Tanks dying. Please help icp is in

[Thingsibuild]

I only use vinegar to clean around tank. No sprays used around the house.
Also nothing in the house has changed.
Must be getting in thru rodi.
I use calibration fluid on my refractometer. All fish and inverts are doing great.

 

[BestMomEver]

@Thingsibuild, I wish I could help but I can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been touched on. Sounds like you’re getting good advice. I can only offer my support. I’m in NW Mobile County if you need anything. I’ll try to help.

 

[Thingsibuild]

Thank you everyone. I'm going start changing ten gallons a day while trying to keep my nutrients up safely.
New filters come Friday.

 

[ScottR]

Please post pics when your lights are back on.

 

[laverda]

Have you checked for stray voltage in the tank? I had a similar thing happening for months and could not figure out what the cause was. All my leathers that I had for years were not open and dying. None of my corals were doing well. I lost what was a 14”+ yellow Fuji leather and some very large plating sponges that again I had for years. Turns out one of my heaters had a seal failure and the insides were loose and full of water. Everything inside the tube was black stinky mess. The day after I found and removed the defective heater my serving leathers had polyp extension for the first time in months. It was a flash of light from the heater when it came on that alerted me to examine it. I consider myself lucky I never got zapped when it came on. I no longer submerge any of my heaters completely even though the say you can. Examine all you electrical components that touch water closely.

 

[ScottR]

Have you checked for stray voltage in the tank? I had a similar thing happening for months and could not figure out what the cause was. All my leathers that I had for years were not open and dying. None of my corals were doing well. I lost what was a 14”+ yellow Fuji leather and some very large plating sponges that again I had for years. Turns out one of my heaters had a seal failure and the insides were loose and full of water. Everything inside the tube was black stinky mess. The day after I found and removed the defective heater my serving leathers had polyp extension for the first time in months. It was a flash of light from the heater when it came on that alerted me to examine it. I consider myself lucky I never got zapped when it came on. I no longer submerge any of my heaters completely even though the say you can. Examine all you electrical components that touch water closely.

I’ve heard about this. People losing fish slowly over time. That’s something to check for. I recall someone saying they felt a tiny shock when sticking fingers in aquarium. This can be solved by getting a ground probe ($15). Do you have fish? How are they?

 

[laverda]

I had a ground probe in my tank when my heater failed. That did not stop it from killing my corals and sponges. It may be why I never got shocked, or I may have just not had my hands in the tank when the heater came on at night.

 

[Christoph]

Hello!

if this company is reliable (some results seem a bit strange....) the values for chromium and cobalt are elevated, indicating a corrosion issue in your tank. You should inspect all magnets, pumps, electrical equipment etc carefully for corrosion and replace faulty equipment. Do you have any metal objects touching the water?

Also your Phosphorus is elevated (0.25 mg/l phosphorus would correspond to ~0,75 mg/l Phosphate which is way too much for stony corals.) If the value is ccorrect, i would recommend careful use of GFO to bring down phosphates slowly over the course of several weeks.

Best,
Christoph

 

[Lasse]

tripple post

 

[Lasse]

Tripple post

 

[Lasse]

There is some problems with this test. All figures are given in ppm and if you compare with TRITON – they give some as mg/l (around the same in ppm) and in microgram/l (around the same in ppt). In the table below – I have done a translation and compare your result with my own. There is -IMO – some figures of concern – marked red in my table, probably concern – marked brown yellow and maybe – marked yellow

La – lanthanum – have you used any liquid phosphate remover? - otherwise is the figure questionable. The tin (Sn) concentration is very high IMO.

I would send a test to TRITON because some of the figures here looks strange


Sincerely Lasse

 

[ScottR]

There is some problems with this test. All figures are given in ppm and if you compare with TRITON – they give some as mg/l (around the same in ppm) and in microgram/l (around the same in ppt). In the table below – I have done a translation and compare your result with my own. There is -IMO – some figures of concern – marked red in my table, probably concern – marked brown yellow and maybe – marked yellow

La – lanthanum – have you used any liquid phosphate remover? - otherwise is the figure questionable. The tin (Sn) concentration is very high IMO.

I would send a test to TRITON because some of the figures here looks strange


Sincerely Lasse

This was extremely nice of you to go through this trouble to help the OP. This hobby is the greatest group of folk.

 

[MrPike]

I run an aquarium maintenance company so at any given time I'm deling with symptoms similar to yours. Few things that have been issues in the past are inaccurate calibration solutions(one bulkreefsupply brand/brightwell) was at 32 ppt instead of 35ppt as stated, all test kits by api, nearly all hanna checkers are crap, exception being the ulr p04. Thermometers, even the sealed glass ones with steel Bb's have been 3-4 degrees different from eachother. The only solution I have found is multiple calibration solutions from different manufacturers, multiple thermometers.

At the end of the day, sometimes I just tear into the tanks with a gravel vac and a 50% water change making sure to move around large rock structures that trap a lot of debris. Amazingly there are tanks with sand that is pure black/brown for an hour that measure 0 p04, 0 n03, and just absolutely filthy. Only symptoms that the tank sucks are dying coral.

 

[Thingsibuild]

Lasse, thank you for doing that. I'm will send another test after I do some water changes. I was think of ati test because they do rodi also.
I have checked for stray voltage.
I think lots of water changes are my future.
What's a safe way to keep my n03/n04 up while doing it?

 

[Lasse]

the values for chromium and cobalt are elevated, indicating a corrosion issue in your tank. You should inspect all magnets, pumps, electrical equipment etc carefully for corrosion and replace faulty equipment. Do you have any metal objects touching the water?

@Thingsibuild - do not miss this

Have you used a liquid phosphorus eliminator?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Lasse]

In order to hold up a disent level of NO3 you can use salpeter (KNO3) or Chile salpeter (NaNO3) from the spice shelf in your grocery store. If you take 40 grams in a bottle - fill it up to 500 ml (half a litre). 1 ml of this solution will rise 100 litre of tank water with around 0.5 ppm NO3 8its around - not rocket science . You have to tranlate into your way of caculate by yourself you can also order NaNO3 or KNO3 from an online source

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Thingsibuild]

I think with water changes the phosphate should lower. I do have liquid phosphate remover.
I'll do the saltpeter thing to keep my n03 up.
Thanks again.

 

[Thingsibuild]

Also I found rusted magnet when this all started. But I changed a bunch of water nothing happened. I think I just needed more it's hard to tell how much to change.
I didn't want to clean crash my tank. For a long time I was fighting not having n03/n04.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

BTW - Do not use potassium nitrate to dose nitrate. Unless your goal is to raise potassium levels and your'e testing for it, there is a strong possibility of overdosing potassium (obviously, depending on how much you're dosing), and too much potassium is known to adversely affect SPS. Instead, use sodium nitrate (so-called "Chile saltpeter" because there's large deposits in Chile), as it is extremely unlikely that you can significantly overdose sodium.

Sodium nitrate is a food additive, and is readily available on Amazon.

 

[Thingsibuild]

I had some sodium nitrate at work. Little round white ball's.

 

[MnFish1]

I had some sodium nitrate at work. Little round white ball's.

Would you think perhaps some of the chemicals in your ICP test may be playing a more significant role than nitrate? especially considering your magnet?