drjreber
New Member
Hello. Sorry for a very long post but there are a lot of points to this story. I had a very healthy 32 gal BioCube for the past 9 mos. Very healthy torch, carpet, hammer and frogspawn corals (for a total of only 5 corals) and lots of cuc. Close attention to major water parameters eased off after 6 mos of nearly identical weekly chem tests using only Instant Ocean Reef Crystals. Changed about 12% of water weekly.
Then I bought a new bucket of Instant Ocean Reef Crystals (the third), mixed a large batch of water with perfect salinity at 1.025, and changed the water before going in to have major surgery. When I can came back 9 days later, my tank had been cared for by my college students who had been trained and been giving care for many months. But my corals were in serious distress. The phosphate was VERY high, alk was low 6.2) and I assumed they had been over feeding, knowing there would be several days between when they left for the semester and when I returned (apparently they just can’t get it in their head that too little is way better than too much…). Anyway, I began immediate water changes every other day and added some chemipure elite to bring the phos down, which over a week worked. But the corals crashed and I lost every single coral, cuc, tube worm and urchin in the tank. Only the fish survived. As I begin the heartbreaking process of starting over, I began by testing and even with Jo corals, and all other parameters at good levels, the all had dropped again. I checked all in my water stock tank and the water mixed exactly per the label with DI water and a salinity of 1.025 had an alk of only 2.8 and Mg over 1500! Now I am wondering if the reef crystals were more of a culprit than I suspected, and that those water changes were actually making things worse. Any comments to help me straighten this out? I am devastated by the speed with which everything died, and hesitant to invest so much heart, time and money in this again.
Then I bought a new bucket of Instant Ocean Reef Crystals (the third), mixed a large batch of water with perfect salinity at 1.025, and changed the water before going in to have major surgery. When I can came back 9 days later, my tank had been cared for by my college students who had been trained and been giving care for many months. But my corals were in serious distress. The phosphate was VERY high, alk was low 6.2) and I assumed they had been over feeding, knowing there would be several days between when they left for the semester and when I returned (apparently they just can’t get it in their head that too little is way better than too much…). Anyway, I began immediate water changes every other day and added some chemipure elite to bring the phos down, which over a week worked. But the corals crashed and I lost every single coral, cuc, tube worm and urchin in the tank. Only the fish survived. As I begin the heartbreaking process of starting over, I began by testing and even with Jo corals, and all other parameters at good levels, the all had dropped again. I checked all in my water stock tank and the water mixed exactly per the label with DI water and a salinity of 1.025 had an alk of only 2.8 and Mg over 1500! Now I am wondering if the reef crystals were more of a culprit than I suspected, and that those water changes were actually making things worse. Any comments to help me straighten this out? I am devastated by the speed with which everything died, and hesitant to invest so much heart, time and money in this again.
