Still at my wit's end - 3 mos. later -- would you start over?

Scotty1234,

Thanks for encouraging me to remove the sand. Things are doing much better.
 
That's good to hear! I actually meant take out the old sand and put in the new sand but it sounds like you have something that works. Hard to tell from the pictures but looks like you went BB.
 
Not a pure BB. I replaced the sand bed in the refugium. There are alot of advantages to not having sand in the main display.
 
Dag said:
Corals still alive: a bubble, blue and orange ricordeas, blue ridge coral, encrusting gorgonian, branching gorgonia (with extended polyps), lots of halimeda, maroon mushrooms (not prospering), zoos (only some have survived), green/brown pulsing, lemnalia, clavularia/daisy polyps (doing well), and kenyan tree coral (doing well), and purple zoos and some brown zoos (other zoos have died), green star polyps.

Corals that have been lost: three different open brains, two elegance corals, two stylophora, Ã"šÃ‚½ dozen SPS frags, blastomussa, pom pom xenia, pachysera, hammer coral, pagoda coral, plate coral, orange montipora capricornis; , torch corals, and yellow polyps, and pavona corals.

Other casualties: two clams, two fan worms, tiger tail cucumbers, one fighting conch.

This is just throwing out ideas ... but given it's so hard to know, I'd wonder about alleopathy contributing to problems.

Gorgonia often are fairly chemically noxious, as can be corallimorphh and soft corals. While it's odd that it's mostly stony corals that are having problems ... it seems like there's a split there - softies/gorgs mostly do well, stonies mostly struggle.

Of course, lots of other chemical issues could be linked in here ... but it's something to consider IMO. A couple warring corals [or dying mushrooms, or dying cuke] could release quite a few nasties IMO ... and while not the `one cause' ... maybe not `helping' things.

Best of luck, I'll be thinking.
 
I know think the cause is clear. It was the sand. I could have never kept this coral more than two weeks when I had sand, and now it's been several months:

Purple_Pocillopora_small.jpg


Nothing changed in my sand except the removal of the DSB in the display, and the exchange of the DSB in my refugium with new sand.

There was something wrong with the sand, but I don't know what.

I am really enjoying not having a DSB in the main display for a host of reasons.
 
I had the exact same problem with a sandbed I put in a bowfront from day one, nothing would stay alive. Mushrooms etc would wilt and fall off the rock dead within 48 hours. I tested the water for everything possible using an arsenal of Salifert kits and nothing was off. Finally (months after trying the skimmerless approach) I drained the tank, removed the sand, cleaned the tank with water, then replaced the sand with new sand, and added corals again after the cycle and everything was fine. Corals grew well and healthy. What's odd was that the tank had been set-up for around 6-7 months and during that time I couln't keep any of the corals alive. After replacing the sandbed I didn't have any issues. The tank got better when I removed the skimmer but didn't fix the problem. I stated in one of my other posts from awhile back that the skimmer may have stripped the water column, this would be incorrect. That's why when I saw this thread I figured it might be your sandbed. Now I wish I could remember what kind of sand it was...

What kind of sand were you using?
 
It was ESV, a sugar-sized aragnonite.

Unfortunately, it took me me 2 years to bite the bullet and remove the sand.
 
Well, it's taken me about an hour to get through this enormous series of threads concerning your tank issues, but it has proven worthwhile !!

I have been raving about my fabulous water delivery service, Pure Water Plus, (to my marine and reef customers and friends) since I started using it for casual discus breeding two years ago and now for my reef tank. It is almost the one year anniversary of my 60 reef... (albeit modest with only a few mushrooms and a couple sponges) and no major issues yet, (except for my current flatworm crisis.)

My point is that I never questioned the water quality of Pure Water Plus under the presumption that during their RO and distillation process, NO impurities could possibly remain! I did not consider the possibility that they use copper condensers (dear jesus no :eek1:!)
eek1!) nor did I consider the implications of the metal fittings on PWP's delivery hose and god knows what else!

I am INCREDIBLY reluctant to abandon this exceedingly convenient service. Do you guys think it's absolutely necessary? Even if they don't use copper condensation plates, is the potential brass pollution from their transportation/storage container fittings reason enough to abandon them? Does high turnover rate count for anything, i.e., if the freshly filtered water doesnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t dwell around the metal for long before delivery?

I have a decent invertebrate collection including many hermits, snails, a couple crabs and shrimps, a barnacle, a mystery sea slug (stomatella varia?) lotsa pods, and whatnot. Over the past year, I killed a cluster of xenia (I think from my lack of proper lighting... but an 800W MH hood is in the works). Other than that, Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve only lost on arrow crab and a peppermint shrimp. I say this hoping my success is reason enough to stay with PWP.

What do you think?

And hereââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s a poor picture of my sweet mystery barnacle.

Thanks for the entertaining and informative thread!

-Laura
 
The picture's too big. I'll have to muck with it and get back to you. I forgot to mention that I have some echinoderms in the tank too that are happy.
 
Dag,
I am interested to know how you went about removing the sandbed? I am convinced that my sand bed has become contaminated. Also, how are things going thus far?
 
I just siphoned it out. I'm able to grow hard corals that I never could before, but my tank still is not awesome.
 
Are you still experiencing die offs? I'm just wondering if I should make a break for it now and re-do everything, or just remove sand.
 
Before everything died after a few weeks. Now things are alive and occassionally I lose a frag or colonies. But clearly some corals are growing. Just not as fast as I would like.
 
I'm sorry, but I still cannot subscribe to the mystery sand bed cause. If related at all, the removal of the sand bed coincided with something else that has improved (not impressively) success with your system (starting with another massive/beneficial water change that further dilutes other more likely impurities/problems). I don't mean to be a buzzkill... but there is no logical explanation IMO for why the sand would/could impart something so selectively deleterious.
 
Theory is an ace; experience is a trump.

The fact that you can't explain it, or don't know a logical reason for the cause is no reason to deny the fact.

I assure you there was no coincidence with some other improvement. The history of my problem, and all the things I did to improve/fix the system as a whole, are well documented in my threads. This was not a problem that occurred over a short period; we're talking more than 2 years, and my attempts to remedy occurred over the same time frame.

There is no doubt that following the removal of the sand bed, I am able to keep SPS corals and montipora (it even grows) that I never was before. I also had a pocillipora that was dying (it had turned brown and half died) that returned to life (the half that was left turned pink).

There was also nothing apparently wrong with the sandbed: it smelled good, and was full of worms and other life. Go figure.

Now the only thing I can surmise is that somewhere along the storage and transportation process, it got contaminated with something. (Did you know ESV keeps this sand in a huge mound outside? I ordered the sand in the middle of winter and had to wait until a thaw so they could shovel some into the the buckets.)

I am not suggesting that my experience proves DSBs are bad; only that my DSB was bad (but I don't really know why).

P.S. Anthony seems to responding to some message other than my last one, but for some reason it's now showing up.
 
Still happy 2 years later with no DSB in main tank although I did install a remote one.
 
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