[Samw]

I also wrote a post yesterday and the server went down by the time I hit submit.

Anyhow, over the past 4-5 years, I bought dozens and dozens of Acros and several Bird's Nests. I lost every piece of Acro and Bird's Nest. I could never keep them for a length of time. Bird's Nest usually last 1-2 months max. I used RO water from day 1.

Everything changed when I added a UV sterilizer and upgraded my skimmer. I believe the UV Sterilizer has killed off whatever killed my SPS (bacteria, algae, protozoa, etc) and the additional oxygen (measured w/ my DO meter) from the skimmer kept them strong. I've restocked with dozens of Acro colonies and frags. The color and growth that I get now, I have never experienced in the past. I have so many Acros now that I have to eventually sell some off.

Do you have a UV sterilizer? If not, it could be worth a try rather than giving up. The UV hasn't helped too much with my Ick problem though. I introduced a fish w/ ick and other fish also caught it. The ick has been in my tank now for several weeks. However, my fish are all fine. The ick will go away on its own though (w/o casualties) as it always has in the past before I installed the UV sterilzer. I'm waiting for the ick to go away before I start selling my SPS in case people get my tank water into their tanks.

I now use only tap water for my Top-off (Vancouver's tap water only has a TDS value of about 5-8ppm). WRT browning, I do getting browning if too much chlorinated water gets into the tank such as when I am topping off 5 gallons out of my 45G system with fresh chlorinated tap water. The Acros don't die nor have tissue loss though. They color back up in a couple of weeks. There's no browning when the tap water has been sitting in the reservoir for a long time. So that's why I think it was the chlorine that browned my Acros.