Need Ideas

Saltgator · Apr 29, 2013

Since roughly the begging of September of last year, my DT hasn't been right. The 1st issue was a ALK drop (clogged dosing line). This became resolved, but while I was in the process of balancing it back out, HA took over. I added bio pellets and a small fuge(5g on my 240. Yes not much, but some assistance and food source) to the mix to start stripping the water of all my extra nutrients. With all the HA, I never tested because I expected the HA to be sucking up all the correct numbers. The HA was thinned out via manual removal, tangs, and turbo snails. I finally beat the HA about 2 months ago and haven't seen it back,yet.

Over the period between Oct and now, I can't for the life of me figure out what is going on. About 75% of my sps either do not grow or RTN. The other 25% are fine. About 90% of my lps (very few) will not open completely. Soft corals have taken off (gsp, xenia, shrooms, and yumas), but my small colony of button polyps refuse to open all the way, yet yellow button polyps are fully open. My ritteri nem expands fully and refuses to move, but has it's mouth protruding. It's fully closed, super sticky and takes food in, butt this is a sure sign of stress.

I've believed lately that my issue was PO4 within my tropic eden subtrate, so I have been removing it with each WC and added just over a cup of GFO (my DT calls for a bit more so I shot low to start up). My PO4 reads .05, but that could be off due to PO4 in the DT. I've also taken my feedings to every other day to assist. This small process has been going on for about a month. Without any positive signs from the above 3 methods, I removed my bio pellets from the system. I don't believe they were working properly and could have been causing a negative (just guessing) impact on my system. Since Oct, they have barely reduced at all, so I simply pulled them.

So now after a week and a half of no BP plus the 1+ month of gfo and WC with subtrate removal, still no signs of improvements. I had a buddy come over to pick up some supplies for his DT and we began talking about my H2O source. I live on a well with a softner, but pull on my DT water from my RO/DI. My RO/DI is currently reading 0 tds for those reading and all media/filters were changed just 2 months ago. Come to find out while looking at my H2O, my softner wasn't even running. With it not running, my buddy suggested that it may be introducing bacteria into the DT. Great if so!!!!!

Without knowing what the world is causing my issues and numbers that could lie because of this or that, I added a Poly filter to see what color it becomes to help figure out if it's organic or iron or copper or ??????? Thoughts????? Ideas????? Comments????? Start over??????

Salinity 1.026
ALK 10 (was 8.5 with bio pellets, but allowed to raise after their removal)
CAL 480
PO4 .05
Nitrate 0
Mag 1400
Salt is Red Sea Pro
Lights are Reef Breeders value fixtures
Skimmer is a SWC 240

Reefing Madness · Apr 29, 2013

K, only thing that may be hidden from view that i've seen mess up a tank, are you using poewr heads with magnets? Have you looked to see if the casing holding the magnets in place has cracked and water is getting to them.
Next, I'd be running the crap out of Chemipure or GAC if I thought it was copper or iron or something of that nature. That'll remove it.

Saltgator · Apr 29, 2013

Reefing Madness said:
K, only thing that may be hidden from view that i've seen mess up a tank, are you using poewr heads with magnets? Have you looked to see if the casing holding the magnets in place has cracked and water is getting to them.
Next, I'd be running the crap out of Chemipure or GAC if I thought it was copper or iron or something of that nature. That'll remove it.

Yesterday I briefly searched throughout the sump and DT for any signs of rust coming from wherever, but I'll look at the powerheads. I've been running Chemipure for over a month with no changes yet. I appreciate the reply and assistance.

Saltgator · Apr 29, 2013

Possibly add a UV? Maybe go back to MH??? I'm at the point of trying just about anything.

Country Boy using tapatalk on his EVO

Reefing Madness · Apr 29, 2013

Could do that, If it ain't broke, well you know. But if the Halides were working, you could throw them back on. I had to do the same thing with mine. The LEDs I got didn't do the trick, don't know why, but threw the Halides back on. The UV would just streilize foating bacteria and parasites that happened into there, Im not a fan of them, but hey, why not, it cna' thurt at this point.

Saltgator · Apr 29, 2013

Reefing Madness said:
Could do that, If it ain't broke, well you know. But if the Halides were working, you could throw them back on. I had to do the same thing with mine. The LEDs I got didn't do the trick, don't know why, but threw the Halides back on. The UV would just streilize foating bacteria and parasites that happened into there, Im not a fan of them, but hey, why not, it cna' thurt at this point.

I appreciate it. I can't imagine blaming it on my LEDs, especially since others have no issues with the same kind, but it's a consideration.

Added a couple cell pics just cause.

This hammer use to be almost double this size.

Button polyps not happy.

Country Boy using tapatalk on his EVO

Eric B · Apr 29, 2013

I am only shooting in the dark here:
When you said you changed out the RO/DI cartridges did you change out the DI resin as this is a shot in the dark but had a friend whose stuff was slowly melting away and it was actually the DI resin leaching stuff back into the water. His TDS meter was reading zero and HA algae started taking over his tank and stuff was RTN'ing and that was the only thing not changed.
Also I would probably take a water sample and have tested at a local fish store just to compare readings just to confirm the numbers. I would also do some major water changes over the next week or so and maybe also change salt brands for these new water changes. Maybe you got a batch that was off from normal red sea brand salt. These are all just shots in the dark but hope you find the problem soon....