Chalices Slowly Melting

CaliforniaCrisp · Oct 4, 2013

Hello all,

Sad news when your beautiful chalices start to melt. Specially a Bazooka Joe and another Watermelon that is just B.A. looking.

I am trying to figure out what is going on to case this. They were all good and then slowly I was able to start to see the skeleton around the rim. The Bazooka Joe just slowly started to recede while the other watermelon just had a feint dead spot one morning.

Everything else in the tank looks great besides a selected few zoa colonies (Red Hornets, Spider-Man's, Vivid Rainbows)

Water tested well. I do not own a phosphate test kit, but I do run Chemi-Pure Elite.

One theory of mine is the RO Unit I started to use. I use to just buy my water pre-made from the store. But then someone gave me a new RO unit for free. This is kind of when I noticed the first chalice starting to react. Any thoughts?

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I know it's hard to see in this one, but this photo is from when things first started up at the top. I'll grab a updated photo after work.

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Mike J. · Oct 4, 2013

Have you tested the water coming out of your new RO unit? My first suspect would be a low alkalinity level, though.

joshporksandwich · Oct 4, 2013

Mike J. said:
Have you tested the water coming out of your new RO unit? My first suspect would be a low alkalinity level, though.

Def. Low alk. Also try to check phosphates. Maybe you dumped tab water on your tank

jcdeng · Oct 4, 2013

yep, same thing happened to me, 3 of my big colonies died cuz my doser was acting up and instead of dosing alk, it was dosing air:mad2:. I didn't realize it until I see my chalice doing bad and ran some tests. alk dropped from 9.2 to 6.5... My tank was much happier when I was dosing manually.

CaliforniaCrisp · Oct 4, 2013

Mike J. said:
Have you tested the water coming out of your new RO unit? My first suspect would be a low alkalinity level, though.

What all should I test from the RO unit?

CaliforniaCrisp · Oct 4, 2013

jcdeng said:
yep, same thing happened to me, 3 of my big colonies died cuz my doser was acting up and instead of dosing alk, it was dosing air:mad2:. I didn't realize it until I see my chalice doing bad and ran some tests. alk dropped from 9.2 to 6.5... My tank was much happier when I was dosing manually.

Are you saying if a doser (or ATO) is pushing air into my tank that would cause water issues? I have a toms aqua lifter that sometimes pushes air into my system. (I still manually top off when needed) but could this be affecting things?

I'm going to test everything now again. Maybe I tested my alk wrong.

jcdeng · Oct 4, 2013

no no no, what I meant was there is a leak in the doser alk intake line so the alk liquid is not being siphoned up to the doser and down into my tank because air was being sucked in from the leak area. So instead of dosing alk liquid, nothing was coming out from the tubing (only air). So its like I am only dosing Cal and Mg without ALK into my tank. And that went on for a week or so before I realize it. Imagine the damage to my system.

Mike J. · Oct 4, 2013

Do you have a TDS meter? If not, they are rather inexpensive. And, no, air won't hurt anything. He was referring to lack of dosing caused all to drop.

CaliforniaCrisp · Oct 4, 2013

jcdeng said:
no no no, what I meant was there is a leak in the doser alk intake line so the alk liquid is not being siphoned up to the doser and down into my tank because air was being sucked in from the leak area. So instead of dosing alk liquid, nothing was coming out from the tubing (only air). So its like I am only dosing Cal and Mg without ALK into my tank. And that went on for a week or so before I realize it. Imagine the damage to my system.

Got ya. That makes sense.

CaliforniaCrisp · Oct 4, 2013

Mike J. said:
Do you have a TDS meter? If not, they are rather inexpensive. And, no, air won't hurt anything. He was referring to lack of dosing caused all to drop.

I do not. Do you know where I could get one? And what exactly does it test?

jcdeng · Oct 4, 2013

TDS meter test for anything in the water column, good or bad. Fresh water coming out of your rodi unit should have a "0" TDS reading, as to tap water or your tank water will give u something in the hundreds due to so many things in those.

CaliforniaCrisp · Oct 4, 2013

jcdeng said:
TDS meter test for anything in the water column, good or bad. Fresh water coming out of your rodi unit should have a "0" TDS reading, as to tap water or your tank water will give u something in the hundreds due to so many things in those.

Rad. Sounds pretty cool. I'll go pick one up this weekend. Looks like homedepot and walmart carry them.

Thanks everyone for feedback!

tupes · Oct 4, 2013

CaliforniaCrisp said:
I do not. Do you know where I could get one? And what exactly does it test?

Total desolved solids. Just about any online aquarium retailer sells them and I think walmart sells them. You can get a handheld or one that you hookup to your input of your rodi system to test for TDS in order to see how effective your filters are. And if they need to be changed. When the water gets around 10 tds I usually change my filters on my rodi system.

Sent from my Note II