SPS dying
- Thread starter clownnut
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i have been using AB+ since day 1, if that's the case not sure what change.
i have stop AB+ along with reef roid, 1 week ago. so far, the sps that remain still getting worse as we speak.
i am slowly eliminating things that goes into the tank.
tgrick
Well-Known Member
I'm in South Florida. A few months ago I received a letter from Water/Sewer letting people know that they were goin to flush and clean the system with more chlorine etc. Could this have taken place with you? Also, being in an area of high chorine I run the BRS Chloramine Monster BEFORE it hits the RODI system. Just food for thought.
A big thanks to everyone's inputs, i greatly appreciate them! that includes mellotang, even i dont agreed with most of the stuff he said. He did one way or another push me toward the road to find one of the issue, hopefully that will turn out be THE issue.
Never Assume, it makes an butt out of myself in this case.
The input after the membrane is 2, check with 2 meters, hand held and inline. after the DI is zero, also test by 2 meters, hand held and inline. same as always. when i did the reset, i empty both RO/DI and salt mix drums, i check TDS of the RO/DI drum, it was like 5.
I setup a solenoid to turn on my ro/di unit every 2 days for 4 hours.
The reason to do that is to limit the initial burst of the high TDS water when the unit just turn on, my RO/DI drum feed my top off container. tunze ATO is extremely sensitive, even remove 1/2 cup of water it will turn on. the solenoid limit the extra TDS going through. yes i have 2 DI chambers with my RO/DI unit, i change them out when the 2nd chamber got down to half. i guess that will change now.
After digging through my stock pile of carbon blocks. i found a few matrikx blocks. so i turn off the solenoid and unscrew the sediment filter housing, well, the water wont stop coming out after i loosen the house. as soon as that happen i already knew what one of my issue is.
I test my water in the RO/DI drum, my house tap is about 230, my ro/di bucket is 200.
the solenoid must fail right after the reset, because i turn off the solenoid to change out all the filters each and every time.
well, a few lessons learned here.
1. Don't ever assume. lol
2. Find a better solenoid, it should have fail close, but not in this case.
3. Need a better plan to deal with RO/DI on/off.
Never Assume, it makes an butt out of myself in this case.
The input after the membrane is 2, check with 2 meters, hand held and inline. after the DI is zero, also test by 2 meters, hand held and inline. same as always. when i did the reset, i empty both RO/DI and salt mix drums, i check TDS of the RO/DI drum, it was like 5.
I setup a solenoid to turn on my ro/di unit every 2 days for 4 hours.
The reason to do that is to limit the initial burst of the high TDS water when the unit just turn on, my RO/DI drum feed my top off container. tunze ATO is extremely sensitive, even remove 1/2 cup of water it will turn on. the solenoid limit the extra TDS going through. yes i have 2 DI chambers with my RO/DI unit, i change them out when the 2nd chamber got down to half. i guess that will change now.
After digging through my stock pile of carbon blocks. i found a few matrikx blocks. so i turn off the solenoid and unscrew the sediment filter housing, well, the water wont stop coming out after i loosen the house. as soon as that happen i already knew what one of my issue is.
I test my water in the RO/DI drum, my house tap is about 230, my ro/di bucket is 200.
the solenoid must fail right after the reset, because i turn off the solenoid to change out all the filters each and every time.
well, a few lessons learned here.
1. Don't ever assume. lol
2. Find a better solenoid, it should have fail close, but not in this case.
3. Need a better plan to deal with RO/DI on/off.
drawman
2500 Club Member
I did something similar and installed a big blue housing for a chloramine carbon block before the membrane. Very happy with that decision.
Also Li, if you're looking for microbial diversity see if you can add rock from an established SPS system. If your RODI unit fix doesn't do it that may be a good next step.
Janet Belanger
Active Member
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While I believe its possible its your RODI, I also think we share some things in common. SPS STN from bottom up, dino outbreak, and black bucket red sea salt. I lost all my SPS (years worth of growth) during my dino outbreak, and after dinos disappeared many of my LPS melted away. Now I can't keep commonly kept/easy SPS. Zoa seem happy as do fish, rockflower nems, crustaceans, and coraline of many colors.
Im suspicious of the salt because it leaves what appears to be black mold or mildew in the bottom of my saltwater container and frothy slime on top of the water if I leave it for a week with a small powerhead in a brute. Red Sea advised me not to mix up salt water days in advance, but my gut says this is no bueno.
If I find a solve for mine, I'll report back.
pH: 8.25
Alk: 9
Ca: 350
Mg: 1450
NO3: undetectable (I dose a tiny amount of NO3 to keep dinos away, but not brave enough to bring it up because I believe stability is more important)
PO4: 0.08
Inline RO test 2 TDS in after pre-filter and carbon, 0 out.
Im suspicious of the salt because it leaves what appears to be black mold or mildew in the bottom of my saltwater container and frothy slime on top of the water if I leave it for a week with a small powerhead in a brute. Red Sea advised me not to mix up salt water days in advance, but my gut says this is no bueno.
If I find a solve for mine, I'll report back.
pH: 8.25
Alk: 9
Ca: 350
Mg: 1450
NO3: undetectable (I dose a tiny amount of NO3 to keep dinos away, but not brave enough to bring it up because I believe stability is more important)
PO4: 0.08
Inline RO test 2 TDS in after pre-filter and carbon, 0 out.
Chloramine has been one of the "bad guys" mentioned by many posters in this thread. Chloramine is not an ion - it will not be detected by a TDS meter. TDS meters is basically a conductivity meter - it simply measures the ionic strength and translate this to ppm total dissolved solids. According to ppm TDS - you could have 1000 or 0 ppm - but you still not know your content of chloramine - it just not detect that. You have done IPC tests and they says - as I understand - that harmful metals is absent. What i think you are saying is that your RO/DI unit has been running 7/24 - do you have an emergency drainage at your RO/DI drum?
As the last poster - I would change from the black bucket (pro salt) to the blue bucket instead.
Sincerely Lasse
i am using one universal block(1micron) and one matrikx block(1micron) now, just in case water supply does contains chloramine and change out every 2 months instead of 6.
when i said 24/7, i mean the water supply to the RO/DI unit is open. i have float valve in the RO/DI drum to stop the RO/DI unit running once the water reach the spot.
but everytime the ATO top off, it will drop the level in my ATO container and RO/DI drum and cause the RO/DI unit to run and let high TDS water into the drum. that's why the water within the drum TDS was 200.
after i drain all the water out of the RO/DI drum, the newly make RO/DI water TDS is 3 now. Checking the TDS within the RO/DI drum is part of the water change process now, to ensure dont happen again.
I will switch once i am done with all the black bucket i have, IDing the high TDS in my RO/DI drum is good, but i cant be for sure know this is THE casue, so i only want to change 1 variable at a time to see if thing start to turn around. otherwise i will have to start the whole process again to eliminate equipment one at a time to find the cause.
Sounds like your DI is doing nothin.
oh man sorry to hear.
i only mixed salt 24 hrs before i do water change.
i dont have any on top of the newly mixed salt, i dont know at the bottom. i have use IO for years, the build up of the anticaking agent is completely covered the bottom and the side. lol, i need to clean out the drum this summer.
dino sucks, i ended up reset and add a UV after the reset. i took the UV off line after i started to having issue, i will put the UV back online when i change out my sump. i do think the water is more clear when i use the UV.
yeah just check the RO/DI bucket once awhile make sure it within range.
did you ever did an ICP test?
Like you, I had issues unexplained, racked my brain, killed tons of frags, and documented in my old build thread. I couldn't keep ANY sps. I started dosing a Probiotic bacteria, and wala, started having success. My rock, while dead rock originally, was at 2 years wet when I started with bacteria, as fyi. There is a great thread about bacteria being a missing component in some tanks who struggle to keep sps alive. Worth a shot... no pun intended, lol...
Hope you get things on track, fingers crossed for you
Hope you get things on track, fingers crossed for you
the DI is doing something, when you just turn on your RO/DI, your TDS will be high, in my case is about 85 before DI, if i have 2 full chambers of DI, i think it should bring it down to zero, but i let the 2nd chamber of the DI get down to half before i change them all out, that's letting 40 TDS water getting through.
the reason doing that was when i was in school, i dont check it as often. i change my plan from when the 2nd chamber start to change color to 2nd chamber get down to 1/2. i didnt change back after i am done with school, which is mistake #1.
I did, when i did the reset, i started the tank with microbac 7 and continues to use microbac 7 until 2 months into the tank cycle.Like you, I had issues unexplained, racked my brain, killed tons of frags, and documented in my old build thread. I couldn't keep ANY sps. I started dosing a Probiotic bacteria, and wala, started having success. My rock, while dead rock originally, was at 2 years wet when I started with bacteria, as fyi. There is a great thread about bacteria being a missing component in some tanks who struggle to keep sps alive. Worth a shot... no pun intended, lol...
Hope you get things on track, fingers crossed for you
which bacteria did you use? sorry, kinda out of the loop for the past few years due to school.
are you still dosing bacteria periodically?
You not got a bypass valve to flush the TDS creep?
I used AF Probiotic bacteria, I haved used nearly all. I also hear good things of PNS as well. I still use to this day, I believe it helps keeping nuisance algaes at bay. Corals seem to love it with full pe post dose. I suspended their carbon source, as I dose P04 and N03. I use the bacteria to outcompete nuisance, giving corals access to biomass before skimmer removes excess.
here's a full tank shot before **** start to go south, i added about 6 more dispar anthias. the group is at 12 now.
i want to add a few more sunburst anthias, the one i got is kinda lonely. i already have a 2" regal finish QT waitting to be added to the display.
I dont, since i have the RO/DI unit on apex, it turn on every 2 day for 4 hrs, i will be at work most of the time.
i will use a little more DI this way, but i am more hand off.
i will have to do some testing see if one full chamber is enough to bring the TDS creep down to zero if not i will have to find a way to flush the TDS creep automatically or add more DI chambers.
Spare time
10K Club member
Keep dosing the reef energy daily. 0 nitrates is something that could affect all of the corals at once. There is a reason ulns are not popular anymore. If you need to dose nitrate then so be it. 0 nitrate is the most obvious issue. Yes, corals can live with that but they need heavy feeding daily if not multiple times a day. Turn the skimmer off or put it on a timer. I managed 0 nitrate and I believe it's because I heavily feed the tank and corals daily
