sps dying from the base up

[snake1]

Calcium 31 ml a day
Alk. 81 ml a day
To keep everything correct within testing I know it sounds crazy but that's what the tank is demanding please if I'm doing something wrong please chime in thanks.....

 

[ChadRaay86]

While the advice given so far regarding Alk is mostly ok - try to realize that the low alk (lower than your original salt mix) is indicative of another problem. adding more alk via dosing or trying to switch salts is NOT the solution to your issue. Don't try to chase numbers by changing dosing.

you have a fairly new tank - 6-8 months or so if I'm not mistaken. You really shouldn't require dosing at this point should you? Its good to think that dosing will increase the opportunity for coral growth - but it really doesn't. Not at this point. your water changes should cover the young coral requirements. Dosing and calcium reactors are recommended for very mature / large SPS colonies / Clams.

Ted,

His low alk numbers are due to one thing, alk consumption. He said he neglected testing and when he did test the alk levels were much lower. His utilization rates changed due to his using acropower, new frags, growth or a combination of all three. Dosing alk and calc isn't "chasing numbers" and while water changes work to replenish levels to a degree, they most certainly will not be enough on their own in a tank with any measure of SPS growth.

The OP should be attempting to find a balance of all three levels and when he does, he will likely notice that the addition of calc and alk will pretty much balance out. If this doesn't happen, he can take a look at different "possibilities", but the only thing he should be concerned with at this point is the "bare" essentials.

BTW, the BRS stuff is much weaker than the ESV 2 part. I made the switch and I had to kick up the dosing a lot more to compensate. I bet that, along with the lack of testing for a few weeks caused you to miss a shift that you are just now seeing. Take it slow and adjust until your levels are ideal again When it happened to me, it just taught me to take great importance in testing on a regular basis to account for fluctuations in a newer tank

 

[ChadRaay86]

Calcium 31 ml a day
Alk. 81 ml a day
To keep everything correct within testing I know it sounds crazy but that's what the tank is demanding please if I'm doing something wrong please chime in thanks.....

What calcium level were/are you shooting for with the Calc at 31ml a day? Shoot for around 450 and it should start to match your alk after time. 400 is a low number to me and 450 will help you with growth and stabilization for sure.

 

[snake1]

I was maintaining calcium 420-440 and it didn`t require alot to keep it there maybe 15ml a day..
My alk however has always needed a little tweaking last month i was at 51ml a day and now im at 81ml.

Magnesium has never been an issue i really don`t add any it maintains 1330-1335

I agree Chad i`m really starting to think the switch to BRS 2 part from ESV bionic 2 part is the reason and my fault for not following up with testing not claiming one is better then the other just probably one is weaker and i could of caught this before i lost one coral and starting to loose 2 more as we speak.....

Now I haven`t checked my salt mix I do change 10 gallons every week in a 90 gallon total water system, I guess maybe i could have bad salt I believe I have read that I will check it Saturday when I make up my water...

Does anyone Have any good ways to maybe save the frags or corals i have that are suffering like my Mili colony thats bleaching away to nothing... In a weird way I thought the digitata that is about 1/8" away from the mili colony would die from the stings put off by the mili but the mili is dying and the digi is looking good... still sucks

 

[snake1]

The wheels in my head are turning is there a way to compare ESV bionic and BRS 2 part I`m not coming down on any company at all I like both companies I`m just thinking if i have to use alot more of one to keep levels the same i`m really not saving alot of money especially when i have to mix the cheap one myself and I will have to do it alot more often then I would if I stayed with ESV and more wear and tear on my dosers ...to try and save money my time is worth money too so really the cost to me is the same but staying with esv my dosers and myself would have to do a lot less...If i`m wrong sorry like i said im not making accusations

 

[snake1]

today my Calcium is 385
and my alk is7.7
PH 8.02
temp 80.2
salinity 1.026 brand new refractometer

 

[Ted_C]

I'm just giving advice here chad, based on what also happened to me - the requirement of different amounts of two part (2x Alkalinity to 1x calcium) is indicative of an imbalance beyond normal consumption. I still say he's consuming alkalinity with the bacterial activity.

Let's not forget what the only goal of dosing is: to replenish elements used by corals / clams in between water changes to kleep the parameters stable. We all think more is better and dosing is required when we first start to see corralaine growth or add our first frag.

from his june 1st album: there's nothing I can see in his tank where 10% weekly water changes wouldn't cover his consumption requirements (assuming ~ 10 gallons a week, every week since inception). granted - the monti-cap is getting big - colony size in fact. But it's still my opinion that a 10% weekly water change covers his growth requirements.

Now if you missed a week or two of water changes or didn't water change from the very beginning - then your going to see this fluctuation. If you have this bacterial imbalance - then you'll see this problem.

trying to "correct/Chase" the values you think are right by using two part is not a good idea. From an ionic balance of elements point of view - your moving away from natural sea water by dosing two part in unequal amounts. Look at it this way - the dosing formulas were all designed so Na and Cl and Ca and SO4 and HCO3 and MG are all in the range of natural sea water concentrations. Start adding more Alk in your two part and your driving up the Na concentration without adding the corresponding Cl concentration.

There's no telling how corals will react to this environment since your moving away from a natural seawater system to just some mix of chemicals.

lastly take a look at snake's comments on magnesium- if he's never needed to add magnesium - then that means his water changes are indeed covering his coral consumption requirements. Corals uptake magnesium at a known rate and he's been covering that with water changes.

Snake - my only advice at this point - if you want to correct the problem through dosing - is to always dose equal amounts of two part. If it were me, I'd correct it through 20% bi-weekly water changes (for the next 5 weeks - that should give you 10 20% water changes). that should get you to a total of around 98% new water after 5 weeks. re-Frag what's already died.

as is my custom - I don't like to make claims without providing some sort of background how I got to my conclusions. Regarding consumption of alkalinity:
http://www.cleanwaterops.com/wp-con...ater-Ops-_-White-Paper_Nitrogen-Chemistry.pdf

From the above equations, it can be calculated that for every pound of ammonia oxidized to nitrate, the following occurs:
4.18 pounds of oxygen are consumed
7.14 pounds of alkalinity as calcium carbonate (as CaCO
3) is consumed
12 pounds of alkalinity as sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) is consumed

http://www.wastewaterhandbook.com/documents/nitrogen_removal/413_2_NR_stoichiometrics_alkalinity.pdf

4.1.3 Stoichiometrics of reactions with nitrogenous matter


- Ammonification process: production of 50 g CaCO
3 per mol N;
- Nitrification process: consumption of 2
50 = 100 g CaCO3 per mol N;

- Denitrification process: production of 50 g CaCO3 per mol N.

Lastly, there's a thread by another member which discusses this mysterious alk demand without corresponding calcium demand:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2315896

 

[snake1]

I have done weekly water changes every week since I started the tank....another reefer on here said I'm not supposed to add uneaquel amounts of 2 part it will be a bad ending..... But then I have other reefers tell me as long as testing is good keep up with the demand no matter what ratio... I'm a little confused at this point I don't mind trying 20% water changes that shouldn't hurt anything.... What if anything should I do about the bacterial situation I have owned my rock for almost 12 years and the sand bed is about a year old also I have a nice refugium full of sand rock and cheato that grows super fast right now its about the size of a bed pillow no lie....thanks so far everyone that is helping.

 

[rogergolf66]

I have absolutely no prof to what I'm about to say but I personally am starting to wonder about seasonal sps issues. I noticed last year after winter lots of people including my self had issue s. Again this year I have heard a bunch of issues same time of year.

Plants for example have growing seasons and die back certain times of year. Again I have no proff. Only 2 years of observation in my personal tanks and others on the forums and in the area.

Roger

 

[Ted_C]

I agree roger. around the same time the water companies shock their lines with chlorine instead of chloramine - this seems to occur. Is it a coincidence?

Another question or you Snake - did you ever have a cyano problem and use red slime remover products to correct it? I did and I did. The biggest indicator of imbalanced alk consumption by bacteria is the cyano showing up. Once you kill that off with red slime remover - there's no more bio-indicator - but the nutrient imbalance remains so the bacteria go into overdrive and use the alkalinity as their carbon source.

I hear what your saying about conflicting opinions on correcting the issue. It happens all the time. All I can offer is look at the options logically to determine which appears correct to you. the statement I made about imbalances in the ionic composition of saltwater when overdosing one part over another are theoretical - but it is only based on logic and laws of conservation (matter and energy are not consumed - only transformed).

as for your bacterial issues - if that is indeed why your alkalinity is being over consumed - I think I saw you might be running a UV? If that's 100% processed water between the sump and display (i.e. you treat 100% of the return pump water) - try setting it up so that you only recycle UV treated water in the sump (or eliminate the UV altogether). Thoughts here are that the bacteria that might be floating around and subject to irradiation by UV are getting killed - causing an imbalance in the colonies.

Maybe try exchanging some of your refugium sand with your display tank sand? a few cups out of each should do the trick. This is to ensure you have the same types of bacterial colonies throughout the system and they both will balance themselves out. assuming there is a barrier of some sort (like UV) that is preventing bacteria from bridging the display tank / refugium gap.

Maybe try skimming wet to pull out more water born bacteria? This was advice given to me when I was having the same issue. I don't know if it works or not.

Maybe try lowering your amounts of fish feedings to balance out the new nutrients your adding with the acropower? Assumption here that the bacteria colonies are using your acropower as a nutrient, along with the carbonate.

12 year old rock - maybe give it a once over to ensure that an excess amount of mulm or detritus is not blocking up the pores? Try turkey basting it and see how much comes off the rock.

and just to make sure - the bases of the SPS dying are not related to your other thread regarding removing polyps is it? the colonies are well removed from each-other?

 

[snake1]

No I have never used red slime remover....I had cyno within the first few months but it went away naturally with keeping the tank clean and a diamond goby helps keep the sand nice and clean love that fish.....
No I don't have a UV I thought about getting one I just don't think I really need it.....
Turkey basting the rock I'm guilty I haven't done that in a few months probably should do that tonight....
I wish I could put two and two together and say the sps that is dying is right next to the polyps but they are not the ones affected.....

 

[sirrealism]

Tedc Like snake and others I am going through something like this. Its funny because when my mag dropped to 950-1000 my sps where doing ok."not growing but not dieing" now over the course of a couple months bringing my mag back up "which i was hoping would help stabilize my alk" I have sps dieing from the bottom up. If you idea of an imbalance of bacteria is true then wouldnt dosing carbon fix that? If some how bacteria is using alk as food then giving it a different food source fix the alk issue.

 

[ChadRaay86]

Looking into this way to deeply at the moment. Like I said before, I've had the same issue and it comes from not testing enough and missing a change in alk consumption in the tank. In his case it was the switch from ESV 2 part to BRS 2 part which is much weaker. Leaving the dosing amount the same will have caused a rapid alk drop that caused your finnicky corals (e.g. SPS) to let go. Softies can survive anything. I lost three maricultured sps colonies within days because of my alk drop and mostly because they are notorious for not being able to handle large swings in alk. Meanwhile, I didn't lose a single softie.

Get your alk back up, keep it up and test often. As soon as you do this you'll be amazed at the SPS growth spurt you'll see

 

[janes_mw]

Snake - just curious, what was the magnitude of the "large swing"? Did you used to run 9 and dropped to 7 or ran 8 and dropped to 7? Just wondering where you were consistently keeping levels and how long.

I know I run at 7-7.5 (Zeovit users or ULNS users typical run sub 8) and when I get frags from systems that run much higher, I don't run into this at all. I am not arguing one bit about what is causing this, I am just curious. Like my previous post said, many things can cause STN/RTN so you need to look at trends of where you were, what changed and where your at (much like most the above is stating). I also wouldn't make a zillion changes all at once because you will chase your proverbial tail into that proverbial knot!! All the above have very successful tanks, but like us all have experienced, "do-do occurs".

 

[LiquidCache]

This is odd. I'm running into the same issues with a few sps frags in my system too and cannot for the life of me figure out what's causing them. My params are stable, have been the same for months. I suspected it was a few fish, but I removed them and still the same thing is happening. I'll be following this thread.

 

[snake1]

I want to thank everyone and their responses so far but I think I'm on the same boat as Chad I have never really had a problem until the switch to a different 2 part.... My old alk was always 7.7 to 8.0 and I bumped it up to about 8.5 to 8.8 and had seen instant coral growth that week it was like a steroid shot at least 1/8 to 1/4 growth from most corals.....but then I messed up and didnt test and found my alk at 6.9 I think I'm Going to invest in a Hanna checker

 

[Ted_C]

Tedc Like snake and others I am going through something like this. Its funny because when my mag dropped to 950-1000 my sps where doing ok."not growing but not dieing" now over the course of a couple months bringing my mag back up "which i was hoping would help stabilize my alk" I have sps dieing from the bottom up. If you idea of an imbalance of bacteria is true then wouldnt dosing carbon fix that? If some how bacteria is using alk as food then giving it a different food source fix the alk issue.

Yes - but it's a cure I never recommend. your fixing issues in the short term by carbon dosing but the underlying problem continues. now your stuck carbon dosing and over-skimming to catch all the extra bacteria. Sure, it fixes your one issue of freeing up the locked up carbonate used by the bacteria - but what caused the imbalance in the first place needs solved.

I also don't know of a natural mechanism in a real reef that equates to carbon dosing.

Honestly, the more I think about this - Roger may be onto something with "seasonal affective disorder" in corals related to the switch between chloramines and chloride disinfectants (sorry - seasonal affective disorder will be well known by northerners - its sort of a joke).

Maybe those of us that make our own water through our own RO/DI units (and have tanks less than 300 gallons to dilute incoming water) are more susceptible to the trace ions coming through or getting past our DI resin. Like roger said though - there's no data whatsoever on real time water testing and what the water companies are sending us during this switch from chloramines to chlorine back to chloramines. The problem seems to occur just before the water is switched to chlorines or during the chlorine treatment. thats just too weird and coincidental.

I have no scientific explanation for it either - since ro/di units are supposed to be better at chlorines than chloramine. Maybe the extra chlorine is breaking things off the carbon blocks that are normally locked up when treating chloramine water?

Scientifically - I think I can come up with a scenario:
Let's say it's ammonia getting broken off the carbon block during this chlorine purge the water company does - it gets through your ro membrane - some of it (less than 1 PPM) gets through your DI resin. you could be dealing with 0.25 PPM ammonia in your saltwater mixing station and not know it. Your TDS reading on your RO/DI would still be zero.

OK - so you've got extra ammonia going into your aquarium - more than is normally produced by the fish and other livestock. It's not alot. it's not killing the fish. Its only an additional 0.25 PPM.

What happens next? Well, you've got extra nutrients that the bacteria love to consume. They are happy and they start "getting it on" and reproducing. Now you've got the imbalance of nitrifying bacteria to denitrifying bacteria (which probably take around 6 weeks to catch up). you may be in fact running a mini-cycle. The only way to tell is if you see a rise in your nitrates. The increase in nitrifying bacteria means a decrease in the available alkalinity. The decrease in alkalinity may stress corals (or some other mechanism may be at fault).

In Snake's case - if his rock is clogged with detritus and mulm - then the denitrifying bacteria can't re-populate inside the rock cause it's plugged up. the only place they may be is in the sand (if it's deep) in his display and maybe in the refugium. Properly designed refugiums are only taking on around 10% of total system flow through - so it's going to take longer for the nitrates to make their way to the refugium.

So here's a question or two for snake to see if the theory holds:
Do you make water as you need it for a water change?
Do you have a holding vat for RO/DI output?
Do you buy your water from an LFS?

My thinking is: if you make 10 gallons at a time for a water change and use all of that 10 gallons directly - then you may be experiencing the above.

If however you have a salt water mixing station and your holding take is 100+ gallons - then the water you may make during the cross-over may not have an issue - as it can be properly diluted with the holding tank water (and/or have an opportunity to off-gas).

If you buy your water from an LFS - I think most of them have holding tanks greater than 100 gallons - so they are also unaffected by the cross-over.

 

[snake1]

Yes - but it's a cure I never recommend. your fixing issues in the short term by carbon dosing but the underlying problem continues. now your stuck carbon dosing and over-skimming to catch all the extra bacteria. Sure, it fixes your one issue of freeing up the locked up carbonate used by the bacteria - but what caused the imbalance in the first place needs solved.

I also don't know of a natural mechanism in a real reef that equates to carbon dosing.

Honestly, the more I think about this - Roger may be onto something with "seasonal affective disorder" in corals related to the switch between chloramines and chloride disinfectants (sorry - seasonal affective disorder will be well known by northerners - its sort of a joke).

Maybe those of us that make our own water through our own RO/DI units (and have tanks less than 300 gallons to dilute incoming water) are more susceptible to the trace ions coming through or getting past our DI resin. Like roger said though - there's no data whatsoever on real time water testing and what the water companies are sending us during this switch from chloramines to chlorine back to chloramines. The problem seems to occur just before the water is switched to chlorines or during the chlorine treatment. thats just too weird and coincidental.

I have no scientific explanation for it either - since ro/di units are supposed to be better at chlorines than chloramine. Maybe the extra chlorine is breaking things off the carbon blocks that are normally locked up when treating chloramine water?

Scientifically - I think I can come up with a scenario:
Let's say it's ammonia getting broken off the carbon block during this chlorine purge the water company does - it gets through your ro membrane - some of it (less than 1 PPM) gets through your DI resin. you could be dealing with 0.25 PPM ammonia in your saltwater mixing station and not know it. Your TDS reading on your RO/DI would still be zero.

OK - so you've got extra ammonia going into your aquarium - more than is normally produced by the fish and other livestock. It's not alot. it's not killing the fish. Its only an additional 0.25 PPM.

What happens next? Well, you've got extra nutrients that the bacteria love to consume. They are happy and they start "getting it on" and reproducing. Now you've got the imbalance of nitrifying bacteria to denitrifying bacteria (which probably take around 6 weeks to catch up). you may be in fact running a mini-cycle. The only way to tell is if you see a rise in your nitrates. The increase in nitrifying bacteria means a decrease in the available alkalinity. The decrease in alkalinity may stress corals (or some other mechanism may be at fault).

In Snake's case - if his rock is clogged with detritus and mulm - then the denitrifying bacteria can't re-populate inside the rock cause it's plugged up. the only place they may be is in the sand (if it's deep) in his display and maybe in the refugium. Properly designed refugiums are only taking on around 10% of total system flow through - so it's going to take longer for the nitrates to make their way to the refugium.

So here's a question or two for snake to see if the theory holds:
Do you make water as you need it for a water change?
Do you have a holding vat for RO/DI output?
Do you buy your water from an LFS?

My thinking is: if you make 10 gallons at a time for a water change and use all of that 10 gallons directly - then you may be experiencing the above.

If however you have a salt water mixing station and your holding take is 100+ gallons - then the water you may make during the cross-over may not have an issue - as it can be properly diluted with the holding tank water (and/or have an opportunity to off-gas).

If you buy your water from an LFS - I think most of them have holding tanks greater than 100 gallons - so they are also unaffected by the cross-over.

I try to always have 25 to 30 gallons on hold and it sits in a brute can in my air conditioned fish room that has my sump and top off and 2) 32 gallon brute cans one for clean water and one for mixing fresh salt water.....
so it does sit in the brute for a week and i take out water for my top off and i fill 10 gallons of it into the salt mixing brute then i fill it right back up.....all my ro filters were just changed and the di changed last week

 

[janes_mw]

Have you totally checked for red bugs? What is your potassium level (K)? If you have your level back at where you were and still "rapid" STN, not sure I am going to go with ALK .... just my opinion

 

[sirrealism]

I do not believe going from 8.8 to 6.9 in a couple weeks is going to start this issue. To me its not a big enough swing. JMO. With all the info given in this post I would think your issue is something else.