STN Again....

[MHG]

So on 4/20 I noticed STN in one of my unknown acros... I fragged it and all the frags survived and the STN eventually stopped on the original colony (big frag).


On 5/21 I had a milli completely disappear before my eyes in less than a day (RTN).

Today I noticed two frags(a cops hokey and a blood red milli) have STN...


STATS. ...

So my salinity dropped .005 in a few days.. No big deal

My all jumped from 7.2 to 9.2 in about 5 days. For ULNS thats a bit high...

Calc jumped from 450 to 490 in 5 days


I noticed my growth slowed since I ran out of amino acid, so I guess my frags are consuming less and thus the drop...


My phosphates were at.07 5 days ago so I changed my GFO. I have been running the same amount the last 3 refills...



I am open to suggestions but it looks to me that even though I stare at my tank for an hour a day, I should have adjusted my dosing pumps on the all and calc....

I hope I don't need Frag these already small frags....it is slow, soif it gets much further I will have to do it...

 

[MHG]

Bubblegum milli also.... All the same age and all in the tank for about 60 days with no new additions since...

 

[MHG]

Some additional history....


The tank has been running since October. I was cooking my coraline and turned my lights way down. Mapped the entire tank with a PAR meter at different light levels and have been slowly turning my lights up ever since. Right now I am at Amex of 250 PAR on top of the rocks.

I hav had slow growth issues but 3 months ago I found a rubber adapter that must not have been reef safe because it smelled like gas.... After removal growth started... Water changes and dosing calc and all was giving me good growth on a few items...

Recently I noticed PE had stopped on my biggest acro... Day or night... The color remains the same... About a week later I noticed my growth had slowed. Other than my Phosphates everything else was in check. I figured a simple GFO change and I would be back on track...


Then this happened...


The bubble gum milli is much more rapidly disintegrating .... Copps blue hokey has not changed overnight. Blood red Millie is still progressing slowly for the worst.


All others look the same...

I was able to see some slight growth in the form of encrusting daily. But that has stopped...

 

[sponger0]

You need to stabilize your alk in my opinion. It seems to be hopping around a bit.

 

[sahin]

Your alk level is the problem here. For most low nutrient systems, alk above 8, MOST usually causes STN/RTN. Additionally, the "jump" from 7.2 to 9.2 itself can cause RTN/STN as well.

 

[MHG]

It's like stare at your coral and count polyps all day, when you see the rate of polyps slow down, cut back on the alk.... Too bad there is no probe for alk...

 

[sahin]

How big is your tank? Your main parameters: Salinity, Calcium, Alkalinity are jumping around. Big time NO NO for SPS.

Since you have a doser, I can't see why you cannot dial in the right dosage for the daily requirement? Test Ca and Alk each day and adjust each day as and if required. You should have it dialled in within a week easily.

I strongly suggest purchase of an auto top off to keep your salinity stable. Or mark a level with a marker and top off each night. Pretty easy to do.

Do you have frags or larger colonies? Can't understand why you can't dial in the right dosage to prevent Alk falling so low.

Provide your full system details and equipment etc.

 

[sahin]

You mentioned ULNS... Are you carbon dosing? If so, how much, how often? Why are you trying to maintain an ULNS sytstem?

 

[MHG]

60 gallon, 75 total volume

ATO is up and running from day 1.... salinity has been at 1.025 99 percent of my tests... a little extra skimmer action and it may drop by .005... 1.0250 to 1.0245 is not a big jump...

Biopellets. about a 300ml was put in several months ago... Not trying for ULNS just want to keep nitrates in check...

I had another thread asking why I am dosing "X"ml per day and get 7.2 and just one ml more gets me 9.2. I am told it is mathimatically not possible yet my Red Sea Test (and two others) Kit tells me it is...after I added a bunch more frags is leveled out...

So my calc and alk have been somewhat steady until like I said...my growth slowed down and they all shot up... most details are in my signature line


mostly frags but one green birds nest about a little smaller than a tennis ball and growing ok...most frags are encrusting nice and most have doubled in size but over about 3 months. I say slow growth... some small lps colonies and two big lps colonies... (Galaxia, and breen button polyp)... some grow good others not....

Chiller...

shallow sand bed...

 

[MHG]

Well 2 out of 3 stopped regressing... That's good.... One is a gonner. A couple more days and its a frag for the rubble pile.... Interesting... After 4 days of starting the amino acids again, I see growth . I guess I will be dosing AA forever....