Alk consumption stalled; LPS Retraction

rmurken

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Trying to connect some dots. I have periodically noticed that my alk consumption of .5-.6 dKh/day stalls, and I have to stop dosing while things get back on track. Happens maybe one every few months. No big deal; fixes itself—but have been curious what’s happening.

So this time I discovered the stall when, following a 10% WC, my candy cane frag retracted its polyps by about 80% and has stayed there for about 3 days. Coloration is fine. A BTA and favia also seemed to retract and look mildly—but only briefly—annoyed during day 2. They are now normal but the candy cane is still angry.

Checked the parameters—all normal and stable EXCEPT that my Alk consumption again seems to be stalled. It tested yesterday at 9.7, even though my dosing (kalk, dosed hourly throughout the day) normally keeps it around 8.5-8.7.

I stopped dosing yesterday, and 12 hours or so later it was already down to 9.3, so seemingly back on track.

But the candy cane is still shriveled.

Thoughts on dot connecting or alk stall?






The WC was temp and salinity matched. Same salt.

Normally its polyps are fully-extended during the day, but two days ago following a 10% water change, it went to 80% retracted.

Parameters are


My favia and BTA seemed to stutter briefly with a little retraction the first day, but quickly went back to normal.



I’m relatively new to corals (only 5 so far) so tell me if I’m being too nervous.
 
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rmurken

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Lol. Good question. Also my bad for the drivel at the end.

The tank is a little more than 2 years old. Lots of coralline. Parameters are very stable. I do have to push the feeding and limit skimming to keep PO4 above zero though.

I use RC, so 11ish DKh for the new water (I haven’t tested it with my Hanna, so going on the typical number for RC). Call it a 3 dKh spread, so with a 10% WC, I don’t expect (or get) all that much of a bump—definitely not up to 9.6.

Best guesses that occurred to me since posting: (1) something was on my hands (but what?! This is a 55g tank and I run carbon and generally avoid putting hands in tank without rinsing them); (2) a second heater I put in the tank for better temp stability during cooler weather (I run a ground probe and GFI not tripping, so a current leak seems unlikely); (3) I put recharged purigen back in at that WC (dechlorinated it very carefully...twice, in fact—but maybe the extra Prime soak? Nahhh.....)
 

Bleigh

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I was using Red sea black bucket, which has a much higher Alk than where I kept mine. It was shocking the corals every time I did a water change. I had to change salts because of it. From what I understand it's best to go with a salt that has parameters close to where you want to be. But, I know salt is super important to some people. I do not put as much stock in it as some people do, but that may be a mistake on my part.

@ReefSquad, any other ideas?

#reefsquad

And don't worry. I get panicky about my corals all the time. Sometimes they're just eating and I'm CERTAIN they're dieing. That's what this place is for. ;Shamefullyembarrased

giphy.gif
 

SPR1968

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If RC is Red Sea and your using the Coral Pro, it mixes up to around 12.6 dKH or can do, so if your doing water changes with that it could easily be the cause as already said.

If you don’t have many corals you probably haven’t got much uptake so it can build up.
 

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I would definitely buy a salt mix that is in tune to what you normally want your parameters at. I try to keep my Alk at 8.5, Cal at 420, Mag at 1400, so I use Hw Marine Reefer mix as the parameters of the salt mix is the same.
 
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rmurken

rmurken

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I was using Red sea black bucket, which has a much higher Alk than where I kept mine. It was shocking the corals every time I did a water change. I had to change salts because of it. From what I understand it's best to go with a salt that has parameters close to where you want to be. But, I know salt is super important to some people. I do not put as much stock in it as some people do, but that may be a mistake on my part.

@ReefSquad, any other ideas?

#reefsquad

And don't worry. I get panicky about my corals all the time. Sometimes they're just eating and I'm CERTAIN they're dieing. That's what this place is for. ;Shamefullyembarrased

giphy.gif


Lol, truth. The candy cane is looking slightly better today. Alk consumption was still stalled as of yesterday evening.

I’m not particularly preoccupied with salt mixes either. Once I’m done with this shipment of RC, gonna go back to IO purple. I don’t *think* the alk increase from the WC would explain the stall or the polyp retraction—just not big enough, and more importantly, I’ve done the same WC the same way for at least a year without incident. Or at least without corals retracting—can’t say for sure the other alk stalls I’ve experienced were unrelated.

My gut is the candy cane will be fine and get back to normal. Alk consumption will too. This is not a crash.

But interested to figure out what’s going on so maybe I can avoid it in the future.
 
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rmurken

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If RC is Red Sea and your using the Coral Pro, it mixes up to around 12.6 dKH or can do, so if your doing water changes with that it could easily be the cause as already said.

If you don’t have many corals you probably haven’t got much uptake so it can build up.

RC = Reef Crystals. I believe it’s in the 11’s.

Consumption is a modest but steady .5-.6 dKH/day .
 

Bleigh

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Lol, truth. The candy cane is looking slightly better today. Alk consumption was still stalled as of yesterday evening.

I’m not particularly preoccupied with salt mixes either. Once I’m done with this shipment of RC, gonna go back to IO purple. I don’t *think* the alk increase from the WC would explain the stall or the polyp retraction—just not big enough, and more importantly, I’ve done the same WC the same way for at least a year without incident. Or at least without corals retracting—can’t say for sure the other alk stalls I’ve experienced were unrelated.

My gut is the candy cane will be fine and get back to normal. Alk consumption will too. This is not a crash.

But interested to figure out what’s going on so maybe I can avoid it in the future.

One thing I learned is that what I thought was "stable" alk was not stable enough. It needed to be much more tightly controlled than I thought. And it is way more important than I assumed.

Also, each time the corals experience a stress event, there's a higher chance that they'll be affected more dramatically with the next stress event. If your salt is mixing at a much higher alk than the tank, it is likely having some impact. When I changed salt, I used 1/4 of my black bucket and 3/4 of the blue bucket until the black bucket was gone. It mixed up slightly higher than the blue bucket, but not as high as the black bucket, which was just shocking my corals into oblivion. It took me a little while to notice the pattern. If you only have a few corals, the alk increase is likely to be more problematic too... It's like stepping on one nail, versus a bed of nails. Because the pressure is spread out, it makes it less painful. With only a few corals, I would imagine they'd be more impacted by a small alk shift than if you had a lot of corals. I'm not sure that's the case though, just makes sense in my head. Would be an interesting experiment to set up.

There is always a chance that something else is going on, but this is at least a simple idea to keep in the back of your mind. If you see a stall again.
 
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rmurken

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Well hold the presses, the coral appears to be...pooping. Maybe it didn’t have enough fiber in its diet and is just now overcoming a case of constipation? ;Bored (Below)

I am going to keep your thinking on alk stability in mind and consider ways to smooth the bump from WC’s, as no good can come of instability.

if the retraction was just the coral taking its time in the loo, then it wouldn’t necessarily be connected to alk, or to the alk stall. But the stalls are a definite thing. Infrequent, but they happen.

C5F9FF2F-0AE6-4037-949E-67B49F617D2B.jpeg
 
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The thing I’m curious about is the periodic alk stalls. I’ve read other people with the issue from time to time. Seems harmless; nothing had comes of it. But I’m at a loss for what causes it.

I may try skipping a water change and seeing what happens. I’m religious about weekly 10%, but that’s more because I started with freshwater tanks where WC’s are the answer to 75% of everything and an article of faith of regular maintenance. Force of habit. Funny how SW dynamics are different.

But since I have a good Ca/Alk supp regime in my reef and actually could stand to run higher PO4, I’ll take a break from the WC this weekend. Maybe do an extra large WC on my FW planted tank to make myself feel better. It’s bizarre. Keeping NO3 from going sky-high in my FW tank is the challenge. And PO4 is no big deal except in narrow situations (e.g. you run CO2 which is NOT my thing). MY modestly-stocked reef tank seems to consume NO3 and PO4 much more readily and the challenge seems to be to keep them up but not too high.
 

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I've been dealing with this all stall too for awhile. My alk has shot up gradually from below 8 to 13.7 tonight. Have the same amount of corals except one. Been gradually reducing my dosing and after tonight's reading I'm shutting the dosing down till tomorrow . Not sure what's causing mine but i can take a few guesses.
 
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I've been dealing with this all stall too for awhile. My alk has shot up gradually from below 8 to 13.7 tonight. Have the same amount of corals except one. Been gradually reducing my dosing and after tonight's reading I'm shutting the dosing down till tomorrow . Not sure what's causing mine but i can take a few guesses.

What are your guesses?

I stopped dosing alk for about two days. Resumed last night with alk about .6 above its usual level—mostly because pH was bumping down against 7.7 (waiting on 25’ of airline tubing to put my skimmer intake outside). Figured alk consumption was coming back up; as long as dosing won’t stall it again, it would slow the decline back to the equilibrium level based on typical consumption and my dosing level. Rationale: Slower changes better, and helps pH. In turn, higher pH will support stronger alk consumption. What could go wrong?

Who knows. We’ll see.
 

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I was using Red sea black bucket, which has a much higher Alk than where I kept mine. It was shocking the corals every time I did a water change. I had to change salts because of it. From what I understand it's best to go with a salt that has parameters close to where you want to be. But, I know salt is super important to some people. I do not put as much stock in it as some people do, but that may be a mistake on my part.

@ReefSquad, any other ideas?

#reefsquad

And don't worry. I get panicky about my corals all the time. Sometimes they're just eating and I'm CERTAIN they're dieing. That's what this place is for. ;Shamefullyembarrased

giphy.gif

This is my thoughts too. And you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS at least test alk and cal on a new box/bucket of salt at least once (first batch of water you mix up). I recently had a bad bucket from red sea, which they acknowledged and graciously replaced. They only replaced it though because I provided measurements that they compared with their icp results. Red sea does a icp test on every batch of salt (according to them). If you stay in the hobby long enough you will for SURE come across a bad batch of salt regardless of the brand.
 

Gordonm

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What are your guesses?

I stopped dosing alk for about two days. Resumed last night with alk about .6 above its usual level—mostly because pH was bumping down against 7.7 (waiting on 25’ of airline tubing to put my skimmer intake outside). Figured alk consumption was coming back up; as long as dosing won’t stall it again, it would slow the decline back to the equilibrium level based on typical consumption and my dosing level. Rationale: Slower changes better, and helps pH. In turn, higher pH will support stronger alk consumption. What could go wrong?

Who knows. We’ll see.
Well, in my case, I was struggling with hair algae and weekly I'd do water changes to try and get ahead of it. In my 40 gal i did 5 gal changes weekly for maybe 6 weeks. My fresh bucket was mixed at a slightly higher salinity of 1.030 thinking it wouldn't effect my overall tank salinity and maybe it got up to 1.026. But being that its reef crystals the alk mixes high already. After my water change i continually dosed which with all said probably raised my alk.
I was dosing kalk along with Randy's 1 part I i believe of up to 16 mls a day. That kept my alk around 7.8 before i began my weekly water changes.
 

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Well, in my case, I was struggling with hair algae and weekly I'd do water changes to try and get ahead of it. In my 40 gal i did 5 gal changes weekly for maybe 6 weeks. My fresh bucket was mixed at a slightly higher salinity of 1.030 thinking it wouldn't effect my overall tank salinity and maybe it got up to 1.026. But being that its reef crystals the alk mixes high already. After my water change i continually dosed which with all said probably raised my alk.
I was dosing kalk along with Randy's 1 part I i believe of up to 16 mls a day. That kept my alk around 7.8 before i began my weekly water changes.
Never had any PH issues. Now trying to bring my alk down I'm afraid of it dropping to fast whenever that begins to decrease.
 
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Never had any PH issues. Now trying to bring my alk down I'm afraid of it dropping to fast whenever that begins to decrease.
So I have to confess I’m skeptical that an alk spike from the WC could do it. All I have is LPS and a few zoas. But the water quality aspect of this hobby is a lot of science with a bit of art, and I surely know very little and need to take y’all’s thoughts seriously. Skipping the WC this week both for stability while my Candy Cane straightens itself out and alk consumption gets back on track. Later on, I will look to match the alk of new water with the tank. Probably break out the mineral acid for that (and for etching concrete...lol). Will need to circulate it for a while to blow off the CO2.

Candy cane is still shriveled. Maybe a bit better.

Alk consumption is still sluggish. Just dosing at night, so effectively cut dosing in half.

Other than the candy cane everything seems fine, so just not gonna lose sleep. Will give everything time.
 
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rmurken

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Update: as more or less expected (hoo boy, tempting fate), the candy cane looks like it’s recovering. I’d say it’s maybe only 60% deflated now. I had expected it to recover as quickly as it retracted, but so far that’s not so.

Yesterday I did notice two biggish grains of sand deeply impacted into one of the polyps. I got a pair of very fine tweezers and gently removed them. I also cleared the sand away from the base of the colony so at least it won’t get more grit stuck in its tissue as it (hopefully) continues to re-extend

Not sure if any of this really had anything to do with the coral getting angry.

Alkalinity continues a slow decent out of the 9’s. I limited kalk to the night hours only.

Also in the midst of this I ran my skimmer’s intake tube out a window, which has given a small but definite pH boost. Without kalk or the outside airline, pH was 7.8-7.9. With 50% kalk, 7.9 and occasionally 8.0. With the exterior airline, consistently 8.0.

I really still have no idea what caused the alk stall or the angry coral. Skipping the WC this week for the sake of stability, but will match alk between new water and DT next week.
 

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