Is it the Ro water?

[Hannahmunt]

Hello,

the past few months my tank has had bad hair algae, corals have not looked great and mushrooms detaching, zoas not opening.

all my parameters have been fine and consistent the last few months. I sent of an icp test that didn’t show anything out the ordinary.

I decided to get a tds reader and test the ro water which I get from my lfs.

the reading was 325!

could this be the cause of all my problems?

 

[fishguy242]

hi,is that water already mixed with salt ? if not yes that is bad.

 

[Hannahmunt]

hi,is that water already mixed with salt ? if not yes that is bad.

No thankfully. I use natural sea water that gets delivered to me every two weeks. Then I use the bad ro water in an ato

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

agree with above, are you testing saltwater or straight RO water? TDS meter deosnt work on saltwater

 

[Big Smelly fish]

Well it sounds like either your lfs is not changing out and keeping up on his Ro system or selling Tao water.

 

[Hannahmunt]

agree with above, are you testing saltwater or straight RO water? TDS meter deosnt work on saltwater

I took a pint of the ro water and tested it that way

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

I would take that same water back and show them the TDS reading.

That store just sold you water that is worst than tap.

 

[OfficeReefer]

Hello,

the past few months my tank has had bad hair algae, corals have not looked great and mushrooms detaching, zoas not opening.

all my parameters have been fine and consistent the last few months. I sent of an icp test that didn’t show anything out the ordinary.

I decided to get a tds reader and test the ro water which I get from my lfs.

the reading was 325!

could this be the cause of all my problems?

@Hannahmunt would you be willing to share with us your Alk, PO4 and NO3 please and perhaps a picture of the tank? Also, how old is this tank and do you only get your ATO or top off water there or where?

I speculate you have a few issues going on here but we could use a few more details to get you back on track.

 

[Dan_P]

Hello,

the past few months my tank has had bad hair algae, corals have not looked great and mushrooms detaching, zoas not opening.

all my parameters have been fine and consistent the last few months. I sent of an icp test that didn’t show anything out the ordinary.

I decided to get a tds reader and test the ro water which I get from my lfs.

the reading was 325!

could this be the cause of all my problems?

It would be tempting to blame the RO but it is unlikely the cause of the hair algae which is problem #1. Problem #2 is the sick coral. Lots of reason for this which might include something in the RO or a toxic substance in the seawater that is sickening the coral. Switch to good RO and consider running GAC to adsorb bad organics and see if things improve in a month or two.

 

[KStatefan]

Has the container you are getting your water from the LFS been used for anything else. It does not take much salt residue to make RODI 350 TDS

How do you define parameters are fine?

 

[LeftyReefer]

Hello,

the past few months my tank has had bad hair algae, corals have not looked great and mushrooms detaching, zoas not opening.

all my parameters have been fine and consistent the last few months. I sent of an icp test that didn’t show anything out the ordinary.

I decided to get a tds reader and test the ro water which I get from my lfs.

the reading was 325!

could this be the cause of all my problems?

So either the LFS is ripping you off by selling you tap water as RO water, or somehow your container was contaminated with some left over salt water.

RODI water should read 0 TDS.
but once you add in salt, the TDS goes up into the thousands of TDS.

My tap water is around 100 TDS.

Either you got a little bit of salt water in that container, possibly left over from previous use carrying salt water?
or your LFS is not keeping up on their filter changes and is ripping you off selling 300 tds water as RO water.

What is the TDS of your tap water in that area?

 

[Hannahmunt]

@Hannahmunt would you be willing to share with us your Alk, PO4 and NO4 please and perhaps a picture of the tank? Also, how old is this tank and do you only get your ATO or top off water there or where?

I speculate you have a few issues going on here but we could use a few more details to get you back on track.

Of course:

the tank is around 8-9 months old. I have been getting my ro water from the same place since starting the tank

Dkh: 8.9
Ph: 8.3
Ca: 480
Mg: 1440
Po4: 0.13
No3: 7.4
No2: 0
Nh3: 0
Temperature: 25.6c
Salanity: 34ppm

attached is a video of the tank where you can see a few unhappy corals along with the ato box.

 

[Hannahmunt]

So either the LFS is ripping you off by selling you tap water as RO water, or somehow your container was contaminated with some left over salt water.

RODI water should read 0 TDS.
but once you add in salt, the TDS goes up into the thousands of TDS.

My tap water is around 100 TDS.

Either you got a little bit of salt water in that container, possibly left over from previous use carrying salt water?
or your LFS is not keeping up on their filter changes and is ripping you off selling 300 tds water as RO water.

What is the TDS of your tap water in that area?

Ah you could be right there. The container did have salt water in it before. Maybe I need to keep one container specifically for ro and salt. Is there a way of cleaning the container to remove any salt or contamination?

 

[Hannahmunt]

Has the container you are getting your water from the LFS been used for anything else. It does not take much salt residue to make RODI 350 TDS

How do you define parameters are fine?

Yes I’ve used that Sam container to carry salt water to the tank.

here are my parameters:


Dkh: 8.9
Ph: 8.3
Ca: 480
Mg: 1440
Po4: 0.13 - slowly coming down with the use of agent green
No3: 7.4
No2: 0
Nh3: 0
Temperature: 25.6c
Salanity: 34ppm

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

you can just rinse it out to some RODI water. You must test RODI water in a completely clean container to be accurate. If you leave that same container overnight without a lid , little particles of dust can give you TDS reading

 

[OfficeReefer]

I also recommend getting an RO Buddy or something for your own purposes. It's much more practical typically and will ensure you don't run into this again.

 

[Hannahmunt]

I also recommend getting an RO Buddy or something for your own purposes. It's much more practical typically and will ensure you don't run into this again.

I’m going to get an ro unit, can’t keep going back and forth to shop, especially in this heat as it’s evaporating so quick

 

[KStatefan]

Yes I’ve used that Sam container to carry salt water to the tank.

I would bet that is your problem then. If you want to test the LFS RODI take in a clean container.

 

[Hannahmunt]

Update. I’ve got 50litres of new ro water from fellow reefer down the road. Did a large water change so praying everything sorts it’s self out now.

thank you for all your comments

 

[kevgib67]

Just a thought, your torches on the sand bed look like they are getting blasted with flow. They do better with moderate flow where they are gently swaying. You may want to adjust the flow or move the torches to a place with less flow. I think you will see much more polyp extension.