Kinda's Large Tank Adventure (LTA)

[Kindanewtothis]

No3 7.8

Po4 0.28

KH 7.9

 

Haven't dosed reef fusion since over a week

I'm thinking I don't have enough lps now, so I don't think it's needed anymore...

 

Did not dose Nopox since a few days. Thinking about stoping that too.

 

The fuge seems to be doing well, chaeto is growing. 

 

Doing a 10% water change tonight and I'll test again next week to see how things evolve.

 

Anemone, fishs and zoas are 100%

 

LPS are still having a hard time. Shrinking.

 

Any suggestions ?

[seabass]

9 hours ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Any suggestions ?

How often do you test alkalinity?  Is is always predictable?  Is it always stable?

 

Does your tang pick at or around the these corals?

 

What temperature do you keep your tank at?  How large are the swings?

 

What specific gravity do you keep your tank at?  What do you use to measure it?  Do you have an auto top off to help keep it stable?

 

I wouldn't necessarily rule out a pest, like a hitchhiking crab.  At one point, you had concerns of flatworms; is that still an issue?

 

Do the clownfish try to "host" these corals?

 

What other problems are you having?  Things like dinos and cyano can irritate coral.

 

Other corals can cause problems.  Some (like other LPS) will sting competitors, while others (like leathers) will wage chemical warfare.  Do you run activated carbon in your filter?  And if so, how frequently do you change it?

 

Chemical filter media can sometimes cause problems (especially when over used or not removed in a timely manner).  I like to keep it simple and stick to activated carbon when chemical media is needed.

 

Despite wanting to provide an ideal environment for our corals, dosing quick fixes, unnecessary supplements, inappropriate coral food, etc. can often cause more harm than good.  Supplements should replace consumed alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium.  I suggest trying to match the values of a newly mixed batch of saltwater (to prevent swings during a water change).

 

Unnecessary water changes can sometimes cause problems.  I often recommend just replacing the water lost during tank maintenance, and not intentionally changing out water.

 

I usually don't test pH.  However, with an unexplained problem, I might test additional parameters.  You should test pH at multiple points throughout the day (both during the light cycle and not).  At this point you are just looking for any anomalies.  Some people go so far as to send in a sample for a Triton test analysis which might flag a problem.

 

Truth is there are more factors.  I've probably addressed some of them.

https://reefbuilders.com/2017/12/09/my-corals-are-dying-why/

 

While we might not be able to identify the problem, there is usually something which is causing the problem.  Often it is a combination of things.  It can be difficult to determine the cause of coral losses in one's own tank, but barring any glaring deviations from normal, it can be even harder to determine why someone else's tank is having difficulties.

 

How is your sand bed maintenance?  You'll need a sand bed for your pistol shrimp, but these beds can be the source of potential problems.

 

All we can do is grasp at straws.  Try to get back to basics.  Test what you can.  Provide stable parameters.  Check for pests.  Provide food.  Avoid additives which sound like they might be good for your tank, especially if you are not just replacing a consumed element that is measurably low.

[Kindanewtothis]

4 hours ago, seabass said:

How often do you test alkalinity?  Is is always predictable?  Is it always stable?

I test alkalinity once a week, it's always between 7.5 and 8. The first test of alkalinity that was done was when the tank was only a few weeks old and it was 12. So I suppose freshly mixed water is around 12. The problems started around the time I started doing reef fusion... first suspect here. I've been dosing off and on over the last months.

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

Does your tang pick at or around the these corals?

No it doesn't 

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

What temperature do you keep your tank at?  How large are the swings?

78, when I use the fireplace, it can go up to 80 but mostly temperature is stable.

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

What specific gravity do you keep your tank at?  What do you use to measure it?  Do you have an auto top off to help keep it stable?

1.025.

 

I have an hydrometer. When the water touches the base of one of my Ai prime the salinity is exactly 1.025. I manualy add water daily (sometimes twice in a day) to that precise point. I have an auto top-off but it doesn't work well with a rimmed tank and also it let the water go too low before it fills the water back up.

4 hours ago, seabass said:

I wouldn't necessarily rule out a pest, like a hitchhiking crab.  At one point, you had concerns of flatworms; is that still an issue?

Flatworms are still very much an issue but in the empty 10g. Never saw any flatworms in the 50g.

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

What other problems are you having?  Things like dinos and cyano can irritate coral.

Some GHA but not much. No signs of dinos. I have a bit of cyano off and on but my sand is mostly white. 

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

Do the clownfish try to "host" these corals?

No, never. They use to host my frogspawn but that was before I got the second LTA.

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

Other corals can cause problems.  Some (like other LPS) will sting competitors, while others (like leathers) will wage chemical warfare.  Do you run activated carbon in your filter?  And if so, how frequently do you change it?

No carbon in the filter.

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

Unnecessary water changes can sometimes cause problems.  I often recommend just replacing the water lost during tank maintenance, and not intentionally changing out water.

I don't do many water change. The last one was a few weeks ago when I did a 30% water change but the problems were already there. I did not do the 10% water planned for last night. Many people recommand weekly 10% water change so I don't know anymore.

 

4 hours ago, seabass said:

How is your sand bed maintenance?  You'll need a sand bed for your pistol shrimp, but these beds can be the source of potential problems.

I don't do sand bed maintenance. Pistol shrimp moves the sand around. Sand is white.

 

 

Should I still be dosing phyto on a daily basics? It's more a weekly thing now.

[seabass]

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

I test alkalinity once a week, it's always between 7.5 and 8. The first test of alkalinity that was done was when the tank was only a few weeks old and it was 12. So I suppose freshly mixed water is around 12.

Every water change can cause an alkalinity spike that could negatively affect your coral.  And a large emergency water change will definitely cause a spike.

 

If you want to keep alkalinity at a lower level, you should switch to Red Sea (the blue bucket), which has a significantly lower alkalinity.

 

You can use your current salt mix, but I feel that if you do, your alkalinity should be much higher (probably closer to 11 dKH).

 

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

The problems started around the time I started doing reef fusion... first suspect here. I've been dosing off and on over the last months.

I think that you recognized the alkalinity problem back then, but failed to correct the problem.  Plus, on and off dosing isn't ideal for stability.  I bet that you have an alkalinity/stability problem.

 

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

78, when I use the fireplace, it can go up to 80 but mostly temperature is stable.

I'd bump your heater up to 80°F.  That's my preferred temperature, plus, it will help stabilize your temperature swings.

 

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

I have an hydrometer.

I use one too; however, I have tested it against a refractometer.  A properly calibrated refractometer is a more reliable meter and your  hydrometer should be check against one.  You can pick up a decent refractometer at a reasonable price.  I use RO/DI to calibrate my refractometer (which is always the same) so that I don't have to worry about bad calibration fluid.

 

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Many people recommand weekly 10% water change

Yeah, I used to recommend water changes for the sake of changing water too.  In general, it shouldn't cause a lot of problems, as it should help replenish trace elements and export excess unwanted elements (excess nutrients, heavy metals, toxins, etc).

 

However, especially when your parameters don't match, you might be causing unnecessary instability (as I stated earlier).

 

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

I don't do sand bed maintenance.

It's possible, that your sand bed has become saturated with organics.  While it helps that the pistol shrimp is stirring up the bed, it is also releasing these trapped organics (potentially causing nutrient spikes or worse).  Eventually, if it is churning through all of your bed, it might eventually work itself out.

 

I've heard people refer to reef sand beds as litter boxes.  Imagine if you never cleaned a cat's litter box.

 

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Should I still be dosing phyto on a daily basics? It's more a weekly thing now.

Dosing phyto isn't a requirement.  It may or may not be helping your system; and it may or may not be causing an unintentional problem.

 

However, I wouldn't think that dosing phyto is causing problems.  Nor would I anticipate that stopping it would be a problem either.  Although phyto dosing should be helping to support your pod populations.  I'd think that limited dosing every other day should help support pod life.

[Kindanewtothis]

10 minutes ago, seabass said:

I've heard people refer to reef sand beds as litter boxes.  Imagine if you never cleaned a cat's litter box

Doesn't that comes with having to do water change?

[seabass]

15 minutes ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Doesn't that comes with having to do water change?

Changing water in the water column doesn't do much to clean your sand.  However, if you are vacuuming detritus off of your substrate, or running a gravel vac through your sand bed, or even stirring up the sand prior to doing a water change, you are doing something to help clean the bed.

[DevilDuck]

What is your magnesium level at? I find my euphyllias like it high, between 1400 to 1500 ppm.

I had a time when my euphyllia weren’t doing well. I avoided them for a while and got other coral. Sometimes you need to just leave thing be, go in another direction for a while. 

[Kindanewtothis]

54 minutes ago, DevilDuck said:

What is your magnesium level at? I find my euphyllias like it high, between 1400 to 1500 ppm.

I had a time when my euphyllia weren’t doing well. I avoided them for a while and got other coral. Sometimes you need to just leave thing be, go in another direction for a while

Idk, will test.

[Kindanewtothis]

1 hour ago, seabass said:

Changing water in the water column doesn't do much to clean your sand.  However, if you are vacuuming detritus off of your substrate, or running a gravel vac through your sand bed, or even stirring up the sand prior to doing a water change, you are doing something to help clean the bed.

Got activated carbon, will vaccum the sand bed and do a 4-5 gallons water change. 

 

Test kh again after the water change, also test new water mix and I was thinking to raise kh to the water mix value slowly this week.

 

Does that make any sens @seabass ?

[Kindanewtothis]

[seabass]

Sounds like a plan.

 

Don't raise dKH all at once.  You'll want to limit it to no more than 1 dKH per day.

 

The LTA is looking nice.  Also the zoanthids look healthy.  The euphyllia corals don't look horrible, but I know that you lost a few.  All in all, your tank looks good. 👍

[seabass]

Also, don't expect immediate changes.  Your corals will need to acclimate to the new parameters/environment and they need time to recover.  Assuming that everything has been addressed, I expect it will still take several weeks to see the results.

[Kindanewtothis]

20 minutes ago, seabass said:

The euphyllia corals don't look horrible

Could it be that I only feed them on occasions?

 

I never fed my frogspawns and they were growing. I've read somewhere "don't feed your corals, feed the fishs and it will feed the corals" or something like that.

[seabass]

9 minutes ago, Kindanewtothis said:

Could it be that I only feed them on occasions?

 

I never fed my frogspawns and they were growing. I've read somewhere "don't feed your corals, feed the fishs and it will feed the corals" or something like that.

"Fish poo" will feed corals.  However, I would still feed stony corals.  With fish in your tank, I might choose to target feed them a little, once a week.

[Kindanewtothis]

I was wrong, freshly mixed water is only 8.4 dKH. Instant ocean orange bucket

[seabass]

I believe Instant Ocean usually mixes to between 10 and 11 dKH, so 8.4 dKH is definitely low.  Sometimes this happens when the contents shift during shipping.  You can try to redistribute the contents by rolling the bucket around on the floor.

 

The other possibility is that the contents were exposed to moisture (even high humidity).  When this happens, the mix precipitates and usually forms clumps.  These clumps won't fully dissolve and usually results in insoluble components, and mixes to a lower alkalinity.  If this happens, you should probably replace the mix.

[Kindanewtothis]

2 minutes ago, seabass said:

The other possibility is that the contents were exposed to moisture (even high humidity)

It's now hard as a rock because of moisture. I had to use a metal spoon to dig it. There is still half a bucket so I just discard it all?

[seabass]

Unfortunately dissolving the insoluble components by lowering the pH with CO2 (then aerating the CO2 out) is the only solution that I heard of to save it.  So it's probably best just to buy new salt.

 

I make sure that I never leave to top off for very long.  Instant Ocean is known to be more hygroscopic than some other brands.  Smaller packages get used up faster which can help.  Or, you can try another brand.

[Kindanewtothis]

2 minutes ago, seabass said:

Unfortunately CO2 is the only solution I know to save it.  So it's probably best just to buy new salt.

 

I make sure that I never leave to top off for very long.  Instant Ocean is known to be more hygroscopic than some other brands.  Smaller packages get used up faster which can help.  Or, you can try another brand.

https://www.aquariumexpert.ca/red-sea-coral-pro-salt-55-ga.html 

 

I have access to red sea and instant ocean (plus I suppose anything from amazon) 

 

Would the one I linked do?

 

Also the water change with that salt is already done btw... should I worry?

[seabass]

I'm not a huge Red Sea Coral Pro fan, which mixes to 12.2 dKH.  For Red Sea, I actually prefer the blue bucket (7.8 - 8.2 dKH) over Coral Pro.

 

Another decent replacement for Instant Ocean would be Fritz Reef Pro Mix (8.0 - 9.0 dKH).

 

That said, Instant Ocean isn't that bad of a brand.

[seabass]

11 hours ago, Kindanewtothis said:

should I worry?

I wouldn't worry, but the moisture has likely changed the composition of the mix.

 

For a salt mix discussion about drying ionic solutions and insoluble precipitates, you can download this PDF from Seachem:  https://web.archive.org/web/20130620135633/http://www.seachem.com/Library/SeaGrams/Salt_Mixes.pdf

[Kindanewtothis]

16 hours ago, seabass said:

I'm not a huge Red Sea Coral Pro fan, which mixes to 12.2 dKH.  For Red Sea, I actually prefer the blue bucket (7.8 - 8.2 dKH) over Coral Pro.

They are out of stock on blue buckets at my LFS. Amazon.ca is too expensive for the blue bucket. So should I stay with instant ocean or go with Coral pro? 

[seabass]

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

So should I stay with instant ocean or go with Coral pro? 

It doesn't matter that much.  Both mixes are relatively high in alkalinity.  Red Sea Coral Pro is probably more consistent than Instant Ocean (which is known to vary more from batch to batch).  However, Instant Ocean is almost always less expensive.  There are those who will swear by Red Sea Coral Pro, and others who would swear by Instant Ocean.

 

If you buy Instant Ocean in the 200 gallon box, you'll get four 50 gallon sealed bags inside.  This can sometimes help keep the contents dry; plus if you don't need another bucket, it might make better sense.  You might also decide to package open salt in individual zip top bags (then placed in an empty salt bucket with a top) to help keep the salt dry.

 

Personally, I'd buy Instant Ocean (not that it is better, but for the cost savings).

[Kindanewtothis]

Off topic question 😀

 

The "empty" 10g is full of flatworms, GHA, bristle worms etc. It's a real mess. I do no maintenance on it. Top it off sometimes... HOB filter is turn off because there is not enough water. It's time I shut it down.

 

There are rocks in it that I would not put in any tank as they are.

 

So here's the question: How do I make the rock usable again (dead) or pest free?

 

Is bleach the only way?

 

How about soaking in fresh rodi water without salt?

 

A few nights outside (sill freezing at night here 😒) ?

[seabass]

1 hour ago, Kindanewtothis said:

How do I make the rock usable again (dead) or pest free?

Depends on couple of things.  What I'd do is keep the tank running with flow (a heater is optional), but no food or light.  No maintenance is needed; and after awhile, you'll observe the pests disappearing.  The rocks will be OK and ready to use if you need them (like for the tank upgrade that you hinted at).  And if you want to keep the nitrifying bacteria alive, you can occasionally dose some ammonium chloride.

 

If you want to tear down the tank and store the rocks dry, you could soak them in a bleach solution outside (to avoid the chlorine fumes) for several hours.  Then rinse (hose them off) them well.  In addition, I like to soak them in a dechlorinator as a precaution; with one final rinse.  Then let them dry out.

 

Or, you could do a deep clean, and keep the tank running with the lights on (just no food or water changes).  Then watch the tank mature on its own, as it goes through several stages as it matures.  It's pretty interesting, and you might be surprised what life springs up.

 

Or, with no life that you want to save in the tank.  You could certainly try some harsh treatments.  You could overdose API AlgaeFix, and/or Salifert Flatworm eXit.  Then keep the tank running.  The rocks will be fine, and who knows what life might survive; you might be surprised.