggests that whatever it is, it has to be part of the tank infrastructure and not the RO/DI unit. To be honest, I also have a hard time believing that is something that is leaching out of the rock. That would also be a slow process not something happening overnight. What about the week before... did you do anything that week?

Just curious... have you tried putting any of your stock into a quarantine tank with your RO/DI water? I'd like to break this problem in half. Is it in the tank or part of the water source.
 
Well I came to the conclusion after much thought it's not the rock leaching anything. I've setup a temp. tank with some choice rock from the main tank and all the corals and fish and everything looks great.The one thing that is different with the temp. tank and the old tank is the titanium heaters. I'm not using them !!!! After looking through my old tank logs I found I had a heater failure just prior to the trouble and switched to titanium heaters. about a month after going to the new heaters is when things started going down hill. Thinking " hey it can't be the heaters" they are new. But I'm beginning to wonder now that I'm not using them and everything is open more then it was and very happy.
 
retracing steps...finding the difference....so glad, Greg...so very glad things are working out now.....
 
What brand of titanium heaters are you using? I just switched to titanium after my stealth exploded in October. Haven't had any problems with coral losses, but I want to avoid that at all costs.
 
Won Brothers 3 prong, 500 watt. I purchased 2. Maybe one of them is good ? Maybe both are good ? Don't know at this point, except without them in the temp. system things are happier. I'm going to sell all my rock anyway and start over from scratch once I'm sure things are stable. it's all in my 100 gallon sump with a ton of flow and lighting so it will still be in good shape when I sell.... keep your eyes open for the sale it will go real cheap...
400+ pounds of it !
 
superkat said:
retracing steps...finding the difference....so glad, Greg...so very glad things are working out now.....
Click to expand...

I guess this is why we keep reef logs of everything we add or take away from our reefs.......

And if you aren't keeping one start NOW. For everything, water changes, trace elements, equipment, coral, fish, light bulbs, things that died, EVERYTHING. time and date added and why you added it.
 
Do you have any suspicions as to why those heaters were/are the cause? From the appearence did you see any cracks ,leakage,ect..
Glad things are looking up for you.
-Graves
 
I am currently running a test...I've had some serious P04's lately. They were all the way up to .70 and lowest was .11, now back up to .50. I have been doing weekly 50% wc's and P04 still present. G thought maybe some of the LR I got is leeching P04's back into system so I started up our 5g tank and put new sw in along with a 3lb chunk of LR. I will test weekly to see if the numbers climb.
 
Gravesj1s said:
Do you have any suspicions as to why those heaters were/are the cause? From the appearence did you see any cracks ,leakage,ect..
Glad things are looking up for you.
-Graves
Click to expand...
No visual leaks,cracks, bad wire seals. Nothing.... But they are not being used on the new Temp. system and all is great. I used about 60pounds of the same rock and the same water from the other tank. That's why I'm going with the heaters. They were the only thing I added internally to the tank that might have caused the losses. And It seems they might have been the culprit. I'll give it a couple weeks to make it my final determination.
 
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