Butchy21 Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 Haven’t seen this happen before as I’m having an issue with precipitation. Would love to hear any suggestions. Magnesium was on the low side, around 1200ppm- so I’ve been dosing magnesium (Kent tech M) every other day with a maximum increase of 20ppm as they suggest. I dosed last night and didn’t see any precipitation occur but this morning there’s little precipitation balls (you can see them in the pictures) all over the tank. I’m guessing it must be the Magneisum since I did not not dose two part yesterday but no way to know. Any thoughts?! Maybe a pH issue? I can never decide what the PH measurement is- I feel as if it never matches any of that colors in the chart. KH- 8.2 calcium- 420 magneisum- 1320 salinity 1.025 Quote Link to comment
Joevember Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 Looks like sand to me. What salt brand are you using? Quote Link to comment
Butchy21 Posted March 10, 2019 Author Share Posted March 10, 2019 33 minutes ago, Joevember said: Looks like sand to me. What salt brand are you using? I’m pretty sure it’s not the sand because the only things that are in the water column are perfectly shaped spheres, not non uniform shapes like the sand would be. And the spheres are really buoyant and take a long time to settle. I use reef crystals- last water change was two days ago and didn’t see the precipitation then. Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted March 11, 2019 Share Posted March 11, 2019 8 hours ago, Butchy21 said: I’m pretty sure it’s not the sand because the only things that are in the water column are perfectly shaped spheres, not non uniform shapes like the sand would be. And the spheres are really buoyant and take a long time to settle. I use reef crystals- last water change was two days ago and didn’t see the precipitation then. Did you take one out and see if it's hard? When coral spawns it is spherical eggs. 1 Quote Link to comment
Butchy21 Posted March 11, 2019 Author Share Posted March 11, 2019 14 hours ago, Tamberav said: Did you take one out and see if it's hard? When coral spawns it is spherical eggs. Whoa I wouldn't have even thought of that! I just googled coral spawn and the balls look exactly like this- crazy! Does anything ever become of the spawn? Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted March 11, 2019 Share Posted March 11, 2019 It can at times yes....also free food for stuff. I woke up to a ton of balls flying around the tank before. Doesn't seem to happen often and prob why we don't hear about it much. Actually only had it happen once in the 10+ years that I know about. I seen the smokey type spawn several times but the bigger ball eggs once. Found my old pics of it snowing balls.... 😛 mine were green and brown but they prob come in a range of colors depending on the coral. I had so many...my guess is it must have been my big gorg but who knows. 2 1 Quote Link to comment
Butchy21 Posted March 12, 2019 Author Share Posted March 12, 2019 4 hours ago, Tamberav said: It can at times yes....also free food for stuff. I woke up to a ton of balls flying around the tank before. Doesn't seem to happen often and prob why we don't hear about it much. Actually only had it happen once in the 10+ years that I know about. I seen the smokey type spawn several times but the bigger ball eggs once. Found my old pics of it snowing balls.... 😛 mine were green and brown but they prob come in a range of colors depending on the coral. I had so many...my guess is it must have been my big gorg but who knows. Whoa that’s a lot of stuff in the water column! Did your water get cloudy after spawning? All the corals look good still but my water just got cloudy today, two days after the balls showed up. Not sure if I should do a water change tomorrow or just keep changing filter floss daily until it clears up. Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 It didn't get cloudy but I had some heavy filtration. Watch your fish closely for heavy breathing, could be a bacterial bloom which decreases oxygen. Quote Link to comment
Butchy21 Posted March 12, 2019 Author Share Posted March 12, 2019 18 minutes ago, Tamberav said: It didn't get cloudy but I had some heavy filtration. Watch your fish closely for heavy breathing, could be a bacterial bloom which decreases oxygen. Ummm I think I found the culprit... I’ve had chaeto in a small refugium for about a year. Is it spawning? I thought Caulpera could spawn but I’m not familiar with Chaeto doing it? Quote Link to comment
Butchy21 Posted March 12, 2019 Author Share Posted March 12, 2019 And I’m an idiot- the bag of purigen broke open! 6 Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Cheato can't make those sort of balls, maybe the fuge is catching something. Just now, Butchy21 said: And I’m an idiot- the bag of purigen broke open! haha mystery solved 🙂 not as cool as coral spawning 😞 1 Quote Link to comment
vlangel Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 22 hours ago, Butchy21 said: And I’m an idiot- the bag of purigen broke open! That gave me a good laugh! I am glad the mystery is solved. 😆 1 Quote Link to comment
Beer Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 On 3/11/2019 at 8:40 PM, Butchy21 said: And I’m an idiot- the bag of purigen broke open! Hahaha! Glad it wasn’t anything serious, but slightly disappointed it wasn’t from a spawn (though the nutrient increase from that probably wouldn’t be great to deal with). I needed to use some carbon a few weeks back, but didn’t have any bags, so I used some cheese cloth as I was only planning on keeping it in there for a day or two. Four days later I forgot about it and heard these horrible noises coming from my pump and though it was a fish or snail getting sucked into the impeller. I noticed a couple of black cylinders in the tank as I heard a noise that made me think the pump was imploding. Turns out the cheese cloth completely disintegrated and the carbon was getting sucked into the pump periodically. It was a huge mess in the back chamber. The cheese cloth would float around worse than ditritus and go everywhere. Quote Link to comment
Butchy21 Posted March 13, 2019 Author Share Posted March 13, 2019 14 hours ago, Beer said: Hahaha! Glad it wasn’t anything serious, but slightly disappointed it wasn’t from a spawn (though the nutrient increase from that probably wouldn’t be great to deal with). I needed to use some carbon a few weeks back, but didn’t have any bags, so I used some cheese cloth as I was only planning on keeping it in there for a day or two. Four days later I forgot about it and heard these horrible noises coming from my pump and though it was a fish or snail getting sucked into the impeller. I noticed a couple of black cylinders in the tank as I heard a noise that made me think the pump was imploding. Turns out the cheese cloth completely disintegrated and the carbon was getting sucked into the pump periodically. It was a huge mess in the back chamber. The cheese cloth would float around worse than ditritus and go everywhere. Ugh that does sound messy ha. I suppose strange nosies from the tank are never a good thing.... What type of filter bags do you usually use? I may try different ones since this recent one got shredded. Quote Link to comment
Beer Posted March 13, 2019 Share Posted March 13, 2019 I can’t remember, likely what ever I found at one of my LFSs or scavanged from something random I picked up at an aquarium club auction. I don’t run carbon often. I’ve typically had smaller tanks where I would do weekly 100% or 80%+ water changes with mostly LPS and no fish. Now that I’m running a larger tank, I’m debating running carbon as I’m typically doing ~33-40% water changes and have more of a mixed reef and fish. Quote Link to comment
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