I am probably going to go too long with this post. I am a talkative guy, I want to give as much info as possible of the events that have led up to this week, and hopefully solve the mystery of what is draining my supplements. I will try to be brief where I can and details where necessary. There is a too long; didn't read at the bottom with the base facts.
The Setup: 36 gallon bowfront with a 5 gallon sump. Also running a Coralife HOB filter with built in skimmer. It's almost 5 years old. I let things get out of balance. 2.5 years ago, my wife was diagnosed with cancer (she is fine now). I overfed my tank and myself. I put off water changes. Things got bad. Recently, my daughter struggled with processing the cancer and anxiety and depression took hold. She is now 1000 miles away at a residential treatment center getting the help she needs. I share that because I know there seem to be a few people of faith on this board, and we will take all the prayers we can get. It has been a stressful and traumatic couple of years. Not excusing my tank's state of decay, but explaining. I own it. I did it. I want to fix it.
Back in July I started trying to get back into maintenance. I started dosing with Vibrant, doing water changes, reducing feeding, etc. I was making headway. For those of you know know ecology, it was really cool to watch the reverse succession as the algae died off from the most complex to the simpler types. Then the cyano showed up. After doing some research, I dosed with Chemi-clean and did a 3-day blackout, followed by a 50% water change. I was making progress. Then as the cyano died, I got a GHA outbreak that was pretty bad. This brings us to...
The Chaos: Last Friday night about 11:30 pm, I was headed up to bed and saw a puddle of water in the floor. At the base of my tank was a pretty steady rivulet of water coming from the plastic strip along the bottom. Slow leak. I grabbed my bucket and siphon. I dumped a lot of the water. I filled another bucket and started piling my corals in. After the water dropped to a certain point, it relieved enough pressure so that the dribbling stopped. I went to bed about 1 am thinking I was done with this hobby I got into 35 years ago. I was pretty devastated.
The Solution: After some sleep, I woke up and started assessing the situation more realistically and talked to my wife. I was at my LFS when it opened and bought a 20 gallon long. I came home, set it up with totally new water and new substrate, and then started aquascaping as much as I could, using an old toothbrush to get as much of the GHA off as I could. I didn't use all the live rock, but I used what I could. I turned down my lighting because I realized in my new tank, the bottom was now 9" closer to the top, so I was getting more intensity with my lower placed coral frags. I use 2 Orbit Marine PRO LED strips that were at a custom setting. I reset it to default and I started the Acclimation program (more on that below). I had no room for the sump (location change for the tank) so I kept my coralife HOB and skimmer, and had an old Regent double chamber HOB I also put on there for extra circulation. I was expecting a mini-cycle, but because I kept a lot of the live rock, I wasn't expecting a 1.0 ammonia spike over the next few days. I lost one fish, and several corals in the transition. I decided to test and change water as I needed to, and see how things shook out. In my HOBs I put in Purigen, Carbon, an ammonia pad, some Chemi-Pure and some PhosGuard. I absolutely realize this may be contributing to my problems below (or not).
The New Problem: I will give hard data below, but something is sucking the calcium and lowering the alkalinity like never before. I don't know why since I don't have a lot of SPS. I downloaded an app the third day the new tank to track parameters. I have tried to keep detailed notes. I have replaced out of date test kits, etc. and gotten my LFS to confirm some readings.
The Data (Tl;dr):
Tank: 20 gallon long, fresh live sand, and about 25-30 lbs of live rock (maybe more). Setup 12/1/18 with survivors from my 5 year old 36 bowfront.
Lighting: 2 Current Orbit Marine PRO LED (one older model that's a bit longer than the newer model) using the following program
That is not a Kenya Tree, but something similar. It is almost free from its base, and I need to reattach. My largest colony (Cyphastrea), and 3 small zoa polyps.
small Zoa colony, Duncan, Candy Cane, small Zoa colony
War coral frag, dead frag behind the turbo (Red Hot Chili Pepper Montipora), small Zoa colony, Small Bird's Nest/Cat's Paw frag, small zoa colony. The frag in the back had a lot of tentacles coming out of a long stony tube. I think only 1 of the 4 tubes has life in it.
A really dull Cyphastrea that may be dead, but I do see some tentacle-like things, probably dead candy cane, edge of ticked off Acans.
Ticked off Acans, Cup Coral Frag, probably dead Jedi Mind Trick Montipora, larger blue star polyp(?) colony.
The Wrap Up: If you read all this, thank you. I know it was long-winded, but it was also cathartic. These are the questions I have:
The Setup: 36 gallon bowfront with a 5 gallon sump. Also running a Coralife HOB filter with built in skimmer. It's almost 5 years old. I let things get out of balance. 2.5 years ago, my wife was diagnosed with cancer (she is fine now). I overfed my tank and myself. I put off water changes. Things got bad. Recently, my daughter struggled with processing the cancer and anxiety and depression took hold. She is now 1000 miles away at a residential treatment center getting the help she needs. I share that because I know there seem to be a few people of faith on this board, and we will take all the prayers we can get. It has been a stressful and traumatic couple of years. Not excusing my tank's state of decay, but explaining. I own it. I did it. I want to fix it.
Back in July I started trying to get back into maintenance. I started dosing with Vibrant, doing water changes, reducing feeding, etc. I was making headway. For those of you know know ecology, it was really cool to watch the reverse succession as the algae died off from the most complex to the simpler types. Then the cyano showed up. After doing some research, I dosed with Chemi-clean and did a 3-day blackout, followed by a 50% water change. I was making progress. Then as the cyano died, I got a GHA outbreak that was pretty bad. This brings us to...
The Chaos: Last Friday night about 11:30 pm, I was headed up to bed and saw a puddle of water in the floor. At the base of my tank was a pretty steady rivulet of water coming from the plastic strip along the bottom. Slow leak. I grabbed my bucket and siphon. I dumped a lot of the water. I filled another bucket and started piling my corals in. After the water dropped to a certain point, it relieved enough pressure so that the dribbling stopped. I went to bed about 1 am thinking I was done with this hobby I got into 35 years ago. I was pretty devastated.
The Solution: After some sleep, I woke up and started assessing the situation more realistically and talked to my wife. I was at my LFS when it opened and bought a 20 gallon long. I came home, set it up with totally new water and new substrate, and then started aquascaping as much as I could, using an old toothbrush to get as much of the GHA off as I could. I didn't use all the live rock, but I used what I could. I turned down my lighting because I realized in my new tank, the bottom was now 9" closer to the top, so I was getting more intensity with my lower placed coral frags. I use 2 Orbit Marine PRO LED strips that were at a custom setting. I reset it to default and I started the Acclimation program (more on that below). I had no room for the sump (location change for the tank) so I kept my coralife HOB and skimmer, and had an old Regent double chamber HOB I also put on there for extra circulation. I was expecting a mini-cycle, but because I kept a lot of the live rock, I wasn't expecting a 1.0 ammonia spike over the next few days. I lost one fish, and several corals in the transition. I decided to test and change water as I needed to, and see how things shook out. In my HOBs I put in Purigen, Carbon, an ammonia pad, some Chemi-Pure and some PhosGuard. I absolutely realize this may be contributing to my problems below (or not).
The New Problem: I will give hard data below, but something is sucking the calcium and lowering the alkalinity like never before. I don't know why since I don't have a lot of SPS. I downloaded an app the third day the new tank to track parameters. I have tried to keep detailed notes. I have replaced out of date test kits, etc. and gotten my LFS to confirm some readings.
The Data (Tl;dr):
Tank: 20 gallon long, fresh live sand, and about 25-30 lbs of live rock (maybe more). Setup 12/1/18 with survivors from my 5 year old 36 bowfront.
Lighting: 2 Current Orbit Marine PRO LED (one older model that's a bit longer than the newer model) using the following program
- Blue Light-on at 8 am, off at 4 pm, 30 minute sunrise/sunset fade, 0% minimum intensity, 60% maximum intensity, no moonlight period.
- White Light- on at 8:30 am, off at 3 pm, 0% minimum intensity, 60% maximum intensity.
- 12/2- temp 78.7 Ammonia .15, Nitrate 0, Salinity, 1.023, Calcium 380, pH 8, Nitrite 0, Alkalinity 8. Dosed with 1.2 tsp of Reef Advantage Calcium.
- 12/3- Ammonia 1.0, Calcium 360, did a 25% water change and dosed again with 1/2 tsp of Reed Advantage Calcium, and and 1/4 tsp of Seachem Reef Builder.
- 12/4- temp 78.9, Ammonia .5, Nitrate 5, Salinity 1.026, Calcium 400, pH 8.2, Alkalinity 9, Magnesium 900--Dosed 1 tsp Reed Advantage Magnesium and 4 ml of Brightweel Aquatics Reef Code A. Bumped thermometer down a bit.
- 12/6- temp 76.6, Ammonia .5, Nitrate 10, Salinity 1.027, Calcium 390, pH 8.2, Alkalinity 8.5, Magnesium 1040 Did a 25% water change, replaced with some fresh top off to drop salinity. Added Reef Advantage Calcium (1/2 tsp), 1/4 tsp of Seachem Reef Builder and Magnesium (1 tsp).
- 12/7 Did a water change to use up the last of my LFS water so I could drop nitrates and refill for weekend before testing- temp 77.6, Ammonia 0, Nitrate 5, Salinity 1.018 (used to adjusting in the 40. Misjudged, fixed this a bit ago with a partial water change. Now at 1.022 and I will raise again tomorrow), Calcium 300, pH 8.2, Alkalinity 7.5, Magnesium 1260. I was advised at LFS to not worry about Ca and Alk until I could get Magnesium up and stable at 1300 ppm.
- Fish: 1 PJ Cardinal (survived the move), 1 Rose Goby (added 12/7) 1 Green Stripe Goby (added 12/7)
- Non Coral inverts: 3-4 Nassarius, 4-5 turbos, 20-30 small blue-legged hermits, 1 Emerald Crab, and 1 Pom Pom Crab.
That is not a Kenya Tree, but something similar. It is almost free from its base, and I need to reattach. My largest colony (Cyphastrea), and 3 small zoa polyps.
small Zoa colony, Duncan, Candy Cane, small Zoa colony
War coral frag, dead frag behind the turbo (Red Hot Chili Pepper Montipora), small Zoa colony, Small Bird's Nest/Cat's Paw frag, small zoa colony. The frag in the back had a lot of tentacles coming out of a long stony tube. I think only 1 of the 4 tubes has life in it.
A really dull Cyphastrea that may be dead, but I do see some tentacle-like things, probably dead candy cane, edge of ticked off Acans.
Ticked off Acans, Cup Coral Frag, probably dead Jedi Mind Trick Montipora, larger blue star polyp(?) colony.
The Wrap Up: If you read all this, thank you. I know it was long-winded, but it was also cathartic. These are the questions I have:
- What could be causing this calcium/dkH drop?
- Is my LFS correct to stabilize Magnesium and then work on Calcium and Alkalinity together?
- When would it be safe to up the lights to the same time, but 80% intensity (the next Acclimation program on the Orbits)?
- In short, I need a triage. I know a little bit of chemistry (enough to get my biology degree 25 years ago), but I admit this is a complex system that is out of whack. I need a prioritized list of what to do. I am chasing too many variables at once.
