Path to recovery, and 3 weeks growth.

[MammothReefer]

Took some photos last nite, thought I would share. Not a huge change but if you squint enough you can see the changes. I thought it was neat. My tank was on the decline a few months back after I received a bad batch of RCSP. It took a bout 3 weeks for me to figure out what the issue was and then correct it. Alot of pieces had receded during that time (as well as loosing a couple), but things are finally on the right path again. It's now been about 5 weeks since I made the switch back to IO. Here are some photos from 2 weeks into IO, and last nite (so 3 weeks apart). I apologize for the colour difference all these photos are just quick snaps w/my g11.

Light green efflo from copps.
3 weeks ago small signs of encrustation.

now

my hawkins.. I can't seem to capture light blues with this camera they always blow out as whites. I had fragged this piece a couple weeks prior to this photo.

here it is now

Lemonade thingy.. I don't know why this thing went terminal polyp crazy or is growing so dense...but here it 3 weeks ago

and here it is now

(different views) Dec 1

now.. the back of it it's going nuts.

 

[MammothReefer]

Valida recovering and growing again, and the sunset monti.. is really taking off. (hard to tell in pics unless you look at marking on the rocks)

(sunset monti for reference a year ago)

This one surprised me, I've had it for over a year it was stagnant for the longest long.

Sand dollar

Really eating the rock now.

Here it is a year ago.. growth was soo slow at first.

Red polyp monti - bleached and mad..

here its now fair bit of growth for 3 weeks, and now more blue

 

[MammothReefer]

my purple green thingy.. recovering from alk burn so all the tips are round..

here it is now all healed, up new terminal polyps where it was fragged, no more brown

for reference here it is a year ago or so. (dec 12 2010) top center.

Undata, and camo efflo

Undate is taking on a nice iridescent tone, and the efflo is all healed up.

Bonsai from Copps.. dec1

dec22

 

[MammothReefer]

and last one for now, my baby blue "??" it shows up white, but it's a very light blue in person.. next to no growth for the 3 weeks you can see a little encrusting..but not much. Next to it you can see my green stag has a whole bunch of new terminal polyps. Which makes me happy since this piece not only got damaged by the salt issue, it also took from aefw last spring.

 

[MammothReefer]

double post.. thanks for looking

 

[Reefer1225]

Nice recovery/growth, Mammoth! You need to do a FTS. What kind of lightning are you using?

 

[MammothReefer]

Nice recovery/growth, Mammoth! You need to do a FTS. What kind of lightning are you using?

Thanks, I'll try to take one tonight. I'm currently using 2x250w SE radiums 20ks in Luminarc Minis. I was using 6 t5s and a single 250w 20k. I've got really good edge to edge coverage now but I miss the fiji purple making my reds pop. I'm thinking about adding back 2 t5s but I bleached a few pieces when I added the radiums and I don't want to add anymore light until they recover.

 

[silentscream]

RCSP - Reef crystals? What was bad about the batch?

For just a few short weeks of recovery, that's impressive growth. Nice work.

 

[Allmost]

very nice pics and growth !

 

[MammothReefer]

RCSP - Reef crystals? What was bad about the batch?

For just a few short weeks of recovery, that's impressive growth. Nice work.

Sorry, typo on my part. RSCP. (Red Sea Coral Pro). It was mixing to 16dkh, I didn't realize until after the first water change when I saw a HUGE spike in alk. After that I tried using it in small amounts so it wouldn't spike my alk and things continued to declined. I had made up a couple different batches and did water changes between 10 gallons and 1 gallon. I don't know what else was wrong with the salt but it seemed with every water changes things got worse (which seemed very out of place). I finally gave up switched to IO and within a couple weeks montis that were dying recovered, acros started to heal etc. I tried contacting red sea here in the vendor forum. I'll admit I was frustrated and a little hostile but they made 0 efforts to help me resolve the issue didn't ask me to send them a salt sample, basically told me to pound sand... ...not what you want to hear after you do a 10gallon water change and your 150$ red dragon, and 100$ Pink polyp piece from Atlantis both which were encrusting and growing rtn's in a couple a hours..

very nice pics and growth !

Thank you

 

[silentscream]

That's interesting. I have been using RSCP for several water changes now, and even though the levels comes out exactly as advertised on the bucket, I'm not sure my tank can handle an alkalinity level of 12ish. I was just tired of having to test and mix IO up to the levels of Ca and Mg I needed every week.

 

[MammothReefer]

That's interesting. I have been using RSCP for several water changes now, and even though the levels comes out exactly as advertised on the bucket, I'm not sure my tank can handle an alkalinity level of 12ish. I was just tired of having to test and mix IO up to the levels of Ca and Mg I needed every week.

I find even IO mixes higher then I want. It comes to 11-11.2 for me on dkh. I used to shoot for 8-9dkh for my tank but lately I've been migrating more towards 9-10dkh. I did a 22 gallon water change the other nite. It raised my tank from 9.072 to 9.352. Which is more then I like but not that bad. I typically shoot for 15 gallons a week which will shoot me up a little under .2 dkh per water change. I'm trying to dose a little under so I have a slow decline in alk that gets made up at the end of the week. In terms of calc/mag if I recall the numbers weren't that unacceptable. Since the change my mag has stayed steady with one dose of 30ml to keep it at 1400-1420. However my calcium has dropped from 450-400 over the past 5 weeks which I'm ok with. If it goes down below 350 I'll have to start dosing with my water changes.

 

[slojmn]

I was reading this thread and it got me to thinking...So I started my own thread regarding Red Sea Coral Pro....

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=19663350#post19663350

Needless to say I am frustrated and wondering if my plan will help settle things down in my tank over time. Once I get through the buckets I have I will be re-thinking my salt choice for my tanks.

 

[MechEng99]

Hey Mammoth - I think I posted back in your original thread when you were having the troubles to start since I had the same symptoms/conclusions. Glad to see everything turned around for you!

I had the same response from Red Sea too - none. There have been waaaay to many people having this issue with no response from them. I think it was the high organics people were finding in the salt.

Slojmn - If you're questioning your salt, I would stop using it immediately. If you're having the same problem we had, it's not pretty. Try switching salts - you should notice a change within a few hours of the water change.

 

[MammothReefer]

Hey Mech,
Thanks. I was really surprised at how quickly things turned around. Glad to hear things turned around for you as well. I got my Salt from DR. F&S so Did Slojmn, where did you get yours from? I wonder if all our salts are from the same batch?

Slojmn, I agree with with mecheng99 on the salt at well.. However I read your thread and you seem to have a lot of different things going on at once while your parameters are defiantly off in the new salt batch.. I would work to slowly get your tank parameters back closer to NSW levels. 2000 mag can cause some damage. At the end of july I ran into the same issue (of my own fault over dosed by hand) It took all of august to get my mag back down below 1500. I almost lost my montis in the process (did loose my 2 undatas and my neon green unknown piece from neptune), but after I fixed it everything else recovered rather quickly.

 

[MechEng99]

My issue was a few years ago, and I got the salt locally, so I doubt it was the same batch. Since then, this issue has resurfaced several times from people from various parts of the US. We are by far not the only ones.

It really makes me wonder what is the cause. If I remember correctly, I think I did a 5g water change (~10% on that system) with IO when I was having my problems b/c I ran out of RSCP. Within a few hours everything was turning around. I don't know what could cause so much damage, but cause drastically less when only 10% of the water volume is removed. I'm still guessing the organics as a salt study this fall showed RSCP was high...but that's all I have to go on. I originally thought some sort of heavy metal, but running carbon/GFO & wet skimming didn't help me. I dunno.

Slojmn - I haven't read your thread (been busy with Christmas), but I'll check it out now.

 

[prop-frags]

Interesting. Thanks for posting this.
You guys know about the .123 formula for adding 30% HCL to reduce ALK?
Look in the reef chemistry forum - Cliff posted it a while back - just search on .123

 

[silentscream]

Interesting. Thanks for posting this.
You guys know about the .123 formula for adding 30% HCL to reduce ALK?
Look in the reef chemistry forum - Cliff posted it a while back - just search on .123

Interesting, thanks for the heads up. I think I'll experiment with this a little, but now I'm back to the reason why I left IO in the first place. Having to dose the new mix before using. :uhoh3:

 

[MammothReefer]

Interesting, thanks for the heads up. I think I'll experiment with this a little, but now I'm back to the reason why I left IO in the first place. Having to dose the new mix before using. :uhoh3:

You shouldn't have to. Lets say the difference between your NSW is 1dkh, and you change out 10% you are going to a .1dkh change after a water change not really a big deal.

 

[Acronic]

whoa! excellent growth