Last I checked, it was 2. And with the crap I see in the prefilter, I'll keep using RO :)

SPS Growth Puzzle
 

I get a reading of 2 after my membrane and a reading of 0 after my di stage. It's suprising how temperature sensitive your membrane is.


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Now that just don't ,make sence seeing that corals have little algae that live inside them and convert light energy into food for the coral. the only food that went into my tank for 7 years was fish food and it was a very heavily skimmed, bare bottom tank. so basicly a very low nutrent high light envioirment. I think all these "coral additives" are just a get rich quick scam myself, but hey its your money.

Ok, so Ca is fine, not low, for some reason people think you need over 400 Ca in this hobby which isn't true. once you get over 420 you actualy start slowing down coral growth.

Brad, borrow a Mg test kit off some one and test your damn Mg. also what are you Nitrates/nitrites and phosphates. the later two will stop groth in a heart beat if they have a little to much

Steve

Do you have access to another system? Have you tried taking a frag out to a new system and see how it does?

I've given some frags to Tyler W. as well as have frags from others that he also has, so I'll check with him. But I suspect they're doing fine. Frags from Snappy are doing well in other tanks locally, just not mine.

Any stray voltage?

Not that I can feel with my hand :)

try it by holding the return line with your left hand, stand on your right foot, and stick your tongue in the water.:wink:

Like I could pull that off without falling in!!

Or like me, put your head close to the halide reflector and then stick your hand in the water and see if an arc forms between your forehead and the reflector. :rofl:

And as I cant keep acro,s alive, I have no advice on why they dont grow. They grew fine in my 90g with a pair of 250,s but not with T-5,s. However when I was laid up, the frags I had kept were in my 20g with cheap T-5,s and all though browned out, grew well. I,m assuming because the nutrients levels were increased, from the lack of filtration, {no skimmer}.

I have done things the same and had failure and visa versa. So who the hell knows. Many who have lost their sps, seem to have absolutely no explanation for it. You seem to be doing the exact same as before, but must be some little thing thats not the same, that affects the growth of your corals. Esp. with someone of your experience.

Hey Brad, I recently added more fish and started dosing MG every once in a while. I've really noticed growth take off and pigments deepen in the last 2-3 months.. When was the last time you checked MG? I have a test kit if you'd like me to bring it over some time.. I know it's one of the more expensive ones..

I agree with divided I started to add more Magnesium and the SPS when I had them were growing fast.

I kept my mag at 1450

Ok, update and observations..

pH - 8.0
Mg - 1350ish
NO3 - non detectable
PO4 - 0.04
Ca - 450
Alk - 4.0

Ca and Alk are a touch high, but not enough to affect things and in fact are the values I used for years with great growth.

I notice that I have to clean precipitate from my pumps and power heads every 3 months. Any loose sand in my sump is solidified. Even my mesh bag with 1c of carbon had solidified.
Something is whacked with the chemistry in the tank, and not sure what.

Anyone have any experience with precipitation? I've added a small tray of sand to my sump to see if and how long it takes to solidify.

My previous sandbed turned into a slab of concrete that I removed in large sheets, some I couldn't even break up by hand.
WhenI ran a phosban reactor, even that media solidified.

Hate this freakin' tank!!

I had a problem with sandbed clumping a many years ago when I was using kalkwasser. What reading I did indicated it was either precipitation or high levels of bacteria aggregating the sand together. I stopped using the kalk and broke up the sandbed, I don't remember where it went from there though as I likely had other issues at the time. There is a "test" for this by which you put a clump of sand in bleach. If it falls apart its bacteria, if not its precipitation.

I find it odd that every type of media clumps though, something odd is definitely going on in there.

I'm just working my way through this, maybe have a look and see if anything fits?

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1864522

Christy, I did the bleach test 2 years ago, it didn't break up at all. I could tell it wasn't a bacterial matrix holding it together, I could drop it and the slab wouldn't break :)
I have to scrap the inside of my sump walls, and even the PVC parts of my zeo reactor were completely white. Pretty sure this has something to do with the growth problem, just not sure what...

I used kalk for a while last year, then stopped and put my Ca reactor back online, no change. Not even sure where to look anymore. I had to just post on that "other" site for help :)

I noticed when I ran co2 24/7 my sand bed would solidify. Read somewere that mg has to be a minimum of 1300 or the corals can't use up the calcium as the proper chemical ratio is required for this to take place.With your calcium on the high side maybe try bumping up your mg a bit. I've run mg as high as 1500 and alk at 11 and had the best growth. Your alk is way to low.

The CO2 only got added after the first year.

Your alk is way too low.

Not if he's reporting it in meq/L

Right. Which puts it a bit on the high side :)

Nooooooooooo. Say its not so Brad. :lol:

My experience with precipitate,

When I lived in the country, on well water and had my large tanks, I had really bad precipitate. And my sps never grew, as a matter of fact they ended up bleaching, which I blamed on my 400w Radiums.

That had to do with mixing the IO salt wrong and if you remember the problem they had with high alk. That combined with the high alk. in my well water, which I never measured until it was to late.

Also the combination I use with my IO salt now, by mixing in an app. amount of magnesium and a little calcium, prevents any precip. as well as brings the water up to proper levels.

Not sure what you can take from all that, as I believe you use a different salt but the reference to adding some magnesium perhaps??? Although your level seems fine.

I had stupid precipitation everywhere in my 225g. Tank, pumps, you name it. I have not had any since. At that house I used ro BUT not DI behind it, which would have helped my alkalinity problem.

Since adding magnesium to my salt mix for water changes, I have never had a spot of precipitate. Not to mention I also run DI to but on city water in which the alk. is not bad anyways.

Hope something in there may help. :noidea:

Doug, it's ridiculous!! My streams actually lock up every 3 months from it. I'm actually thinking of trying tap water, just to remove the RO unit out of the equation! My corals are doing well, color wise, just not actually growing much. I get some, but jeez, compared to what I used to get, it's getting silly.

Are you using a Salifert alk test kit?

Yes, my streams were bad there also. I had to clean the precip. from them on a regular basis. Esp. around that bushing. Rodger told me to run my calcium lower but I assume then it was the combination of all the mention problems.

yes, 2 different kits..

I heard some people had issues with Salifert Alk test kits.

Possibly, but 2 kits gave the same reading, and I can't see them being more than 10% off either direction, neither case would give me these (non) results in growth. However, the current alk is a bit higher than usual, just because I haven't watched it. It's typicaly been about 20% lower, Ca has generally been no higher than 400, so it too is a bit high now, but still not "out of range" for growth.

I used to get major precip, but after adding HUGE amounts of magnesium it went away.

I really don't like magnesium to get below 1380 or so, and unfortunately test kits accuracy is not that great IMO.

The whole reason I got into selling magnesium was seeing how much it would cost over the course of year at the amount of Seachem Mag I was using.

Sorry I can't help being such a noob. But it blows my mind that a sandbed can solidify to the point where you can't break it up! How long did that take to happen? You had creatures sifting while this occurred?

Brett, as best I can tell, it took a few months. I had the usual compliment of critters, but no help. I've read about this kind of thing, but never actually saw it. I couldn't believe how hard the slabs were! Sand actually bonded to the bottom of rocks and I had to chisel it off with a knife.

What gets me, is when did Mg start becoming a supplement? 10 years ago nobody even heard of dosing, and there were a lot of awesome tanks out there. And for me, I guess my levels measure fine due to the large Ca reactor I run. But I've never dosed and never had a need to...

lol are you shaking your fist as you say this, old man? :razz:

I agree tho, 10 years ago there were a lot of nice tanks out there that to my knowledge, weren't dosing magnesium. However, my tank wasn't one of them and since dosing magnesium (amongst other things), now it is :wink:

Have you ever thought about having your water completely tested? I don't know if that would help but it might shed some light on things.

http://www.aquariumwatertesting.com/

I thought there was a canadian version of that company but I can't seem to find it.

The canadian version of aquarium water testing is out of business.

How are you checking P04 and NO3?

Something is fishy.....I had the same thing on my old 90g BB tank. My N03 was 20-40ppm.....algae didnt grow though and p04 was fine using a high sensitivity merk kit.

I think my problem was I let the detrituis build up in the bottom and around the rocks of my tank causing a NO3 problem. With a BB tank you really need to keep it clean.

My NO3 is undetectable, and the bottom is really clean. I clean under the rock work with a powerhead. PO4 measured with Salifert and a meter. Both well into acceptable. Even Mg was 1350, so that's not the problem.

Christy, aren't you running a Ca reactor? Mine is apparently keeping my levels in mid 1300's.....

Perhaps the salt we used then, even the same brand had enough in it??

I cant see you having a magnesium problem if running a co2 reactor. When I did, using CaribSea media, my mag was always over 1300.

On the other hand, your co2 reactor, better named alkalinity reactor as you know, may be contributing to your calcification problem. Just a thought.

I know you've been back and forth with sand in the past but I'm going to speculate that if you add sand and give it some time you'll find an uptick in your growth rate. This is not to say that you can't have great growth and color in a BB tank but that in your present case it may help. The substrate could theoretically allow for increased zooplankton in the water column and thereby food for the corals. Some substrate will also provide surface area for the precipitate you are reporting having problems with in your pumps. If you notice some clumping you can stir the sand manually and replace a little with your water changes a la Steve Weast.

On the one hand I like substrate because it reflects some light and provides a "finish" to the tank and on the other I hate it because it really dictates my flow pattern with a higher flow tank. But in the end it's just a few hours of work to remove it if you really hate it. And it gets more fun every time you do it ;) (I've now been back and forth from SSB to BB 4 times in the last 2 years).

No, the reactor was offline when the sand bed seized up

Andrew, I wanted sand for that "finished" look, but sand is also a sink for crap and that wories me. While I'm comparing my old tank to new though, the old did have sand......

9 years ago I was measuting and adding Mg as nessasary.

Steve