My main tank is a BB, and has a 1 year old remote 2" DSB.
The bacterial turgor that takes place in the LR is only in the upper few millimeters, isn't it? That's what makes me think that the bulk of the LR mass is saturated.

Of course, I could be wrong too.:mrgreen:

Mitch

sorry to hear about your losses.

I am just wondering what kind of KH test kit you are using? You might want to get a sample of the water to the LFS for a complete test (especially the KH). Test kits do go wrong even with high end brands like salifer or elos.

My mother had similar problem, all her corals shivered up and declined rapidly when all the parameters were all good. She was grieving for a few weeks. We could not figure out what is going on.

So I took my complete test kits and tested her water. It turned out that her ELOS KH kit was bad; her read 7dkH, but it was actually 3.5dKH. The LFS also confirmed it was 3.5.

I think it might worth while to let someone else test it.

From what I can remember, if the rock is highly porous (or you are talking about a substrate like sand or gravel) the aerobic portion of the bacteria can be up to 1" deep. After that, the fauna turns to anaerobic... this wouldn't happen too deep in relatively dense rock.

Its the loaded rock theory in general that I have some doubts about Mitch. I suppose it could happen in specific tanks, depending on what the rocks like. Some of my old stuff has grown a fair bit from coralline growth. I wonder if its even porous anymore.

With the LR being broken down and being porous it just makes sense to me that hidden/stagnant/anaerobic areas may have concentrations of chemicals being released that would otherwise be diluted and removed via our various export mechanisms. I have no scientific data to back me up... just MYHO.:smile:

There was mention earlier of a lot of changes happening in Jason's tank over a short period of time;
I haven't been following his tank history, but I did come across an article that indicates that changes in a coral's environment can actually turn the coral against itself.

Here is the article:

http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archiv...se-coral-reefs

Mitch