Crashing

[trivan]

Ok so talk about conscience. Njreefer crashes, I loose my login and my tank starts crashing with no help in sight!!

We'll my sps seems to be going through stn. No bugs i've been able to detect. I've been doing water changes and nothing seems to be helping. LPS seems to be fine. The last time I tested parameters thing were generally ok, ammonia-0, nitrate/nitrate-0, alk-154 via Hanna ( probably a high), calcium-480. Ph been hovering around 8.05.

Not sure what to do exept to let it run its course, wait and then start again.

Any suggestions welcome. Good to be back.

 

[asonitez]

Test again

Temperature fluctuation might have triggered it.. we went from some very hot to a mildly cool day recently.
look around IN the tank... in emergency's i always follow the following:


#1 - Try to identify the issue
-Cleaning Solution used? Child threw a toy into the tank? Nail from the roof or rust/dust particles into the tank? Dead fish? Bugs? Did some ugly fish stir up your sand bed too much and release noxious gasses into the tank?

#2 - Make some water do a large water change...I've resorted to using tap water and a de-chorilinator before if my RODI couldn't make water fast enough.. If I had good water params before I doubt a partial water change with regular water would cause any long lasting effects

#3 - Check pumps impellers stray voltage

#4 - If possible make a new batch of salt water and make sure its buffered as close to your original tank water was possible.. remove corals to the new set of salt water its stopped RTN for me before when a nail fell into my tank and I didn't know... Finding a rusted nail in your tank and knowing it was the cause of probably all my algae issues.. makes one pissed.

#5 - if fish are in danger ask a local reefer if they can sump your fish...

 

[mnat]

Sorry to hear about the tank. SPS can be a tough tough coral and can rtn/stn at a drop of a hat. Reasons I have gotten rtn: Temp swing to the high side, alk swing to the high side and pests. What are you doing dosing wise to keep alk and calc up? What is your mag reading? Your PH is a little low. Alk swings can be just as detremental as high alk even if the swing is within a safe range.

As far as your corals go, cut above the dead spots and try and save those pieces. We have had success with doing that just make sure no dead tissue comes along with the new cut. Furan II may help, but it is more of a hail mary at this point.

As asonitez stated, have you done ANYTHING differently before the corals started to go?

 

[Hawkeye]

michael sorry to hear about the problems. If you want any new frags - just let me know via pm. Alternatively if you are able to frag some pieces from your corals, and want to pass a frag to me to hold on to until the tank stabilizes (and then i'd give it back to you later) let me know.

if you have a chance - take some pics of the issue in question.

 

[trivan]

Thanks for the input. I'll try to get pictures tonight. Some of my piece are already gone in 2 days. I have a couple which I'll be fragging today.

The only thing I can think of is high alk, along with a large water change. I've was dosing esv 2 part, alk got a little high so I did a large water change to try to lower it, esv measures to 130-135 on a Hanna checker (anyone confirm?) so I went a coup,e weeks dosing and all was fine, when suddenly it was high. So I did the water changes. I guess the drop in alk upset them. I guess I still need to get my MT to around the 130 for the wc to not aftect the sps's.

Funny thing is that the tissue loss isnt always from the bottom. I have a couple where its dying from the tips. Is the light too high or low? I did recently switch from the Redsand lights to a Ai sol blue.

 

[mnat]

What percentages are you running the AI unit at?

Corals can get burnt tips from alk swings so that can also be your culprit.

 

[trivan]

What percentages are you running the AI unit at?

Corals can get burnt tips from alk swings so that can also be your culprit.

I'm running the AI at White-60, Blue - 60, Royal-60. It hangs about 15" from the top of the water line.

I'm starting to think it's the high alk which contributed to the problem and then the water changes made matters worse by changing alk too fast. I could get good pictures of the stn.

So if I can't do large water changes, should I just wait it out and do small ones so alk doesn't change that much?

If anyone can confirm what they are measuring Alk at on a Hanna checker that would be great. I read that one should at 20 to the reading before converting to DKH. So my test of fresh ESV read 130ppm, add 20, 150*.056=8.4dKH.