Can’t keep sps alive.

[Kimmi2413]

Can that be the cause!? It’s my refugium light over my sump

 

[Kimmi2413]

My glass also gets dirty really quick within hours after I clean it

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Can that be the cause!? It’s my refugium light over my sump

Those screws (and clips) would be zinc plated. That looks like corrosion from salt air rather than from splashes, so I am not sure if those can be considered a culprit? Others may want to provide an opinion.

To absorb the metals, you could use either a Polyfilter pad or a metal ion exchange resin like Cuprasorb. Water changes would also work, but we have not ruled out your salt as the source. What salt do you use? I noticed your trace elements on your ICP all read 0 (except for Zinc). Doing a large water change or 2 might help for those, once we have determined your salt is not the source of the tin and zinc.

Your mention of coraline starting and stopping growing is a pattern I have seen in my tanks. My view is that coraline is a good indicator of the expectation of success with SPS. Once you have coraline growing actively and constantly, then your SPS are likely to flourish as well. You may want to try dosing a bit of iron to see if your tank is deficient due to the macro in the fuge.

For dosing iodine, any product based on Potassium Iodide is typically the recommendation given. I don't have a lot of confidence in the hobby iodine tests, so dosing a fraction (1/2, 1/3, 1/4 etc.) of the recommendation from the product is a good idea. Watch for a response from your softies and LPS. My anemones and frogspawn always appear much fuller and happier looking the day after I dose.

I think you are on the right path, you just need to double check your salinity, deal with the metals and then wait for your tank to stabilize and to balance itself. I think that finding success with SPS is one of those things that happens slowly over time. It can't be rushed, one day you will realize that your SPS frags are not only surviving, but growing. At that point, you can then move on to mastering the different difficulty levels of SPS. From the tough, easy to keep ones, to the sensitive, extremely hard to keep ones.

Dennis

 

[Yas]

I had long been unable to keep SPS due to excessive tin till I changed my heaters to titanium heaters and added DI resin filter on my RO filter to achieve 0 TDS. Not sure which one worked, but I believe it was more-than-zero TDS that caused the issue because about two month ago, I got STN again and I found my TDS 5. I replaced the DI filter and to make the TDS back to zero again, and STN issue seems to be gone now. What's your TDS reading? Someone said TDS up to 5 is negligible, but it wasn't true to me. For me TDS must be zero all the time.

Hope it helps.

Yas

 

[Kimmi2413]

Those screws (and clips) would be zinc plated. That looks like corrosion from salt air rather than from splashes, so I am not sure if those can be considered a culprit? Others may want to provide an opinion.

To absorb the metals, you could use either a Polyfilter pad or a metal ion exchange resin like Cuprasorb. Water changes would also work, but we have not ruled out your salt as the source. What salt do you use? I noticed your trace elements on your ICP all read 0 (except for Zinc). Doing a large water change or 2 might help for those, once we have determined your salt is not the source of the tin and zinc.

Your mention of coraline starting and stopping growing is a pattern I have seen in my tanks. My view is that coraline is a good indicator of the expectation of success with SPS. Once you have coraline growing actively and constantly, then your SPS are likely to flourish as well. You may want to try dosing a bit of iron to see if your tank is deficient due to the macro in the fuge.

For dosing iodine, any product based on Potassium Iodide is typically the recommendation given. I don't have a lot of confidence in the hobby iodine tests, so dosing a fraction (1/2, 1/3, 1/4 etc.) of the recommendation from the product is a good idea. Watch for a response from your softies and LPS. My anemones and frogspawn always appear much fuller and happier looking the day after I dose.

I think you are on the right path, you just need to double check your salinity, deal with the metals and then wait for your tank to stabilize and to balance itself. I think that finding success with SPS is one of those things that happens slowly over time. It can't be rushed, one day you will realize that your SPS frags are not only surviving, but growing. At that point, you can then move on to mastering the different difficulty levels of SPS. From the tough, easy to keep ones, to the sensitive, extremely hard to keep ones.

Dennis

Im during Red Sea blue bucket salt. I was using Aquaforest 123 to keep my parameters stable not sure if that’s what’s been throwing my tank off balance but I’ve now switched to everything Red Sea.

 

[DaveC]

I've read that the tin can come from the new PVC pipes. Water changes is the way to rid yourself of that. Judging from the rocks your phosphate is higher then .04. Do you have algae issues?

 

[North Borders]

I see rust on each clip and screw of that light in the pic. Maybe take it out for safety? You'd almost have to have a drip of some sort for it to get in the tank though...
Have you pulled pumps and taken them apart to check? Any magnetic probe holders?

 

[Kimmi2413]

I've read that the tin can come from the new PVC pipes. Water changes is the way to rid yourself of that. Judging from the rocks your phosphate is higher then .04. Do you have algae issues?

My powerheads get a lot of gha but not in my rocks. Also I clean my glass and within hours it’s dirty again.

 

[Kimmi2413]

I see rust on each clip and screw of that light in the pic. Maybe take it out for safety? You'd almost have to have a drip of some sort for it to get in the tank though...
Have you pulled pumps and taken them apart to check? Any magnetic probe holders?

I checked my powerheads and they all seem fine, I’ll need to pull my m1 pump out and check that out and yes I have a apex prob holder that I totally didn’t check thanks!

 

[Kimmi2413]

I've read that the tin can come from the new PVC pipes. Water changes is the way to rid yourself of that. Judging from the rocks your phosphate is higher then .04. Do you have algae issues?

Icp test also came back that my po4 is 0.03

 

[North Borders]

I'd check everything TBH and if it's not a piece of equipment, maybe rustle up the sand here and there. There was a thread a while back where a guy was stumped and eventually was taking his sand out and found 2 rusting screws that had somehow fallen in the tank. I had a heater in a freshwater tank rust around a contact point once. I'd look at those too. Take the skimmer pump apart and inspect.. etc. I'd even check the Apex probes as long as you're taking the probe holder out of the tank. Any pumps topping off water?

 

[North Borders]

Icp test also came back that my po4 is 0.03

That phos level is fine. WWC runs up to 0.1 on their tanks.

 

[Kimmi2413]

I'd check everything TBH and if it's not a piece of equipment, maybe rustle up the sand here and there. There was a thread a while back where a guy was stumped and eventually was taking his sand out and found 2 rusting screws that had somehow fallen in the tank. I had a heater in a freshwater tank rust around a contact point once. I'd look at those too. Take the skimmer pump apart and inspect.. etc. I'd even check the Apex probes as long as you're taking the probe holder out of the tank. Any pumps topping off water?

I have bare bottom. I’ll inspect everything again carefully within the next few days. I got that detox from triton to see if that helps with taking out whatever metals I have followed by doing water changes. My heater is titanium. No pumps topping off water. The one thing I don’t get is how metals got in there to begin with if everything looks good and why my power heads get covered in gha with days of cleaning them but nothing else seems to grow it.

 

[Randyp79]

Check for stray voltage. In my experience, acros are the first to go with STN when stray voltage is present. Happened to me and only way I found it was because I had a cut on my finger and could feel the shock when I put my hand in the tank.

 

[DaveC]

My powerheads get a lot of gha but not in my rocks. Also I clean my glass and within hours it’s dirty again.

That is weird ... Maybe someone can chime in and explain what is happening here. I would think with a PO4 is that low, you would't have algae growing in the display. I can go weeks without cleaning the glass. I get very little buildup during that time.

 

[Kimmi2413]

That is weird ... Maybe someone can chime in and explain what is happening here. I would think with a PO4 is that low, you would't have algae growing in the display. I can go weeks without cleaning the glass. I get very little buildup during that time.

Can It be my lights being to low ? I have them about 6” above water line. I have 3 hydra 26s with T5 supplement .

 

[Kimmi2413]

Check for stray voltage. In my experience, acros are the first to go with STN when stray voltage is present. Happened to me and only way I found it was because I had a cut on my finger and could feel the shock when I put my hand in the tank.

How can I check for that? I put my hands in water and had cuts before and never felt anything

 

[Gpettit721]

Sorry to if this has been mentioned but what is your flow like in the tank? Also with the P04 you are only taking measurements of whats available in the water column not total of whats in your system. THIS NEXT PART IS ONLY WHAT I NOTICE IN MY SYSTEM AND DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYONE BECAUSE IT COULD BE CATASTROPHIC. My tank runs 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate at all times. This does not mean I have low nutrients by any means. I feed 4-6 times a day plus reef roids/reef chilli multiple times a week and dose other organics. I have algae growing on my rocks as well (not enough to worry about). My point is that every system is different and just because your getting a reading of one thing it doesn't paint the whole picture.

As far a dry rock I went through a very similar thing when I used 100 percent dry rock. My SPS would start out ok then one day would start to STN this went on and on for a while and I almost got out of the hobby because of it. I read a post one night when I was searching around for causes and came across someone saying they went through the same thing and then added quality live rock to the tank and the issues went away. I ended replacing about 30% of my dry rock with live rock and the issues went away. I didn't have heavy metals in the tank though either so that will need to be taken care of asap.

 

[Kimmi2413]

Sorry to if this has been mentioned but what is your flow like in the tank? Also with the P04 you are only taking measurements of whats available in the water column not total of whats in your system. THIS NEXT PART IS ONLY WHAT I NOTICE IN MY SYSTEM AND DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYONE BECAUSE IT COULD BE CATASTROPHIC. My tank runs 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate at all times. This does not mean I have low nutrients by any means. I feed 4-6 times a day plus reef roids/reef chilli multiple times a week and dose other organics. I have algae growing on my rocks as well (not enough to worry about). My point is that every system is different and just because your getting a reading of one thing it doesn't paint the whole picture.

As far a dry rock I went through a very similar thing when I used 100 percent dry rock. My SPS would start out ok then one day would start to STN this went on and on for a while and I almost got out of the hobby because of it. I read a post one night when I was searching around for causes and came across someone saying they went through the same thing and then added quality live rock to the tank and the issues went away. I ended replacing about 30% of my dry rock with live rock and the issues went away. I didn't have heavy metals in the tank though either so that will need to be taken care of asap.

Flow is good I have an mp10 and two r8s. Tank is a reefer 250 so about 54g display I believe. How long does dry rock have to be in water till it’s considered live? Tanks been up for about 9 months so far.

 

[Gpettit721]

Honestly I don’t know. I think with quality live rock it’s more about biodiversity and the benefits that come with it. The downside is pests. I think it was Mike Paletta that wrote the article I was referring to I’ll see if I can find it.