Losing SPS! Help!
- Thread starter AaronRetka
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jaxredsoxfan
Well-Known Member
No temp or salinity swings? If not parameters look pretty good, no chance someone sprayed fabreez or any other such aerosol around the tank?
Rcpilot
Addicted to LPS
Colorado - furnace nearby -- carbon monoxide?
Even though your pH tested normal, have you tested it at night, when your tank lights are out and the furnace is most likely to be on?
Is your sump/skimmer air inlet close to the floor? Do you have a carbon monoxide detector nearby? In the furnace room?
Do you have one of those fresh air ducts in your furnace room? Newer houses or any home with a recently replaced furnace should have at least one 4 or 6 inch round duct thats piped outside -- gives the furnace air to breath so it doesn't starve the surrounding room of o2. A lot of municipal codes require a fresh air "combustion air" pipe for this specifric reason. A fuel burning appliance WILL use all the oxygen in a room if it has no access to fresh air from the outside.
Even though your pH tested normal, have you tested it at night, when your tank lights are out and the furnace is most likely to be on?
Is your sump/skimmer air inlet close to the floor? Do you have a carbon monoxide detector nearby? In the furnace room?
Do you have one of those fresh air ducts in your furnace room? Newer houses or any home with a recently replaced furnace should have at least one 4 or 6 inch round duct thats piped outside -- gives the furnace air to breath so it doesn't starve the surrounding room of o2. A lot of municipal codes require a fresh air "combustion air" pipe for this specifric reason. A fuel burning appliance WILL use all the oxygen in a room if it has no access to fresh air from the outside.
Delfino Delights
New Member
like @MnFish1 asked , the fluctuation of PO4 with the use of GFO could have cause stress on the SPS. Also the introduction of NO3 to ramp up nutrients could have cause harm depending on the type of source of those nutrients being introduced. Do check your RODI water, I had an instance where my RODI system was contaminated by the gardener, sprayed a pesticide near my RODI system . It was hard to detect the contaminant and crashed the aquarium.
+1 on Flippers post #31. just throwing this out there in addition to what others have suggested.
Even though you reduced phosphate slowly in aggregate with gfo over the course of six weeks, you could have fluctuations in po4 within that downward trend that caused hard dips in the po4 along the way. for instance changing out the exhausted po4 and the flow was increased because it was newly added to the canister and so not compacted yet, could more quickly exhaust available po4 temporarily and then as the new cartridge of gfo gets exhausted the po4 levels rise again. unless you are testing po4 a couple of times a day, it would be hard to detect those dips. if the po4 concentration is on the high side then those cycles would occur quicker. a few cycles of that over six weeks is more than enough to nuke many sps. if there are other stressors in play as well, it just compounds the issue.
I saw you also skim and have a refugium, run gfo and run carbon. those are all normal things to do on a reef tank, but it is easy to lose sight of what is really happening with your water composition with so many factors masking levels or artificially and temporarily changing them. the more factors you are employing to manage nutrients the more factors there are to go sideways. I haven't run gfo or carbon in years because, while they can work and do work if employed carefully, ultimately they are not needed and they add another factor of what can go wrong eventually will go wrong. The better solution is to manage nutrient import carefully and know the limits of your tank's capacity for nutrient uptake. if you build that relationship with your tank over time, your tank will get to the point where it can use massive amounts of nutrients and you will be able to feed heavy and have a large bioload, but it normally takes a slow and steady approach to a mature system.
i think at this point i might just do a reset and cut my losses on the colonies that are dying. frag some if you want to try to have them recover, but I would do a good cleaning of your sand bed, a couple of large water changes and then reduce nutrient import, do away with gfo and carbon, lower your light intensity a bit and start finding the balance for feeding, skimming and refugium until your lps are looking really good and then work on sps again.
Even though you reduced phosphate slowly in aggregate with gfo over the course of six weeks, you could have fluctuations in po4 within that downward trend that caused hard dips in the po4 along the way. for instance changing out the exhausted po4 and the flow was increased because it was newly added to the canister and so not compacted yet, could more quickly exhaust available po4 temporarily and then as the new cartridge of gfo gets exhausted the po4 levels rise again. unless you are testing po4 a couple of times a day, it would be hard to detect those dips. if the po4 concentration is on the high side then those cycles would occur quicker. a few cycles of that over six weeks is more than enough to nuke many sps. if there are other stressors in play as well, it just compounds the issue.
I saw you also skim and have a refugium, run gfo and run carbon. those are all normal things to do on a reef tank, but it is easy to lose sight of what is really happening with your water composition with so many factors masking levels or artificially and temporarily changing them. the more factors you are employing to manage nutrients the more factors there are to go sideways. I haven't run gfo or carbon in years because, while they can work and do work if employed carefully, ultimately they are not needed and they add another factor of what can go wrong eventually will go wrong. The better solution is to manage nutrient import carefully and know the limits of your tank's capacity for nutrient uptake. if you build that relationship with your tank over time, your tank will get to the point where it can use massive amounts of nutrients and you will be able to feed heavy and have a large bioload, but it normally takes a slow and steady approach to a mature system.
i think at this point i might just do a reset and cut my losses on the colonies that are dying. frag some if you want to try to have them recover, but I would do a good cleaning of your sand bed, a couple of large water changes and then reduce nutrient import, do away with gfo and carbon, lower your light intensity a bit and start finding the balance for feeding, skimming and refugium until your lps are looking really good and then work on sps again.
