Sps death ahhhh!!!

[treysv1000]

Please help?? my tank has been up and running for at least 18 months suddenely when i hooked up my new calcium reactor my alk dropped to 5.3 so i turned it off. Now only some of my sps is slowly losing tissue and color others including montis are doing great and my lps grows but will not open. i have a 120 on a 400 gallon water base 2 mp40's a super reef 5000 skimmer and ecoray 112's old and new corals are just dying. Please Help any suggestions would be greatly appreicated thanks in advance.

 

[treysv1000]

HELP PLEASE ANYONE??? SPS death is wiping out my tank

HELP PLEASE ANYONE??? SPS death is wiping out my tank

My corals are dying more everyday and i have no clue what to do. Seems like the ones dying are dying from the base up slowly...

 

[REEF SMAC]

Sorry to hear about your woes.:sad2:

If I was to give it my best guess, based on your post, It definitely sounds like an ALK issue. IME Alk levels too low will definitely cause rtn issues with sps.
If your Alk really went down to 5.3, it's not surprising to me that you're having issues. That's pretty low.
I'm really confused about the part where you hooked up a Ca. Rx. and your Alk went down? Just as a reference when I first hooked up a Ca. Rx. on my tank years ago, my Alk shot up to 14.0 before I knew it.(I had the opposite problem)

What what were you using for Alk and Ca before this Ca. Rx?

Sounds like you don't have it adjusted correctly or maybe it's too small for your tank?
Once you get it set up and adjusted correctly. it should keep your Alk level up no problem. You definitely need to test your levels often when you're first getting it dialed in to your system.

Anyway, If you haven't done so already, get that Alk level back up to at least 8.0.
Unfortunately it might take a few days for your corals to recover and stop receding.

You might have to frag some corals well ahead of the rtn to save you from loosing the whole coral.

Is the Ca. Rx. the only thing you change recently?


Did you run a new batch of GFO recently, and pull your Alk down even faster along with this new Ca. Rx?

Hope you can get things back on track.

 

[clowndude]

I agree with Reef Smac, sounds like you either didn't have enough flow through the reactor or way to much Co2 going into the reactor. What bubble count and drip rate were you using? It is always best to have to much flow and not enough CO2 in the beginning of dialing in a reactor. Then slowly dial in the reactor day by day. That is how I dialed mine in and it's been rock solid now.

 

[msp307]

Low bp count about 30 bp per min and you'll be solid also lower your drip rate

 

[msp307]

When I set mine up my alk shot up to 14 as well

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

Sounds like too much CO2, like suggested above. Do you have a pH meter on the Ca reactor? This is a must have if you do not have one.

I would suggest turning off the reactor for a short time and do a rather large water change. It takes a little bit of trial and error to understand new equipment.

 

[stevedola]

Waterchange BIG

 

[M007]

Waterchange BIG

+1, time to re balance your system.

 

[treysv1000]

thank you so mujch for the info. it may be red bugs so i'm gonna try interceptor for now then do a 250 gallon water change. And yes i have a ph controller in the reactor hooked to an aquacontroller..

 

[stevedola]

Can u see red bugs? look at the corals...especially the tricolors, if u can see little mites on then you had redbugs. It would take a SEVERE infestation to stn multiple sps colonies in a short time frame. There are many people that have sps systems with RBs that dont have stn issues. Could be the alk drop stressed them out for the Rbs to did the rest. I would think it has something to do with your alk swing. Double check your alk kit is good...I had a elos calc kit that was reading under 400 for the longest time and kept trying to bump up my calc. Needless to say the kit was wrong and I had sky rocketed my calc to almost 600. When in doubt take a water sample to a reputable local shop and ask for a check.

Water changes are obviously a good way to help stabilize your system but make sure youre not fluctuating your system even more by doing a 50% water change with water that is off.

What was your alk originally at? then it dropped to 7? so you want to raise it? maybe better off doing smaller WCs daily for a few days straight to raise your alk rahter than 1 big one to spike it up...that will prolly have an adverse effect on the rest of the sps. Maybe 5 - 50gallon WCs would be better so the corals have time to adjust to the new parameters. If youre only going from 7 to 9 dkh...prolly not a big problem to do it in 2 or 3 batches. Just my 2 cents.