1979fishgeek
Well-Known Member
Ive been struggling with my sps dying over about two weeks. I’ve had them under microscopes and no signs of infestation, I’ve watched to see if any fish are to blame and can’t see anything eating them.
The Monti are worst effected, colour first greyed out, then the tissue seemed to dissolve. Now I’m seeing similar happening on my stylo’s. They literally look like I’ve just taken them out the tank and plonked them back, patches of faded dissolving tissue, poor polyp extension and new growth is bleached.
I did a load of tests...
Salinity 1.025
Calcium 380
Ph 7.7
Potassium 370
Nitrate 30
Magnesium 1200
Iron 0,01mg/l at most!
Phosphate 0.2
Alk 7.7
I use natural seawater and have done for six years, lighting not changed, flow not changed the only issue I’ve been having continually is with carbon dosing I can’t get my nitrates and phos down consistently (all over the place but NO3 is never below 5ppm and phos is always a sod!) and it’s been about 7 months of dosing at full dosage. Which works out for my tank 21mls dosed with auto dosing pumps over 24 hours. Long story short used NoPox for ages and worked perfect, switched to Vodka Vinegar dosing, nitrates went over 100ppm and switching back to NoPox it’s not working?!
I get huge clumps of bacteria flocks, looks like white slime along the waterline and low flow areas which I manually remove...it’s like snot!. I run 2 x Deltec AP850 and a BM NAC6 should be way to much skimming!
I do water change once a week about 25%, use a rock steady calcium reactor tuned to my NSW parameters.
So why are my sps suddenly dissolving! Anemone’s (Ritteri, BTA, carpets, maxi mini) all thriving, my Zoa and mushrooms as slow but steady and my LPS look very happy growing ok.
My irons almost undetectable and potassium low, could this be the cause and is the bacteria from carbon dosing to blame. Nitrate and phos are really high this week for no obvious reason.....I literally thinking of switching back to fresh!
The Monti are worst effected, colour first greyed out, then the tissue seemed to dissolve. Now I’m seeing similar happening on my stylo’s. They literally look like I’ve just taken them out the tank and plonked them back, patches of faded dissolving tissue, poor polyp extension and new growth is bleached.
I did a load of tests...
Salinity 1.025
Calcium 380
Ph 7.7
Potassium 370
Nitrate 30
Magnesium 1200
Iron 0,01mg/l at most!
Phosphate 0.2
Alk 7.7
I use natural seawater and have done for six years, lighting not changed, flow not changed the only issue I’ve been having continually is with carbon dosing I can’t get my nitrates and phos down consistently (all over the place but NO3 is never below 5ppm and phos is always a sod!) and it’s been about 7 months of dosing at full dosage. Which works out for my tank 21mls dosed with auto dosing pumps over 24 hours. Long story short used NoPox for ages and worked perfect, switched to Vodka Vinegar dosing, nitrates went over 100ppm and switching back to NoPox it’s not working?!
I get huge clumps of bacteria flocks, looks like white slime along the waterline and low flow areas which I manually remove...it’s like snot!. I run 2 x Deltec AP850 and a BM NAC6 should be way to much skimming!
I do water change once a week about 25%, use a rock steady calcium reactor tuned to my NSW parameters.
So why are my sps suddenly dissolving! Anemone’s (Ritteri, BTA, carpets, maxi mini) all thriving, my Zoa and mushrooms as slow but steady and my LPS look very happy growing ok.
My irons almost undetectable and potassium low, could this be the cause and is the bacteria from carbon dosing to blame. Nitrate and phos are really high this week for no obvious reason.....I literally thinking of switching back to fresh!
Monterey though - good stuff but too far to do it more frequently although I am considering using a couple 55 gallon drums to store longer term now after seeing the BRS video on storage/salt mix and test results.
