Im just not winning at this

Chris Kelly · Oct 15, 2016

tested my parameters today

alk dkh 10
calcium 460
nitrate 1ppm
salinty 35
temp 78
radions set at 50% intensity coral lab sps setting

my corals keep dying.
some history--I got back from vacation and my dkh was 7.6. We to add some two part and somehow overdosed and dkh went to 13.6. Ive watched all my corals die since then.

Is there something I should do? What parameter is kicking my butt? Help...

Brew12 · Oct 15, 2016

I have almost no experience with it (only 20 frags at this point) but from all the threads I have read it seems like stability with dkh is much more important than the actual number. Lets get people much smarter than I to weigh in.

#reefsquad

melypr1985 · Oct 15, 2016

The jump in alk is what did you in most likely. Stability is the name of the game here. Spikes in Alk have brought down many a coral. Don't dose it again and keep testing it. You want it to SLOWLY go back to normal, then keep it there. If you don't need to dose - if water changes will keep it where you want it alone- then don't. I'm very sorry about your corals. It's very frustrating to have to watch them die like that.

Nothing good happens fast. If it happened fast, it made you cry and hurt your wallet.

jsker · Oct 15, 2016

are you sure about your alk??
salinity should be around 1.025 not 35 unless you are going by conductivity 33.5 is a 1.025
what is you Mg
what test are you using for the nitrates?
what is your Po4's

hotnickz07 · Oct 15, 2016

I've never had succes with high alk and my sps. If it gets above 8 dkh, things start to die. But yea imo that jump of dkh did it for you. Some acros will not die right away (rtn) some will go into like a zombie stage and just wither and stay almot alive or die very slowly. I would slowly bring that dkh close to NSW 7-8 range, or just maintain stable at 10 were is at now. But for me once again that way to high, but lost of people have succes with high alk tanks. Also remember high alk high nutrients. Low alk , low nutrients

Acromora · Oct 15, 2016

If the corals that are dying are sps, in my opinion the answer that @melypr1985 gave is true. One cannot simply dose the target alk in one day. Spreading out the dosage would have been the ideal way. I have also done this and now I have a graveyard shelf of some nice colonies that were once colorful. You live and you learn.
Another possibility could be that you may have some type of pest in the tank. But given what you have stated, its most likely the overdose.

Newb73 · Oct 15, 2016

Agreed. You most likely did not need to really do a "spot dose" on the alk if it was already reading in the 7's. You could have just slowly added a little extra in with your regular dosing schedule and it would have been fine.

I dose my tank from midnight to 8am around 45 seconds on a BRS (2.1ml/hr) every 15 minutes. When I make an adjustment because it is low or high...I change the rate by no more than 1 second every few days.

IE..if it is a bit high I will lower it to 44 seconds every 15 minutes and retest in 2 days. If it is a bit low I might increase it to 46 seconds every 15 minutes and test again after a couple days etc.

One other thing that has helped. When I mix my water change I test it for alk, mg and Ca...and precisely dose the water change to the exact levels of the tank prior to doing a water change (unless the mix is higher than my tank obviously..in which case there isn't much I can do....((happens some times if my tank is around 8.o and the mix tests at around 9.0))...

9.0 is my goal but I'm happy with anything over 8. Anything over 9 ill just reduce and retest.....if it gets 10 or more I actually shut off the doser for a night and retest.

Your mileadge may vary.

rovster · Oct 16, 2016

Nothing more you cans do now other than stabilize tank and try again. Like everyone else said, what happened and how you handled it is the kiss of death with most SPS. Learn and move on...

Russ265 · Oct 17, 2016

Chris Kelly said:
tested my parameters today

alk dkh 10
calcium 460
nitrate 1ppm
salinty 35
temp 78
radions set at 50% intensity coral lab sps setting

my corals keep dying.
some history--I got back from vacation and my dkh was 7.6. We to add some two part and somehow overdosed and dkh went to 13.6. Ive watched all my corals die since then.

Is there something I should do? What parameter is kicking my butt? Help...

if your parameters are that out of whack it is cheaper to just do a water change. no telling how bad of an overcorrection occurred.

contrary to popular theory, ive bumped alk from 7 to 12 in a matter of 48 hours.
plenty of people have had alk overdoses with "snow" raining in their tank while they wait for it to get back in line.

i think keeping calcium, alk and mag somewhere acceptable in ratio amongst each other is the biggy. and the nutrients to pad it.

Elementalj · Oct 17, 2016

Russ265 said:
if your parameters are that out of whack it is cheaper to just do a water change. no telling how bad of an overcorrection occurred.

contrary to popular theory, ive bumped alk from 7 to 12 in a matter of 48 hours.
plenty of people have had alk overdoses with "snow" raining in their tank while they wait for it to get back in line.

i think keeping calcium, alk and mag somewhere acceptable in ratio amongst each other is the biggy. and the nutrients to pad it.

A much faster solution surely.