LPS Corals Keep Dying * HELP * Full Details

[Paul Kachirsky]

My Bad. I am going to test Alk, Phos, Nitrate, Mag and Cal today after work. I havent done a water change since I was waitng for the refractometer to arrive to test the current salinity.


I believe this all started to happen back at the End of November / Beginning of December. Here are numbers I recorded at those times.

Alk: 8.7
Cal: Didnt test since My Cal has always been stable (Thats on me)
Mag: Didnt test since My Mag has always been at 1500 ish (Thats on me)
Phos: 0.21 on 12/9/20
PH: 8.1-8.3

I did have a heater fail on me, temp went down to about 72. I had a spare heater laying around to get the temp back up All slow swings though from what I guess. This was in Dec.

 

[Hermie]

that's high enough salinity to cause problems

 

[Paul Kachirsky]

Thanks for the reply. I am glad I bought the refractometer. I need to start working on getting that down.

 

[nereefpat]

My Bad. I am going to test Alk, Phos, Nitrate, Mag and Cal today after work.

Okay. Update us when you get a chance. 1.028 salinity is high, but *shouldn't be fatal...maybe certain LPS don't like it. The Red Sea is naturally that high, for example.

 

[bartizzle]

I am in the process of switching from Fritz RPM salt to Brightwell Neomarine. Little water changes and I just started a few weeks ago.

How does this align with your current issues?

I am by no means an authority here and currently facing issues with two hammers on my own, but I did have some issues a while back.

I was using Neomarine at 1.024SG, dHK 9.2, P04 0.23ppm, Mg around 1200ppm, Nitrate at 4ppm. I also noticed very little growth in zoas and even GSP over 3 months. I sent away an ICP and found that my Neomarine/RODI mix was running very high sulfur levels which is also very noticeable when mixing (even a couple days later). I would always mix with a heater and large pump for 24 hours or better.

I switched to Tropic Marin Pro and I have seen my GSP over double in size in less than 2 months. Most of my other coral seemed to be doing better as well with the exception of a zoa and now my current branching hammer issues which are posted in another thread here. I'm wondering if my issues are being caused by excessive phosphates at this point.

I'm not saying it's the salt, but I confirmed that sulfur was not in my RODI but was high in my tank. This sent me watching a lot of BRS videos about salt and the reason I picked Tropic Marin.

Just another point of view... again, I've got my own problems right so take this all with a grain of salt.

 

[Paul Kachirsky]

How does this align with your current issues?

I am by no means an authority here and currently facing issues with two hammers on my own, but I did have some issues a while back.

I was using Neomarine at 1.024SG, dHK 9.2, P04 0.23ppm, Mg around 1200ppm, Nitrate at 4ppm. I also noticed very little growth in zoas and even GSP over 3 months. I sent away an ICP and found that my Neomarine/RODI mix was running very high sulfur levels which is also very noticeable when mixing (even a couple days later). I would always mix with a heater and large pump for 24 hours or better.

I switched to Tropic Marin Pro and I have seen my GSP over double in size in less than 2 months. Most of my other coral seemed to be doing better as well with the exception of a zoa and now my current branching hammer issues which are posted in another thread here. I'm wondering if my issues are being caused by excessive phosphates at this point.

I'm not saying it's the salt, but I confirmed that sulfur was not in my RODI but was high in my tank. This sent me watching a lot of BRS videos about salt and the reason I picked Tropic Marin.

Just another point of view... again, I've got my own problems right so take this all with a grain of salt.

Thanks for sharing. I mainly brought it up to just have all the info on what I am doing. Appreciate you sharing yours.

 

[Paul Kachirsky]

@everyone - OK so I am going to assume my Nitrates and Phos are the same or close to the same as my last post on them. I have good export and I haven't been feeding heavy.

Here is what I tested today before the water change I did.

Mag: 1485 Salifert
Cal: 485 Salifert
Alk: 9.9 Salifert / 9.0 Hanna
PH: 8.2-8.3
Temp: 77-78
Salinity: 1.028 -1.029

I am going to wait until tomorrow to recheck my parameters to allow the water change to settle in.

With these, Thoughts? My Alk was always in the 8s and now its high and I am not dosing. Coraline algae is growing on the rocks and in the sump, etc.

Thanks in advance for your perspective.

 

[nereefpat]

I would take out some water and replace it with RO to drop the salinity to 1.026 or so. The good thing is that Ca, alk, and Mg are all high enough that diluting them is fine, if not better.

 

[Paul Kachirsky]

I would take out some water and replace it with RO to drop the salinity to 1.026 or so. The good thing is that Ca, alk, and Mg are all high enough that diluting them is fine, if not better.

In the water change that I did last night I replaced the water with 1.017sg. When I checked the salinity it was at 1.027. So it went down some. My plan today is to replace more with rodi like you mentioned to bring the numbers down more. Using a calculator of course

 

[Lukey2018]

In the water change that I did last night I replaced the water with 1.017sg. When I checked the salinity it was at 1.027. So it went down some. My plan today is to replace more with rodi like you mentioned to bring the numbers down more. Using a calculator of course

Hi mate, just wondering, how did it end up for you?

 

[TrentonB]

Hello did you ever find the issue i am dealing with the same problem

 

[lemonchello]

Hello did you ever find the issue i am dealing with the same problem

Me too all my LPS died , water parameters norm . Big mystery why ?