Mark's 40B and 46 bow

[metrokat]

Looking at those SPS pictures, it does not look like a salinity issue. How much water did the ATO dump in to change the salinity that much? This is a 40 breeder. Even with my 34G display and sump on top of that, I estimate my water volume to be around 30 G total. I can put in at least 1 G or more and the salinity changes but very slightly. Yr salinity was likely low to begin with. Just a guess obviously. I've been meaning to get the dinosaur egg myself, looked good.

[markalot]

Yea, what can you say to the guy with the crashing tank except ... looked nice! I really hope the Dinosaur survives. It's not dead ... yet

 

My Duncans look like they might open today and if they do it will be the first time in a week they've opened. If they open I'm calling it for the damn grounding probe.

[metrokat]

you could test a half dead coral in a bucket or something with the probe to confirm the source?

[markalot]

Daily update.

 

Duncans are closed again, and Xenia is looking bad now. Polyfilter has not turned any color other than browning slightly. I do have cyano a little more than yesterday, if this is what it is. It usually fades by 5pm or so.

 

Pictures first, then some videos of both the new healthy frag and a dieing frag of acropora.

 

* click for full size *

 

New Acro

 

 

Dieing Acro

 

 

This one is a little better but still slowly receding.

 

 

Unhappy Duncans and cyanobacteria.

 

 

 

Now the videos:

 

 

 

The new healthy frag:

[metrokat]

Did you change the salt by any chance?

[markalot]

Nope, reef crystals, nearing end of bag, no clumps.

[markalot]

Woops, have not posted full tank stats. As of this morning.

 

SG 1.025

alk 8.2

Ca 410

Mg 1360

PH 8.2

Nitrates 0

Po4 .08 - 1.0 maybe

temp 79-81

[markalot]

Afternoon update. Recovery is slow, which is to be expected, but I do think recovery has started. My Blue/purple Candy Canes are looking better, the Duncan is at least partially open, the Pipe Organ has been open all day, and the GSP has been open all day.

 

I wanted to include some pics of the area of cyanobacteria, which now is just bubbles attached to clear threads.

 

* click for full size *

 

 

[markalot]

The recovery apparently continues EXCEPT for the Xenia, which is now melting away.

 

The test corals.

 

 

 

Neon green polyp acro. No more RTN but still losing tissue.

 

 

Look at the stylophora making a huge comeback.

 

 

Left side of the tank. Note how all Duncans are partially open. Slow progress. How about that hair algae!

 

 

Right side of tank.

 

 

 

Alk was 8.1 this evening, dosed Seachem 2 part, as I've been doing every night for the past 3 nights. Also added GFO and Carbon back into the filter. Need to get those phosphates back down.

[markalot]

My refractometer calibration was WAY WAY off. I measured my 40 .. 1.028 or 38

 

Thankfully I skipped a change on my 20 due to issues with the 40. 20 was 1.026 or 36.

 

I think I recalibrated with ro/di and I believe the main problem is temp .. it's cold, damn cold.

 

My order of calibration liquid did not ship from premium aquatics, not sure why, so I bought carib sea, sea-pure and assumed it was 1.025 - 1.027. I also mixed 1 gallon of reef crystals using the instructions to produce 1 gallon at 1.025.

 

Stupid stupid mistake, and costly. So during my ATO debacle when I measured very high SG it must have been even higher, probably at or over 1.030

[markalot]

So I have some 35ppt calibration liquid now and the results are interesting.

 

First test showed 36ppt so I lowered it. Cleaned, tested all my water, cleaning each time. Tested with calibration liquid, waited the 30 seconds or so for any temperature adjustments, 34ppt. re-calibrated, checked all tanks, test liquid, a little above 35.

 

So obviously even though a have a refractometer made for marine applications with automatic temperature adjustment it still has accuracy issues. Who says these things are more accurate and how did they test?

 

Re-ran tests yesterday evening and measured 36 again with the calibration liquid so I set down a bit and called it calibrated. I'll continue to target 1.025 in my tanks which should result in 1.025 - 1.026 SG.

[markalot]

Dec 13th progress update.

 

The coral that was STN'ing is dead, no more photos.

 

* click for full size image *

 

Test SPS #1

 

 

Compared to when first placed in tank, looks like decent growth already.

 

 

 

Test Zoa, looks like the color is fading a bit.

 

 

New test subject, ORA Blue Voodoo. LFS had this, the first ORA I've ever seen there. $40 is a bit pricey for me so let's hope this lives. Amazing polyp extension already.

 

 

 

Rockstar (my name) Stylophora

 

 

Encrusting once again and appears to be growing over areas that had receded.

 

 

My brown lump of Acro that appears to be holding steady at the moment.

 

 

And finally my Duncans, which open a little more every day and might be showing some new heads.

 

[markalot]

It will be interesting to see photos from this weekend because I had to remove and re-arrange a lot to catch a psycho sixline wrasse who had started to stalk and try to kill every other fish. I'm now down to 3 fish.

 

False percula clown

Flame Hawkfish

Reef Chromis

 

Through the entire ordeal the Duncans remained partially open and both test SPS looked fine when I finally turned out the lights. Time will tell.

[markalot]

How about a new FTS with everything re-arranged.

 

* click for full size *

 

 

Test Coral #1

 

 

Test Coral Blue Voodoo

 

 

I'll post a few closeups tomorrow, mainly to help me track growth. If nothing else I can say the tank has colored back up nicely. It's kind of strange but the last week all colors were drab, now ore brilliant, even though it's mostly coraline.

[markalot]

More pictures

 

* click for full size *

 

The Zoas, color still fading.

 

 

Green Star Polyps, normally bright green but now appears most of the tips are burnt.

 

 

Another variety of GSP, these are normally metallic green.

 

The birdsnest appears to be recovering. Branches are not white and not algae covers and some are getting a pink haze to them, so hopefully a good chuck of this will come back.

 

I really hope this monti pulls through but it continues to slowly recede.

 

My brown Acro blob. Posting an older and the latest to compare.

 

12/9

 

12/14

[markalot]

Updates for today.

 

* click for full size image *

 

 

 

===

 

 

from the 13th, clearly encrusting

 

===

 

 

from the 13th

[markalot]

Just two from today. Both test SPS are still growing and comparing my brown lump of acro for the last 3 days I see it's actually starting to grow, barely.

 

* click for full size *

 

 

 

Also of note, the broken off piece of rock that had my pink anthelia on it is showing signs of life. Extremely small, but there they are.

 

 

 

That's the good news. Bad news it it appears my frag of branching hammer is going to die, it looks worse every day.

[metrokat]

are you sure you don't have SPS eating pests?

[markalot]

I'm never sure of anything, but I don't think so based on the shear number of deaths and now recovery.

 

Which brings me to today's update.

 

It's alive. My brown hunk of Acro has grown in the last 3 days and polyps have started to extend. The only Acro to survive the ordeal so far ... though that white dieing Acro I showed earlier, for some reason is missing algae on parts of the skeleton, as if something might still be there. I'm keeping it in the tank to see if any part is alive.

 

Here's the brown hunk. It's alive!

 

 

Compared with just 2 days ago.

 

 

You can see the growth and it looks to be growing over the old recession line.

 

My two test SPS corals are encrusting rapidly as well, no signs of trouble.

 

I will be switching salt to Red Sea Coral standard salt and moving away from Reef Crystals. I want a salt that provides a KH of 7 or 8 instead of the elevated levels in many reef salts. When I was doing water changes during my crisis I probably raised KH rapidly since my tank normally sits around 8 but RC mixed to 10. I don't want to have to worry about that.

[markalot]

The recovery is really starting to speed up now.

 

Picture from 3 days ago:

 

 

Today:

 

 

A picture of the birdsnest. No polyps visible yet but many of the "dead" areas now showing color.

 

 

The unknown LFS SPS

 

4 days ago

 

Today

[Veng]

 

Glad to see some recovery!

[markalot]

Thanks. I need to make a new FTS. My Caulerpa prolifera (maybe) completely took over the right side of the tank, forcing me to remove about 1/4 of the rocks to remove the infestation. I don;t think I got all of it so I will neeed to stay on top of the issue. Anyway I replaced the numerous smaller rocks with a large pukani rock I had ordered a while back. I fully expected the tank to crash again but besides cloudy water and the SPS closing up for a day nothing bad happened.

[markalot]

Latest FTS showing new rock and rescape. Everything is looking better and better every day.

 

[Singlefin]

Frustrating. Things are looking up though.

[metrokat]

I can also now confirm that refractometers with the built in temperature compensation plate actually does no compensation. In fact the test results from the same batch vary. So how to measure accurately?

 

I see you added rock, I was about to say that I know you like a minimalistic scape but having more rock might aid filtration.