STN/RTN help required..

[hobbby3]

wow thats a good find... but expensive!

I was thinking about sending my water out for testing. We have a well and had the water tested before we moved into the home a couple years ago. The test was $175 and tested for metal like copper and iron if I remember right, it also had other known contaminants not fit for human consumption but I dont recall what exactly. Since all my other parameters are spot on seems like a logical next step.

 

[Dr. Reef]

wow thats a good find... but expensive!

I was thinking about sending my water out for testing. We have a well and had the water tested before we moved into the home a couple years ago. The test was $175 and tested for metal like copper and iron if I remember right, it also had other known contaminants not fit for human consumption but I dont recall what exactly. Since all my other parameters are spot on seems like a logical next step.

yes this lab i sent the water to, they do a simple test for 200+ thing sin water for $179 but for much deeper study they asked me tons of questions from the very beginning to putting corals in. we went through every step every equipment and everyday of things i did to tank for setp.
it finally boiled down to
a broken titanium heater leeching rust
sulfur denitrator malfunction
great stuff foam.
at this point when they had all the info and kinda pin point the problem then only then they wanted to test the water for what to look for other wise there could be a million things in water to test.
after testing they concluded that it was the great stuff foam.

 

[hobbby3]

I decided to try a polly filter pad and some carbon before the water testing route. I got a couple more monti frags to test with. Wish me luck and thank you for sharing your results.

 

[Dr. Reef]

i did run carbon x 2 brs reactors and i also ran polly filters too but nothing showed up on polly. the way it was explained to me by the lab was there are lots of toxic gas'es that are in the foam as well and they wont show up on polly nor carbon will filter them out.
Chlorinate wax will bind with such gases and leach over time. once all is leached out then i can do water changes and be on road to recovery. which in my case i am back on track.
i wish you luck and hopefully ur tank will recover just as mine did.
did u by chance use the foam too?

 

[hobbby3]

No foam but I did use a "reef safe" epoxy on the aquascape. I'm thinking I have some other toxin affecting the sps. If I find out anything definatitive I'll post it here.

 

[REEF SMAC]

Is this the stuff you used?

I used like 8 cans in my tank. Maybe mine was left to dry longer than yours?
Seems odd because it does seem to dry pretty fast.

I've seen a tank that has the entire back of it fully scaped in foam. The guy literally pokes his frags right into the foam and they encrust right on to it. The foam is solid purple now from coraline. Looks pretty cool actually. I'll have to ask next time I see it what foam he used and how long he let it dry.

Is the foam in your tank fully exposed to the water? I encased mine in epoxy and so far haven't noticed a problem.

How much foam did you use?

So is your foam eventually gonna stop leaching whatever it is that's harming your tank?
Or did you remove the foam too?

Very interesting find. Thanks for the update.

 

[Dr. Reef]

reef smac, i have been in this hobby for 15 yrs and i have always used the same foam in all my setups with no problems ever. but i always let the foam dry out few days before placing them in water. This time it was different.
I placed the rocks and foamed them as i was aquascaping them and right after few hrs i dumped 300 gals in there.
Lab advised that i should have left the foam to dry for several weeks before introducing in water.
foam in my tank is exposed to water in few areas but u cant tell anymore as its purple and green from coraline algae.
i used 3 cans of foam in my setup and i didnt encase mine with anything.
it stopped leaching. i changed all 300 gal of water (not at once 35-50 gals at a time) and now after about a month or so tank seems to be happy and doesnt seem like corals are stressed. Foam is still there i did not take it out.
Lab was nice to email me and told me to send in a sample 3 months from now to re test for free. they wanted pictures of my tank and are so interested in it that they email me back and forth a lot following up.
Its very nice of them to do that.

 

[REEF SMAC]

It's really amazing that not letting the foam dry a little longer would have such a long lasting effect on your reef. That is one harsh and expensive lesson you had to endure.
So whatever it is that would normally evaporate out of the drying foam for some reason will stay in solution in salt water forever, until you dilute it out.
Maybe some kind of chemical reaction that goes off until the foam fully hardens and the saltwater stops the process from completing.

Whatever it was I'm glad you were able to waterchange it out and not have to remove it or start over completely.

I would have never guessed in a million years that this was what was causing these problems with your reef.

Thanks again for posting your findings so the rest of us foam using fans will know what to be careful of in the future.

Reef on!