I'm Basically Lost.

[RIP Sebastian]

Hi all,

 

For those of you who don't know me, me name is Nick and my Nuvo 30L has been running for about two years now. Unfortunately, things have not been going too well with it as of late... and for, well, quite a while. It seems as if my tank goes through periods of time where everything is just fine. Then, some sort of mass STN goes on. My softies, torches and nems are all fine, as are my Christmas Tree Worms, but other SPS and LPS lose there tissues over a period of about a week.

 

My Parameters:

 

Ammonia: 0 ppm

Nitrite: 0 ppm

Nitrate: <2 ppm

Alk: 11.6 dKh

Cal: 440 ppm

Mag: 1600 ppm

pH: 8.3

SG: 1.026

 

I know that my Alk, Cal, and Mag are high, but they've always been that way and I can't seem to get them to come down. Any ideas? Flow was thought to be an issue, too. I have an MP10WQD on one side and a Koralia 425 on the other. My water isn't too clean, I imagine, because my softies are all fine.

 

I really need some help here and any and all advice is appreciated.

[Weetabix7]

Try using a different salt mix to bring down Alk and Mag. 

[RIP Sebastian]

1 minute ago, Weetabix7 said:

Try using a different salt mix to bring down Alk and Mag. 

I've already done that. I know I should get a new one, but economically- I will then have two half-used five gallon buckets of salt.

[Weetabix7]

3 minutes ago, RIP Sebastian said:

I've already done that. I know I should get a new one, but economically- I will then have two half-used five gallon buckets of salt.

 

Hmm. 

Maybe it would be helpful if you could tell us what you've already done to stabilize those levels.

[RIP Sebastian]

10 minutes ago, Weetabix7 said:

 

Hmm. 

Maybe it would be helpful if you could tell us what you've already done to stabilize those levels.

Sure thing. I had initially started the tank with RSCP salt. I soon realized that my levels were sky high and switched to the Red Sea Blue Bucket. It helped tremendously. I actually had to start dosing. My first time dosing, I was attempting to raise my Cal from 400 to 420. I think I added too much too fast, though, because it caused my Alk to go.....up. I haven't been able to get it down since, and that was months ago. Despite my weekly water changes, everything is just too high. I'm sure I'm just doing something stupid and am just not realizing it.

[Pjanssen]

What kind of water are you using to mix your salt? I've certainly had my issues with trying get and keep my alk and ca levels stable, and swings definitely cause corals to struggle (I lost a beautiful aussie gold torch). It takes a long time to get corals healthy again once they start to decline. I would probably start really aggressive water changes. Not so fast that you stress the corals more, but enough that you can get those levels down.

[mitten_reef]

So when you say you were dosing to raise calcium, what were you dosing? Because if you dosed just Ca, your alk shouldn't go up.  In fact,  as calcium pairs up with carbonate (alk) that already in the water to support coral growth, alk should be going down. So unless you're dosing both Ca and Alk while you just wanted to raise Ca, I can't imagine Alk gone up as a result. 

 

Also with your dosing "routine", were you monitoring the consumptions and adjusting your dosage? You could be slowly overdosing over time, if the corals couldn't take up the elements fast enough. Dosing is about replenishing what corals use, not constant additions. 

 

 

[RIP Sebastian]

31 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

What kind of water are you using to mix your salt? I've certainly had my issues with trying get and keep my alk and ca levels stable, and swings definitely cause corals to struggle (I lost a beautiful aussie gold torch). It takes a long time to get corals healthy again once they start to decline. I would probably start really aggressive water changes. Not so fast that you stress the corals more, but enough that you can get those levels down.

I use Ro/Di that I make using a BRS unit. I will start aggressive water changes shortly. Thank you so much for your advice, and, if you have any more thoughts, please send them my way!

 

25 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

So when you say you were dosing to raise calcium, what were you dosing? Because if you dosed just Ca, your alk shouldn't go up.  In fact,  as calcium pairs up with carbonate (alk) that already in the water to support coral growth, alk should be going down. So unless you're dosing both Ca and Alk while you just wanted to raise Ca, I can't imagine Alk gone up as a result. 

 

Also with your dosing "routine", were you monitoring the consumptions and adjusting your dosage? You could be slowly overdosing over time, if the corals couldn't take up the elements fast enough. Dosing is about replenishing what corals use, not constant additions. 

 

 

When I was trying to raise my Cal, I was dosing the Calcium component of the BRS two part. I, too, thought that if I messed up, my Alk would go down, but ever since then, I haven't been able to get my cal and alk back down. I was so surprised, I checked it with my Hanna checker, which also reported it had risen. However, knowing me, I probably screwed it up. I had been charting my consumption for a week leading up to my first dose- I had been steadily consuming .3 dKh per day of alk and 5 ppm of cal per day. Because of the raised levels, I haven't dosed since; I haven't had to. Thank you very much for your insight. If you have any other thoughts, please let me know!

[mitten_reef]

 

57 minutes ago, RIP Sebastian said:

I use Ro/Di that I make using a BRS unit. I will start aggressive water changes shortly. Thank you so much for your advice, and, if you have any more thoughts, please send them my way!

 

When I was trying to raise my Cal, I was dosing the Calcium component of the BRS two part. I, too, thought that if I messed up, my Alk would go down, but ever since then, I haven't been able to get my cal and alk back down. I was so surprised, I checked it with my Hanna checker, which also reported it had risen. However, knowing me, I probably screwed it up. I had been charting my consumption for a week leading up to my first dose- I had been steadily consuming .3 dKh per day of alk and 5 ppm of cal per day. Because of the raised levels, I haven't dosed since; I haven't had to. Thank you very much for your insight. If you have any other thoughts, please let me know!

Thanks for the kind words, I'm honestly very new at this water chemistry parameters game. I've been keeping it simple doing weekly wc with RSCP for at least 3 years, getting good growth and coloration on most corals I've kept. I recently gained enough confidence (and a good light fixture) to move into the Acroporas game. Coupled that with my Monti's growth taking off, I had to start learning the detailed chemistry of Ca/Alk/Mg. One thing I consider to have on my side is that I really liked chemistry back in college (my major for a while, in fact) - so that sort of subject comes to me more naturally.  

I've read that Mg level can impact the Ca/Alk balance....but not entirely sure how. Here's an interesting little blurp on ionic imbalance (http://www.aquavitro.com/IonicImbalance.html)

I knew pH would definitely affect the availability of different ions in the water. I noticed you didn't list your pH as one of the parameters in the original post. Were you able to maintain pH at least above 8? All that said, I think most of this ionic/pH balancing act is about facilitating the coral absorption though, still doesn't explain your levels. 

What about your SG? Did you top off with saltwater by accident (grabbed wrong bucket? it can happen), thereby slowly increase concentrations of everything?

How did you calculate the amount to dose? You may have dosed too much as you suspected IF you used "rated volume" of your tank in most readily available dosing calculator. Dosing is an exact science (all about dilution and concentration), and rely on the true volume of your water, not tank dimensional capacity. Most tanks aren't filled to the rim, especially AIO, and most also contain various amount of live rocks and sand that displace the water volume, i.e. for an IM 30L you may only have 25 gallon or so of water in there.  It is also good to dose slightly less than "calculated" and slowly increase over time to meet demands and/or get the levels to where you want them to be. 

If the parameters are still high, 10-20% water change with RS blue bucket should help bringing them down. I hope that helps, that's really the limit of my understanding on this subject 

 

[Clown79]

When you dosed, did you test before and after to determine correct amount to dose?

 

I find online calculators are off. Told me to dose 15ml of esv and glad I didn't.

 

I test before I dose and after. 4ml had my alk go from 7.7 to 8.4, 8.4 is where it starts and where I want it. 

 

If your nutrients is very low, high alk definitely could be an issue. I had issues when my alk got to 12.5. Lost a bunch of birdsnest, Lps weren't happy.

I switched from rscp to aquaforest.

[RIP Sebastian]

7 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

 

Thanks for the kind words, I'm honestly very new at this water chemistry parameters game. I've been keeping it simple doing weekly wc with RSCP for at least 3 years, getting good growth and coloration on most corals I've kept. I recently gained enough confidence (and a good light fixture) to move into the Acroporas game. Coupled that with my Monti's growth taking off, I had to start learning the detailed chemistry of Ca/Alk/Mg. One thing I consider to have on my side is that I really liked chemistry back in college (my major for a while, in fact) - so that sort of subject comes to me more naturally.  

I've read that Mg level can impact the Ca/Alk balance....but not entirely sure how. Here's an interesting little blurp on ionic imbalance (http://www.aquavitro.com/IonicImbalance.html)

I knew pH would definitely affect the availability of different ions in the water. I noticed you didn't list your pH as one of the parameters in the original post. Were you able to maintain pH at least above 8? All that said, I think most of this ionic/pH balancing act is about facilitating the coral absorption though, still doesn't explain your levels. 

What about your SG? Did you top off with saltwater by accident (grabbed wrong bucket? it can happen), thereby slowly increase concentrations of everything?

How did you calculate the amount to dose? You may have dosed too much as you suspected IF you used "rated volume" of your tank in most readily available dosing calculator. Dosing is an exact science (all about dilution and concentration), and rely on the true volume of your water, not tank dimensional capacity. Most tanks aren't filled to the rim, especially AIO, and most also contain various amount of live rocks and sand that displace the water volume, i.e. for an IM 30L you may only have 25 gallon or so of water in there.  It is also good to dose slightly less than "calculated" and slowly increase over time to meet demands and/or get the levels to where you want them to be. 

If the parameters are still high, 10-20% water change with RS blue bucket should help bringing them down. I hope that helps, that's really the limit of my understanding on this subject 

 

My pH is at 8.3 and my SG is 1.026. I can't believe I forgot to put those in my original post! I'll edit it. When I used the BRS calculator, I did say 25 gallons to account for displacement.

 

4 hours ago, Clown79 said:

When you dosed, did you test before and after to determine correct amount to dose?

 

I find online calculators are off. Told me to dose 15ml of esv and glad I didn't.

 

I test before I dose and after. 4ml had my alk go from 7.7 to 8.4, 8.4 is where it starts and where I want it. 

 

If your nutrients is very low, high alk definitely could be an issue. I had issues when my alk got to 12.5. Lost a bunch of birdsnest, Lps weren't happy.

I switched from rscp to aquaforest.

I did test before and after, which is how I know my alk rose. The cal was right where the calculator said it should be. Thank you for your words and advice!

[Ranjib]

Alk value is not too high?

Pristine water with stable alk is key from what I understand. I am new to sps as well, and lost couple of acro in the beginning. Taking things very slow now.

If your water is not clear, its not gonna cut it for sps. If you are not supplementing ca/mg it should slow down growth but not cause rtn. 

I would say start with making stable water chemistry first , without dosing, then add small sps frags and monitor ca/mg drop and only then dose.

I am taking this route, and have been able to keep handful of acros for past 4 months. For past 3 months I'm dosing and started to see some decent growth 

Hope that helps

[RIP Sebastian]

5 minutes ago, Ranjib said:

Alk value is not too high?

Pristine water with stable alk is key from what I understand. I am new to sps as well, and lost couple of acro in the beginning. Taking things very slow now.

If your water is not clear, its not gonna cut it for sps. If you are not supplementing ca/mg it should slow down growth but not cause rtn. 

I would say start with making stable water chemistry first , without dosing, then add small sps frags and monitor ca/mg drop and only then dose.

I am taking this route, and have been able to keep handful of acros for past 4 months. For past 3 months I'm dosing and started to see some decent growth 

Hope that helps

Thank you very much. I have water circulating now. I am doing a WC today in effort to get the alk back down.

[brandon429]

I see your problem completely different than any param issue.

 

If you go to the picos forum, you will see by and large people are not dosing for specific params like calcium and alk, they're taking whatever their water mix gives because none of the common salt mixes will kill sps and they change water weekly which meets the sps demands for 99% of tanks. the reason people tweak params in larger tanks is to avoid water change work, not that param chasing works better. the pico forum has alt data to show for that claim.

 

100% of salt types will grow sps, even with param spikes and troughs. Anywhere on the web you can find someone with your params growing coral just fine. What we do different in picos forum is the feed and water change work. you will see the tiny picos packed full of sps, zero rtn on any of them, due to feeding and mass water changes.

 

Something has to explain the fact that you can give your salt mix to Maritza or Nathalie, and all your corals, and they could put them in fishbowls and the corals would grow until they had to be cut out. It cannot be explained that downsizing to a ridiculously small container will cause that growth...the only things that would change would be:

 

stop testing for params

 

change half the tank water weekly until you figure things out, then specific dosing will lessen that work

 

shoot feed across your acros in the early mornings lightly, then really heavy before the water change. include a couple 100% changes in this mode too, like they do, because water changes are refreshing to a nano, not harmful as mentioned above. Light intensity needs to be lowered when rtn and stn is in play, then ramp back up to full on mode slowly. your corals w do better with increased feed, water changes and lighting a bit lower intensity than messing with any of those params w give. stop any use of gfo and phosphate binders during this time of stress, the pico reef examples are not using them and they have  no instances of rtn or stn in the running threads.

 

 

If I changed out my reefbowl 100% with your water right now, nothing would change in the bowl. We are immune to name brand requirements in the pico reef forum. if at every water change interval I changed salt brand to IO, RC, oceanic, esv, it simply changes nothing in the coral growth we are immune to salt type requirements due to feeding and water changes. I have been through that many brands btw, I only use lfs premade water and they change from time to time.

 

 

[SelectedByNature]

Sorry to hear you're having problems Nick.

 

Tissue loss in one week seems excessive, I have no idea but I didn't think high/fluctuating parameters (which by your account wasn't sudden) would cause such rapid deterioration (among multiple corals at once)...

 

And you said this seems to be an occurrence happening cyclically and not a one time event (even though your parameters have been the same for a while)?

 

Why did you think flow was an issue?

 

Sadly I don't have enough knowledge/experience to diagnose this type of thing just wanted to help clarify for someone else that may offer suggestions... My suggestion is what others have mentioned which is daily water changes for a while to see if it helps.

[RIP Sebastian]

1 hour ago, brandon429 said:

I see your problem completely different than any param issue.

 

If you go to the picos forum, you will see by and large people are not dosing for specific params like calcium and alk, they're taking whatever their water mix gives because none of the common salt mixes will kill sps and they change water weekly which meets the sps demands for 99% of tanks. the reason people tweak params in larger tanks is to avoid water change work, not that param chasing works better. the pico forum has alt data to show for that claim.

 

100% of salt types will grow sps, even with param spikes and troughs. Anywhere on the web you can find someone with your params growing coral just fine. What we do different in picos forum is the feed and water change work. you will see the tiny picos packed full of sps, zero rtn on any of them, due to feeding and mass water changes.

 

Something has to explain the fact that you can give your salt mix to Maritza or Nathalie, and all your corals, and they could put them in fishbowls and the corals would grow until they had to be cut out. It cannot be explained that downsizing to a ridiculously small container will cause that growth...the only things that would change would be:

 

stop testing for params

 

change half the tank water weekly until you figure things out, then specific dosing will lessen that work

 

shoot feed across your acros in the early mornings lightly, then really heavy before the water change. include a couple 100% changes in this mode too, like they do, because water changes are refreshing to a nano, not harmful as mentioned above. Light intensity needs to be lowered when rtn and stn is in play, then ramp back up to full on mode slowly. your corals w do better with increased feed, water changes and lighting a bit lower intensity than messing with any of those params w give. stop any use of gfo and phosphate binders during this time of stress, the pico reef examples are not using them and they have  no instances of rtn or stn in the running threads.

 

 

If I changed out my reefbowl 100% with your water right now, nothing would change in the bowl. We are immune to name brand requirements in the pico reef forum. if at every water change interval I changed salt brand to IO, RC, oceanic, esv, it simply changes nothing in the coral growth we are immune to salt type requirements due to feeding and water changes. I have been through that many brands btw, I only use lfs premade water and they change from time to time.

 

 

Thank you very much for your detailed response. It is very insightful and I will feed in the mornings now.

 

2 minutes ago, SelectedByNature said:

Sorry to hear you're having problems Nick.

 

Tissue loss in one week seems excessive, I have no idea but I didn't think high/fluctuating parameters (which by your account wasn't sudden) would cause such rapid deterioration (among multiple corals at once)...

 

And you said this seems to be an occurrence happening cyclically and not a one time event (even though your parameters have been the same for a while)?

 

Why did you think flow was an issue?

 

Sadly I don't have enough knowledge/experience to diagnose this type of thing just wanted to help clarify for someone else that may offer suggestions... My suggestion is what others have mentioned which is daily water changes for a while to see if it helps.

I didn't believe my parameters would burn the tissue, either. Yes, it's occurring cyclically. It's weird. I was led on to the flow idea because, when I was visiting family in Florida, I went to WWC (because, ya know, I was there) and I asked them about it and they said that flow was probably part of the issue. I added the Koralia, and it did help a bit.

[Clown79]

Lack of flow or too much direct flow can cause tissue loss.

 

With sps and lps, I have personally observed and experienced drastic changes with flow and alk swing issues.

 

Alk burn does exist. When nutrient levels are low and alk is  high its been known to cause alk burn on sps. Particularly on the tips.

 

I agree waterchanges are significant enough for pico's but I don't consider 25g a Pico.

 

In my 15g my alk drops almost 1dkh in a day. If I waited a week to replenish it, it would go way below normal levels. 

 

I tried not dosing in my tank and only relying on waterchanges, the effects on the corals was not positive and as soon as I went back to controlling daily consumption all went back to healthy states.

 

If your Params  don't drop significantly, then daily dosing may not be needed.

[RIP Sebastian]

3 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Lack of flow or too much direct flow can cause tissue loss.

 

With sps and lps, I have personally observed and experienced drastic changes with flow and alk swing issues.

 

Alk burn does exist. When nutrient levels are low and alk is  high its been known to cause alk burn on sps. Particularly on the tips.

 

I agree waterchanges are significant enough for pico's but I don't consider 25g a Pico.

 

In my 15g my alk drops almost 1dkh in a day. If I waited a week to replenish it, it would go way below normal levels. 

 

I tried not dosing in my tank and only relying on waterchanges, the effects on the corals was not positive and as soon as I went back to controlling daily consumption all went back to healthy states.

 

If your Params  don't drop significantly, then daily dosing may not be needed.

Thank you again for your insight. Initially, my levels ere dropping, which is why I started dosing. I have experienced Alk burn in my tank before, and I know that my Alk is extremely high now, but not high enough for burn.