SPS Growth- Huge mistake

[Acronut]

This is my first thread, I am a little scared... surrounding by Masters !!! After reading all the " SPS Specialists " threads like Reefmutt's Biggle's Sahin's .... ( sorry the list can go on and on... ) I feel like knowing "much more ". That's why I try to change my salt to IO from Red Sea CP Salt !!! to lower my Kh. And OH NO !!! after a few water change, now I have NO Mg. PLEASE help !!! I add MANY spoonful of Tropic Marine Mg but I still see nothing in Salifert Mg test. I think i have too many SPS and it sucks lots of Mg.
My numbers used to be good
Kh 8-9. Still good
Ca 430
Mg 1350-1400
PO4 O.02
NO3 2ppm
Now my deep water SPS start to have RTN !!!
I am trying to raise 100ppm Mg a day. Is it OK?

 

[cham]

I'm definitely not one of the SPS guru's here but your MG looks fine where it is.

What's your salinity. How big were your water changes? Unless the water changes have been massive % wise I doubt this could have been the culprit.

Any chance you have a pump leaking electricity? Could something have been accidentally been dropped into the tank?



My "go to" anytime something is up with the tank is put on fresh carbon while I diagnose. It could take days to track down what's happening and it never hurts to have carbon running while you do so.


Just my $.02

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Hello,

I am sure Masters will respond, but until then here is my explanation:

It is impossible not to get any Mg reading unless you are measuring RODI by mistake. I suggest that you have a faulty test kit or one that expired. What is the salinity/specific gravity (in which case at what temperature?) of your water? My experience suggests that Salifert Mg test kit often produces either very high or very low readings with respect to a standard solution (e.g. Fauna Marin Multi reference solution). Deviation can sometimes be as high as 50 ppm.

Another possibility is that if you use your salt without stirring it thoroughly before you use it for the first time, then you will get variations from the advertised parameters.

I hope this helps.

 

[cham]

Yikes, I read wrong. I thought he said his mag is 1350 to 1400. It used to be and is zero now? Yea you have a testing issue

 

[reefmutt]

I'm with Bulent and Charles, you have an issue with the test kit..
I'm honored to be mentioned in your post but I have to tell you that I am still learning in this hobby...
This hobby never misses a chance to teach you a lesson...
I would say first, stop adding anything. As Bulent said, it is nearly impossible to have 0 mag.
Second, get a new, maybe different brand mag test kit..
How do you maintain calc and alk etc?
I suspect that you have lost your stability- maybe from changing salts, although I would doubt that..
You mentioned that you have begun changing things... Have you changed anything else besides salt?
Like types or frequency of additives or foods or calc/alk supplements?
There is very little that you can do rapidly to 'fix' your issues.
I would say you should try to take a step back, stay calm don't do any big changes- maybe another water change with well mixed water. It's possible that your magnesium is way too high, now.
Wherever your parameters and nutrient levels are right now, you have to now be patient and let them slowly go back to normal.
Patience and small changes is key when things go bad like this..
Do you have pics of you tank when it was doing well?

 

[Acronut]

Thank you so much for your supports and advices. It was strange because 5-7 days ago, I tested and I got a very high 1500 Mg, so I told myself to slack a bit and stop dosing Mg for a few days...I was following Reefmutt thread, so happy to add " Flourish Nitrogen" to 2ppm on top of B-ionic 2 parts Ca and Alk. and very happy to see the colours getting much better as well as the PE. I thought everything is doing well until I saw a RTN on a few of my deep water SPS. I checked the ALK and found out that it was below 7. At this time I ran bioBak pellets and tinkering with quite a few KZ products to improve my SPS colours ; so I thought maybe the KZ bacteria would make my ALK lowered from 8.2 to 7 ( which is normal for KZ system). But after much thinking, I added B-ionic Alk to get my system back to 8.0 because I think Kh 7 is so dangerous !!! I read somewhere that we could have a STN if Kh dropped below 7, so why the KZ system can work from 6.5 to 7.5 ?
Anyway, after changing 16 gal. to 120 gal. tank, I just checked my tank :
Ca 463
Kh 9.0
A little high, maybe because I used Red Coral Pro Salt.
Thanks to you 3 again. I will buy another trademark for Mg and hopefully I have my Mg back.
If you guys can help me to understand my situation, I would appreciate very much. We don't see when we 're in the fire, right ?
Thx again.

 

[nemodan]

The first mistake WE ALL do , or at least most of us, is to try to change something that is working, let say because I have slow growth or not so nice colors.

STABILITY is, for me, the magic word for SPS, mainly Acros.

Now relax !!!! Stop doing changes !!!! Get a new Mg kit !!! And start measuring Alk/Ca daily during at least 1 week. See how much your tank is using and start to dose accordingly.

Could be a 15-20% water change will be good to "probably reduce", what I expect you have now, high MG levels.

If you were doing weekly water changes of at least 10% I bet my name that you do not need to measure Mg. It is replenish with the WC.

I will stop here and see what others write.

Daniel

One more: in most systems, mine for example, when Phosp. Is low , near 0 , and Nitrates also low, near 0 (both my case) an Alk of 7 dkh is better than 8 dkh. I try to keep mine between 6.5-7 dkh and I panic if it goes nearby 8 dkh. My Experience! !!!

 

[reefmutt]

The first mistake WE ALL do , or at least most of us, is to try to change something that is working, let say because I have slow growth or not so nice colors.

STABILITY is, for me, the magic word for SPS, mainly Acros.

Now relax !!!! Stop doing changes !!!! Get a new Mg kit !!! And start measuring Alk/Ca daily during at least 1 week. See how much your tank is using and start to dose accordingly.

Could be a 15-20% water change will be good to "probably reduce", what I expect you have now, high MG levels.

If you were doing weekly water changes of at least 10% I bet my name that you do not need to measure Mg. It is replenish with the WC.

I will stop here and see what others write.

Daniel

One more: in most systems, mine for example, when Phosp. Is low , near 0 , and Nitrates also low, near 0 (both my case) an Alk of 7 dkh is better than 8 dkh. I try to keep mine between 6.5-7 dkh and I panic if it goes nearby 8 dkh. My Experience! !!!

I couldn't agree more..

Flying reef, you don't need to be too concerned by a magnesium level of 1500..
Yes it is on the high side of normal but I'm my experience, that level has no negative effects on the tank.
For some reason, I'm not sure why. (Maybe it was the purple up in my make up water) my magnesium sits at around 1600..
I am not saying it is good, I think around natural seawater is probably best but a bit elevated is not a problem..
It sounds to me like when you started adding nitrate, the corals began to grow a bit and started removing some alk..
Don't forget that natural sea water has an alk of about 7.5..
I've been keeping mine around 7.3 but noticed it dipped to 6.5 since last week so I turned up my ca reactor and let it raise it slowly.
Your n is at 2ppm.. What is your p at?

 

[Acronut]

Hi again. I just checked my Mg with my LFS. It was 1650 !!! My god ! Maybe because I dumped so much of Tropical Marine Mg to my tank. Please give me your advice now, if I want to stay away from the Alk flip up and down, should I mix 1/2 of Red Sea Coral Pro and 1/2 of Reef Crystal for WC ? Do you recommend something else as good salt mix ?
Thanks.

 

[Acronut]

Help !!! My deep water SPS keep loosing its skins. Maybe because I just hang a few T5 ... Yes Nemodan, I could not agree more about what I am tumbling around recently, just "try to be better " .hahaha. But since We have so many guru around, maybe we can come up with a few guidelines...?
...what you should not do to your SPS even if you are the most dummy !!!
Hahaha.
I appreciate every single word that you wrote on my behalf !!! Thank you so much friends. Helen.

 

[Acronut]

Hi Nemodan, do you use the Zeovit system ? It is very strange that I start loosing the skins of a few of my beautiful SPS when my Alk dip little below 7. I don't know if it is a coincident or not ? What do you think ?

 

[deeznutz1]

You alk is not stable, that's the most important thing in my book. I'm no expert though.
PIck an Alk range and keep it stable. Keep in on the lower side with a buffer zone if you are carbon dosing. Say 7-7.5.
I think you might be tinkering too much. I find, the less I do the better. Beside the normal husbandry.

Good luck.

 

[nemodan]

Relax and breath, we all have been in your situtation.

First: Do NOT change/add anything else.

Second: Do a 20 % water change with the salt you are using now. Your Mg is expected to be reduced a 20%.

Third: Measure after the WC (not immediately ) Alk, Ca, Nitrates and Phosphate. If you do not have a good Mg kit yet, call a friend or go to the LFS.

Forth: post all your values

Fifth : Relax again. Prepare more New Water for another 20% WC. But do not do it until you have all your results and we can see where you are. Remember that big water changes or too many small WC will affect stability.

Let stop here and see those results after your water change.

A note of advice: Many SPS keepers use IO salt with great results, but I believe most of them supplement it to get the Alk/Ca levels that we all use in the tanks. If you already changed to IO, that could be why you saw a reduction on your Alk when compared with Red Sea salt. But now I am confused with your postings and I am not sure what do you use.

Your question : I do not use any chemical or artificial way for controlling Phosphate or Nitrates. I only add B-Ionic 2 parts to keep Alk/Ca. I do have a 20G fuge for a tank that has 50G , after rocks and sand. I do have also a lot of Seacherm Matrix. I travel a lot and the best is to have a system that works by itself..... BY BIOLOGY !!!. Of course, you have to help it. That means good hasbundry, weekly WC (15-20%) and a lot of looking your corals. They tell you before any Kit if you have something wrong in your tank. I have 15 fish for a final total vol. of 70 G and feed them a lot to keep my Macro algae growing (nutrient export) and the Bacterias in the Matrix happy.

Cheers
Daniel


Ps: if your SPS are starting to STN or RTN cut them and frag. Save the good branches. Do not confuse STN with base recesion. IN this last case do not do anything to the coral. I do not add any food for corals. From time to time I add some amino... when a remember. I only measyre alk frecuently to regulate the dosing pumps.

 

[nemodan]

Hi Nemodan, do you use the Zeovit system ? It is very strange that I start loosing the skins of a few of my beautiful SPS when my Alk dip little below 7. I don't know if it is a coincident or not ? What do you think ?

As said.... is the variability and not the level the culprit.

My thread: but remember that there,are not 2 equal tanks so you have to find what works for you.

Now see what happened to me in the first page of the thread:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2522791

Cheers !!
Daniel

 

[sahin]

I primarily use Salifert test kits for most parameters, but as mentioned by others; the test kit has to be faulty. For your test solution to change right away which would indicate extremely low or zero Mg, are you saying that as soon as you add a few drops from the syringe, there is a colour change from purple to blue?

 

[Acronut]

Hi everyone, thank you so much for your concerns and advices. Now that the test for Mg was settled, I wish to describe a little bit about the evolution lately and hope to have the Masters' opinions ....so that the late- comers into this thriller SPS saga can understand and so to avoid big mistakes like I did
I started with 48"x24x18" tank with sump altogether is about 120 gal. full of nice SPS. I had 3 Radions and 1 Razor 16K . Things going OK for colours, but growth was very slow. Then I talked to the Ecotech guy and he suggested to me that 2 Radions gen 3 are plenty for my SPS. So I removed 1 Radion and the Razor. Immediately, most of my SPS turned brown !!!
Question 1: Do you think for the surface of 48"x24" I need more light? Or what's going on here ?
Question 2: When the SPS "suddenly " turned BROWN , usually what are the culprits?
So sorry but I have to admit that during this time I started " fooling around" by adding lots of "good stuffs" like Zeoproducts, Coral Vit. , Potassium etc. I thought it helped
NO ?
Please Gurus !!! Teach us so that we know....this is a very tricky field and I have already lost boxes of SPS !!! Much appreciated.

 

[reefmutt]

I would use 3 radions raised up high for good coverage. Will help avoid shading.
What causes brown corals? That's a good question... Too many things.. One thing.. Stress..
Stress from too much light or too little light. Stress from temp swings or alk swings or nutrient swings. Stress from changing salts or changing locations in the tank..
The one ing that makes acropora happy is stability.
The corals that are rtning probably won't stop.. They have been too stressed.
At this point, you should take Dan's advice and go back to basics and keep it that way for several months.
Once your system has stabalised, you could try experiment but only change/add one thing at a time and observe any changes that occur in the system..

 

[Acronut]

Thank you so much everybody. Reefmutt, you are so right, taking your advice, I looked at my corals more carefully and realized that my deep water SPS (s) lost some skins and some dead because I changed the places and exposed them to too much light and certainly more violent flow (next to my mp40) !!! Now I changed to a more "micro controlled low flow+low light space" it stops loosing skin and starts making new skin over the white skeleton !!!!
Question 3: Reefmutt and other big Aces...you do grow a lot of deep water SPS, do you find it more sensitive and harder to grow ( at least to me ) ? And what conditions do you suggest us to grow them then , please ?

 

[JB NY]

So the one thing that is readily apparent is you tank right now is very unstable. If you are looking for a reason you are having problems this is it. You are changing too many things too quickly, changes should be done in the time frame of many days to weeks, not hours.

Nothing should cause your corals to immediately go brown, but if you changed the lights with LED maybe the color was different and the corals looked different/brown? but stop moving your sps that causes stress, stop adding things to try and change the tank immediately that causes stress, focus on keeping the tank as stable as possible.

 

[Acronut]

Thank you JB. I was growing SPS fine with 3 Radions and 1 Razor 16K. Colours were good but the growth was none. So after reading all the Expert's threads, I " ventured & tinkering " with lots of goodies... But what was more apparent to me was when I removed 1 Radion+ 1Razor, I found the top SPS (s) looked brown the next day. Deducting from what I did, I think browning maybe dued to
-shock caused by great change in light intensity rapidly,
-too much food or goodies !!!
In general, I totally agree with you.
My corals are stable now, not much of an alarm. SPS are less brown and since I still keep with same Vit. and Amino. Acids ( a little less "varieties" ), my SPS (s) start to develop some very interesting colours that I did not have before. This is what I find very interesting with all the advances in Technology. I agree with the word STABILITY but if I just add 2 Parts and check my minimum requirements day in day out...maybe I will never get the beautiful colours that new Elements can bring , don't you think ?
This is why it was a huge mistake, but I wish to bring it out so that new comers can have an idea in this SPS thriller movies.
Thank you so much for your insight and participation.