At a loss…quite frustrated.

AFHokie

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A couple week ago I started this thread:

Well, since then I’ve started losing some LPS as well and they seem to be diving fast

My Hollywood stunner (bombproof right?) started losing tissue after many weeks of great growth.

Small patch of tissue loss on my spicy lemon Favites, one of my first coral almost 8 months ago and most prolific grower.

Other things just not looking great and I fear it’s just a matter of time before they turn downhill.

The Acro thread had more details but really the only big change I’ve made is switching from IO to AF Reef Salt around 1 Dec. The new parameters were very close to my old with the exception of Alk which is why I switched. Since the beginning of December I’ve used water changes to bring it from around 9.9 to 8.2.

I’ve had small parameters changes but nothing bigger than any I’ve had in the 10 months have had the tank and only in my nutrient levels. Major elements have been stable.

Despite similar parameters I’m feeling like the new salt is the most likely culprit. Based on the changes I’ve done up until today my total water changeover has been about 75% with the new salt.

I put in some carbon last night in case there is something in the water.

I feel like if it’s the salt I should do some changes with IO to see if it helps, but I also don’t want to cause even more thrash.

Probably need to get an ICP and send it off.

Any other ideas? I’m watching some of my oldest and healthiest coral quickly taking a dive and it’s depressing.

1.026
Alk: 8.2
Ca: 420
Mg: 1310
NO3: 9
PO4: .05
10AB3D94-8E78-4DF9-8B52-7BE3E168B433.jpeg
CCEA2CC2-7942-4B85-B7A1-E060203EE29C.jpeg
0C7D324A-F37B-4F34-B4F7-84A52CC37233.jpeg
1AE97BEA-6C06-40A5-B586-34B7E539FEE7.jpeg
 

vetteguy53081

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A couple week ago I started this thread:

Well, since then I’ve started losing some LPS as well and they seem to be diving fast

My Hollywood stunner (bombproof right?) started losing tissue after many weeks of great growth.

Small patch of tissue loss on my spicy lemon Favites, one of my first coral almost 8 months ago and most prolific grower.

Other things just not looking great and I fear it’s just a matter of time before they turn downhill.

The Acro thread had more details but really the only big change I’ve made is switching from IO to AF Reef Salt around 1 Dec. The new parameters were very close to my old with the exception of Alk which is why I switched. Since the beginning of December I’ve used water changes to bring it from around 9.9 to 8.2.

I’ve had small parameters changes but nothing bigger than any I’ve had in the 10 months have had the tank and only in my nutrient levels. Major elements have been stable.

Despite similar parameters I’m feeling like the new salt is the most likely culprit. Based on the changes I’ve done up until today my total water changeover has been about 75% with the new salt.

I put in some carbon last night in case there is something in the water.

I feel like if it’s the salt I should do some changes with IO to see if it helps, but I also don’t want to cause even more thrash.

Probably need to get an ICP and send it off.

Any other ideas? I’m watching some of my oldest and healthiest coral quickly taking a dive and it’s depressing.

1.026
Alk: 8.2
Ca: 420
Mg: 1310
NO3: 9
PO4: .05
10AB3D94-8E78-4DF9-8B52-7BE3E168B433.jpeg
CCEA2CC2-7942-4B85-B7A1-E060203EE29C.jpeg
0C7D324A-F37B-4F34-B4F7-84A52CC37233.jpeg
1AE97BEA-6C06-40A5-B586-34B7E539FEE7.jpeg
Almost always , it is a water quality issue that will cause this. The tissue loss in the pictures are often caused by Sudden rise in temperature and salinity as well as change in alk high or low, and calciu very high. Other common causes are:
- Low dissolved oxygen
- Poor water quality related with phosphate levels up to 5 ppm
- Change in water flow
- Additions of sand
- Changes in brand of salt
- Bad test kits giving faulty results especially API
- Levels of minor elements such as Iodine, Potassium, Strontium
- Light intensity (often too bright)
- - Changes in water flow
- Addition of new corals
-- Pesticides
- Airborne Contaminants or sprays
 
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Lavey29

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I agree, it's a water quality issue because of the range of corals being affected. Have you done a recent ICP to check everything? Checked all hardware for rust? I would run some cuprasorb for a few days just in case.
 
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AFHokie

AFHokie

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I agree, it's a water quality issue because of the range of corals being affected. Have you done a recent ICP to check everything? Checked all hardware for rust? I would run some cuprasorb for a few days just in case.
Haven’t ever done an ICP as I’ve never had a need.

Did a cursory check for rust but I’ll check again more thoroughly.

Copy on the cuprasorb, I’ll get some.

Thanks.
 

Crustaceon

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This might be a silly question but I have to ask because I made this mistake a very long time ago when I first started keeping acros: Do you perfectly temperature match the water you dump into the tank each water change? As noted, if the newly added water is too far off from the temperature or salinity (ph & alk too) you’ll get that type of tissue loss. I recommend trying something different to rule that out. Get a cheapy acro frag. Stop doing water changes for a few months. Run a chaeto refugium or nopox dose to control nitrates. Just let the tank run with your normal dosing, feeding and panel cleaning and that’s about it. If the acro frag thrives, we’ll, there you go.
 
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AFHokie

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This might be a silly question but I have to ask because I made this mistake a very long time ago when I first started keeping acros: Do you perfectly temperature match the water you dump into the tank each water change? As noted, if the newly added water is too far off from the temperature or salinity (ph & alk too) you’ll get that type of tissue loss. I recommend trying something different to rule that out. Get a cheapy acro frag. Stop doing water changes for a few months. Run a chaeto refugium or nopox dose to control nitrates. Just let the tank run with your normal dosing, feeding and panel cleaning and that’s about it. If the acro frag thrives, we’ll, there you go.
Sometimes I do, sometimes not. When I don’t the overall tank temp swings less than a degree. I only change about 10%.

With the acros I get it, but I’ve changed water the same way for 10 months and now with no issues and now my LPS are being affected by whatever is going on.
 

Crustaceon

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Sometimes I do, sometimes not. When I don’t the overall tank temp swings less than a degree. I only change about 10%.

With the acros I get it, but I’ve changed water the same way for 10 months and now with no issues and now my LPS are being affected by whatever is going on.
It sounds like you’re fine on that aspect. ICP would be a great idea here. Also, double check the cables on all of your pumps, etc. I had a skimmer with a psk pump that was dumping stray voltage into my tank without my knowledge at one point. I only found it when I went to clean the skimmer, heard a pop and smelled ozone. I had the skimmer out of the water pretty much reflexively. What happened was the insulation on the power cord had developed a pinhole where it entered the pump and saltwater corroded the copper conductor inside the cord. I wouldn’t have found it if the power cord didn’t literally fall out of the pump.
 
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AFHokie

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It sounds like you’re fine on that aspect. ICP would be a great idea here. Also, double check the cables on all of your pumps, etc. I had a skimmer with a psk pump that was dumping stray voltage into my tank without my knowledge at one point. I only found it when I went to clean the skimmer, heard a pop and smelled ozone. I had the skimmer out of the water pretty much reflexively. What happened was the insulation on the power cord had developed a pinhole where it entered the pump and saltwater corroded the copper conductor inside the cord. I wouldn’t have found it if the power cord didn’t literally fall out of the pump.
Thanks, I’ll give all my cords a good look.
 
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AFHokie

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Looking over some of these recommendations I’m thinking about the second hygger I added at Christmas.

I didn’t figure a second mini hygger on the opposite side of the tank would cause this for flow reasons but perhaps it did? Could be the magnet on it perhaps?

I’ll check hardware when I get home later.
 
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AFHokie

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Eureka!…? Perhaps?

Got home and checked my power heads. On the pump side of the inner magnet, hidden from view I found this….
DBADCA9B-86B7-4E0C-9D8B-86FE92D73D77.jpeg
D4C646AD-50F4-4EC8-99F1-03F31A3449FF.jpeg

I think it’s a piece broken off my long scraper that uses razor blades. It’s definitely steel as you can see and at 12:00 on the magnet you can see the orange spot where it was stuck. Definitely smelled like rust.

It’s small, but definitely rusting as the metal pieces just flake into pieces.

Could I have found the smoking gun?
 
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AFHokie

AFHokie

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Cleaned it off, soaked in vinegar and scrubbed the daylights out of it.

Fingers crossed that it solves the problem.

Maybe I’m too optimistic but nothing else made sense to be cashing so much coral stress.
 

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Cleaned it off, soaked in vinegar and scrubbed the daylights out of it.

Fingers crossed that it solves the problem.

Maybe I’m too optimistic but nothing else made sense to be cashing so much coral stress.
I certainly think that might be the source. Cuprasorb will help get that contaminant out of the water.
 

Lavey29

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Getting some tomorrow to put in.
And if you have never done an ICP test for your tank and RODI, I do recommend it because it tests a lot of things we can't test for regularly and really gives you a perspective of your overall water quality.
 
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AFHokie

AFHokie

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And if you have never done an ICP test for your tank and RODI, I do recommend it because it tests a lot of things we can't test for regularly and really gives you a perspective of your overall water quality.
Plan on that also.

Any particular brand you recommend? ATI vs Triton? Also saw the ICP Analysis brand for almost half the price.
 

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Glad you found the culprit. Something similar happened to me recently, metal found its way in from an unknown source. I would avoid cheap pumps completely, go with quality ones to prevent problems in the future.
 

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Glad you found the culprit. Something similar happened to me recently, metal found its way in from an unknown source. I would avoid cheap pumps completely, go with quality ones to prevent problems in the future.
I think it was from a razor blade..not the pump.
 

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Got it, I misunderstood. Glad you found it :)
 

brandon429

why did you put a reef in that
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A rusty razor can’t cause this. We already tracked rusty razors years ago in the chem forum, it didn’t do this. I rusted out a test razor in my one gallon packed pico reef, and no harm came, some vermitids grew on it like common substrate. a little rust simply doesn’t hurt

mine was a full razor rusted in one gallon, this is a tiny fleck of a razor in all the extra dilution…
 
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