Sometimes it's all in the water

[Holy_makerel]

I went through a really rough patch with my system. It was upgraded from a 32 biocube over a year ago into a 60 cube with a 16" SB Reeflight and 2 t5 bulbs.

I started having corals decline. It was very slow and there were periods where corals would start to bounce back. Then they would decline just a bit more. Some corals never declined but would be a little retracted. Lost multiple acro colonies, and almost lost many more. This went on for 8 agonizing months.

I tried everything. Replacing all my rodi filters(output was always 0 TDS), switching 2 part, switching salts, taking out and cleaning/inspecting every piece of equipment, stopping dosing and just doing large WC every few days. Switching from using GFO to carbon dosing, kalk, thinking it was maybe metals so i used cuprisorb. All of which I'm sure contributed and compounded the issues i was having. The whole time i always had acceptable perameters. Going by the numbers my tank should have been doing great.

I spent countless hours thinking about what my issue could be and how to correct it.

At about the 8 month mark we decided to do some remodeling of our basement. When i opened up the plumbing wall i found that there had been some serious DIY efforts in the past to expand the plumbing. Including using old black iron pipes from the gas lines that used to heat the house(built in 44). I had recently read a thread from Adam at Battlecorals on R2R about problems people have with tanks and how more times than not its an issue with the water.

I had a hunch that i had found my issue. My RODI filter was setup to pull water through those pipes. About 2 months ago we gutted the plumbing and I'm now sourcing my water from a spot that does not run through those pipes. My tank is finally recovering. Something had been getting past the filter and poisoning my corals. I'll never know what exactly it was but it didn't bother fish.

Hopefully this helps someone out that is having issues because i almost got out of the hobby because of it. Now my only issue has been keeping up with my increasing alk demand!

Here are a few pics of the plumbing i found. The horizontal running pipes were the issues.

A lovely tie in done at some point. I'm amazed it held up so well

Some recent tank shots. You can really tell the ones shot with my DSLR

 

[KrisReef]

"A lovely tie in done at some point. I'm amazed it held up so well"

Yup, I don't think that hidden work was done according to any modern municipal plumbing standard, but it did exceed expectations for service function which ironically kept you from locating this problem sooner.

Those pictures are painful to look at. I imagined a room filled with dust and curse words when that wall came down.

 

[Holy_makerel]

"A lovely tie in done at some point. I'm amazed it held up so well"

Yup, I don't think that hidden work was done according to any modern municipal plumbing standard, but it did exceed expectations for service function which ironically kept you from locating this problem sooner.

Those pictures are painful to look at. I imagined a room filled with dust and curse words when that wall came down.

There was some leakage which caused some mold and the hvac that used to be there was not well sealed so we had frequent mouse problems. Tearing the ceiling down and getting a mouse poop shower surprise was the worst(still makes me shudder) thankfully i was wearing a mask. It will be sealed up like a fortress before i put drywall back up.