Can LR become dead rock? Recharge?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

In another quest to find out why my tank is doing so poorly. I have noticed lately that I do not see any life on the the LR anymore. I remember I used to see worms and small creatures crawling on the LR and especially after the lights go off. I do not see anything in the sand either.

I have a 6-line wrasse that may have gotten to the pods.

I also was doing allot of scrubbing to remove a hair algae outbreak I had.

Is there a way to recharge the LR or system?
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Mercedes Simplex

 

[Anonymous]

if oyur water is okay then some new LR inhabitants will colonize in the old.

i would be worried that there is somehting wrong in the tank if all your rock died.

 

[Anonymous]

Well the whole tank is a mess.

Trying to get it back inline.

All my LPS have lost most of their color but open up fine.

Almost all of my SPS frags have died.

My coraline is all white.

Alk - 10 dkh
CA - 360
PH -8.0 8.2
Mag - 1200
Ammon, Nitrate, PO4, = 0
Sal - 1.024
Temp 79-84 swing (working on that)

I did a 30 gallone water change last wekend and plan on doing 15 gallons every other week for a few months.

If I am missing something here let me know.
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Algerian Forum

 

[Anonymous]

are you dosing anything (iodine, strontium, etc.)?

 

[Anonymous]

no, Just kalk,
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Caodaism Forum

 

[Anonymous]

i don't know why, call it a hunch, but i think this is an elemental thing.

i wonder if either
A) your tank water is low in magnesium from lack of water changes or possibly your salt is not a quality mix or....

B) you have an excess of something that is poisoning the tank.

you have convinced me that 'B)' is not as likely.


maybe the rock is exhausted but that doesn't explain the sps death.
how old is this tank?

 

[Anonymous]

on magnesium.... are your calcium/ alk levels becoming volatile?

 

[Anonymous]

Yes. The CA and ALK swing.

Fogot this, I am also dosing Kent Tech-M to help raise the Mag.

The IO I have has a Mag reading of 800 on the fresh mixed SW.
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Mercedes Benz 300SEL 6.3

 

[Aquadude]

What are you suing for make-up water and salt mixes? What salt are you using?

 

[Anonymous]

what level was your magnesium tested at?

i wonder if it caused the dieoff?
seems likely to me.

 

[Unarce]

A) your tank water is low in magnesium from lack of water changes or possibly your salt is not a quality mix or....

Could be the cause, but I thought your keeping a regimen of 15g WC every 2 weeks. It could be that your water source was introducing the phosphate that caused the hair algae. Your temperature and calcium/alkalinity swings are too stressful for SPS. Your LR will definitely recharge under optimal conditions. I'm wondering if you might be overskimming, which can cause chemical imbalances. What is your skimming schedule?

I'm on Sametime if you want to go offline.

 

[Fastmarc]

If you are only dosing kalk for your alkalinity and calcium, why isn't it more balanced. For a 10 dKh your calcium levels should be around 432 ppm.
I once made the mistake of trying to get my alkalinity level too high and didn't keep up with the calcium levels and it through my who tank into a spin. I lost most of my micro critters and my corals looked terrible. Once I got them back in sync, all the life returned and the corals recovered.

 

[Anonymous]

I use RO/DI/DI at 0 TDS for my source water.

I have been doing 15 gallons once a month but now my plan was to switch to every other week for a while.

My current Mag is 1200.

My salt is IO, its readings for a fresh batch @1.024 are:
Alk 9 DKH
CA - 260
Mag - 800

In the past I have tried B-Ionic, turbo calcium, supperbuffer, (Not all at the same time).

I have also started running carbon for the past month and a half as well incase there is something else in the water.

I have a MyReef MR-1 simmer that runs 24/7 that wasn't pulling much out for a while. Then I finally got it working. It pulled out tons of skimmate for about 3 months. Lately there hasn't been much skimmate again.
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Naruto Quiz

 

[Unarce]

It's really not a good idea to leave your skimmer running, unless you have a huge bioload. Once you have it dialed-in, you should have a regular schedule like one day a week or one whole week every month. At 24/7, you risk overskimming and losing trace elements (magnesium).

It's hard to pinpoint but when one SPS becomes weakened (perhaps by the swings) and can no longer fight off disease, it starts to RTN, then it can snowball from there. Than the whole tank gets fouled up from the dead, infected tissue that's floating around everywhere afterwards, effecting your other inhabitants.

Again, just speculation.

 

[Anonymous]

It's really not a good idea to leave your skimmer running, unless you have a huge bioload. Once you have it dialed-in, you should have a regular schedule like one day a week or one whole week every month. At 24/7, you risk overskimming and losing trace elements (magnesium).

i hear this often... is there any evidence to support this overskimming issue in regards to trace element loss?

 

[Anonymous]

I have heard that I should turn off the skimmer. I have also heard to leave it on to get the organics out of the system. It is possible that "Overskimming" can be a cause of my problems. Since the LPS seems to have lost most of its Zooxanthellae, maybe from not enough good organixs in the water column for it to feed off of.

I can always try it. But I am open for any ideas.
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Deposit insurance Forum

 

[Unarce]

i hear this often... is there any evidence to support this overskimming issue in regards to trace element loss?

Good question. I 've never seen any research done on it. Back in high school, I was dating a marine biology major who said that her professor swore against the use of protein skimmers on their livestock. Naturally, I wanted to see how effective they were at pulling stuff out. So I filled a 5 gallon tank with new water and poured some food coloring until it was noticably red. A crappy Lee's skimmer efficiently removed the dye.

I haven't used a skimmer since. I do think skimmers are good if you don't have a frequent WC schedule.

 

[shr00m]

hmm, how do you keep the skimmer dialed in if you dont leave it running... this is pretty confusing.... ive heard of overskimming, but ive never heard of turning off the skimmer completely... my skimmer takes a long ass time to dial in and when i turn it off it takes even a longer ass time to re-dial it in.

 

[rabagley]

Some skimmer designs will maintain their ability to skim when the power is cycled. My Aqua-C EV-180 will even stay dialed in through the process of being removed from the sump, soaked in vinegar, having the tower scrubbed, and replaced in the sump. All you have to do is mark the position of the settings on the airline ball valve and the drain gate valve to be sure you can put them back.

Just turning it off for a day results in very little foam for about thirty minutes after the restart which is then followed by full normal skimming.

I don't think this issue is necessarily one of cheap vs. expensive, but very few of the cheap skimmers I've seen and struggled with appear to have really predictable settings. I suspect that as a category, airstone based skimmers would be much harder to keep running through a multi-day shutdown.

Ross

 

[Anonymous]

as anecdotal as my opinion is, i will state it in the spirit of exchanging points of view...

i think overskimming is of little concern to the average hobbyist.

i also think the chances that Rob_Reef_Keeper's woes are caused by overskimming are slim to none.

i skim 24/7 and have never seen a rapid decline in magnesium or any other parameter i test for.

now making the statement that the LPS are starving for organics is more plausible but still seems unlikely to me. if it were an issue i would think feeding the tank regularly would take care of it.
i have a hard time imagining a tank becoming so sterile that SPS start to die off.

on running a skimmer in cycles...
i did try it.
i don't like doing it primarily because i noted an increase in problematic algae.
now i just let 'er rip. i think the less organics i have in the water the less chance i have of sparking an algae bloom.
also, it seems the collection cup portion of the riser gets crusted quicker when using the off cycles.

now, skimming can always be replaced with water changes but i would rather skim and minimize water changes... it is easier on my back and my wallet.
also, water changes do work well for me but i don't prefer doing them too often. i tend to have diatom madness after a water change.

FWIW, i can't say i have ever experienced a nutrient/organic poor condition that was apparent in any way... i can state the opposite though.