Please help, zoa and softie issue

[Gary Majchrzak]

whatever you do

whatever you do

don't do anything drastic.
As you probably already know, these corals can look terrible but they're hard to kill

 

[tmz]

Cyano may be feeding of dead bacteria or other organics ( carbon, notrogen, phosphorous) from the old sand. The organics from the bacteria would contain some organic PO4 and nitrogen that might not show up on your test. Cyano can uniquely create it's own nutrients by fixing free nitrogen via an enzyme called nitrogenase which it and a few other related diazotrophic bacteria posses. . This feat coupled with the oxygen it frees up is why it is often credited with the enabling of all other life on the planet. It is the true primordial slime.Cyano can live and grow on CO2, light and water a It will, however, take a free lunch and thrive more when nutrients are readlily available.Many using carbon dosing achieve very low ,undtectable levels of N an P often undetecable on hobby kits and still see cyano encourage by the carbon dosing . So I don't think you can use it as an indicator of PO4 or NO3 . The only way I know to get a handle on those is with reliable tests.

Polypad ,actually it's poly filter, is a product of bio marine which is excellent at removing heavy metals and some other toxins in case that is what you are seeing.
http://www.poly-bio-marine.com/polyfilter.html

Rox should give you a month to 6 weeks or more in afluidized reactor. If it's in a mesh bag , kneading it a bit wekkly and rinsing is worthwhile.

There is no test for hydrogen sulfide, I know of. You can smell it( sewer gas odor) It will also leave blackend areas on rock or sand which are sulfide deposits.

 

[tmz]

Ben, another thought. Probably worth checking your tds post di and post membrane. Sometimes a membrane may not seat properly allowing water to flow around it, quickly exhausting di resin which can when exhausted release some nasties.

Good Luck.

 

[cardiffgiant]

After using the turkey baster on the sand every time the cyano appeared and doing a number of 10ml doses today my more established zoas have actually opened back up while the days were on. They haven't done that in a while.

Way too soon to say that everything is better. I'm going to keep this up and try the testing and revive later this week. I'm going to test that RODI unit tomorrow morning.

 

[Paradiddle7]

I get about a year out of my DI resin and that's on a 90 + sump. I was doing 20% water changes a week and anything that touches tap water gets a final rinse in RODI before being used again in the tank.

I also have a dual sensor in-line TDS meter, so I can see my TDS going in and coming out, or wherever else I want to see it. I use a pressure gauge to tell me if my sediment and carbon filters are dead.

 

[cardiffgiant]

Perhaps I spoke too soon. The zoas were closed for most of the day again yesterday. I basted the sand a few times, and noticed that they would open up shortly after.

I tested my RODI. The output before the DI is measuring 3 TDS and the output after the DI is measuring 1 TDS.

 

[Paradiddle7]

How close to the sand with cyano are the zoas? I'm wondering if there is also that same layer of cyano on top of the zoas and maybe you can see it.

I had a cyano problem once I started neglecting my tank and I found that cleaning the rocks real well and vacuuming the sand, along with running GFO cleared it up quick.

To clean the rocks, a baster or just rapid underwater hand movements moves a lot of water and tons of detritus comes out of the rocks. Do that and make sure you are running a good filter sock 50-100 microns and you'll get a lot of that stuff out of the tank.

I also filled a 30g tub with old water on a water change and took each rock out, grabbed it with 2 hands and them rapidly twisted and shook each rock and tons more stuff fell out.

I would also recommend replacing as much of your sand bed as easily possible too.

 

[tmz]

If you are getting 1 post tds, I would personally change the resin. When the cation/anion resin exhausts it releases the more loosely bound ions first, such as silicate and maybe phosphate. So 1 ppmpost di is likely much worse than your 3ppm post membrane.

 

[Paradiddle7]

Yeah, and like I said before. I only get a year out of my resin on a 90g tank. It's only about $12 to change it, so I don't even mess around. I care for my RODI system as much as possible because all those foreign particulates keep adding up in the tank, as none of them evaporate (obviously). If my TDS doesn't read 0, I investigate. Also, with RODI, not all filters are equal. Don't use cheap generic filters. Use Spectrapure or other brand name properly rated filters, they are only a few bucks more.

 

[cardiffgiant]

Is it possible that the DI exhausted before the color changed? The DI has only just started to show any color change.

So... I doubled checked it and I did two things wrong when I first tested the RODI. I disconnected the wrong tube when I tried to check before and after the DI and had actually checked after the DI on both readings (doh!). The second was that I used one of my kids plastic drinking cups. It was clean, but there may be residue i nthe plastic cups that you don't find in a glass.

I tried a glass this time and used a larger volume of water to check. I've got 137 coming in from the tap, 1 coming out of the membrane, and 0 coming out of the DI. I checked a 2nd time to be sure.

I have several zoas on frags right on the sand bed. I guess that it's possible that a small amount of the cyano might be on those zoas, but I can't see it. There zoas all over the tank and they generally all react at the same time. The cyano has been very light ever since I started using the baster on the sand daily.

 

[tmz]

Color changing resins are a general indictor for a qucik look but not very reliable in my experience. I prefer a tds meter.
Actually,I use two di canisters,each with mixed anion and cation resin. There is an inline meter which measures the input to the second canister and it's output. As soon as the input shows more than 0 it indicates the first canister is done. I change it out and rotate the canisters. It's not really more expensive this way. The second canister is relatively inexpensive. In the long run less resin is wasted in premature changes while insuring consistent 0tds.The extra small savings for non color changing resin vs. color changing is also a plus as is the absence of the color change change agent.

 

[cardiffgiant]

I had my PO4 tested today and it measured 0.03. LOL, even with me bringing it in for testing in a plastic container (oops) No nitrates registered on the color strip.

I ordered dosing pumps for my two part.

ARC was out of revive, but I picked up some tropic marin coral cure and tried tried it on two frags.

I'm leaning towards a combination of the tank being a bit short on nutrient for the softies and that the Alk swings irritating them. I'll correct these two issues with the dosing pumps, and by adding an additional feeding time to my auto feeder.

In time I'm going to try that DI approach with an inline TDS. Sounds very efficient!

 

[toddmh]

Ben how should I bring water to ARC to test for PO4 if not in plastic ?

 

[cardiffgiant]

definitely glass. someone else in the store had brought their water in with an old baby food jar.

 

[toddmh]

ahh.. ok thanks

 

[tmz]

Just another thought,FWIW. My zoanthids seem to like a little extra organic carbon and have flourished since I started dosing vodka, vinegar sugar back in January. There is a very large thread about zonthids and vitamin C dosing ( aka ascorbic acid which is also a carbon source). My PO4 is about where yours is and they do fine at that level. But if PO4 and NO3 are very low you certainly have some room to feed more if you choose.

 

[Johnny C]

TMZ, I <i>knew</i> you had some tricks up your sleeve... your zoos grow like they're on steriods! :lol:

Ben, your plan of attack sounds great. Hopefully the TMPCC will help a bit if you have any pests.

 

[tmz]

Thanks Jon.
I hope they stay healthy. Been doing real well with them for about a year now.High flow. lots of light and a little vodka. They di well without the vodka too but maybe slightly better with it.
To be clear, I haven't used the ascorbic acid(vitamin C) yet.. It is alleged to promote tissue growih somehow, since it is said to encourage colagen production when ingested in humans. Dosing it in the water for corals is a long shot,in my opinion . since it's not likely ingested nor do they produce colagen as far as I know.. But many claim success with it. I suspect any enhancement is more about the carbon the vitamin C brings with it which vodka, vinegar, sugar etc. do as well.

 

[cardiffgiant]

Too funny, when I was in ARC talking to Jon his first question was "did you talk to TMZ?" I just did research on vodka dosing. I'd like to try it when I get back into town, maybe a week or more after the other changes.

I'm going to pocket vitamin C dosing as a last resort.

I'm going to follow the guideline at the following link for vodka dosing. Do you have any additional advice for trying it?

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

 

[tmz]

Ben,

If you decide to dose organic carbon: study it well; go slow; export the bacteria and other organic material to avoid excess organic buildup via heavy skimming and gac.
Be very patient and consistent. A little vodka goes a long way. I dose 24 ml and 15 ml of vinegar( which is 8x weaker than vodka in terms of organic carbon content) to 550 gallons daily.. I've tried sugar ( sucrose) but my corals don't seem to like it,particularly scolymia .

My primary reasons for dosing are the reduction of N and P and the maintenance of bacteria in the system as a potential food source and for bacteria's ability to metabolize and bind potetnialy toxic metals which may come in with salt mixes etc.
.
Measure NO3 and PO4 regularly to track it's effects. Dosing extra carbon at 0 PO4 or 0 NO3 doesn't make much sense to me since the faculative heterotrophic bacteria carbon supports need phosphate and nitrogen too.

Now for the dark side.Observe your fish and corals closely. Some corals may darken(purple) ,not necesarily a bad thing, (I saw this in two lobophylia which had been in the system for a while) as they absorb some of the ethanol. Excesses it is speculated, may interfere with the corals symbiont bacteria's activities. Varying and/ or mixing the type of organic carbon(vodka, vinegar, sucrose, glucose, ascorbic acid, etc.) you dose may help culture diverse strains of bacteria rather than a more dominant single strain and may off set some of the cyano issues some have when they dose it. Cyano has not been a major issue for me. Some argue the extra organic carbon will fuel pathogenic bacteria too and make infections in fish and corals harder to overcome.
Other more long term issues may include: iodide depletion from the bacterial activity and/or the constant use of gac. Also in heavily dosed systems without frequent water changes a run down in potassium levels may occur.Again organic carbon build up may be an issue long term without adequate export via skimming ,gac ,purigen and/or other organic reduction methods.

I've been dosing since January and all is well. Wish I could measure total organic carbon and better test kits were available for iodide and potassium though.Some notable effects have been a nice response by zoanthus, good polyp extension in sps, good PO4 and NO3 control and crystal clear water. No noteworthy negatives but I go slow and dose as little as I can to keep PO4 and NO3 where I want them. I also use gfo and macro refugia and run two large skimmers.