Acro STN event help

TheReefKeeper · Jul 17, 2013

1.024 is a tad low and would not cause mass STN.

The Alk is the only parameter that could come up and be an issue but I have a hard time believing even that is a Mass STN issue.

Stpatrick · Jul 17, 2013

Update on my situation. I also keep thinking it is a temperature thing. I keep mt reef at 77 most of the year and then bump it up slowly to 80. QUESTION. The what I have my chiller set up, the water from my ehiem1262 goes directly through my chiller and into the dt. That causes the temperature to go + or - .5 degrees. Thats because it takes a while for the cool water to mix in the dt and down to my sump. Will that temp swing cause this issue?

TheReefKeeper · Jul 17, 2013

So .5 or is it swinging from 77-80 every day?

jgraz · Jul 17, 2013

Lots of chatter here. lets see if i can answer everything.
Yes the alk is a bit low but, biopellets tend to do that. Driving it higher would lead to burned tips.
My temps are very stable at that lvl. I dod not run a chiller, and during the day the T5's drive it to that lvl. I keep it there at night with the heater. the swing is less then 1* through the day.
I feed daily so coral starvation is not the issue. If it was i would also be having issues with other SPS. I am not. Only the acros which were dipped aggressivly for a number of weeks.
No pests made it through my dipping regiment after the discovery of the AEFW's.

The more i think about the dipping the more I think that my issues arise from there. In the last few dip I did not include either of my cali torts, premo berry, bonsai, and atl limeade. All 5 of these look great and show no signs of STN.

Stpatrick · Jul 17, 2013

TheReefKeeper said:
So .5 or is it swinging from 77-80 every day?

79.5 - 80.1

Dowtish · Jul 17, 2013

When you were dipping for AEFW, what were you dipping them in and how much for how long? Did they appear stressed afterwards? Loss of color, sliming a lot etc?

Stpatrick · Jul 17, 2013

jgraz said:
Lots of chatter here. lets see if i can answer everything.
Yes the alk is a bit low but, biopellets tend to do that. Driving it higher would lead to burned tips.
My temps are very stable at that lvl. I dod not run a chiller, and during the day the T5's drive it to that lvl. I keep it there at night with the heater. the swing is less then 1* through the day.
I feed daily so coral starvation is not the issue. If it was i would also be having issues with other SPS. I am not. Only the acros which were dipped aggressivly for a number of weeks.
No pests made it through my dipping regiment after the discovery of the AEFW's.

The more i think about the dipping the more I think that my issues arise from there. In the last few dip I did not include either of my cali torts, premo berry, bonsai, and atl limeade. All 5 of these look great and show no signs of STN.

What temp is your tank at?

TheReefKeeper · Jul 17, 2013

Skimming would take the remainder of the dip out of the water column so after a few WC the stn should subside if that was the cause IMO.

I agree with your alk is not causing it.

I'm still not sure I even licked my issue fixing the RODI unit.

So I'm now starting to wonder about the BRS rock you said you also have in your tank since that is what I'm using too.

@Stpatrick That's nothing of a swing and STN would not cause this.

I'm also going to start to look at equipment is fixing the RODI does not work for me for exposed metal Who know's I'm ready to break t down and start over at this point. Anyone know if Walt Smith still sells Live rock I can't find it any where.

jgraz · Jul 17, 2013

Dowtish said:
I have had a few things do this recently and seen a few others report that this seems to happen during the warmer months going into summer. I begin to wonder what the correlation is, and if pollen in the air entering our homes has anything to do with it, along with warmer temps.

I find this comment very interesting. Several months back I began to have some issues with my skimmer all of a sudden skimming very wet. I would often wake up in the morning only to find the cup full of clear water when only the night before it was half full of dark skimmate. This went on and off for a couple of weeks. In talks with some local reefers we were thinking that maybe there was some toxin in the air that might be causing the issue. I cleaned the skimmer and made sure the venturi was clear and went back online. Several days went by with no issues and bam it happened again. I have also read about some other reefers having similar issues and many have found that it happened on days where there was excessive pollen or even over head insect spraying.

Dowtish · Jul 18, 2013

jgraz said:
I find this comment very interesting. Several months back I began to have some issues with my skimmer all of a sudden skimming very wet. I would often wake up in the morning only to find the cup full of clear water when only the night before it was half full of dark skimmate. This went on and off for a couple of weeks. In talks with some local reefers we were thinking that maybe there was some toxin in the air that might be causing the issue. I cleaned the skimmer and made sure the venturi was clear and went back online. Several days went by with no issues and bam it happened again. I have also read about some other reefers having similar issues and many have found that it happened on days where there was excessive pollen or even over head insect spraying.

What got me thinking this was after seeing Sanjay Joshi's tank just recently suffer a mass STN event of most of his massive colonies. There were many experienced reefers making comments about how this happens to them around the same time of year, year after year. Not always mass STN events, but at least a few pieces or 1 or 2 colonies. Some of these people have been keeping SPS tanks for over a decade or more and they made it sound like it is almost common.

-Logzor · Jul 18, 2013

Have you looked into stray voltage? I've experienced the same STN issues and I noticed it popping back up since I pulled in a suspect MJ1200 pump.

Starblenny · Jul 18, 2013

Have you double checked your water with a reputable LFS? I once ran my tank with biopellets and they told me I had zero NO3 and elevated PO4 and I was also going through mass STN. Took it offline and the STN stopped (but it went downhill for a week after I took it offline).

Or worse case secenario, an eroding penny in the sump.

jgraz · Jul 18, 2013

As to the stray voltage and water quality and heck even a stray penny, I'm only having problems with about 3/4 of my acros. No other corals are affected including my monti's of which I am heavy on. All of the above issues would affect everything in the tank.

That said I have not checked for voltage but I will. The water test have been confirmed by other local reefers and are comparable via various test kit of my own.

jgraz · Jul 18, 2013

Dowtish said:
What got me thinking this was after seeing Sanjay Joshi's tank just recently suffer a mass STN event of most of his massive colonies. There were many experienced reefers making comments about how this happens to them around the same time of year, year after year. Not always mass STN events, but at least a few pieces or 1 or 2 colonies. Some of these people have been keeping SPS tanks for over a decade or more and they made it sound like it is almost common.

One of the locals here was telling me about Sanjay's event when I was looking for answers myself. There were also a few other reefers that lost a few things as well in similar fashion.

-Logzor · Jul 18, 2013

jgraz said:
As to the stray voltage and water quality and heck even a stray penny, I'm only having problems with about 3/4 of my acros. No other corals are affected including my monti's of which I am heavy on. All of the above issues would affect everything in the tank.

That said I have not checked for voltage but I will. The water test have been confirmed by other local reefers and are comparable via various test kit of my own.

Well I've been struggling with the exact same issue you have, about 3/4, only acros affected. Maybe acros are just more sensitive to stray voltage? I've been at a loss myself, originally I though it was asterinia starfish but I've eradicated those and I'm still having the issue. I've even tried running cuprisorb thinking that copper got into my system.

Stray voltage is the only thing I can come up with as being the issue.

jgraz · Jul 18, 2013

Well I fragged the death off of my green slimer and pearl berry. The slimer was a pretty large colony and the pearberry in the medium to large range so i wanted to get ahead of the STN on both before its too late. I decided to just cut my losses on a few small frags that were getting worse also.

Someone somewhere asked if my Alk and calcium uptake was affected but the event, it wasn't. Even as the acros were STN from base the branches were putting on growth. I though this was weird, since I figured the colony as a whole would suffer. I guess not.

jgraz · Jul 18, 2013

-Logzor said:
Well I've been struggling with the exact same issue you have, about 3/4, only acros affected. Maybe acros are just more sensitive to stray voltage? I've been at a loss myself, originally I though it was asterinia starfish but I've eradicated those and I'm still having the issue. I've even tried running cuprisorb thinking that copper got into my system.

Stray voltage is the only thing I can come up with as being the issue.

I will definatly check it out.