YOUR CURIOUSLY INNOCENT NEGLIGENCE

[tripdad]

Years ago I used treated tap water to great success. It is a bit shocking to see the water quality people receive being so bad.

This has been my biggest frustration, when i used the water from the tap after just filtering it stuff grew really well, bizarre.

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

Ok, I'll start with the basics so we are all on the same page. Tank is 65 gals with a 20 gal sump holding approximately 13 gals. of water. T5 lighting, very thin sand bed, less than 3/4" in places, 1 mp10qd, 2 chinese wavemakers, E-shopps skimmer skimming medium wet. Params are generally rock steady at PH 8.0 -8.2, KH 8.5-9, PO4 .06 - .08, NO3 3.0 -5.0,Temp 78 deg. with controller, 2 part dosing with BRS additives. As stated earlier RO/DI is a Spectrapure unit upgraded to 6 stages, 2 pre-filters, 1 sediment cartridge, 2 carbon blocks and 1 DI. I am on a well, incoming TDS is around 354 ppm , after membrane 4 ppm, after DI 0 ppm. I change at 1 ppm. I flush membrane with a bypass for 1 minute before start collecting water from unit. I dose 1 drop of lugols every other day and 2 drops of AF "V"(vitamins) every third day. I run 1/2 cup gfo and 1/2 cup carbon in a reactor. I also run 1 litre of Siporax in a reactor. 7 fish, fed daily frozen mysis. Mix of corals mostly LPS and SPS. Right now SPS down to 6 pcs. frags and mini colony sized. Tenuis are really hard for me to keep if that helps. I have just this past weekend changed the 2nd carbon block rotating #2 into # 1 slot and new block into #2 spot. DI resin changed 30 days ago approx. Incoming well water contains sulfur and black iron, no chloramines.

Ok awesome man. Thanks for info thats a good help. My very first instinct would be to have you pull the GFO and carbon. But I'd really like to get an idea of what you corals are actually looking like before wee make any actual changes. Would you be comfortable posting pics of some of the questionable coral in this thread? if not if you can send them to me. id really like to get a look at what you have in front of you. One other question and sorry if i missed, how long has the tank been set up?

 

[tripdad]

I will take current pics tonight and I have "before" pics of the same corals. Tank age about 2 years.

 

[Triggreef]

I'm quite amazed at how terrible many people's tap water is. Other than some ammonia, chlorine and silicates, mine is pretty good. I doubt I would notice much if my filter wasn't working.

Years ago I used treated tap water to great success. It is a bit shocking to see the water quality people receive being so bad.

mine only is about 100 tds but there's something definitely not good for corals when i let my rodi filters lay too long. I've done many triton tests and all my problems usually happen when i start setting high zinc or tin. i know my trap water is high in iron so i suspect those two as well. if i let my softener system run out of salt i could fill a bucket of water and it will be orange the next day.

 

[kennedpa]

Ok thats good then. one other thing to cross of the list first before we can really troubleshoot. Are you by any chance using Coarse ARM media in a calcium reactor?

What's wrong with ARM media?!!

My poor tank ...

 

[tripdad]

Ok, Lets try and upload a couple photo's. I'll do the minimum for now, let me know if you need more and thanks for any help offered. This is before, body color gold with green highlights and bright blue growth tips this is now, about 3 mos. later. Body color green,brown with muted blue at tips, PE very reduced. FTS currently, hammers failing to fully open,some sps dead, colors are muddy and dark,coraline has lightened in hue. P.S. the phone does pump up the purple some otherwise fairly close to what I see. Thanks again Adam, hope this helps others.

 

[kennedpa]

What's wrong with ARM media?!!

My poor tank ...

Sorry @Battlecorals I'm using reborn. I don't know why I always mix that up. Any insight on that while we're at it.

 

[Sm51498]

mine only is about 100 tds but there's something definitely not good for corals when i let my rodi filters lay too long. I've done many triton tests and all my problems usually happen when i start setting high zinc or tin. i know my trap water is high in iron so i suspect those two as well. if i let my softener system run out of salt i could fill a bucket of water and it will be orange the next day.

Mine is about the same TDS ~130. Looking at the city's water report, its mostly due to carbonate hardness and decently high silicates. The only thing stopping me from using straight tap water is the highish ammonia reading. Though, I bet an algae scrubber could take care of that.....

Maybe I should attempt an experiment.

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

Sorry @Battlecorals I'm using reborn. I don't know why I always mix that up. Any insight on that while we're at it.

Sure thing. I have, along with a number of other people, discovered almost collectively that there is/ was some unknown pollutant in coarse ARM media that was extremely detrimental.

It was actually durrig a two year head scratcher that was the result of the media that I uprooted the system like I mentioned in the original post.


In that instance it actually was not the water at all. The issues I was experiencing were directly related to the media.

It just took me two years and a ridiculous amount of troubleshooting to determine that. Still don't know exactly what it was but there wirhout a doubt something in or on the media being dissolved and fed back into the tank that killed and stunned 70% of my collection

Once the arm was removed the problem went away almost overnight.

 

[kennedpa]

Sure thing. I have, along with a number of other people, discovered almost collectively that there is/ was some unknown pollutant in coarse ARM media that was extremely detrimental.

It was actually durrig a two year head scratcher that was the result of the media that I uprooted the system like I mentioned in the original post.


In that instance it actually was not the water at all. The issues I was experiencing were directly related to the media.

It just took me two years and a ridiculous amount of troubleshooting to determine that. Still don't know exactly what it was but there wirhout a doubt something in or on the media being dissolved and fed back into the tank that killed and stunned 70% of my collection

Once the arm was removed the problem went away almost overnight.

Interesting. It would likely be informative to run effluent into a collection device for triton analysis with different medias, and as a control the aquarium water feeding the reactor for comparison.

Thanks for the input Adam.

I guess your not mentioning reborn is afirming that it's a great media I have had good luck with it so far. I think.

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

Interesting. It would likely be informative to run effluent into a collection device for triton analysis with different medias, and as a control the aquarium water feeding the reactor for comparison.

Thanks for the input Adam.

I guess your not mentioning reborn is afirming that it's a great media I have had good luck with it so far. I think.

Definitely would be. My issues were long before we had triton testing available unfortunately but I would have been very curious to see what the results would be.


I am using Reborn now and has been many years for what its worth no trouble there but l still rinse it really well and inspect and remove anything that doesn't look like a clean piece of coral skeleton.

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

Ok, Lets try and upload a couple photo's. I'll do the minimum for now, let me know if you need more and thanks for any help offered. This is before, body color gold with green highlights and bright blue growth tips this is now, about 3 mos. later. Body color green,brown with muted blue at tips, PE very reduced. FTS currently, hammers failing to fully open,some sps dead, colors are muddy and dark,coraline has lightened in hue. P.S. the phone does pump up the purple some otherwise fairly close to what I see. Thanks again Adam, hope this helps others.

Thanks a lot Not nearly as bad as I was expecting . the acro colonies don't look too bad but it does look like they still fairly new to the system Is the first pic of the acro, when you first got it then, and has it only been in there for 3 months, and how long has the tank been set up? I'd definitely pull the gfo and carbon for sure for starters.

 

[tripdad]

No, been in tank about 6 mos. First pic is about month 3 1/2. The biggest problem is that since set up 2 years ago I go thru swings of health and coral death. I've lost about 6 sps to some veeerryy slow degradation in health over the last year and a half in this tank. Same scenario in previous tank, months of reasonable health followed by a slide. Never a clear culprit. It's always a very slow turn in either direction. Growth has been slow to nil. I'm just trying to keep them healthy these days. As I said years ago, filtered tap water and not much else they grew like crazy in my old tank. My hammers were a weed back then, same with monti-caps. Now they just languish. Another example Before, 7-8 months ago, beautiful colors, nice violet tips w/white polyps. next photo now, muddy brown, little or no purple in real life, no growth.

 

[fishboy11]

Adam. What are your thoughts/reasoning behind pulling carbon/gfo offline? I don't run gfo anymore, but still run carbon. Would love to hear your experiences.

 

[bubbaque]

Also, what would you do if he starts getting algae from pulling the gfo? What would you do?

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

Adam. What are your thoughts/reasoning behind pulling carbon/gfo offline? I don't run gfo anymore, but still run carbon. Would love to hear your experiences.

I am just not a big fan of either. And maybe I rely on my skimmer too much or take it for granted how well it works but in my experience GFO causes more issues weather subtle or not that it solves, and when trying to zero in on an unknown issue, the more variable we can eliminate the better. Carbon/gfo are always the first thing to go. Often that's all it takes to see a turn around but not every time. Its just further simplifies the system. For me" less stuff" is my creedo and I'm am not convinced in ant way that elevated phos is as detrimental as we have been lewd to think it is. I rant about that here.

As for algae. I don't see a few random tufts as anything too be concerned about. I may be in the minority here, but I actually like a little waving green in my display, but I also rely heavily on my rabbits and hermits to keep the rocks pretty clean. If algae becomes a big problem and a rabbit's not an option then we'll have to address it then.

 

[Brew12]

in my experience GFO causes more issues

Exactly this. :mad: I wiped out my first Battlebox worth of coral by adding too much GFO too quickly. Shocked then starved the coral.

Lesson learned.

 

[swk]

My system is very nutrient rich and I have very little algae. Only a few snails and zero hermits. My main CUC?

Urchin
Foxface
Bristletooth and scopas tang
Algae blenny

I actually have to add nori to feed them all. Nitrates 15 po4 .13-.2

 

[tripdad]

Carbon and GFO removed.

 

[tripdad]

One more post for information's sake. Skimmer cup was cleaned on Sunday, pic on Tuesday.