Please Help me figure this out...keep losing corals

In my opion po4 needs to come down a bit .what salt brand are u using ..i was having some issues with sps peeling away a few months ago ..mune i belive was do to inballance of alk to cal ..the salt i was using was slowly creeping up my cal levels to off the charts i did exactly what directions say and it was just way off the charts .to me alk and cal have to be balanced for intake of sps .if u use the dosing chart online it shows u what ur balanced alk to cal should be .
 
Very good thread, thanks to the OP and the helpers as I have been having a similar issue with some of my SPS and I believe my issue is also alk swings/changes. Weird thing is some SPS does fine, some doesnt....have a pink lemonade frag that is doing awesome, a Plum Crazy 4 inches away went white in 2 days.
 
i use esv salt and dosing products. the only thing i notice w this salt is that using 30g of mix items (salt, mag, cal, alk) i never come close to 29 gallons of water in the end, its always closer to 24-25. my rodi tds meter always shows 0, i use color changing resin, so i keep it in check. i keep my mixing bucket clean in between changes, and i change about 25g of water periodically during the week. so i'll mix water tomorrow, and then do a few small water changes, like every other day or every 3 days till the 25g is done.
what i haven't done is test the freshly mixed water for all three elements, alk tested a bit over 10 this week. i do use a good scale that weighs out the .01 grams, so i know i can get my mix amounts spot on every time.

i think we are on the same page, there's no reason for me to have been dosing with no coral load, so it seems feasible that the steady dosing over 24h was throwing things off constantly even though i wasnt adding a lot of either element, it ws probably enough to have a steady pulse of alk and cal increases
 
to really insure minimal swings if using water changes as your alk repleniishment, do multiple small changes throughout a month. i like to do 2x 5% weekly. Usually it is more like 10% 1x per week. But in any case, this helps replenish alk without causint it to shift more than .15 of a point, based on my water volume. If i did 20% per month water change, it could definitely shift the alk more than the corals like. I do also use Kalk at a litttle more than 1\2 saturation (about .6 really, ie: 6teaspoons per 10 gallons of water, sometimes 7) to topoff (roughly 2g per day). This did take time to figure out what worked for my tank and bioload, and i do retest the water monthly at the least. But with testing and SMALL ADJUSTMENTS, you can get it stable.....and i hope the alk is the issue so you dont have to bang your head against the wall.
good luck
 
at some point your nitrates were lower, now they are at 10 ppm, that is called excess. your corals aren't using them and don't need them, so lower it. any creditable source will say the same, "10ppm NO3 is too high for sps'." few will say otherwise, why not believe the majority?
 
I was using esv also I was also using a scale to measure and it was never acurate in my case ..i switched to reef crystals and balanced the all,calout and my issues went away
 
Checked my refers yesterday, it calibrated fine. Alk was at 8.8 last night, and 8.7 this morn (158,156)
Mixing new water tonigjt and will start water changes...
 
So, where do I start, should I bring my alk up to the esv level which is about 9.8-10, or lower closer to nsw levels? Confused by all the variances of alk from tank to tank. On rc I hear people using 8-9, 9-10. My lfs uses alk closer to 6-7... I don't know where to start...
 
New info found, could this be the cause? I used esv 2 part, I did not know you had to use equal parts of each solution in the dosing schedule. I don't have records of what my dosing was when my tank was successful, but I do know that after I switched lights i reset my dosing as the corals acclimated. I'm sure the amounts were different.
I checked my program now and the times were off by 5 seconds each using brs dosers, so not a big diff, but still there... Cod this have been it??????
 
jscarlata said:
So, where do I start, should I bring my alk up to the esv level which is about 9.8-10, or lower closer to nsw levels? Confused by all the variances of alk from tank to tank. On rc I hear people using 8-9, 9-10. My lfs uses alk closer to 6-7... I don't know where to start...
Click to expand...

There are as many ways to keep a tank as there are fish to put in it. If you carbon dose you should keep your alk around 7 - 7.5, higher seems to cause issues. Otherwise it's your choice. A common level for non carbon doser's is 8.5-9.0. Personally I keep mine at 8.5. This gives me a little safety margin for a minor swing up or down, .25 -.5, without a major problem. Some keep it as high as 11-12 seemingly without problems. You are right to be confused as this hobby can be very confusing at times. The best advice I can offer is to find a long term successful tank and emulate it while you learn and never make rapid changes, one at a time and slowly, give it a few weeks before making another. Good luck and keep going, you will succeed.
 
jscarlata said:
New info found, could this be the cause? I used esv 2 part, I did not know you had to use equal parts of each solution in the dosing schedule. I don't have records of what my dosing was when my tank was successful, but I do know that after I switched lights i reset my dosing as the corals acclimated. I'm sure the amounts were different.
I checked my program now and the times were off by 5 seconds each using brs dosers, so not a big diff, but still there... Cod this have been it??????
Click to expand...

A slight difference in dosing wont hurt things too bad. One of your parameters will either creep slowly up or down over time. hopefully you notice the creep and can adjust your dosers accordingly.
 
What is your source of frags? Is it always the same place. I'd try some frags from a few different places. Your tank is what I would consider high nutrient. I have seen frags going from ULNS tank to a high nutrient tank have similar fates as your frags. Maybe look for someone who runs a tank similar to you and try a frag from there.
 
Thanks guys
I did another calibration on my refractometer using a newly made test sample following Randy's example, and my salinity was a bit high, 1.029. So I lowered it over the last few days, testing every day. My tank is using alk up, it drops from about 8.8-8.4 over the course of about 12-16hours.
Frags in the last few tests were from same source, one lfs nearby. I'd rather get frags that are grown under led but there aren't a lot of retail sources near me...
 
I just went through this, and lost parts of almost every single frags \ mini colony and even lost some complete full blown colonies. A month after a big alk swing ( 8.6 -> 6.6) one mini colony started to RTN, then next day another, couple days later another, until it went through almost all 50 of my frags... I lost a couple, but after getting it stable very quickly, things are now scarred, and growing like normal again.

The alk swing may have already happened some time ago and it doesn't manifest itself for sometimes weeks like my case. Keep it stable, stable stable, and ride it out. if it gets bad enough that your coral is almost completely dead, frag one of the tips of branches that isn't being touched by the recession and grow it out. I saved an amazing one of a kind wild acro colony that way... I lost 99% of it, but one branch. After being mounted it's now regrowing again and encrusting on my rocks.

Good luck, it's painful, frustrating, and sometimes doesn't make a lick of sense. Also, get the PO4 and NO4 down too, it's not going to help with SPS in the long run.
 
jscarlata said:
Thanks guys
I did another calibration on my refractometer using a newly made test sample following Randy's example, and my salinity was a bit high, 1.029. So I lowered it over the last few days, testing every day. My tank is using alk up, it drops from about 8.8-8.4 over the course of about 12-16hours.
Frags in the last few tests were from same source, one lfs nearby. I'd rather get frags that are grown under led but there aren't a lot of retail sources near me...
Click to expand...

ahh that is what i thought originally glad you found out
 
animalkingdom said:
ahh that is what i thought originally glad you found out
Click to expand...

yep.
since i already have the DD seawater refractometer, what else do you recommend as a secondary salinity measurement device? i see a lot of people use the milwaukee digital unit, but its not very accurate. are there better refractometers that don't cost more than say 150?
 
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