Adventures in keeping a SPS reef

[mcarroll]

1 hour ago, Llorgon said:

I also had a powerhead melt in this tank once...so who knows maybe there is something left over from that. But that was a few tank versions ago... I feel like this tank is just cursed.

Depending on the extent of the damage to the power head there really could be some nastiness left on/in the rocks from that.....nothing that would necessarily show up on ICP either.  Also not totally sure that carbon would handle it.

 

Maybe new rocks isn't such a wild idea?

[Llorgon]

2 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Depending on the extent of the damage to the power head there really could be some nastiness left on/in the rocks from that.....nothing that would necessarily show up on ICP either.  Also not totally sure that carbon would handle it.

 

Maybe new rocks isn't such a wild idea?

Rocks and sand have all been replaced a couple times now since that happened. But there was basically melted plastic all over the tank. The whole apartment smelled almost like cigarette smoke. It was gross and it wiped everything in the tank out.

 

But some of the equipment and part of the plumbing is the same as when that happened so who knows if there was anything at all left over. This all happened about 5 years ago.

[Llorgon]

Today was water change day. I also removed a bunch of algae, changed the carbon bag and cleaned off the power heads. 

 

Tank and corals are still looking pretty rough since raising nutrients. The sunset monti is looking better, but the green one has no polyp extension and is losing more and more green. The space invaders pectina that was starting to grow again has lost more flesh which is a real bummer. And the weird hole in the cabbage coral continues to get bigger. 

 

The rest of the corals seem to be happy. And it looks like the toadstool is going to be dropping another little piece of itself again. The clowns have started to occasionally host the toadstool which is fun to watch. 

 

My wife says I have too much green in the tank and I need more varied colour corals. So when things are happy again, I'll have to hunt down some colourful mushrooms or something. 

 

Fish seem to be happy and eating well. 

 

Still no sign of the other urchin. I assume it's dead. I'm still debating if I should try more snails or not. I did see the money cowrie as I was cleaning the tank today!

 

From what I can see cuc wise I have one hermit that travels to a few places on the rocks. The money cowrie and maybe 5 or so ceriths.

[mcarroll]

On 3/5/2024 at 12:00 AM, Llorgon said:

Actually I found a media bag and added a new bag of carbon tonight. I'll take the old stuff out tomorrow.

Hoping this starts making a difference to those corals....

[KC2020]

On 3/7/2024 at 8:57 AM, Llorgon said:

I also had a powerhead melt in this tank once...so who knows maybe there is something left over from that. But that was a few tank versions ago... I feel like this tank is just cursed.

It really really does!

Here's a scenario you might want to consider.

 

The Powerhead has/had copper wire winding in the motor. IF it got hot enough to melt then there's a good chance that for some period of time you had exposed copper wire with current running through it in the water. Copper wire leaches copper into water. Copper wire with electrical current running through it leaches at an exponentially higher rate. As soon as there's copper in the water the rocks start absorbing it. You do a water change, or several, and your ICP test doesn't indicate copper.

Until the rocks start leaching it back out. 
 

I saw this exact chain of events with a customer's tank when I worked at a LFS. It was cracked heater though, not a power head. It didn't matter how many 100% water changes were done, things would die in that tank. Swapped out the rock and the 'curse' went away.

 

 

[Llorgon]

22 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Hoping this starts making a difference to those corals....

Space invaders is looking better today! Green montipora is about the same.

19 hours ago, KC2020 said:

Here's a scenario you might want to consider.

 

The Powerhead has/had copper wire winding in the motor. IF it got hot enough to melt then there's a good chance that for some period of time you had exposed copper wire with current running through it in the water. Copper wire leaches copper into water. Copper wire with electrical current running through it leaches at an exponentially higher rate. As soon as there's copper in the water the rocks start absorbing it. You do a water change, or several, and your ICP test doesn't indicate copper.

Until the rocks start leaching it back out. 
 

I saw this exact chain of events with a customer's tank when I worked at a LFS. It was cracked heater though, not a power head. It didn't matter how many 100% water changes were done, things would die in that tank. Swapped out the rock and the 'curse' went away.

 

 

Interesting. Rocks and sand have been replaced twice since the powerhead incident. I still have the same skimmer and some of the plumbing is the same. Everything else has been replaced since.

 

From what I can tell, nothing else would have got into the rocks or sand. All pumps and heaters are in good shape. But I don't disagree that a complete restart might be the best thing...

[Llorgon]

Tested water tonight

 

Alk: 8.5

Cal: 470

Nitrate: 0.2

Phos: 0.03

 

Alk is staying steady, cal is going down slowly so I upped my dosing by a little bit. 

 

Nitrate has gone back down to, what seems to be the tanks happy place of 0 or close to. I'm going to try dosing 1 cap of neonitrate daily and see how that goes. I will test again in a couple days so I don't over do it again.

 

Phosphate has gone down a bit as well. I added a couple capful of neophos.

 

 

[Llorgon]

One other thing I noticed is my ph is around 8.5-8.6 during the day and drops down to 8.2 at night. 

[mcarroll]

16 minutes ago, Llorgon said:

One other thing I noticed is my ph is around 8.5-8.6 during the day and drops down to 8.2 at night. 

That seems pretty high – ammonia would have a high NH3 (toxic ammonia) ratio at that level.  Might be other things irritated or chemically "off" with pH that high too.   

 

If you tank wasn't having the problems it's having, I'd suggest this might be a testing error or bad test kit.  But in the light of everything, it's hard to just ignore this.  Rapid photosynthesis and poor circulation/aeration can both feed into pH spikes like this....so there's room for high pH to be "okay" or "not okay".  8.6 is pushing the upper limit....I've seen Randy Holmes Farley even suggest that pH levels that high are likely to be testing error.

 

If you measure your tap water's pH does that measurement seem correct?  Usually around pH 7.  (Sanity check on your test kit and test process.)

 

Do you have any older pH measurements to compare with to know if this has always (or at least recently) been the normal range?

 

 

[Llorgon]

12 hours ago, mcarroll said:

That seems pretty high – ammonia would have a high NH3 (toxic ammonia) ratio at that level.  Might be other things irritated or chemically "off" with pH that high too.   

 

If you tank wasn't having the problems it's having, I'd suggest this might be a testing error or bad test kit.  But in the light of everything, it's hard to just ignore this.  Rapid photosynthesis and poor circulation/aeration can both feed into pH spikes like this....so there's room for high pH to be "okay" or "not okay".  8.6 is pushing the upper limit....I've seen Randy Holmes Farley even suggest that pH levels that high are likely to be testing error.

 

If you measure your tap water's pH does that measurement seem correct?  Usually around pH 7.  (Sanity check on your test kit and test process.)

 

Do you have any older pH measurements to compare with to know if this has always (or at least recently) been the normal range?

 

 

I don't have a pH test kit. Just the pH probe on the apex. So who knows how accurate it is. It used to range between 7.8 at night and 8.2-8.3ish during the day. Now it seems to never go below 8.2, but last night it says the high was 8.56 around 9pm when the lights go out.

 

Unfortunately, Apex seems to have wiped all the historical logs so I can only go back as far as Feb 28. So I can't even really pinpoint when the change started... The high on Feb 28th was 8.4 though. Next days high was 8.5.

 

I guess I should pickup a test kit.

[KC2020]

19 hours ago, Llorgon said:

Space invaders is looking better today! Green montipora is about the same.

Interesting. Rocks and sand have been replaced twice since the powerhead incident. I still have the same skimmer and some of the plumbing is the same. Everything else has been replaced since.

 

Ah, OK. Well then you are just cursed ☠️

 

2 hours ago, Llorgon said:

I don't have a pH test kit. Just the pH probe on the apex. So who knows how accurate it is. I

At the very least I'd re-calibrate the pH probe.

[mcarroll]

5 hours ago, Llorgon said:

I don't have a pH test kit. Just the pH probe on the apex. So who knows how accurate it is. It used to range between 7.8 at night and 8.2-8.3ish during the day. Now it seems to never go below 8.2, but last night it says the high was 8.56 around 9pm when the lights go out.

Even a day or two's worth of readings would confirm since you're monitoring in real time.

 

So the next step is re recalibrate that ph probe....OR depending what you get post-calibration....it could be time for a new probe.  They don't last forever....a quick Google suggests a 12-18 month lifetime.

 

FYI, 7.8-8.2 is a much more believable range....but this is still worth confirming since either you're logging inaccurate pH numbers OR this relates to an actual problem.  We'll see...but you don't really want either one. 😉 👍 

[Llorgon]

Calibration solution has been ordered. Hopefully it will come early next week.

[Llorgon]

After a few days of dosing one cap of neonitrate and one cap of neophos, nitrate is at 1.5 and phosphate has gone down to 0.01...

I'm going to stick with my nitrate dosing and up the phosphate a bit. 

 

The green montipora seems to have coloured back up. The green cabbage coral and one of the leathers aren't as happy as they were. Everything else seems to be doing alright. I did lose more flesh on the space invaders and algae is now back on the dead skeleton, but it also seems to be happier.

 

Overall, the tank just looks kind of dirty. Lots of algae growth and cyano growth... I want to add more snails, but I'm afraid they will just die. I also found the other dead urchin, so that adds to the bummed out feeling. 

 

On the fun side, that toadstool is getting huge and every so often one of the clowns starts hosting in it, so that is fun to watch.

 

My in-laws were visiting this weekend so I didn't get to do any algae removal, but I think I will have to go back to my nightly algae pulling routine, unfortunately.

[Llorgon]

Calibration fluid came today!

Green cabbage leather has been looking rough the last couple of days.... if it's not one thing it's another.

 

I didn't get to switching the carbon last weekend. So hopefully doing that tonight will help turn it around.

[Llorgon]

Update: Tank has been shut down.

 

It just really stopped being a fun hobby and was more of a chore than anything else. The tipping point was trying to get the Apex to calibrate. It just would not stay connected to fusion. Then the forest fire digi RTN'd overnight and I called it quits. Between the algae, aptasia, snails not surviving and random coral deaths I was done. The last few rocks were picked up yesterday.

 

I still have the 25g, I'm not sure if I am going to keep that going or take a break from the hobby completely.

 

The real frustrating part is the guy who took the tangs also took a few of the rocks. He sends me a message a few days later saying all his tangs including the ones he got from me are picking the rocks clean of algae... WTF! They never touched any of the rocks in my tank!

 

Here is the link to the very much Acan dominated 25g

 

[rimga123]

That's fair enough, if its doesn't bring you joy, what is the point of doing it?

I hope that you next build will be much more successful!

[Llorgon]

10 hours ago, rimga123 said:

That's fair enough, if its doesn't bring you joy, what is the point of doing it?

I hope that you next build will be much more successful!

Exactly. The tank is being picked up this weekend, but I still have all the equipment( lights, apex, wave engine ect). Maybe I can turn the small tank into a tricked up nano with all the unneeded bells and whistles.

 

I hope the next tank works out better too. That 75g seemed cursed from the start!