I'd set it up at your house, just to make sure it isn't your house itself (as someone else mentioned) isn't causing the problem

I'll see what I can do to test that out. If its a 10g tank I'll still need lighting and a stand, etc. First step will be pricing it out and finding a location to set it up.

Either way if the 180g can't keep SPS, I need it up and running. I have fish that need the space. I doubt the 180g will have the same issue, you know that whole positive thinking stuff and all.

My place is not that big, but do you think just in another room would be sufficient?

If you don't have the material lying around to start up a little frag tank I would only do it as an absolute last resort. With the setting up of your big tank you could use that as your test tank.. If all checks out then you know to avoid moving the contents of the small tank into it. If you fail to keep SPS in the big tank.. well then you didn't loose anything, but your back to square one.

^ Good call.

I wasn't aware that GE puts out a slilcone specifically for aquariums. I've never seen it. I use All-Glass silicone.

I thought I read your entire thread, and I didn't see anything saying that you decided not to move your livestock over. I even went back and looked again. Oh well...not a big deal, at least I don't think so...?

Ya, that's a tough call on the fish, but I think the fish are less likely to transfer "issues" than liverock, sand, clams, and corals. Mainly because fish don't have sand or rock attached to them. Being somewhat paranoid myself though, I would likely move the fish to a quarantine tank just for a few days or a week max to kinda clean themselves off before going into the 180g.

I would say your problems are related to the small size of the tank

And why would say this? I've previously kept a smaller system that was quite successful on its own.

Yeah i'd second that, the size is not an issue. Many, Many incredible sps tanks are smaller.

in skimming over your tank thread, i didnt see if you have a skimmer. do you use one?

also do you not use supplements like trace elements and stront/iodide?

bad things happen quicker in small tanks in my experience. yes there are tons of nice nano tanks but JMO they seem like extra work and headaches.

The tank journal lists the details on the skimmer and my maintenance practices.
- Yes I run a skimmer
- No I don't dose trace elements

Nanos aren't that much of a headache, this one has the same maintenance, if not less then my 300g system I previously kept.

Catherine not sure if you covered this but what are the temp swings in your tank? When acclimating the corals to the light do you place the corals on the sand bed and slowly move them up into place where you want to place them?

OK 1 hour later and I'm caught up on your horror story. WOW this has been going on too long. I commend your efforts.

I'm not sure at this point I would trust your Nitrate monitor. With the algae issues you had it clearly indecated you had an issue. I'm wondering if there is just too much nutrients in the water. I think you have addresses alot of it by checking your TDS out of your RO/DI but what is still in your tank? I'm sorry I might have misses it but are you running Phosphate remover?
I know your running Carbon. Another think I read and wanted to share.
When cleaning your filter socks. I use baking soda it gets them really clean + if there is anything left it will just add alittle temporary ALK boost.

Looking at the pictures of the SPS it appears the biggest symptom of desater is the loss if the slime coat. I resently experienced this and found a combination of low Alk and high SG was the cause.

Sorry I know it's late in the game and I maybe repeating other comments.

J

I experience very little temp swing in the tank itself, throughout the day the tank runs at about 80.3ish, and the lowest it gets to is 79.7. When the MH turn off is when I see the dip below 80.

So here is how I receive and put SPS into my tank;
- float the bag for at least an hour to get a consistent internal temperature
- take SPS out of bag and let it slime up
- Do the TMPCC dip.
- Interceptor bath in a separate system/inspect for AEFW
- Frag into the system

I've tried acclimating them two ways; first just sliming them up and putting them straight into tank water, and the second is slowly acclimating them to the tank water. I find I have a better survival rate overall if I just slime them up then toss them in.

Placement and light acclimation depends on the frag and its previous home. Usually though I place them on the outskirts of the tank, not directly under the MH, and if they flourish there then I leave them, if not they slowly over time get moved towards the center of the tank and under the MH.

As for my test kits, I use both the meters and the chemical version at least once a month to ensure they both balance with each other. I've also had my water tested by two other sources, a store and another reefer. When this first started happening I thought maybe my kits were out or something had happened to them in the move and I replaced them all in December/January.

I used to run GFO when I had hair algae but since its gone I've stopped running it 24 hours a day. It also seems to make my clams happier.

I still run carbon 24/7, I replace it everytime I do a water change, so about every two weeks. Its run a phosban reactor.

I wash my filtersocks in hot water twice to three times. I've never tried the baking soda method. How do you do it? Just put it in with them? Or do you sprinkle it on and let it sit?

As of a few hours ago my dKH reads 10, but its on the cusp of being 11, and my sg is 1.025. Ca is 420, didn't test nitrite or ammonia, and nitrate comes up as undetectable on the meter. I will do a chemical nitrate test to see what happens.

Actually this is the first time anyone, on either board, has mentioned the slime coat! Its progress!

Today when I look at the frags one is still doing fine, good polyp extension. The one that seems immune is a digi with neon green polyps. The cap is looking bleached and has lost some color, and shows 0 polyp extension. The third is a stag and I've moved it out of the direct path of the light after I saw some bleaching on the coralites. The final one is doing nothing, it never really showed any polyp extension when it went into my system, and it has a few tips which may be coloring up, or may be bleaching its hard to tell at this point since the tips are faintly colored. If I didn't know better I would say its growth.

Not everyone wants to sift through the 23 (or so) pages of it though! Yeesh! I skimmed the 23 pages in about 10 minutes, and that was bad enough. :lol:

Have you tried any of these recommendations yet? Any changes?

Actually I'm still gathering data, its only been a day and half since I posted this. I am also still waiting on the delivery of my ORP monitor so I can't do anything until I've decided on a course of action.

Sounds like some of your sps are doing better. I'm no expert and I might be completely off but if things go downhill again I would suggest looking at your lights. Having seen your tank first hand I can say that it allot of lighting for a small tank. If you have an extra halide, or oven a different reflector (one not so good, so pretty much a downgrade) and see what happens. All your other levels and everything seem good so I would investigate the light a bit more.

Maybe I will swap out the reflector for a week, and try that. I only like to try one thing at once though. I guess though doing a reflector swap would give me a week or two in the very least to search out other ideas.

Jason can we discuss the lack of slime a bit more? Are there any other causes?

You should be able to cut PAR without having to change out hardware. Maybe a bit of gauze over a few sections of the reflector?

C,
I have seen the slime coat lose in my own tank. It has occurred with High SG and again with a fist spike of ALK. Basically the coral starts to look dull and there is no polyp extension. I believe it is a recoverable situation as 4 or 5 of my corals have recovered. But others did not. The next stage tends to be tissue lose and growth of algae on the skeleton.
Unlike RTN or even STN the lack of a slime coat (IMO) indicates a slow progression of a stressed coral with 2 outcomes a return to health or death.
I don't think this helps too much with the diagnosis of what is causing it but instead leave us right where we are.
What can be stressing your corals.
We have ruled out measurable water parameters
We have ruled out chemical or other coral attack (usually kills small sections of coral)
We haven't ruled out silicone leaching
We haven't ruled out unmeasurable water parameters (contamination) but you would think it would effect everything

Light sure is a possibility. your running a 150W DE right? what is the UV is not being stopped? That would do it

J

I have another reflector on hand so its a cheap change.

If I were to add gauze or screening over the reflector what should I do? Cover it all, or just parts of it at time?

If its light burn the I assume in a week or two I will start to see darkening of the SPS. Maybe brown out, or just a change in coloration.

I'm running 1x 175w SE XM 15K MH on an icecap ballast inside a luminarc reflector, and 2x 28w actinic PCs on a PFO ballast. I've got my other reflector, a batwing handy so I'll leave my MHs off today, and this afternoon I'll switch out the reflector and try it for a couple of weeks.

How would I go about testing for other contaminants? I contacted AWT in the states and finally got a response, they can't test Canadian water as they can't ship it back to us, and we may have problems getting it to them.

Does anyone know of similar businesses in Canada?

Screening MH light
 

The metal mesh used for door/window bug screens would work, less likely to burst into flames than the gauze...

Regards,
Nevin

Sorry About the mess up with your Lighting. I have not heard a lot of good things about the 14K XM bulbs. Very low Par from what I know. You may be dealing with the revers problem. Not enough light

J

Now that would be odd if I had too little light. I have a 250w bulb and ballast for my 180 that I would consider trying, although I'm really afraid of baking my tank.

I read that about the XM bulbs, this is my last XM bulb, after hearing about the PAR problems i don't want to stick with them. On the other hand though I've been running XMs for awhile now, 400ws on my 230g and 175w on my previous cube, and actually saw a lot of growth and nice colors from them. Still though I'm looking for a new bulb for my 180g project. I'll have to visit Sanay's site to pick out my next bulb choice.

I think I've figured out my next two tests;
1) the light, downgrade the reflector for a couple of weeks. Its a cheap test to run, I don't have to spend any money.
2) ORP and Ozone, first part will be testing my ORP and then from there either purchasing a ozonier or not.

Any other steps anyone can suggest I try?

The XM 175W 15K does have sucky PAR so I think we might be onto something:

http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.c...&Submit=Search

Try an Iwasaki 175W 15K, which has the best PAR out of any 175W bulb on an electronic ballast. For a magnetic ballast, go with the AB 13K.

For the record, XM bulbs vary widely in terms of PAR output. Their 15Ks generally suck regardless of wattage whereas the XM 250 10K is the PAR king.

So I guess this begs the question about what to do now? Do I switch out the reflector and try to continue with my current bulb for a couple or weeks, or do I order a new bulb and try a new bulb with my luminarc reflector?

An update on the four pieces today;
Neon Green Digi - good; polyps out, lots of color on the side that isn't right under the reflector. Less color, and a burnt? tip on the side that is under the reflector. This frag is right on the cusp between being under the reflector and not.
Stag - Still looking bleached on the coralites, no polyps
Acro - Looking more bleached now, and this time on the top. This coral is almost directly under the MH. Still no polyps out.
Cap - Looks a bit more bleached, no polyps.

When I go back and look at my previous SPS test batches I noticed two things; 1) I placed all my SPS on the sides of the tank, and I placed them very low. I never moved them, 2) My MH bulb at the time was much older coming to the end of its lifespan.

Green digis require probably the least amount of light of any SPS IME so perhaps this is why it's still doing OK.

I'd get a new Iwasaki 15K bulb and place a small SPS frag right under it as close as possible to the surface.

The only other thing I can think of that others haven't really mentioned is to try taking out the frogspawn. I had sps in a tank that had frogspawn (as well as many other corals) and the sps started bleaching and the flesh started to fall off. I moved the sps corals to another tank that only had zoos and gsp in it and the sps made a full recovery. I don't really know for sure if the frogspawn was fighting with the sps or not, but if you have another tank the frogspawn could go into, it would be easy to rule it out.

Well the ORP thing is out for a bit longer. I got my mail and the box with the ORP monitor is well crushed. The monitor is cracked. I've called the company and they are dealing with it.

I'm afraid to put any SPS highter, I think they actually are getting burned by my MH. I just turned my lights on for a few minutes to feed my tank, and the way things are looking, it really looks like a burn. I wish I had a camera to post photos with right now.

BTW I called Wendell at OA and he is almost certain that your Silicon is Reef Safe

He sells it on occasion

J

Its the same stuff we got from Bow Valley for our 180g. AI used to sell it when I worked there too.

The batwing reflector is up and running, I'm taking photos before and after of the process, then I'll put my MH on for their 5.5 hour run tonight. I'll post some photos later today. I'll also try to see if I can't get some photos of the SPS.

Some photos after the new reflector was put in

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/P1020572.jpg

A few frag photos
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/P1020581.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/P1020582.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/P1020583.jpg

Tank seems about the same today, its not as bright that is for sure, but none of the SPS have lost any further color between yesterday morning and this afternoon. I still have at least another 6 days to go to see if this works.

Hope it works out for you

Well this final SPS experiment has failed. I was away last night when I cam back this afternoon everything looks horrible. I do not expect anything to last until Wednesday.

digi: some polyp extension, all flesh below has come off
acro: flesh is gone, its a white skeleton with a few pieces of skin
cap: white and dead
stag; some flesh, doesn't appeared to have changed in two days.

Next step is ORP & Ozone. After that this tank will be shut down when my 180g goes online in a month or so.

Anything new?

SPS all died, and this tank is coming down as soon as my next system is ready for livestock. I officially mark this tank as a failure, albeit, a pretty one.

Leave it in place, will make a good qt or hospital tank though. :)

Unfortunately it has to move, it can't stay where it is. The tank has also has developed a leak... I would love to keep it around for QT, its a nice size, but I had other plans for it.