What am I doing wrong....RTN?

DallasJohn210 · Jan 2, 2011

Ok....my tank is working perfectly....LPS actually went from great to adding new colors etc. Fish doing great....clams, shrimp...everything...

BUT....lost another SPS acro. White at base...hours later bad, next day gone...all white.

Meanwhile...green slimer and couple otter acros fine...plus monti's and other sps.

Lost a austra out of the blue in hours last week. Just went white.

Ca 420 to 440
Alk 9
1.022
Temp 79
Bubble king
Calc and Phos Reactors
210 gal with refugium
400 lbs coraline plated live rock
Apex
Wave and Tunze
LEDs and T5s

What am I doing wrong? Please.

Thank you

Ps....anyone Gond to or off of Zeovit system....looks wow but a lot of work and changes to tank.

John

_Alex_ · Jan 2, 2011

salinity at 1.022 seems a little low, might try getting it up to .024-.026

swannyson7 · Jan 2, 2011

Has there been any swings in your alk or pH? How long have these acro colonies been in your tank? Are they wild colonies or aquacultured? Wild colonies have a habit of RTN if your parameters aren't perfect, but aquacultured varieties are much more forgiving IME.

Troylee · Jan 2, 2011

Most of the time rtn is from alk swings from exp. But there is actually no root cause and rtn/STN is one of the wonders I think we will never completely understand....:(

DallasJohn210 · Jan 2, 2011

Yes...my alk was higher...bringing it down now.

Thx.

Acros are wild.

efrain torres · Jan 5, 2011

salinity need to increase to natural sea water 35ppm very slow replace evaporade water with salt .very slow increase to 1.o24 first 7days .natural sea water alk 7.5 to 8 . wild acro like natural sea water parameter .slow adap to new light .

hippo tang · Jan 5, 2011

Well I dont know if you have the same problem but. I just found out that my top off water (RO) has ALK of 0.3 so I have been causing major ALK swings. Stupid me test everything but my RO. I have just fixed that so I hope it was my only problem.

OMG Corals · Jan 5, 2011

Hard to pinpoint. Check your magnesium. If it's low the coral will not get enough calcium and carbonate to bond skeleton. You don't mention your mag level.

How old are the colonies you lost?

Where are they in terms of downstream from other corals?

If you are running zeo or biopellets alk that high may burn sps, especially acros.

Salinity is also a little low as mentioned above. If these were newer colonies, they would fall prey to these param differences before your established corals would.