Water changes equals death

[ase0227]

You sure your TDS meter is reading correctly? 32 of of the tap is crazy low.

Edit, glad you figured it out, but you may still want to check into the tds meter

Brand new HM digital meter and I live in MT. WASHINGTON VALLEY so really clean water.

 

[Mickeyt1reef]

If your nitrates are 20 that could be a problem

I keep mine at 15-20

 

[Tamberav]

Alk too high for 0 po4 and carbon dosing with 0 PO4. Seems to me they have every reason to STN and the water change just pushes them over the edge or even has nothing to do with it. Correlation does not equal causation.

Just go back to the basics and don't chase your numbers into the ground.

 

[Rython]

Could your refractometer/meter be reading wrong and what you think is .025 water and it not?

This happened to me. My refractometer calibration solution was way off.. 45ppt. Probably left the lid off a few times...didn't occur to me it would evaporate.

Now after I calibrate I test some RO to make sure the calibration isn't way off.

 

[Justin Aretz]

In my experience, short of a vicious pest or physical trauma, acropora does not die at the time of the “thing” that caused its death. Almost always, I see it take between 1-3 weeks for a (ex. Salinity, lighting, parameter fluctuation) swing to show its effects on these particular genus of corals.

I think the number one thing that is not stressed enough, is that 0 po4 will wreak havoc on an acroporas health. 20ppm nitrate should be completely fine, unless of course you were steadily at 1ppm for the months leading up to your issue.

not sure if this was helpful but I would certainly start dosing some po4 (slowly) and see if you have improvements.

as a side note, I do NOT do water changes in my acropora tanks unless I absolutely need to. In my opinion, water changes create more instability than anything we “think” we are doing to benefit our closed-loop systems. Instead, I replenish my trace elements daily. I find this creates a more stable environment.

 

[MarineREEFpassion]

This has me stumped. Iv been fighting this problem for over a month now and cant for the life of me figure this one out.
I use Brightwell neomarine salt, I dose aminos about twice a week, just a few drops, my tank is just over a year old parameters as follows
Sg 1.026
Nitrate 20
Po4 0.00
Mg 1500
Added magnesium sulfate shooting for 1450 and overshot it but has no correlation with my coral losses
I dose nothing else I use rodi water 0 tds
I make sure the params. Match and the temp matches and I'm only doing extremely small frequent water changes (1 gal a day). I emptied out, cleaned, rinsed and refilled my holding container with fresh new salt water and still like clockwork everytime I do a water change I have an sps coral either stn or rtn shortly after. Anyone have any ideas????

Your po4 is at 0? Corals like some Po 4, and some require it to thrive like Zoa’s and some SPS. Are you using a GFO?

 

[ase0227]

Alk too high for 0 po4 and carbon dosing with 0 PO4. Seems to me they have every reason to STN and the water change just pushes them over the edge or even has nothing to do with it. Correlation does not equal causation.

Just go back to the basics and don't chase your

 

[ase0227]

So, I do thank you and everyone who replied. I do however need to keep this in perspective and place my most pressing issues first. While I realise po4 is important and needs to be addressed I'm kind of thinking of it like this. If my house is on fire, yes I want to know why it burned so fast first I need to put the fire out, then figure out causation and then what exacerbated it. It was in the end quite basic. I calibrated my refractometer with RO water as per the instructions whereas I should have used calibration fluid which I have since done. Suffice to say it was WAY off and with each water change I was raising the salinity more and more since this was a new refractometer several weeks ago. My corals have started looking a bit better and I suspect as I work on getting my po4 up they will do much better. Again thank you