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- Jul 12, 2017
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I have been having a bit of trouble with my SPS STN'ing recently. I can place a farg in the tank and it will look fine at first. Polys with be extended and things look happy. After about 2 weeks the polys will stop extending and retract and then the skin will start to peel at the tips. At first I thought it was my pellet reactor stripping all of the nitrate and phosphate out of my tank leaving practically zero nutrients. So I pulled the pellet reactor and initially things looked like they were starting to turn around. and then some of the acros started STN'ing again.
Here are the results from the lastest round of testing that I performed:
SG: 1.024 (I understand this is a tad on the low side but it shouldn't be killing SPS that said I am working on bringing it up).
Temp: 77.2oF
pH 8.2
Alk: 8.3 dkh (Hanna Checker)
Ca: 445 ppm (Hanna Checker)
Mg: 1270 ppm (Salifert)
Nitrate 4 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate 0.00 ppm (Milwaukee low range)
Some additional information:
I have tested my RODI for chlorine and chloramines, both 0.
I am reading 1 ppm on my TDS meter on my RODI Unit and have ordered new media to fix that (will be swapped out tonight_
Results of ICP testing that was performed 2 weeks ago (nothing stands out to me, CA was a bit high due to an over dose and has since fallen with water changes and not dosing) (testing was performed by ICP-Analysis dot com)
Aluminum 0.11 ppm
Arsenic 0.01 ppm
Boron 2.44 ppm
Barium 0 .01 ppm
Beryllium 0 ppm
Bromine 87.9 ppm
Calcium 621.5 ppm
Cadmium 0 ppm
Cerium < 0.01 ppm
Chlorine 23683.82 ppm
Cobalt 41.28 ppm
Chromium 0.02 ppm
Copper 0 ppm
Iron 0 ppm
Gallium 0.95 ppm
Iodine 0.01 ppm
Potassium 452.25 ppm
Lanthanum 0.02 ppm
Lithium 0.62 ppm
Magnesium 1306.09 ppm
Manganese 0 ppm
Molybdenum 0.04 ppm
Sodium 9798.72 ppm
Nickel 0.06 ppm
Phosphorus 0.08 ppm
Lead < 0.01 ppm
Rubidium <0.01 ppm
Sulfur 332.51 ppm
Antimony 0 ppm
Selenium 0.01 ppm
Silicon <0.01 ppm
Tin 0.04 ppm
Strontium 6.83 ppm
Titanium 0 ppm
Thallium <0.01 ppm
Uranium 0.05 ppm
Vanadium 0.01 ppm
Tungsten 0 ppm
Zinc 0 ppm
Tank is a 90 gallon display that has been running since February, lite with 4 radion Gen 4 XR15 pros. My radions do sit fairly close to the waters surface (~5" but they are dialed down so I wouldn't think this should be a problem). Water movement is provided by 2 MP40 that alternate between reef crest and nutrient export. Rock work was moved from a previous tank that started to leak, but DSB is new for the most part (some of the old sand was mixed in to seed). Goes without saying there is also a skimmer.
Vortechs have been check to ensure there is no rust.
I haven't been running carbon, but I just started running it again today to see if there an unknown organic was causing issues.
I don't see any sign that this is an SPS pest. It really seems like a chemistry issue that I can't pinpoint. Any help that people can provide would be great. I would be happy to answer any additional questions.
I recently confirmed that my Milwaukee low range phosphate meter can detect phosphate level down to about 0.05 ppm. So while it does read zero with my tank water is it possible that it could be any value less than 0.05 ppm.
I have tried dosing some phosphate over the past couple of days (using Seachem's Flourish Phosphorus) and so far I still can't detect any phosphate in the tank nor have I seen a response in the SPS. I did however loss a milli to RTN overnight last night. This was one of my frags that actually was still looking like i wasn't effected (which I do have a couple). It was fine before lights out and this morning it was totally peeling and almost completely gone. I had up the dose of phosphate to achieve a level of 0.03 ppm (2.4 mL of Flourish). I don't think that should cause this reaction but I suppose it could. I don't have any other explanations of such a rapid decline.
As an additional not my clams do not seem to be impacted, in fact they seem to be happy as clams. Nor are my Zoas. I would think it this was some sort of toxin or heavy metal issue that at least you would see some issues with the clams.
While i don't see pests, is it possible that there is a pathogen that could be causing issues?
While I work towards and answer I think I am going to set up a secondary (isolated frag tank) to move everything that isn't solidly in place out and see if they start to recover in a different system.
Happy to answer any question you may have. I am really scratching my head on this one.
Here are the results from the lastest round of testing that I performed:
SG: 1.024 (I understand this is a tad on the low side but it shouldn't be killing SPS that said I am working on bringing it up).
Temp: 77.2oF
pH 8.2
Alk: 8.3 dkh (Hanna Checker)
Ca: 445 ppm (Hanna Checker)
Mg: 1270 ppm (Salifert)
Nitrate 4 ppm (Red Sea Pro)
Phosphate 0.00 ppm (Milwaukee low range)
Some additional information:
I have tested my RODI for chlorine and chloramines, both 0.
I am reading 1 ppm on my TDS meter on my RODI Unit and have ordered new media to fix that (will be swapped out tonight_
Results of ICP testing that was performed 2 weeks ago (nothing stands out to me, CA was a bit high due to an over dose and has since fallen with water changes and not dosing) (testing was performed by ICP-Analysis dot com)
Aluminum 0.11 ppm
Arsenic 0.01 ppm
Boron 2.44 ppm
Barium 0 .01 ppm
Beryllium 0 ppm
Bromine 87.9 ppm
Calcium 621.5 ppm
Cadmium 0 ppm
Cerium < 0.01 ppm
Chlorine 23683.82 ppm
Cobalt 41.28 ppm
Chromium 0.02 ppm
Copper 0 ppm
Iron 0 ppm
Gallium 0.95 ppm
Iodine 0.01 ppm
Potassium 452.25 ppm
Lanthanum 0.02 ppm
Lithium 0.62 ppm
Magnesium 1306.09 ppm
Manganese 0 ppm
Molybdenum 0.04 ppm
Sodium 9798.72 ppm
Nickel 0.06 ppm
Phosphorus 0.08 ppm
Lead < 0.01 ppm
Rubidium <0.01 ppm
Sulfur 332.51 ppm
Antimony 0 ppm
Selenium 0.01 ppm
Silicon <0.01 ppm
Tin 0.04 ppm
Strontium 6.83 ppm
Titanium 0 ppm
Thallium <0.01 ppm
Uranium 0.05 ppm
Vanadium 0.01 ppm
Tungsten 0 ppm
Zinc 0 ppm
Tank is a 90 gallon display that has been running since February, lite with 4 radion Gen 4 XR15 pros. My radions do sit fairly close to the waters surface (~5" but they are dialed down so I wouldn't think this should be a problem). Water movement is provided by 2 MP40 that alternate between reef crest and nutrient export. Rock work was moved from a previous tank that started to leak, but DSB is new for the most part (some of the old sand was mixed in to seed). Goes without saying there is also a skimmer.
Vortechs have been check to ensure there is no rust.
I haven't been running carbon, but I just started running it again today to see if there an unknown organic was causing issues.
I don't see any sign that this is an SPS pest. It really seems like a chemistry issue that I can't pinpoint. Any help that people can provide would be great. I would be happy to answer any additional questions.
I recently confirmed that my Milwaukee low range phosphate meter can detect phosphate level down to about 0.05 ppm. So while it does read zero with my tank water is it possible that it could be any value less than 0.05 ppm.
I have tried dosing some phosphate over the past couple of days (using Seachem's Flourish Phosphorus) and so far I still can't detect any phosphate in the tank nor have I seen a response in the SPS. I did however loss a milli to RTN overnight last night. This was one of my frags that actually was still looking like i wasn't effected (which I do have a couple). It was fine before lights out and this morning it was totally peeling and almost completely gone. I had up the dose of phosphate to achieve a level of 0.03 ppm (2.4 mL of Flourish). I don't think that should cause this reaction but I suppose it could. I don't have any other explanations of such a rapid decline.
As an additional not my clams do not seem to be impacted, in fact they seem to be happy as clams. Nor are my Zoas. I would think it this was some sort of toxin or heavy metal issue that at least you would see some issues with the clams.
While i don't see pests, is it possible that there is a pathogen that could be causing issues?
While I work towards and answer I think I am going to set up a secondary (isolated frag tank) to move everything that isn't solidly in place out and see if they start to recover in a different system.
Happy to answer any question you may have. I am really scratching my head on this one.