BIG TROUBLE!! Need advice please.
 

If this hobby will ever make me have a nervous breakdown, today will be the day. I'm on nightshift, I NEED sleep today, and I come home to this. 2 days ago I recieved a high end frag pack in the mail... awesome frags. Come home today, and 2 of 11 are half dead... I frag the parts of them that are salvagable,and then look at the rest of the frag tank. I've got 3 colonies in there... RTN. Oh no! Check the display with a flash light, and there is one colony and one frag RTN. OH NO!

I've know for a while that I've got chemistry problems (see my other post) but everything seemed to be doing OK. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have added $440 worth of frags right now, but my impulses got the best of me. For the record, I don't think that it was adding the frags that caused this.

Anyways, here are the facts... short version.

ph 8.26 - very stable. Got as high as 8.52, but came down.
Kh - 14 Was at 5, struggled to get it to 7, and then it sky rocketed to almost 15... I've been doing water changes (I'm now out of salt) to try to get it down to normal levels.
Amonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 0 (as clear as can be, Hagen)
Phosphates - 0.10 (hanna)
Mg - 1850 The Mg skyrocketed with no explanation that I can find. It hit 1850, and will not come down no matter what I do.
Ca - 200
I stopped dosing Mg weeks ago, it still climbed for a while, it has now stablized at 1850
I stopped dosing Ca and Alk about a week and a half ago... Ca dropped significantly from 400 to 200... Alk has been slowly dropping to it's current state.

I've got hair algae coming out of my yang (only in the frag tank). Many pieces in the frag tank are RTN. Polyp extension through the system went from amazing 3 days ago to little colurful skeletons now. Fish seem to be fine. I've lost 5 of 6 shrimp and 2 emerald crabs.

PLEASE HELP!!

What do I do? I'm lost, and to be perfectly honest, due to this situation, and problems with equipment, I really wish that I didn't buy this tank.

Separate frag tank, or is it connected to display? Since you're out of salt, I guess a water change isn't going to happen. At this point, make some new water, get some salt, do a water change. Add fresh carbon, but try not to change much else. Ya, adding the frags, maybe not a good idea with your parameters like that, but it's done, so try to save what you can.

Actually, I had enough for one more water change.... I'm going to go to the pet store in town and see if they have any salt. It's a pretty crappy store so we'll see. Carbon is fairly fresh, but I'll change it anyways.

Of course!! Why wouldn't the only pet store in town be closed on Sundays?

FML! lol

road trip :)

johnny i tried to call you... gimme a shout back

Steve

Do you use RO/DI? If not maybe something's going on with your local water?

Maybe something died off and released some crap? Run some carbon as already suggested?

Yes, I do use RODI. This is the first time that I have.

I think that I may have found the Mg culprit. I had a bucket of 2Ocean sitting around waiting for changes.... I was at the bottom of the bucket, and today I did yet another water change, and tested the Mg before putting the tank online. 1850! Seems that is the Mg problem. I wasn't smart enough to test the Kh before putting it online, so who knows about that. For the record... yes, yes, I know... roll, shake and disturb salt before use. I have learned this the hard way. Crap. And lots of it.

This all said, who knows... it's a semi old Mg test kit, maybe it's out? I get a new one tomorrow so we'll see.

So, I went onto BRS and used their reef calculator... turns out that I was using too little GFO, so I upped that and the carbon. I dosed a little Ca so we'll see what that does... hopefully bring the Kh down.

One question though... talking to buddy tonight, I was told that dosing for Alk will drop the pH... is this right? Everytime I dose soda ash my pH spikes... I think. I haven't paid attention in a while, but I thought that was the case.


Anyways kids, thanks for the inputs. Wish me luck in saving my little box of ocean!

The effect of Alk on your PH is determined by the recipe you are using. sodium bicarbonate will drop the PH but soda ash (sodium carbonate) will raise it.

+1 soda will raise pH. We use soda ash in our treatment labs here to neutralize acidic waters.

I've had high Mg levels before (way higher than the 1500 the kit maxed out at) without any problems. But the high Alk and low Ca could be part of the problem esp if you have new stuff that isn't acclimated to those levels (and I'm talking long term here not just the acclimation to your tank). Sometimes RTN can trigger a cascade effect and cause RTN in other colonies that have been in your tank for awhile. Try to get the alk back on track and the other levels should fall in line with water changes with new/better salt.

+1. if you are running probiotic system like pellets or zeovit, you alk should be around 7 anything over 10 dkh you will run into issues. I would get your alk and cal back to proper range and go from there, snip off the rtn sps frag it or what ever but try to get rid of all the other that rtn'ed before it begins a domino effect. best of luck, I know it sucks but just hang in there.

OH BOY! So you think that I should clear out anything that is dying? Can anyone else vouch? I've been taking stuff out and fragging it as best as I can and ditching th RTN portions if I can tell that they aren't going to make it, but there are a couple in there still that aren't looking great... should I frag and toss the parts with RTN??? Unfortunately, I'm now out of frag plugs and glue due to the massive amount of fragging that has been going on.

This sucks.

Well, after reading the last 2 posts, I cmae home after my night shift, cracked a beer (it's more like 8pm for me right now... lol) and went to work. I pulled out 5 pieces from my display... most of which are among my oldest corals, and 6 or 7 from the frag tank. The display pieces ranged from golf ball to soft ball size. Tossed them all. I had tried to save one last night, but came home this morning and the frags were all RTNing, so... essentially, I gave up. If I had frag glue, I'd try, but I'm out of that and plugs, so eff it. My alk is coming down slowly... 229ppm/12.8dKh. On the bright side, since i've added the right amount of gfo, my phosphates are down to 0.00 on the hanna. I just hope that the drop from .10 to .00 wasn't too much for everything right now. I've lost many of my favorite pieces... and most of the frags that I just spent $440 on. I've got my wife going to the crappy in town pet store (refuse to call it a lfs) today to see what she can find me for salt. When I wake up, I'll do yet another water change. I'm just so happy that I have my water change tank operational through this. An 18x18x20 water change (28Gal) takes me about 5 minutes of work. I just wish that my 'fish room' (furnace room with my equipment in it) was a few inches wider... or maybe that I was a few inches narrower... lol. It's pretty tight in there. I'm regularly walking by the outside wall of the room taking measurements and wishing for my wife to let me relocate the wall.

Anyways, there's my morning rant... again... wish me luck!

Ah... what the heck... maybe one more beer before bed! hahaha! It's 5pm somewhere, right?

ah man that sucks. I feel for ya. It's tough losing that much money so quickly. Certainly enough pain to drive you to drink, which by the sounds of things it has :lol:

As you already know the parameters in your display tank are all over the place and not very synchronized. It sounds like you're on top of that though and hopefully it gets sorted out. Quarantining what's surviving is a good idea.

Omg Doch...I just read this. This is awful. :(

I think you did good fragging and tossing the RTN. Instant Ocean is probably the only salt your wife is going to be able to find for you. It is low in magnesium (around 1150 ppm in all my buckets) so you could get Mg down with it. Just make sure you add calcium to it before you use it because calcium is low (~380 ppm). Albeit, IO has high alkalinity at 11 dKH. If it was me, at this point I would be unplugging the dosers and doing daily 10 gallon waterchanges (if using IO bump calcium to 440 ppm to match 11 dKH). I would also quickly get calcium where it needs to be in the display (by testing and dosing several times today if need be...just wait at least 1 hour between dosing and testing). When calcium goes up alkalinity will go down. Waterchanges will bring magnesium down. By tonight you should have calcium at 440 ppm in the display, this will probably drop alkalinity to 10-11 dKH.

On the brighter side, I wonder if the person who sold you the frags would be nice enough to give replace the ones you lost as I'm assuming this is from the recent thread where the OP wanted the corals with someone else as back up for his future tank.

Aw man, sorry to hear this. I hope you can get things turned around and possibly get replacement frags :neutral:

For the frags that are having RTN, you can try a 1/4 peroxyde 3% mixed with 3/4 tank water and leave them in this dip for 1 or 2 minutes. That could help.

That treatment stopped the RTN on my blue pocillopora instantly. The coral is doing great now.

[quote=kien;639138]Certainly enough pain to drive you to drink, which by the sounds of things it has :lol: QUOTE]

I don't know about that... jsut an after work beer!! lol Ok... 2.

Yup... IO it is. Sea Salt, 160 gallon bucket... $146.99. I just about crapped my pants when my wife tild me this. Got me by the short and curlies I guess. Oh, and for frag glue, they sold her aquarium silicone. Man I hate that place.

You're talking about hydrogen peroxide?

Io for how much? That's highway robbery. If u need salt go on Jlaquatics website, they have it for cheap. If you need some one to ship it up then let me know I'll see if I can get a few boxes and ship it up to u. Btw I don't think there is anything wrong with a beer or 3 while you are working on your tank as long as the fish don't get wasted, we are okay.

Robbery doesn't describe it. It's straight up sodomy. Non consentual. No warning.

I was just looking at J&L and saw theirs on for $40. I'm sure I can get it for about that price in Edmonton, I just have no opportunity to get down there right now. Had I known what they would charge me, I would have got Red Coral to mail me one.

I HATE THIS PET STORE!!!

Hopefully after this water change my levels will start to come back to normal. I'm going to do a 30G change every second day until all levels are back to acceptable.

Oh, and yes, funny you should ask... I am running out of test kit reagents. FML!!!

Hey man, you ARE in Fort Mac! Everything is expensive, that's why everyone makes the big bucks!

Omg $146.99??? :o I've only seen once a higher price than that. They must be buying it at retail and then marking up 300%. Yikes.

Well of course ;)

The one you get easily at the drug store, the 3% bottle.

No, no.. you've got it backwards... Everyone makes the big bucks, so all the places charge accordingly. I almost feel bad, because as a result of this, I don't really support the community. Oh well, I'm over it.

Thanks, I'll try this.

Well, I have now officially started the process of changing the water out with new salt. I put 30g on line today, so hopefully levels start to some to where they need to be. I'll do another 30g every 36 hours or so until I run out of this $147 bucket of Instant ocean. Hopefully by then, all is back to normal.

I would try to do bigger water changes if you can. This way you aren't wasting as much salt and I think it'll be better for your system in the long run.

Unfortunately, I can't really. My limiting factor is the size of my RO reservoir, and the fact that I'm out of the house for 14.5h/day. If I had a bigger res, I could probably start pulling bucket water changes, but on top of that, I don't really have time for that right now... assuming that I want to sleep that is. Also, I only have the one $147 bucket of Instant Ocean... I will not be buying another until Monday when a buddy is coming back from Edmonton. It will last me until Monday with 30g/36 hours by my calculations. Things are starting to look a little better... polyp extension is coming back in some, and the death seems to have slowed. That said, I don't have a whole lot left, so maybe that's the only change.

I'd double check your test kit as well, I had a Hagen kit that tested zero and I double checked against an Elos test kit, Elos 25+

I've got an Elos one en route... unfortunately, I have to wait for it.

Just finished reading your saga.
I feeel so terrible for you.

PM'd you for free frags.

Thanks very much for the offer Alang! It's so great to know that we are a community that is willing to help each other out when stuff like this goes down.

On the bright side (knicking on wood, crossing my fingers, and rubbing my dog's foot because I don't have a rabbit's foot) I feel like the worst is over!!! WAHOO!! After having the first water change (with the new salt) circulating for 15 hours, I did a test. Unfortunately, I'm out of Mg testers, so I'll just have to assume that the levels are coming down. My Alk is now at 216ppm/12.07dKh! Wahoo! I'm pretty sure that there are people that purposely keep their alk in this range, so this makes me VERY happy! I will however still be shooting for about 7dKh... hopefully within a week. My Ca... I don't know what to think. On my Elos which I've always trusted, but never verified to anything else, I'm showing somewhere between 100-150 ppm. I don't know if this is even possible. On my Hanna, I'm showing 336ppm. I want to believe this number, but I'm leary. These are the only things that I've tested as nothing in the nitrogen worls has been a problem, Phosphates on las t check were 0.00, and pH is 8.26.

The stuff that I have left is starting to look decent again. Polyps extension!! WHOO!! My candy coral looks like it has flesh again... the brain is coming back! Of the 11 frags that I got from that frag pack, I still have 7, so that's not that bad. That said, many of them are WAY smaller than when they showed up... lol. When I woke up yesterday afternoon, I pulled 3 frags out... I got home this morning and ther is nothhing that looks like it need to be in the garbage. Well, maybe one... a loripes that has STN, but it is fully encrusted on it's rock, so there's not much I can do but to hope that it survives.

At some point soon, I'll post some before and after the crash pics.... although I'm scared to see what the comparison looks like.

If by chance anybody reading this has any Pink Lemonade, Strawberry Shortcake, Shades of Fall, or Red Planet... I'd certainly appreciate a pity fragging!! lol

I expect that things will be back to normal by the weekend, if not early next week. I hope!!

Thanks for the input guys!! And thanks VERY much for the offer Alang.

Nice to see that things are getting better!
Will be glad to see some of your after pics.
Best wishes!
Lenny.

Glad to hear things are turning around!!! :mrgreen: I have a couple of the corals you're looking for but not sure about the shipping, it might be pricey. Maybe someone has something closer to you.

I would believe Elos over Hanna, especially when it comes to calcium. There have been reports of inaccurate numbers with the Hanna calcium kit and people have been using the Elos for a long time with reliable results. 100-150 ppm calcium is hard to believe though...

Here's an idea...we know that bucket of IO salt will have calcium around 380 ppm at 1.025, so mix up some saltwater for 24 hours and test that with both Hanna and Elos. Since there is a 200 ppm difference between the kits you will be able to tell which one is out to lunch.

Don't forget to roll that bucket of salt before using it too!!

Which ones? I'm not horribly opposed to paying for shipping... if you're willing.