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Still having issues with my tank...

zepplock

zepplock

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Seems like I have problems keeping certain corals alive. Here's the story.
I have a well established tank (about 3 years old) but from time to time I have certain corals suddenly die off.

Chalices, all montiporas, acans, favias, hammer, torch are the ones I can't keep alive.
On the other hand, snail, hermits, clam, xenia, GSP, tyree green leather, 2 RBTAs, green slimer, valida, blue tort and some other sps I cant identify are doing great (good growth, branching out, bright colors).
I also have several zoas that doing so-so, not dyeingm but tot open 100% of time. Palyzoa are doing great, but thats normal ;-)

So I checked temperature (have digital and regular thermometers) 80F, checked salinity 1.025 (have refractometer, calibrated with hydrometer and just got a reference salinity from BAR swap). I also checked PH (8.1) and Alk (2meg/L) - both Seachem test. I also use a mix of seachem and Reffcrystals salt. I have RO water (about 20ppm on my TDS meter, with 400+ in the tap water). I dont have many fish, a pair of cardinals, and pair of perculas. I have 4x39w T%s over the tank (tank is 50g acrylic). Ca is 400 tested with API testkit

So the questions are:

- what can kill certain type of corals?
- why my PH/Alk so low, is that what was causing this?
- can it be lack of filtration (running only one small koralia and low return from the sump)
- can it be lack of oxygen? I have a canopy that is closing the top pretty hard (I heard zoa are not happy with it)
- can it be some rock I have that is leaching chemicals?
- can it be something wrong with my RO water?
- maybe some piece of equipment (pump, tubing, bulbs, etc) is bad and leeching chemicals out?

p.s. I did a standard water test at Aquatic Gallery and all results were in line with my tests and seemed to be normal (calcium was a bit low since I dont dose it, but they checked mag and nitrates, etc).

I'm at the point where staying in this hobby means restarting the whole system from scratch or just drop it.

Thank you.
 
Without knowing your Ca/Mg, it is hard to assess Alk. THose three parameters very well may be a significant issue. I know that you had them tested, but numbers would help. With the exception of the monti, all your trouble corals are LPS. LPS can be hit hard with low Mg.

I had a closed top before and had major headaches with O2. If you think that is it, you can get a cursory feel by just adding an stone for a few days and observe the corals.
 
So I just tested Ca and it is a bit low, 400 using API test.

I was doing water changes (did about 20% in last 2 days). I assume my Alk, PH, Ca were even lower before the water changes.

So what should I do? Start dosing CA? Keep doing water changes?

p.s. Can aerating water help maintaining any of parameters that I have low?
 
Ca looks ok, but alk at 2 meq/l is way low. I would expect problems with montis at that level. Fast growing stonies will show the effects first.

I would guess it's mainly a problem with low alk and Mg.
 
Aerating the water can help bring your pH up.

I've had montis and pocci RTN when pH was a little low to begin with and that got compounded with a skimmer getting clogged.
 
dose 2part or kalk etc to keep Ca/Alk up. 2 part lets you adjust your alk/Ca semi independently. You also want to keep an eye on Mag. I would get that measurement before dosing any Mg though.
 
If you are currently doing regular waterchanges, continue that. You can do airstone airation really easily and the impact (wrt corals opening up more etc) will be very apparently in a short time period. My indicator for airation were zoas. They were always closed. Within an hour or so of airation, they started opening (note, they were litereally closed 100% of the time for months before diagnosing airation).

Mag will take a long time to notice significant improvements.
 
I would do some aggressive water changes with Seachem Reef salt to get the alk/Ca/Mg closer to normal. Several 50% changes over a week or so period.

That way you can get better parameters without having to deal with the salinity changes you get from large doses of 2 part.
 
Also, people can have problems chasing Ca numbers when going by test kit results. Easier to let a decent salt mix get you back on track.
 
patchin said:
I feel for you Vlad. I'm trying to troubleshoot my system also.
Click to expand...
Aren't we all doing it? Constantly??
I think there is no such thing as an always perfect tank. I think reefing is about keeping up with the problems you encounter to make the environment on which your corals live better so they can florish and prosper.
If it's not one thing, there are millions of other things.
I know I haven't been in the hobby for as long as most of you, but since I started, it was all about learning and troubleshooting my tank. I too have problems with low Alk and Mag, but that's what makes it even more interesting. I'm always learning something new.
So, to all of us:
Keep your heads up and positive thinking. Also, always keep in mind that we as members of this awesome club will be here for whenever you need help with anything.
I hope one day I can help the ones like me that have so little knowledge.

Roberto.
 
@newhobby

while I agree that we all are doing it ... I is really irritating to have dead corals. I mean I like to experiment: t5 vs MH lights, seachem vs reefcrystals salt, etc. But this is different. I will be asking people to donate me some brown montiporas for testing purposes before I start introducing more corals. Ugh.

On the bright side: thanks for help guys, this is what makes BAR so irreplaceable, indestructible and kool!
 
So I've beed doing water changes everyday (probably changed 70-80% of total volume) and CA is the same ~400, PH is same low 8.1 but Alk is up to 3meg/L
Corals seem to be happier, not sliming.

I will get a Mag test over the weekend and test that as well.
 
This is good. Ca is getting close to the levels of your freshly mixed salt. Close enough where it shouldn't be an issue for your tank.

Now you can just make up the alk difference with dosing, then maintain according to your daily alk consumption rate.

Mg probably is close enough not to be dangerous. Test and dosing would be good.

Things should start setttling in and stabilizing.
 
A small update. Still doing regular water changes.
I thunk it's back to life. Lots of algae is gone, all corals doing fine and para,eters are ok (alk is 3).

Yesterday Vincerama2 gave me some plates, branching monti and some kind of pocillopora. Let's see if they survive and start growing.

I also added 2 airstones as Gomer suggested. And I have some carbon ready but not trying it yet, wanna see if airstones make any difference for my semi-closed zoa.
 
Another update.

Only one out of 3 plates Vince gave me survived. Some of my zoa are still closed (about half of them).
I got a Mag test today (expensive!) and here are the results:

03/16/2010
Salinity: 1.025-1.026
Calcium: 400PH: 8.0
Alk: 3mg/L
Mag: 1170ppm

I checked Alk yesterday and it was 2.5, so it fluctuates.

I assume 1170 Mag is low and that is what may be affecting my PH/Alk. So what should I do? Raise Mag? Get a 2 part and dose to keep PH/Alk/Cal up?

p.s. I still have this idea in my head that I have some rock/equipment affecting my corals. So I setup my old 10g tank with some PC lights. I had great success raising zoa/xenia there for 1+ years so I know that setup is solid. I moved some of my zoa there, just to see it is affected too, but I doubt it.
 
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