Something wierd is going on

[Paul B]

For the last year or so something in my tank is just not right. I mean, it is better and I don't know why. The corals should be shrinking or dying but instead, they are growing faster than they ever did. Some pieces like this guy pictures a year ago was the same size for many years but now it is growing pretty fast. The last time I tested the nitrates they were over 40. Closer to 50. Normally that is considered toxic to corals.
The acropora and montipora are also growing to such an extent that I have to keep fragging them just so I can clean the glass. I know this is a good problem, but anything that happens that is different from the norm bothers me. I don't know why this is happening but I wish I knew because I know that when this cycle of growth and health ends, the other part of the spectrum could happen where everything will start dying and I still won't know why. This is also the first time in the history of the tank that the SPS, LPS and leathers are all thriving. Usually one of the other thrives while the others shrivel. Even all the paired fish are spawning and I have not done anything to the tank different than I always do which is almost nothing.
I do notice that I have to clean the glass almost every day now and I used to go a week between cleanings. Due to the growth I am not sure how I am going to do my yearly maintenance where I stir up everything with a diatom filter and suck out the debris because I can't move any rocks any more without breaking things. I don't like it when I don't understand things, kind of like talking to a woman, I am usually just dumfounded.

This was last year and this has not shown growth in years.



That same piece here has protrusions all over it. I know it doesn't look like much, but for a coral that didn't do anything for maybe 8 years, it is huge.


This monti also grows all over the place as I keep accidently breaking it when I am doing something and it just sticks to a rock and grows like crazy. This picture is a couple of months old, that coral is much larger now.



This sponge takes up about a quarter of the tank and I am going to start giving pieces of it away because it is covering some corals. It is about a foot across and 2 years ago it was the size of a dime. This is also an older picture.



Organ pipe coral I never used to be able to keep, now I have a few pieces a few years old and is my favorite pieces as they show a lot of movement.



I do realize this is a good "problem" but when something happens, and you don't know why, That is "almost" as bad as when something bad happened and you don't know why. My tank has never been wall to wall corals as that is not the look I am going for. There are about 25 fish in there and I like to have some swimming room.
Almost all of my corals started as tiny frags that I was given for free because they were just bits and pieces of broken shards in a dealer's tank.

 

[squishifishi]

huh, strange. it seems odd that everything started doing well when thenitrates peaked! it's like they like the dirty water? but that makes no sense! the only thing I can think of is this: for some reason, the ammount of nutrients and edible microorganisms in the tank went up. this would give the corals extra food particles to catch so they would grow much faster. this would also make your fish spawn because of the abundant food supply for future babies. this would also explain the algae on glas increase and the nitrates. As to where the extra nutrients came from...i got nothing. anyway,congrats on your growth and health and good luck figuring out the change.

 

[Paul B]

My tank was always considered dirty and being most of my fish are spawning, I do overfeed so maybe you are right. But, I think some of us have to re think this nitrate thing. I have not added NSW, mud, bacteria or amphipods since last summer so I know it is not that. I don't like it when I can't understand something especially when it is a good thing because if I knew what it was, I could do more of it or at least it will teach us something that is good to do.  The only thing I do different this year from the other years is add white worms to the fishes diet, but I doubt that would do anything because I don't feed the corals and I have always few blackworms.  I still rarely change water and I didn't dose or add anything different.   I don't dose anything except home made calcium but I have been doing that for many years.

 

[triggreef]

IMO nitrates mean nothing. My brothers tank thrives and his nitrates are consistantly over 100. He has jsut moved into a larger tank and has just got them down around 40ppm. But all his corals thrived when his no3 was 150ppm. Mostly lps but he also has quite a few sps.

 

[Paul B]

I am not concerned with nitrates and I have no test kits. I would just like to know what is going on so I could do more of it. This is an old tank and it generally runs very well with no problems, but when something changes, even for the better, I want to know why. For many years my nitrates were under 10 and everything looked good, but they look better now and the nitrates are about 50. I don't advocate anyone raising their nitrates on purpose as there is most likely something else going on in conjunction with the nitrates.

 

[behlke]

I expect you have thought about most of these as causes, but let's go through a list of possible changes to the aquarium that could be the cause...
Did you change the lights?
Did you change the filter media?
Add/remove filtration?
New filtration equipment?
Any new fish?
Any fish die?
Any new corals?
Any coral die?
Any new animal behaviors?

You mentioned the white worms, did you add white worms (increase food input) or did they replace the black worms?

You have talked about spawning in your tank previously, are the fish mating more frequently?

Did the top off water change?
Did the city change how it treats the water?
Did you change RO/DI filters?

Those are all I can think of for now. Good luck finding the cause. We always want to hear when things work out for the better.

Later,Adam

 

[Paul B]

I expect you have thought about most of these as causes, but let's go through a list of possible changes to the aquarium that could be the cause...
Did you change the lights?
Did you change the filter media?
Add/remove filtration?
New filtration equipment?
Any new fish?
Any fish die?
Any new corals?
Any coral die?
Any new animal behaviors?

You mentioned the white worms, did you add white worms (increase food input) or did they replace the black worms?

You have talked about spawning in your tank previously, are the fish mating more frequently?

Did the top off water change?
Did the city change how it treats the water?
Did you change RO/DI filters?

Those are all I can think of for now. Good luck finding the cause. We always want to hear when things work out for the better.

Well lets see. I changed the lights a couple of years ago.
The top off water is the same since about 37 years now. Before I used tap water.
I don't think the city changed anything.
I have not changed the RO cartridge in about 4 years and the DI cartridges I changed 6 months ago.
The food is the same except I added white worms.
I think it is just going through a cycle like all old tanks do. Sometimes I will get a cycle of hair algae that will last a couple of months, then it may be cyano for a year or so, then maybe some type of macro or something will spawn and the tank will be over run with brittle stars, amphipods, bristleworms, flatworms or snails. These things come and go and some last a few years. Now that I am diatoming the water, a new cycle of something else may pop up. Who knows? All of my paired fish are spawning and that is also new. My fish have always spawned but now they are spawning more but I attribute that to the addition of white worms that I feed along with the blackworms and clams. The longer I am in this hobby the closer I get to becoming a fish myself and I feel that I know exactly what they need to stay healthy and spawning. But that's why I love this hobby.

 

[Heliman]

Paul

You may have just struck the "tipping point" where all your overall husbandry and management processes have delivered the exact and correct parameters for the health of your total bio-system.

Surely, now is a perfect time to test the hell out of the water and get a good look at what all the parameters are ???...because if you do, you will then know (within the limits we have to test for things) just what the parameters are for such great coral health.

I know this may only be apart of the big and complex picture about what is happening, but it would be real interesting for us to see what parameters seem to be delivering such success.

 

[icecool217]

Your issue is sure making some of us jealous

 

[Paul B]

Surely, now is a perfect time to test the hell out of the water and get a good look at what all the parameters are ???.

That would mean I have to buy test kits, and that ain't gonna happen. I think I have a nitrate kit, I will look,.
And don't call me Surely.

:idea:

Your issue is sure making some of us jealous

Don't get jealous, next week I will probably get a cycle of manta rays.

 

[Rbs07fxstc]

I was reading a thread recently about people's tanks thriving with high nitrates also. Kinda freaky reading how so many don't do water changes. I'm a lil OCD to let it slip for too long. Either way, congrats

 

[The Curious]

Paul

You may have just struck the "tipping point" where all your overall husbandry and management processes have delivered the exact and correct parameters for the health of your total bio-system.

+1. Cheers

I always remember going to the beach with my Marine Bio class and testing the ocean water. Trust me...PO3 was nowhere near 0 :spin3:.

Science is a confusing mistress

 

[Ron Reefman]

Hi Paul,

You know, for as smart a guy as you are, and as much as you seem to like science, your 'I won't test water parameters' attitude surprises me. You want to know what is going on in your tank, but you don't have any baseline parameters and you don't test for changes... doesn't that make finding the reason or cause of your current growth situation a bit difficult to identify? Even if you did figure it out, I'd be calling your results anecdotal evidence. And I think most other smart people would as well. But I know you march to a very different drummer!

You've been very successful for a long, long time. There's a lot to be said for that. And I'd like to get to know my reef well enough and be skilled enough to not have to test either. But when things go wrong, and you DON'T know what the cause is, what other options are there? If you don't know an answer, you have to learn more about the situation in order to find an answer. Just refusing to test water on general principals is kind of fooloish, isn't it? I mean it's completely your prerogative to do as you wish with your tank. But you ask for advise here and then can't give anybody any data. It's kind of like asking the blind guy to help a guy who can't open his eyes to get across a busy intersection. It may work out, but there are better solutions.

I'm just say'n

Your friend,
Ron

 

[crazzyreefer]

Take you water to a good LFS, and pay to have them test all perimeters, Usally a coulple of bucks a test... It does you no good to say hay whats going on when you dont want to know.... I had the same setup, but the thing was I couldn't give or sell my corals, my tank was o far off, that they could not transition back into the clean tanks. Are the corals living in others persons tanks? or do they RTN... don't cut back the sponge, this is why you are having good luck, they are better than any mechanical filter....

 

[Piper27]

Hi Paul,

You know, for as smart a guy as you are, and as much as you seem to like science, your 'I won't test water parameters' attitude surprises me. You want to know what is going on in your tank, but you don't have any baseline parameters and you don't test for changes... doesn't that make finding the reason or cause of your current growth situation a bit difficult to identify? Even if you did figure it out, I'd be calling your results anecdotal evidence. And I think most other smart people would as well. But I know you march to a very different drummer!

You've been very successful for a long, long time. There's a lot to be said for that. And I'd like to get to know my reef well enough and be skilled enough to not have to test either. But when things go wrong, and you DON'T know what the cause is, what other options are there? If you don't know an answer, you have to learn more about the situation in order to find an answer. Just refusing to test water on general principals is kind of fooloish, isn't it? I mean it's completely your prerogative to do as you wish with your tank. But you ask for advise here and then can't give anybody any data. It's kind of like asking the blind guy to help a guy who can't open his eyes to get across a busy intersection. It may work out, but there are better solutions.


I'm just say'n

Your friend,
Ron

Well said, I was trying to think about how to respond to his post (same one but I saw it in our local wamas forum) and gave up. You sumed it up quite well. I wonder if Paris Hilton will be part of his solution?

 

[The Curious]

The sponge is definitely doing a lot of work for you.

 

[Paul B]

You know, for as smart a guy as you are, and as much as you seem to like science, your 'I won't test water parameters' attitude surprises me. You want to know what is going on in your tank, but you don't have any baseline parameters and you don't test for changes... doesn't that make finding the reason or cause of your current growth situation a bit difficult to identify?
You've been very successful for a long, long time. There's a lot to be said for that. And I'd like to get to know my reef well enough and be skilled enough to not have to test either. But when things go wrong, and you DON'T know what the cause is, what other options are there? It's kind of like asking the blind guy to help a guy who can't open his eyes to get across a busy intersection. It may work out, but there are better solutions.

I'm just say'n

Ron old Pal. I am a science guy and for many years I did test parameters. I know my pH is 8.4 and my calcium is 500 and my nitrate is 40.
I know these things because I did test the nitrates as I do have that kit that someone gave me. I have a pH kit but I didn't test it because it has been 8.4 for 30 years and I know that if I tested it now, that is what it would be. The calcium and everything else was tested by a lab 3 or 4 years ago and it was 516. I can tell by the growth of the corals and coralline algae that the calcium is fine. PO4 I never tested but 3 years ago it was .2.
If something started to decline in the tank I would bring the water to a LFS to be tested. But, and this is a big but, I feel that parameters as we think of them today are practically useless for our purposes. Take nitrate for instance. Mine are 40 or 50 and almost everyone will tell you that can't be and have a tank full of thriving SPS will they not? Just because NSW is very low does that mean it should be very low in our tanks? Mine was low for decades but now that they are high, the tank looks even better so obviousely high nitrates mean nothing. My salinity is "close" to what is considered normal. What exactly is normal? It varies all over the place so why would you use a refractometer if you don't know what normal is. Temperature also. It varies all over the place and my fish live a very long time and don't seem to care that it varies 10 degrees in my tank from summer to winter. I just don't need to spend money on test kits because there is nothing wrong with my tank and if you read through the threads, most of the problems with parameters are in tanks where people constantly tweek the parameters to get them exact. I am a science guy but I am also a natural guy and let the bacteria and algae do their thing. My parameters never change except the nitrate and that changed when I went on vacation and left a sitter in charge.
As for asking for advice, I didn't. I was merely stating an interesting fact and thought it would make for a discussion, which it did.
The healthy growth spurt is just a cycle which happens to all older tanks and it is probably caused by something we can not test for like the nutrients or vitamins added to the water by algae or some waste product exuded by bacteria or coral. These things are never discussed because everyone is focused on parameters. If nitrate, calcium, Po4 and Alk were all there was to it, this would be simple and a new tank with 100% new water would be the best, healthiest thing there was, but it is not. New tank with all new water with 100% perfect parameters are the least healthy tanks and they barely support life. Now isn't that interesting?

 

[Paul B]

It's kind of like asking the blind guy to help a guy who can't open his eyes to get across a busy intersection. It may work out, but there are better solutions

As for the blind guy crossing the street, I have a story about that. (I know I posted this on here someplace)
I went to Australia on R&R from Nam and I was at this large intersection in Sydney and I was trying to cross the street because they don't have traffic lights and the cars were flying past me and I couldn't cross.
So these two guys come up to me and one of them says something un intelligible to me with an Aussie accent.
I said 'What, I don't understand you?" And he said it again. He wanted me to help this blind guy across the street.
I couldn't get across myself, so I am standing there with the blind guy on my arm and after a while he says to me, "What's the matter Bloke?"
I said I can't get across the street because there is to much traffic.
He said "No problem" and he raises his cane and steps in the street.
I covered my eyes as cars were screeching and going around us on the sidewalk. We made it to the other side and the guy went off on his own.
Now as I am looking around for where I was going, another blind guy comes up to me and says, "Hey Bloke could you help me cross the street?"
Now this blind guy gets me back across the street and leaves.
It seems I was standing in front of a blind facility where everyone was blind.
I had to wait for another blind guy to come by to get back across the street.:crazy1:

 

[igot2gats]

If nitrate, calcium, Po4 and Alk were all there was to it, this would be simple and a new tank with 100% new water would be the best, healthiest thing there was, but it is not. New tank with all new water with 100% perfect parameters are the least healthy tanks and they barely support life.

Wow. Crazy stuff, Paul. I love this thinking. Great thought action going on here....def something to ponder going forward.

Very interesting.

 

[Paul B]

Thank you but am I right? Are the newest tanks the healthiest or do they have all the problems with ich, coral bleaching, algae, cyano, velvet and all sorts of problems? If parameters were the answer why then don't we just change 100% of our water when there is a problem instead of adding kalk, alk, calcium etc. And who has the most problems, isn't it the people who change water every week? Why are there so many tanks that look fantastic where the owner hardly if ever changes water?
I mean think about those things. If even one tank can look great without changing water in 3 or 4 years, how important to corals are certain levels of chemicals?
Obviousely healthy corals need calcium, iron, etc. But I think just as important is time. For some reason as time passes in a tank it gets healthier. It may take years but old tanks don't have many, if any problems. Why are my fish healthy and why don't I have to quarantine? People say I am lucky or that only works in my tank. Really, is that an answer? Or maybe the age of the tank has something to do with it. Maybe with age substances are added to the water by who knows what that makes it healthier.
Some of my fish are still spawning after almost 20 years, why is that when those same fish in another tank (with perfect parameters) would have died from ich years ago.
Don't get the wrong idea, I don't mean to keep your tank like a sewer. I do change water and although I don't hardly test, I know what the tests would read. I have had a fish tank every day of my life for 60 years so I can just tell what is going on.
If I started a new tank tomorrow I would have all the problems Noobs have. My fish would probably get ich, the tank may get over run with algae and it may crash. Noobs are not stupid and it is not their fault that they have problems, it is not them, it is the fact that tanks change over time, usually for the better and all the knowledge and experience will not give you a stress free tank instantly. Me with all my experience would probably crash a tank if I started one today. :sad2: