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Disaster's 80gal + 15gal SPS Reef Tank


disaster999

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disaster999
1 hour ago, neuwave said:

That could be it, if your PO4 and nitrate become too low, I've seen new colonies rtn. They may need the extra nutrients to rebuild lost Zooxanthellae.

Ive been trying to raise my nitrates a bit by feeding my tank more frequently. Wondering if I should keep up with my 2 week water changes or let it go for longer so the nutrients can build up...

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On 7/13/2017 at 3:44 AM, disaster999 said:

Ive been trying to raise my nitrates a bit by feeding my tank more frequently. Wondering if I should keep up with my 2 week water changes or let it go for longer so the nutrients can build up...

I took my water change down by half and skipped one and it did stop any and all rtn on two mariculutured colonies I have. Now they have color and encrusting. But from looking at the new pics, you seem to have a good handle on those corals. ?

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disaster999
2 hours ago, neuwave said:

I took my water change down by half and skipped one and it did stop any and all rtn on two mariculutured colonies I have. Now they have color and encrusting. But from looking at the new pics, you seem to have a good handle on those corals. ?

Im able to keep the colors on the the new corals, but the old ones still looks kinda dull.

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disaster999

Something weird is happening to my tank right now. I checked my parameters this past weekend and noticed my alk was running low. Everything else was fine so I decided to dose baked baking soda solution into my tank just to bring it up to spec. I didnt does it all at once, but took 2-3 days of dosing. Something weird started happening to my tank tho. Ive noticed the color on some of my corals are lightening up like they are being bleached. They only affects the red and blue corals but my green and yellow corals stayed the same. Even my browned out corals are bleached. Also, it only seem to affect the coral that is receiving direct lights from my LED, parts of the coral that is in the shade are not affected at all. 

 

Ive stopped dosing hoping this would stop....I hope i didnt start killing off my corals again

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What did was the reading of alk before and after you dosed? You may have bleached your corals due to too high of an alk. I would notice burnt tips on my acros when I would dose over natural seawater levels (over 7.0 dkh) and use GFO like crazy. Apparently, the water was too clean and the concentration of alk was too high and caused the burn. I have since stopped using GFO and use macro algae to export my PO4 levels. I keep my alk around 9.0 dkh.

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disaster999
14 hours ago, jndragon said:

What did was the reading of alk before and after you dosed? You may have bleached your corals due to too high of an alk. I would notice burnt tips on my acros when I would dose over natural seawater levels (over 7.0 dkh) and use GFO like crazy. Apparently, the water was too clean and the concentration of alk was too high and caused the burn. I have since stopped using GFO and use macro algae to export my PO4 levels. I keep my alk around 9.0 dkh.

It was around 4.5-5dhk before and I dosed a measured amount of baked baking soda solution over 3 days to raise it back up to 8dkh.

 

I've tried this method a lot of times before with no problem. I guess something was different this time.

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disaster999
16 hours ago, markalot said:

Did you make sure to adjust calcium as well?  You may have gotten out of balance.

Calc was right where I wanted to be so I didn't specifically dose calc. Might, as you said, caused imbalanced.

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disaster999

I just checked my parameters again and everything checks out. Nothing out of the ordinary. Calc is around 390-400ppm, Alk is 8dkh, mag is 1400ppm, NO3 is sub 1ppm, PO4 is undetectable. 

Heres some cellphone pics of what some of my corals look like now

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IlKzRAGoPPqF21XLbT5eOI8wuoxSRDFEAKxj834O

qWbb4YBnppf4VVbQwXgIft9lf0RQTCuhBRksWsoq

krh-00_ks4GNZaP8sUMioZCGI1V-u6ZZcJkwq2dW

tgih2J1Aq2zrtTG3_FfcQNFqNtC8fcHh1DA5VXfH

MtaLDXoUNQaSLEYE1s6BEKQfNJjlAov7hyPvb5lg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Huh, the new site update suddenly brought this thread back on my radar.  I missed a lot, but I'm loving the new tank.

 

It's frustrating when something that's been basically flawless, suddenly takes a turn.  How are things going now?  Are they coloring back up?  Did you ever get a Hanna ULR Phosphorus Checker?  I'm thinking phosphate (along with alkalinity) might be playing a role in this.

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disaster999

 

 

On 8/4/2017 at 3:40 PM, dropped said:

hopefully this comes back mate! ive been through something that ended up in the same result. wasnt cool

 

On 8/4/2017 at 6:03 PM, seabass said:

Huh, the new site update suddenly brought this thread back on my radar.  I missed a lot, but I'm loving the new tank.

 

It's frustrating when something that's been basically flawless, suddenly takes a turn.  How are things going now?  Are they coloring back up?  Did you ever get a Hanna ULR Phosphorus Checker?  I'm thinking phosphate (along with alkalinity) might be playing a role in this.

Well I found out what was wrong with my tank and it had nothing to to do with me over dosing or water parameters. It was a stray electricity from the pump that was causing the bleaching. I noticed my pumps wouldnt run as programmed and I thought it was the controller's problem and had nothing to do with the pump so I put it off for a while and concentrated on fixing my water parameters. I did a few massive water changes to the tank, checked all my parameters and made sure everything was spot on with the water but still couldnt figure out why i dont see any significant improvements to my corals.

 

I finally went to check on my pump once in for all and see what was wrong. I messed around with the controller and realized that it wasnt the problem but one of my pumps wasnt working. I went to see if the impeller was jammed and felt a lot of tingling sensation while handling the pump...then it really shocked me. I quickly unplugged the pump and noticed this rust color fuzz coming from the wire entering the pump. 3 weeks I thought my water parameter was causing the massive bleaching in my tank, but it turns out it was a simple shorted out pump that was causing my headaches, causing me to loose 3 other sps frags.

 

Thankfully Maxspect will be replacing both pumps for me. Another long journey before my corals bounces back again.

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disaster999
29 minutes ago, dropped said:

Mate you are lucky! lets hope that fixes your problem! hopefully the corals are not too far gone.

 

Some corals are dead...Couldnt really tell until diatoms started growing on it since a lot of my corals were completely bleached white. The ones that are still alive still have a tiny bit of polyp extension on them. Ive dialed back the lighting on my tank so I dont bleach them any further.

3 minutes ago, seabass said:

Nice catch.  I'm glad you didn't hurt yourself!

Its low voltage 24v so its not THAT bad. Did shock me a little when I touched JUST the right spot.

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Thrassian Atoll

Amazing tank!  That's terrible about the pump taking a crap on ya.  Hope the rest of your corals are able to recover.

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sorry to hear about the stray voltage but glad you were able to figure out what it was before you lost anymore coral.  The tank is still amazing hope it bounces back quickly.

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disaster999

The new pumps arrived. Packaging was a lot smaller than I remembered, then realized these are just the pump and does not include any controller or power supply. Makes sense not to include all the unnecessary accessories.

 

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Im liking this small tin can the pump comes in...

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Plenty of padding for the pump

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Now we wait a few months before my tank bounces back again

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I hope everyone are having better luck with their Maxspect products. One of my lights was acting up and wasnt outputting as much light as my other fixture. I thought it was the programming again so I went to check on it. I messed around with the program and it was running as it should. Suspecting someone is up with the channels, I powered up each channel individually and found out the warm white and green channels werent working. Good thing I have a spare light so I swapped the non functioning light out and everything was fine again.

 

I msged Maxspect about the light and while waiting for their reply, I thought ill take apart the light and see if i could find out what was wrong. I was a little disgusted about the condition of the light,

 

***Back story, the light wasnt mine, but I swapped it out with my contact from Maxspect since there was a new beta software and he wanted me to try it, my lights were too old and the hardware that was in the light wasnt compatible with new software. So he told me to give him my old lights, and he would give me his lights*** 

 

Im guessing there was some severe splashing or whatever and the inside of the lights didnt look so good. Dried saltwater mixed with dust, and can see some of the metal is corroding. Looking at the condition of the light, I had a suspicion that some of the trace on the PCB was corroded and the connection was cut resulting in 2 non working channels. I completely took apart the light, cleaned everything the best I can and examined all the electronics. As i suspected the PCB circuit is corroded and the connection was broken. I scraped off the paint on the copper trace and soldered on spare pieces of wire to bridge the connection. Plugged the light back in and voila, all channels are working again.

 

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