MrObscura's Nuvo 10... still reefing.

[MrObscura]

Was this highjack started by a mispost in the wrong thread because its seems surprisingly OT. Lol

[Tamberav]

Searching tin shows a lot of posts about it killing acros. Your tank is small so not sure what the cause could be though.. Not many places for a rusty something or another to hide. 

[mcarroll]

Tin is a common stabilizer in drug-store/first-aid hydrogen peroxide.

 

From some reading it's common in anti-corrosion paints too....anything painted in/around/interfacing in any way with the tank or use of peroxide?

 

[MrObscura]

From what I've read on tin most of the times its present and there are issues its accompanied by other metals because something is corroding.  But as mentioned my tanks doesn't really have much to corrode. 

 

Zinc was a little higher than ATIs target for my salinity level but it was still in the green so I dont think its corrosion. 

 

Theres nothing painted in or around the tank and no way I can think of for peroxide to be introduced. 

 

I have read that tin can leech from the glass itself or be in salt mixes so....idk

 

It's weird how it just happened suddenly. Tank was fine but then all of a sudden things started dying even though nothing changed. And now my tank struggles. 

 

 

[MrObscura]

Well, my walt Disney decided to pretty much rtn completely overnight.  It was one of the corals doing better than the rest actually with nice PE and just a little tissue loss on the tips. But that seems to be the MO. Corals will start stning losing a bit of flesh and hang on for a month or longer just to suddenly rtn one day.

 

My tsa fruity Pebbles looks to be on the way out as well and that really sucks. Its possibly my favorite coral period and I couldn't believe I actually found a piece at a steal of a price.

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

23 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

Well, my walt Disney decided to pretty much rtn completely overnight.  It was one of the corals doing better than the rest actually with nice PE and just a little tissue loss on the tips. But that seems to be the MO. Corals will start stning losing a bit of flesh and hang on for a month or longer just to suddenly rtn one day.

 

My tsa fruity Pebbles looks to be on the way out as well and that really sucks. Its possibly my favorite coral period and I couldn't believe I actually found a piece at a steal of a price.

 

 

They're still dying one by one? 

 

Very sorry you're going through this, btw. Losing any livestock sucks, especially after you have invested a lot of time and effort into the tank. 

 

Did you check your RODI water for contaminants as well? I ran into several issues lately with my reef (it's still rocky) and it turned out to be the water I use for mixing up new SW. (Just something you might look into, if you haven't already)

[MrObscura]

I just sent out a icp test to ati and the result showed small amounts of copper in my rodi but its undetectable in my tank. So I dont think that's the problem.

 

The only other things that stood out were some low minor/trace elements which likely dont do anything and certainly wont kill corals. 

 

I also have a bit of tin above the target level and slightly elevated zinc, but it's still in the green. And based off what I've found that probably wouldnt be killing corals either. And if it was something corroding I'd think levels would be higher. Plus I dont know what could be corroding or leeching those.

[Snow_Phoenix]

47 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

I just sent out a icp test to ati and the result showed small amounts of copper in my rodi but its undetectable in my tank. So I dont think that's the problem.

 

The only other things that stood out were some low minor/trace elements which likely dont do anything and certainly wont kill corals. 

 

I also have a bit of tin above the target level and slightly elevated zinc, but it's still in the green. And based off what I've found that probably wouldnt be killing corals either. And if it was something corroding I'd think levels would be higher. Plus I dont know what could be corroding or leeching those.

Did you check the magnets for the equipment in the tank (eg. wavemakers/pumps etc.)? I think there was a thread about a week or two ago about someone finding one of the magnet holders coated in rust. 

 

Otherwise - any chance someone used aerosol sprays (eg. cleaning liquid/window-wipes etc.) near the tank when you weren't present? Just thinking of all the possibilities. 🤔

 

 

[tofer]

Sorry you are going through this . Have you checked where your RODI connects to the water supply for corrosion ?  Just a thought of where the elevated metals could be coming from . 

[ninjamyst]

Acros are the hardest corals so don't be discouraged if only the acros are not doing well.  I never had luck with acros in a nano, even with perfect parameters.  I believe there's just something in our water that can't be tested that we are not providing when the water volume is small.  Maybe it's lack of diversity, lack of nutrients (besides PO4 and NO3), or lack of beneficial bacteria.  You mentioned trace element is low.  Do you dose any aminos or other trace elements?  I know in my 75 gallon, my SPS colored really nicely after I started dosing aminos and my house sitter fed way too much food to the fish.  You do have noticeable PO4 and NO3 but maybe there's something else missing in terms of nutrient?

[A.m.P]

I don't know if this helps at all, probably not since it's fairly-simple, but a while back I did a little quick-maths pertaining to the aqamai pumps while I was trying to solve issues in my own system.

I found that, assuming 370 is indeed the minimum flow-rate, each 5% interval represents an increase of about 36 gph in flow and that the relative-intensity could be modeled by
((370+( (36* ( ((X/5)-1)/2 ) )) ))/ Volume
- To find relative Max and minimum, where X is the higher-point, you can just not divide the outcome in half and instead multiply the result of the min and max (as X) individually by 36 and add 370 before /V.

In case it's easier to just read it, since math can be nasty to interpret in most popular-fonts, All you do is divide your MAX value by 5 and then subtract 1 from the result, then multiply that by 36 and add the result to 370, the minimum flow is just 370 - the easiest way to approximate a 50-50 split between min and max in their random intervals is to just divide the previous MAX value's result by 2 before adding it to 370 and dividing it by your tank's volume.

For my 20 Long 5-30 Smooth ranges from 34x turnover to 24x turnover and averages around 30x turnover, which still might be too much for some of my corals. I have it pointed diagonally across (corner to corner) and only slightly-upward, essentially forcing it to encounter the largest-possible volume and therefore resistance, even at that certain corals won't stay open and pout when it hits and maintains 30% flow for too long. 

I actually don't think I much care for these pumps, past being misleading, the actual functions of their different flow-settings don't make much sense in context; the wave setting doesn't ramp at all like with other pumps (MP10's etc) and instead just hard-shifts from low (not off) to high making the intervals kind of unimpactful (since it  doesn't *really* control the wave-length and instead will just sit at constant 5% or whatever minimum you set for JUST as long as the higher setting), the smooth setting is essentially just the random setting with soft-transitions and has random flow-durations, and the random setting is exactly the same as the smooth setting but with sharp-transitions akin to the wave-mode and the ability to land on inbetween-values...
It was as if they paid someone to skim through the features of other wavemakers on the market and then write their impressions out as actual modes for their app.

Just to put into perspective exactly how misleading and how much flow I think these buggers put out; halving my schedule, starting at 0:00, would look like this

Quote

(Smooth) 5-20 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-15 ;; (Random) 5-20 ;; (Wave) 10-20 ;; 10-15 ;; 10-15 ;; (Smooth) 5-15 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-20 ;; 5-20 ;; 5-15 ;; (Wave) 5-15 ;; 5-20 ;; 
08:00(Smooth) 5-20 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-15;; 5-15 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-20 ;; 5-20 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-15 ;;

17:30(Smooth) 5-15 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-20 ;; 5-20;; (Wave) 10-20 ;; 10-20 ;; 10-20 ;; (Random) 5-20 ;; (Smooth) 5-10 ;; 5-10 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-15 ;; 5-20 ;; 

 

[MrObscura]

Yea theres no corrosion at the water source and no sprays used near the tank. 

 

Acros get a rap of being hard but they really shouldn't be. Theres no reason a nano should be any more difficult than a 500 gallon in terms of keeping thriving acros as long as you keep on top of things. Hell, there sps packed picos.

 

Theres just something weird going on. I know Mike paletta wrote an article about how he and sanjay had similar issues(in much larger tanks) and the only thing different from their success tanks was they started with dry rock. He found that sps would just wither away in the tank no matter what but then once their tanks got closer to the 2 year mark things turned around and sps suddenly thrived.

 

Only thing is at one point sps seemed to do much better in my tank then suddenly they started dying. I thought I knew the cause but apparently that wasnt it.

 

 

[Tamberav]

Ya it seems harder with dry but plenty of people are successful with dry too. 

 

What if there is some sort of screw or random piece of metal hiding in the back chambers where you can't see it? (due to the way IM made those hidden parts under the chambers)....??? Idk.

 

Is the copper in your RODI enough to cause problems? Like if you did a water change would there be a spike of copper each time? That the rock or such may be adsorbing making it non detectable when tested but there would still be a spike with a wc??

 

 

[MrObscura]

It's 1.88ug/l copper which I think is the same as parts per billion so I dont think a 15% wc is adding much copper.

 

Theres nothing that I can think of that could have gotten into the back chambers. All that's back there is my heater, reef glass skimmer and return.

 

I also have that weird thing with my alk randomly raising on its own happening again.  It's slow, but over the last 3 weeks it's gone from 8.4 to 9.2 without dosing anything. And waterchange water is 8.4

[Tamberav]

1 hour ago, MrObscura said:

It's 1.88ug/l copper which I think is the same as parts per billion so I dont think a 15% wc is adding much copper.

 

Theres nothing that I can think of that could have gotten into the back chambers. All that's back there is my heater, reef glass skimmer and return.

 

I also have that weird thing with my alk randomly raising on its own happening again.  It's slow, but over the last 3 weeks it's gone from 8.4 to 9.2 without dosing anything. And waterchange water is 8.4

Alk rises when Nitrate is being consumed. 

[A.m.P]

19 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Alk rises when Nitrate is being consumed. 

Kind of a fun two-way street, nitrifying bacteria consume alkalinity and then denitrifying bacteria re-release it back into the environment, although I believe it is still a lossy-process.

[Tamberav]

I had the same thing in my tank before I got coral growing well enough. My friend has the issue now too, he can't keep acro's alive so far either 😞

 

Edit: I am actually helping two friends, one is struggling and the other is very successful. 

 

The one struggling has the MP10's, red sea, ATI hybrid, ect... the successful one has the HOB and Jeabo.. chinese led's... - they both took it fairly slow. Maybe it comes down to the rock... idk... the struggling one used rock that was wet for about a year from a local friend (not in a DT but cycled and has worms/dusters so it DOES have life). The successful one I gave him some of my rock with is probably at least 6 years old but I kept it in the dark for a year (was extra rock I kept wet in the basement) so all the coralline died but it also had lots of worms/dusters and basically non photosynthetic life. I am not sure if a biological component could be playing a part or not...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MrObscura]

Alk raises by 2.3dkh for every 50ppm of no3 consumed. My no3 has been a steady 24ppm for months confirmed by me and ATI with the icp test.

 

But I do think I found out why my corals are struggling. Alk has raised far more than I realized. My hannah checker showed my alk at 8.7 when I sent my sample to ATI, they tested it at 9.4. And today I took a sample to a LFS just for confirmation and it tested at 10.9. 

 

So whie I have no clue as to what's causing it to raise on its own I do know now that my testing hasn't been accurate and instable/high alk is likely what's killing my corals.

[Tamberav]

It is steady but it could still be being consumed... just at a steady rate?

 

They make a vial of solution you can verify hanna with. It lasts 2 years I believe, I have one somewhere for mine. 

[A.m.P]

I wouldn't expect 10 DKH to harm corals, I keep mine @ 12 and plenty either run near or above that, however swinging from 12+ DKH even a little down too-quickly (2 or more DKH over the course of a few days to a week) can supposedly cause full-tank crashes.
It's also supposedly allot harder to keep ALK elevated, my experience has been more lenient thankfully, but it only takes the one-time you don't get lucky I suppose.

[MrObscura]

Im not a fan of elevated alk and my tanks never done well with high alk. Even before having major issues my tank started doing much better when I switched to blue bucket and ran lower alk. 

 

I'm sure running closer to 8 and then jumping to 11 probably wasnt good for my corals.

[mcarroll]

26 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

I'm sure running closer to 8 and then jumping to 11 probably wasnt good for my corals.

 

This fits with the swinging phosphates....as alk swings up, demand for P increases with it....likely explaining at least some of the PO4 swings in your test numbers.

 

If you'd had a larger reserve of dissolved phosphate, it's likely that the coral-damage you've experienced could have been avoided since it would take much longer to reach "critical levels" from (e.g.) 0.20 than it would take to reach from 0.4 (or lower).

 

That's true at least to a point...continuously-increasing alk is definitely a problem if the reason for it can't be ID'd.

 

So what rock are you using in this tank? 

 

Also, what sand?

 

Are you still only using filter floss and chemipure as stated in the first post, or is there any other filter media in use?  (I'd probably cease using both if it were my tank....but only due to lack of necessity vs any hard link to what's been happening.)

[Garf]

1 hour ago, MrObscura said:

Alk raises by 2.3dkh for every 50ppm of no3 consumed. My no3 has been a steady 24ppm for months confirmed by me and ATI with the icp test.

 

But I do think I found out why my corals are struggling. Alk has raised far more than I realized. My hannah checker showed my alk at 8.7 when I sent my sample to ATI, they tested it at 9.4. And today I took a sample to a LFS just for confirmation and it tested at 10.9. 

 

So whie I have no clue as to what's causing it to raise on its own I do know now that my testing hasn't been accurate and instable/high alk is likely what's killing my corals.

 

I had the same thing happen to my alk, though in the other direction.  I attribute it to a bad batch of Hannah reagent.  Of course, this happened at the same time I started dosing my tank, so for about 20 days, I had no real clue what the alk was really at. All I know is that I tested 5.8 to 6.6 while dosing what I thought was a good amount of All for Reef. Thought wow, my corals are really consuming and started to dose more. Then I decided to check it with another batch of reagent, and that one tested 8.6 the same day I measured 6.6 with the old batch.  There is some information out there that the freshwater and saltwater reagent is the same, just different product numbers, and I know I had some of both.   I am not blaming the tester or the reagent (it is possible I contaminated the reagent somehow), To reduce any variables, I am ordering directly from Hannah, and only the saltwater sku. I did also buy a kit to test the checker, and it was spot on at 5.0 when checking the calibration. 

 

 

[MrObscura]

I started the tank with reef cleaners dry rock and i havent used chemipure in like 8 months. I use floss changed twice weekly and just started running gac passivly that I plan to change monthly. That's it for filter media. 

 

The tanks mostly bare bottom. Took most of the sand out when fighting dinos about 8 months ago or so. Theres a little bit of caribsea live sand in there still.

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, MrObscura said:

Took most of the sand out when fighting dinos about 8 months ago or so.

I forgot or never knew about the dino's....I'd still be making some effort to keep phosphates in the >0.10 ppm territory on that basis, even if there were no coral problems to speak of. 

 

Not saying that just to artificially pile on the pro-phosphate idea......many, many of my posts on the R2R dino thread will tell you this position as well, in addition to the supporting research.  Just saying so this doesn't seem just argumentative.  👍

 

All things considered, the pro-phosphate connections seem to keep happening tho...

 

The Rock and Media

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there should really be any connections with that rock or other factors you mentioned.

 

Test Results

I don't remember what kit you're using so not sure how big a request this is, but can you run alkalinity tests in triplicate (think like I mentioned doing for po4 earlier) where you test three times in a row on the same sample and post your results? 

 

Ditto a triplicate for some freshly mixed Blue Bucket using your usual methods for preparation?

 

(Six tests, back to back, if you can.  Nine if you can run the po4 triplicate as well.  I know that might be a lot, but some kits are also really easy, so let me know either way.)