Help, my rock is dying

[geddavis]

I recently/ 4 weeks ago got my first saltwater tank a 50g. everything was looking good after a two-week cycle so I got two clowns and a zoanthid. a few weeks after this I noticed that my rock was turning an extreme white along with a shell. naturally i checked my water and everything looked good. the rock and shell look almost like they have a dusting of sugar on them. I had read that the white could be due to diet/dead coralline algae but I never had Coraline on the rocks just a tiny bit of nuisance algae. I was wondering what this is and if I should be worried. I dose 1 tsp of magnesium weekly and a tsp of Coraline supplement or just calcium weekly. any help is apriceated.
thanks
-Ged

 

[JasonK84]

Could you post pics so we can see what it is you are seeing?

 

[Rcollick]

Why are you dosing right now? Have you checked your cal mag and all levels? With your tank being so new I wouldn't think you would need to dose right now.

 

[count krunk]

if youre doing somewhat regular water changes, with just some soft coral. you do not need to be dosing at all, much less mg. I would stop dosing, could you post some pics of what you mean?

other test results would be good as well. Are you measuring your mg level?

 

[Dancingmad]

Welcome to R2R! How about a picture? I'm no pro just some hobbyist, but one of the pros 'round here could help. Pictures are super helpful!

Could be - Sponges, Sand, precipitate from dosing CA/MG/ALK, or bacteria just to name a few possibilities.

 

[Oscaror]

I recently/ 4 weeks ago got my first saltwater tank a 50g. everything was looking good after a two-week cycle so I got two clowns and a zoanthid. a few weeks after this I noticed that my rock was turning an extreme white along with a shell. naturally i checked my water and everything looked good. the rock and shell look almost like they have a dusting of sugar on them. I had read that the white could be due to diet/dead coralline algae but I never had Coraline on the rocks just a tiny bit of nuisance algae. I was wondering what this is and if I should be worried. I dose 1 tsp of magnesium weekly and a tsp of Coraline supplement or just calcium weekly. any help is apriceated.
thanks
-Ged

Welcome to R2R! Agreed with @Dancingmad pics will help

 

[geddavis]

here are some pictures

 

[Oscaror]

here are some pictures

Well the brown part on your rock is diatoms, not coralline. I see you have snails, looks to me like they've been working hard!

 

[geddavis]

I don’t dos that much I just listend to the guy at my local fish store and researched magnesium and saw that it lasted a very short time in the tank and also heard that adding such a small dos weekly without testing would not be harmfull. This is the info I got from multiple sources.

 

[geddavis]

Well the brown part on your rock is diatoms, not coralline. I see you have snails, looks to me like they've been working hard!

So nothing to worry about. Just my snails taking care of my nusance algae. What about the shell. It was never that color before? Even when I just had it on my shelf.

 

[pshootr]

Is it possible that high levels of magnesium are causing calcium to precipitate?

 

[Oscaror]

So nothing to worry about. Just my snails taking care of my nusance algae. What about the shell. It was never that color before? Even when I just had it on my shelf.

Now that you mention it, there does seem to be more to this than I thought. What @pshootr is saying sounds promising

 

[KrisReef]

Welcome to R2R.

That white stuff on the shell looks a lot like your sand substrate.

 

[geddavis]

Yay it seems it could be possible. However it would probable parpicipate in my sump where I add the magnissium or the shell has a calcium sceleton that is being reveals by the snails breaking of the shells outer layer. I have seen a lot of white dead conch shells before.

 

[Dancingmad]

If it were me I would pump the breaks on dosing, especially if you're doing regular water changes. At least until you get something thats going to pull those elements out. Does it blow off the rocks pretty easy if you direct some flow that way? It looks like sand to me. Flow could be the easy answer, and if you have mechanical filtration (e.g. Filter socks) it may help get those particulates off your rocks.

Edit: Mechanical filtration obviously wont take the particulates off the rocks, but it could help them from settling back on them b/c you'll be able to remove them

 

[pshootr]

Now that you mention it, there does seem to be more to this than I thought. What @pshootr is saying sounds promising

I am eager to see what some more experience people think. But as I recall, one of the key benefits of having proper magnesium levels, is so that corals can calcify effectively. This leads me to think that very high levels of magnesium may actually cause calcium to precipitate in solution.

 

[geddavis]

Welcome to R2R.

That white stuff on the shell looks a lot like your sand substrate.

It is not the sand I can’t scrape it off

 

[Oscaror]

Yay it seems it could be possible. However it would probable parpicipate in my sump where I add the magnissium or the shell has a calcium sceleton that is being reveals by the snails breaking of the shells outer layer. I have seen a lot of white dead conch shells before.

This makes sense too actually. I've found plenty conches snorkeling that were bleached white with bumps on them, I might even have one in my house rn

 

[geddavis]

It’s probably just the shell bleaching. I think just to be safe I will stop dosing until I have proper testing equipment.
Thanks for all your help!!

 

[Oscaror]

Here are two shells that I found while snorkelling. You can see that they also have these white bumps on them and are bright white (the way they were when I found them)