preef
New member
I know I have red bugs. Never really caused issues in the past. The red bugs don't go after montis or millis so that wouldn't explain their demise.
Tank Crashing. Help me stop it.
- Thread starter preef
- Start date
I know I have red bugs. Never really caused issues in the past. The red bugs don't go after montis or millis so that wouldn't explain their demise.
preef
New member
I started to feed heavier to try to fatten up the trigger as well as a Copper Banded butterfly. I made my own food using shrimp, scallops, oysters, mussles, salmon, tuna, mysis, krill, cyclopeeze and garlic. I probably went a little heavy on the garlic because you can really smell it in the food. Some of the food I thawed back down and mixed with gelatin and Metro medication. After about a week everything started to go downhill. That's when I stopped medicating and pulled the fish out.
The skimate got very watery for about the week I was feeding and the amount of skimmate went down. I wasn't too happy about that and that may have caused the issue. My nitrate level is normally below 1 but it jumped to 5 and 10 ppm. That was the highest I saw it. I maybe just barely could see a slight bit of color in the phosphate test in double precision mode. I've never been able to measure any phosphate in my tank with the salifert test. I have a $40 Hanna unit on the way.
On the more positive side, it looks like things are stabilizing. Nothing looks worse over the last 24 hours. My smallest digitata frag is starting to come back. I can tell the large digitata is still alive. I have some hope it will pull through. The milli that RTNed still has some tissue on it. It looks about the same as it did yesterday. Maybe even some small portion of it will make it and come back.
I really was depressed about this a few days ago. Thought about giving up SPS for a while. Decided against it and bought an Apex Lite and some dosing pumps instead. -- Honey, look what happened to my tank because I didn't have these expensive pieces of equipment. I had to buy this.
preef
New member
Carbon - That is another possible cause of my problems. I know most people run carbon without issue. I normally don't run anyway. In December I bought a reactor and started running a little carbon. I had a new milli frag RTN on me at that point and one of my LPS seemed to be impacted as well so I stopped. I started running it again when I started dosing the Metro dedicated food. I had the cannister about 25% full since I had a bad experience with it. Once I saw things were getting worse I added more carbon and did more water changes and that is actually when mt milli RTNed on me. I started running some phosban at that point as well. After the RTN event I decided to pull the reactor off line and stopped water changes. I'm still running a Poly Filter. Things seemed to have stabilized.
Could it be the carbon? Has anybody else had bad experiences with carbon? Maybe it wasn't the metro but the fact that I added carbon to pull the metro out. Seems like everybody else uses it though. I was using Black Diamond.
I hear you. I really love that piece. It is my favorite. I hope I can save it. That is only 6 months of growth. It was a tiny frag when I got it. I'm sorry you lost most of your tank. It hurts.
cham
New member
If you were running phosban at the same time for the first time then I'd say that's a pretty good chance. GFO is a very agressive substance at removing P04 and if you didn't do it really slow you can make corals RTN quite easily.
preef
New member
I was thinking that too except I wasn't using any Phosban at all originally. Went a week with just carbon. Things were going down hill only without carbon. Added just a tiny bit (1/4" to 1/2" in the reactor only) when things kept getting worse. Finally added more when all hell was breaking loose.
LifeAquatic
New member
Let me help eliminate one issue. I dose the same BRS 2 part once in the evening and my corals thrive. I am currently dosing 120ml daily. Is Metro a reef safe medication? The website were I found Metro medication had a warning that it is not reaf safe.
LifeAquatic
New member
I dont think carbon would be an issue either unless you didnt prewash it long enough. The carbon dust can harm delicate coral like SPS. Same goes for GFO. The fresh seafood mix prob isnt the culprit either. Nitrates at 5-10 ppm shouldnt kill your corals like that. Not in my experience anyway. I dont know much about the Metro medication but that seems like the most likely culprit. Im sorry for your loss. Those corals were beautiful! I would keep using the carbon and do 25% water change weekly. The introduction of GFO might be to much during this stressfull time.
preef
New member
I did a lot of searching before using it and I came to the conclusion that it would be reef safe if dosed in food. Apparently that was the wrong conclusion.
I put the carbon in my reactor and ran RO/DI through it until it ran clear. Just took a gallon or so. I never saw any tinting of the tank water to indicate dust was getting in but maybe enough did.
No additional change overnight. Hopefully I've reached bottom.
LifeAquatic
New member
I hope you find out whatever caused the issue. Please let me know how you like using the BRS dosing pumps.
preef
New member
Thanks. I'm betting it was the medication and possibly the carbon. I'm going back to my previous regiment now. Alk swings along with extra feedings may also have been causing some stress.
I'll let you know how the dosing pumps go. Should be able to keep the alk more stable now. May not have been the cause but can't hurt and should help.
LifeAquatic
New member
Ive have read a problem with dosing pumps is they dont stay primed. Have you thought about anyways to counteract that? Whats your opinion on alk swings? Doest it hurt SPS if it swings within a tollerable range? Lets say you have DKH at 9. If it swings down to 8 everyday will it hurt the corals? 8 seems like an acceptable range. Im adding 120ML a day of BRS 2 part solution. The alk swing doesnt seem to stress my corals unless the alk actualy drops down in the low 7's. I try and target a range between 8-8.5 dkh
preef
New member
I hope they stay primed. I haven't heard that but I'll keep an eye on it.
Up to now my SPS have been mostly fine. I have had a couple millis that haven't grown at all since November and some that have done great until now. My Red planet has barely grown at all and some of my other acros have been a little slow. Maybe it is from alk swings I don't know. Could be anything. I'm currently dosing once a day. Dosing twice a day would bring some improvement I'm sure.
I was planning on getting dosing pumps this year anyway to reduce the maintenance requirements for the tank when I'm on vacation. My reef-sitter is in the process of moving out of state so I need to automate as much as possible.
preef
New member
I just bought a second API calcium test. The test I've been using measures 420 ppm. The new test I bought measures 520 ppm. No telling which one is right. I've had my calcium, as measured with my old kit, as high as 480. Turns out this could have been 580. Can this cause STN/RTN?
LifeAquatic
New member
Ive never experienced calcium that high PReef. Im not sure what happens at that point. Ever use salifert kits? Ive used quite a few for calcium and they always test consistant with the last. All though Im sure every company has a bad batch of test kits once in a while.
Ron Popeil
Love them clownfish.
how did this situation resolve? how are things doing now?
preef
New member
Things are going great now. I just went back to doing what I did before the crash. I still don't know what caused it exactly. I canged lots of things at the same time: type of food, quantity of food, mess in food, ran lots of carbon in a reactor to neutralize mess that made it into the water column, started running GFO all at the same time. No way to know which of these caused the problem so I consider the problem being caused by lack of stability.
Took the carbon/GFO reactor off line, went back to just Rod's food, got nitrates below 5 again and kept everything stable. Had random RTN events for several months. It took about 6 months to turn around and see growth in the acros again.
Took the carbon/GFO reactor off line, went back to just Rod's food, got nitrates below 5 again and kept everything stable. Had random RTN events for several months. It took about 6 months to turn around and see growth in the acros again.
