About to Quit

Tamberav

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It’s crazy but I believe a person could set up 3 identical tanks and still end up with 3 different outcomes. All those tiny little biological processes we can’t see or control doing their thing.

At least the QT tanks are doing well so you have a safe space for the corals while you troubleshoot and bravo for QTing!
 

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If that was the case, wouldn't it have negatively affected my fish and/or pistol shrimp?

I can't imagine so..... All of my equipment is brand new, the rock is MarcoRocks Reef Saver Dry Rock, and the sand is the CaribSea Special Grade Aragonite.
Ok cross off the copper theory. I would still check for higher than normal voltage. Around 4 years ago I noticed my corals (not any fish) not looking as good and having many different types they were all affected to a degree. I started testing everything, racking my brain. Someone on here suggested checking with a voltmeter for electricity. So I grabbed my voltmeter and sure enough it was very high. I had my wife unplug things one at a time and found the culprit, a powerhead less than 6 months old. Removed it and literally within a day I noticed the corals already happier.
 
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Apollo7235

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It’s crazy but I believe a person could set up 3 identical tanks and still end up with 3 different outcomes. All those tiny little biological processes we can’t see or control doing their thing.

At least the QT tanks are doing well so you have a safe space for the corals while you troubleshoot and bravo for QTing!
No kidding! I will FOREVER quarantine after this, if not just to keep a safe system running for emergencies!
Ok cross off the copper theory. I would still check for higher than normal voltage. Around 4 years ago I noticed my corals (not any fish) not looking as good and having many different types they were all affected to a degree. I started testing everything, racking my brain. Someone on here suggested checking with a voltmeter for electricity. So I grabbed my voltmeter and sure enough it was very high. I had my wife unplug things one at a time and found the culprit, a powerhead less than 6 months old. Removed it and literally within a day I noticed the corals already happier.
I will grab a voltmeter this weekend when I make a trip to the hardware store just so I can rule that out! Thank you!
 

atul176

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My parameters as of Thursday were:

Ammonia: 0 - Salifert
pH: 7.95 - Hanna
Alkalinity: 7.4 - Hanna
Phosphate: 0.07 - Hanna
Nitrate: 6.80 - Hanna

Since then, I have done an 80% water change and then another 30% yesterday. I will have to post parameters as soon as I can take them later today when my husband is home to watch our 6-month old.

My lighting schedule is currently on acclimation:

IMG_0377.PNG IMG_0378.PNG
Why don’t you try and compare the the DT Parame to the QT. If there’s a major difference try slowly adjusting the DT to the levels of the QT.
 

Uncle99

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They are usually the same if I remember correctly, but I'll verify that once I get a chance to test again.
But is one system either older in weeks, or by some other means being made more stable than the other?

Does one system have a greater surface area in terms of rock and or Marine Pure, and is so, which one.

Compare also, the daily flux between each parameter to ensure both systems are stable.

When waters and lighting are the same, the corals, to a large degree should react the same.

As pointed out above, the only other things is metal or electric contamination.

Hope you get that worked out.
 

sagee

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But is one system either older in weeks, or by some other means being made more stable than the other?

Does one system have a greater surface area in terms of rock and or Marine Pure, and is so, which one.

Compare also, the daily flux between each parameter to ensure both systems are stable.

When waters and lighting are the same, the corals, to a large degree should react the same.

As pointed out above, the only other things is metal or electric contamination.

Hope you get that worked out.
I'm assuming the corals that were sitting in the qt probably kick started it with whatever was on the corals and plugs and since it was a small tank it didn't need much.
 
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Apollo7235

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But is one system either older in weeks, or by some other means being made more stable than the other?

Does one system have a greater surface area in terms of rock and or Marine Pure, and is so, which one.

Compare also, the daily flux between each parameter to ensure both systems are stable.

When waters and lighting are the same, the corals, to a large degree should react the same.

As pointed out above, the only other things is metal or electric contamination.

Hope you get that worked out.
My display is about 3 months old, my Coral QT is about a month and a half old, and my little 5-gallon hosting a pistol shrimp is only a few days old.

my display has the most surface area: 4 MarinePure cubes, a bunch of MarinePure Gems, 40 pounds of aragonite sand, 40 pounds of dry rock, and 6 pounds of live rock. i seeded both of my QT’s with one piece of rock from my display and about 10 of the MarinePure Gems from my sump.

All three tanks undergo the same maintenance at the same time, usually water changes on the weekend. I monitor temp and salinity daily.

I have a TDS meter on my RODI system that reads +/- 120 in, 0 out. I always verify this when I run the system.


I'm assuming the corals that were sitting in the qt probably kick started it with whatever was on the corals and plugs and since it was a small tank it didn't need much.
I removed and replaced the frag plugs on all of my corals except the last two I recently added because they had a good amount of coralline on them, so I’m not sure that could be it.
 

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I will certainly pick up some more snails when I run to grab the new fish. I DID have 4 spiny astraea, but I just discovered last night that my Bullseye has made a nice meal of those...... What do you recommend? I have 3 or 4 little nassarius snails in there now.
I vote trochus snails. They're mowing machines! And they are really good at righting themselves. Love my ladies!
And I love my cerith snail too. Regular size. She can get her little face into almost any little hole or crevasse.

Glad I read through your post. Many good ideas. Good luck with your DT!
 
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Apollo7235

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I vote trochus snails. They're mowing machines! And they are really good at righting themselves. Love my ladies!
And I love my cerith snail too. Regular size. She can get her little face into almost any little hole or crevasse.

Glad I read through your post. Many good ideas. Good luck with your DT!
Thank you so much for the suggestions!

I am definitely going to pick up some more Nassarius snails this coming weekend, so I will also see if they have any Trochus or Cerith as well! I love my Mexican Turbo; he’s seriously the hardest working snail I’ve ever seen, haha. I wouldn’t mind getting another one, but I’m worried that they would eventually end up not having enough to eat. Maybe I’ll try it and supplement if I need to.... hmmmm....

So much room for activities! Haha!
 

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Thank you so much for the suggestions!

I am definitely going to pick up some more Nassarius snails this coming weekend, so I will also see if they have any Trochus or Cerith as well! I love my Mexican Turbo; he’s seriously the hardest working snail I’ve ever seen, haha. I wouldn’t mind getting another one, but I’m worried that they would eventually end up not having enough to eat. Maybe I’ll try it and supplement if I need to.... hmmmm....

So much room for activities! Haha!
sounds like things are slowly turning around. You can always add CUC team as your bio load gets larger. Maybe add a few in QT to keep that in check if you haven’t medicated the QT.
 

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My display is about 3 months old, my Coral QT is about a month and a half old, and my little 5-gallon hosting a pistol shrimp is only a few days old.

my display has the most surface area: 4 MarinePure cubes, a bunch of MarinePure Gems, 40 pounds of aragonite sand, 40 pounds of dry rock, and 6 pounds of live rock. i seeded both of my QT’s with one piece of rock from my display and about 10 of the MarinePure Gems from my sump.

All three tanks undergo the same maintenance at the same time, usually water changes on the weekend. I monitor temp and salinity daily.

I have a TDS meter on my RODI system that reads +/- 120 in, 0 out. I always verify this when I run the system.



I removed and replaced the frag plugs on all of my corals except the last two I recently added because they had a good amount of coralline on them, so I’m not sure that could be it.
Wow, I compliment you on doing all those things.
Impressive.

With what is posted to be virtually identical systems in terms of age and husbandry, in one, corals thrive, and the other, not, I’m stumped, but there’s something out there.

Except for change in light, or a lack of nutrients available to corals, I’m certainly baffled.

Since you keep NPS, which are demanding as you know and ever hungry it seems, I would think both Nitrate and Phosphates would run high on the QT, rather than the DT which is bigger in water volume, in essence, moving them from nutrient rich, to nutrient poor water. This combined with maybe a change in spectrum, par or both are making them a bit unhappy and maybe just need time to compensate.

Very interesting situation.

Keep up your your fight!
 
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Apollo7235

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sounds like things are slowly turning around. You can always add CUC team as your bio load gets larger. Maybe add a few in QT to keep that in check if you haven’t medicated the QT.
I have a red-legged hermit and the Mexican Turbo in my 10-gallon QT currently. The algae in that tank is just ridiculous.

Hopefully things continue to look up! Managing 3 tanks isn’t easy, but at least it’s helping me manage the situation.
 
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Apollo7235

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I'm thoroughly impressed and very glad you've stepped back from the edge !
Thank you! I’m glad as well. I honestly have really enjoyed this hobby, so when it turned into an object of stress, I was seriously just ready to dump it.

Life is too short to let something you love begin to stress you out!
 
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Guys.... so I just ran some Salifert Iodine tests on my display and it is testing a hard 0..... Totally deficient.

My 5-gallon QT is coming back at 0.06 iodide. I haven tested my magical 10-gallon but I will here shortly.

Could this be causing my problems?
 

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Any chance the rocks in your DT have some kind of contaminates on / in them? Something similar happened to me recently during a tank move...I used a tank my friend had to hold some corals overnight. Well he had used copper in that tank. Not good! It's worth consideration, however like most others have said 3 months really is nothing for a reef trying to establish itself. But, it can be done to an extent
 

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Guys.... so I just ran some Salifert Iodine tests on my display and it is testing a hard 0..... Totally deficient.

My 5-gallon QT is coming back at 0.06 iodide. I haven tested my magical 10-gallon but I will here shortly.

Could this be causing my problems?
I think it’s contributory but not on its own.
I think small amounts of Iodine is being “used” by the biosphere. If I don’t dose back those tint amounts, my level zeros out in 2-3 days.

The fact is I can’t prove it’s beneficial at all, but after maintaining this trace element for years, certainly did no harm.

Some believe it’s helps shrimps, leathers and Gorgonians.
I have all of these healthy, years on end.
My leathers seem to free themselves faster when maintaining the iodine level.
9F4B86D5-7FB9-496C-8BBC-6DD602075A3A.jpeg
 
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Apollo7235

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Just wanted to give an update since it’s been a few weeks:

My display is still unable to support much more than invert/fish life. I tested for stray voltage and found nothing significant, around 3ish volts total with everything running.

I turned down my heater and reinstalled my dual cooling fan over my sump. Florida is just hot. Tank usually runs between 78 and 80.2F even with the fan running. It’s just going to have to be what’s it’s going to be, I suppose.

I also finally found some time to run simultaneous parameter tests on my display and my coral QT. Results:

Nitrate
QT: 8.00ppm
Display: 12.3ppm

Phosphate
QT: 0.27ppm
Display: 0.13ppm

Alkalinity
QT: 7.2dKH
Display: 6.9dKH

pH
QT: 7.78
Display: 7.96

I am considering skipping the water change on my display today since the nutrients really aren’t that high. I’m not sure.

I still don’t have much algae growing in the tank, nothing more than the same sprinkling that showed up when I added the live rock. My coral QT however, needs glass scraping every couple of days. I haven’t had to clean the glass of my display a single time.

I have a nagging feeling that the swollen MarinePure cubes in my sump are to blame for all of this, as @Weasel1960 brought back to my attention. I have an ATI water test kit coming, so hopefully it will arrive this week so I can send it right back out and get some definitive results. I’ll tell you what, I am so sick of staring at a bare bones tank, I can’t even express my frustration.

In other news, neither my Randall’s goby nor my assessor came in last weekend, so I have two Gladiator Clowns and a 6 Lime Wrasse in quarantine instead.

I tried adding a Mexican Turbo to my display to try and help with the little bit of GHA in there, but it died almost immediately upon introduction, as did its predecessor.

Ugh.

Well, hopefully the water analysis will shed some light.... in the mean time, I guess I’ll just keep on keeping on.
 

Shirak

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Will be interesting to see if the ICP shows anything. I replied in the other thread but will add it here also. I find snails particularly sensitive to changes from the LFS. I always check the salinity in the bag first and acclimate slowly. Turbo's I have the worst luck with too. Even healthy ones that are stuck to the glass at the LFS, some don't make it for whatever reason.

On a side note, you might consider bumping up your Alk, 6.9-7.2 is a bit on the low side. Many keep theirs around 8ish.. it allows from some downside swing because your alk could be swinging .3 or more during the day as pH swings throughout the day/night cycle. Higher alk will help keep the pH more stable during the day too.
 
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