SPS bad luck Sunday... Any advice would be great!

[Zechirian]

Ok well it all started last week on Wednesday when i had a Neptune WAV error out which required an update from Neptune to fix. Upon the fix i had accidentally left the pump in question in an inverse mode while testing. Forgetting about that it spun up to 100% and caused sandstorm on the right side of my tank.

My sand is only about 1.5" deep so it's not too bad but it moved quite a bit of it. Needless to say i was bracing for some kind of mini cycle because of the disturbance.

On top of it all i had 25 sticks coming in from AquaSD on Sunday.... talk about anxiety!

One of my biggest acro's fell into a huge hammer coral, was probably in there for 2 hours, pulled him out but came home today to find that one of the branches had got RTN.

My second largest sps, a type of mili, started to grow brown on it's tips... i believe it was a byproduct of the mini cycle that had started.

So today i fragged a piece of the Acro and removed the rest of the RTN'd branch, hoping i got enough of it, but i'll be keeping an extremely close eye on it come tomorrow.

The mili was a little rougher as all of it's tips were brown, so i proceeded to snip off every tip, roughly 40+. Taking about 5mm off each one.

My question is, should I be in the clear? I could frag the milli some more if i need to and the Acro as well.

First time going through the RTN phase on big pieces.

My water parameters are:
PO4 - .07
NO3 - .15
CA - 420
ALK - 7.9
MAG - 1490 (was raised to help with GHA and now coming down naturally)

Thanks!

 

[jasonandsarah]

Sounds like you've done what you can for now. Kinda surprised you got burnt tips from a mini cycle. Only thing I'd of done is waited to snip the tips of the milli until whatevers going on is back in check. You can very easily end up having to cut them again if whatever caused it is still present and causes them to brown again.
Mind me asking what the Wav error was? I also have the Wav's so I'm just curious.

 

[RalphsReef]

I would see if ASD could hold off on your shipment until you get things squared away.

 

[Zechirian]

The ASD shipment showed up Saturday and we noticed this stuff really happening Sunday. This morning it looks like the frag i made is going to make it but the rest of the colony is 90% skeleton now.

Also for the WAV error, my left pump was stuck in a mode that thought it was out of water, so ever 5 seconds it would do a pulse and then nothing. In Fusion it was reporting it was on at 33% and would never move.

I think it was just bad timing with the sand storm kicking stuff up and then that acro falling into the hammer for a couple of hours. Too much stress. On top of that my hanna CA tester seems to be on the fritz reporting increased CA even after no dosing for a solid week. I guess when things go wrong they go really wrong and i should be able to get a degree in bad luck this week hahah.

Other than that, every other SPS, LPS and new frags from ASD are doing really well. Dah well... gotta love playing the SPS game eh?

 

[Zechirian]

Ok... i'm done with hanna checkers for now i will be using Salifert. Just did some more tests and here we go.

No3 - 2.5
CA - 370
Mag - 1350
Alk - 11.5 DKH!!!!!

So my hanna checkers were showing CA at 440-490 and ALK at 7.9. I think i've found my culprit. A mini cycle and really high DKH. Melon Farmer!!!!!

 

[jasonandsarah]

Ok... i'm done with hanna checkers for now i will be using Salifert. Just did some more tests and here we go.

No3 - 2.5
CA - 370
Mag - 1350
Alk - 11.5 DKH!!!!!

So my hanna checkers were showing CA at 440-490 and ALK at 7.9. I think i've found my culprit. A mini cycle and really high DKH. Melon Farmer!!!!!

That's really weird the Alk checker is off? That's probably the most popular and trusted Hanna checker there is. I think you've inspired me to go double test my tank right now.

 

[BryanS4]

That's really weird the Alk checker is off? That's probably the most popular and trusted Hanna checker there is. I think you've inspired me to go double test my tank right now.

It's actually not surprising at all. Check out this thread. A bunch of bad reagents going around these days. I had a few bottles that tested really low. Be carful guys. I use three different tests now for comparasion purposes.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/hanna-alk-reagent-issues.210716/

 

[Zechirian]

Yeah no more relying on one expensive test kit. I'll now be checking between API, Salifert and Hanna once a month but mainly going with Salifert.

Darn the plan....

 

[jcdeng]

hanna cal checker is known to give higher than actual numbers. the RTN might be from alk, alk and cal have an inverse relationship so if the cal is low your alk will be higher.

 

[SifuMemphis]

Yeah no more relying on one expensive test kit. I'll now be checking between API, Salifert and Hanna once a month but mainly going with Salifert.

Darn the plan....

I actually rely on Salifert only, and I have a Hanna Alk checker as a "backup" spot check. Normally they are within range of one another. Always nice to have 2 alk checkers to compare against.