i am not to sure why filter socks next to the pump inlet determine how much skimmate you get, but you are obviously skimming to wet if thats the cause of the salinity drop. you should knock the water level down in the skimmer that way it skims dry. and i guess move your filter sock away from the pump inlet if possible?
Help....my acros are shedding their tissue.
- Thread starter jschottenfeld
- Start date
The water enters my sump from pipes near the pump inlet for my skimmer. When I have both of my filter socks installed all of the bubbles caused by the rushing water are minimized. When the socks are not there more bubbles are in my sump and thus more bubbles are sucked up the skimmer pump ...and that causes a wetter skimmate.
It's all about attention....many times if you let your attention from the tank fade slightly stuff happens, and usually not good stuff!
It's all about attention....many times if you let your attention from the tank fade slightly stuff happens, and usually not good stuff!
more bubbles in your tank is not going to cause a wetter skimmate, your getting to wet of a skimmate because your water level inside the skimmer is set to high, is the part of the sump the skimmer sits in, always at a constant water level?
so bump it down, that way you get more of a dry skimmate, i like to keep the top of the water level where the bubbles are crashing right in the bottom neck of the cup try that, see if you get a dryer skimmate. and then continue to raise your salinity slowly over a course of a couple days to 1025, 1026 and i really think the problem will correct itself at that point. i had the same exact problem when i started my tank, my skimmer was pulling out to much water my salinity dropped and my corals showed effect from it.
- Location
- Brooklyn - Dyker Heights
Same here, no improvement what's so ever. My alk is raising slowly so I am at 7 what ro/di unit are you using? I am tempted to say it's the water.
i am stumped then, it seems like your on top of everything you would need to be to have healthy SPS, it has to be something in the water, or something toxic leaching into the water maybe? i am all out of ideas sorry i couldn't be of any help.
- Location
- Brooklyn - Dyker Heights
I did the same thing, lost two colonies, and soo many frags, its pretty depressing. Some of the frags i cut, died, some of are hanging on. Copper, bleach would kill all corals right? Lead in the water maybe? I use sprectrapure ro/di. I don't know what else to test.
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- Location
- smithtown, long island
I would do a huge water change, dip all corals and make sure not to have alk swings.. Keep your salt at 25 and good to go.. Also you always get away with things if you have more water.. Meaning its easier to take care of a 700 g vs 40 (speaking of swings)
Make sure your phosphates are really low, that's much more important than the other nitrate readings IMO... Take it from there.. I have both small and large tanks, the larger tank is 10x easier and I manually dose still.. I have ai sols and get crazy growth and I feed the crap out of my tank as well.. Do I feed your corals?
Make sure your phosphates are really low, that's much more important than the other nitrate readings IMO... Take it from there.. I have both small and large tanks, the larger tank is 10x easier and I manually dose still.. I have ai sols and get crazy growth and I feed the crap out of my tank as well.. Do I feed your corals?
- Location
- smithtown, long island
Oh, and run carbon, you don't know how much chemical warfare is going on,,, that's one thing that does tanks in once in a while
- Location
- Brooklyn - Dyker Heights
Hey Ducati
I would if had room (and money)for a 700gal tank. Right now that's all I can afford is 40gal. I do run carbon and gfo both on separate brs reactors. I did a 50% water change when this started to happen. I am thinking it was al sol and low alk. Salinity is pretty stable. I test with a veegee refractometer which is pretty accurate. I am pretty disgusted because I don't like to kill animals due to my mistakes, my corals were definitely marine cultured, and the frags came from established tanks, so the impact on real world reef was minimal, but i spent a lot of money and that hurts too. I am gonna hold off on buying or putting new corals until i see growth or I can figure out what's going on. I started feeding brightewell amino coral ( I think I asked you on another thread.lol)
- Location
- smithtown, long island
damn.. yes smaller tanks u have to be on top of or have dosing system and very clean water... def more difficult imo because a lot can be going on and alk swings suck... but its doable just gotta really be careful.. good luck and keep us updated
Hey Ducati....Yes I do run carbon in my tank. In fact I switched out for some fresh carbon just the other day in case there was something chemical at work causing my havoc. I have never fed my corals and they have done very nicely over the years. I mix all different types of food: Mysis, Formula 2 Flake, Cyclopeeze, seaweed...and that seems to have worked well for my fish and corals.
Usually my parameters stay fairly stable. I keep track on excel and that really helps to point out if something is getting out of whack. Unfortunately life got in the way and paid a little less attention to my tank over the past number of months.
I think that my problem is mainly the result of low salinity and low alk for a period of time combined with older MH's (in use for 15 mos). It was the perfect storm of bad parameters. Everything has been stable and in the correct ranges for the past week. I fragged my colonies that still had good limbs...and we'll see what happens.
Can't do much besides that at this time. Just wait and see...
Usually my parameters stay fairly stable. I keep track on excel and that really helps to point out if something is getting out of whack. Unfortunately life got in the way and paid a little less attention to my tank over the past number of months.
I think that my problem is mainly the result of low salinity and low alk for a period of time combined with older MH's (in use for 15 mos). It was the perfect storm of bad parameters. Everything has been stable and in the correct ranges for the past week. I fragged my colonies that still had good limbs...and we'll see what happens.
Can't do much besides that at this time. Just wait and see...
**Update to*** Help my acros are shedding their tissue!!
Well, it's been about a year since my sps's started shedding their tissue. They continued to die off over a period of about 5 months. I lost almost all of my acros. My monti's and zoa's for the most part were fine. During this period I also lost a naso and Kole eye tang, and copperband butterfly.
Here's a list of things that I thought were contributing factors:
Eventually I did find the answer and turned my tank around...
I have a 30 gal inline fuge with a dsb in my basement. One of my drains from my display into the fuge became clogged because it was resting on top of my dsb. When I tried free the drain from my dsb it fused to the sand bed. When I freed the pipe from my dsb it pulled up a big chunk of solidified sand that went all the way down to the bottom of the dsb.
When I started to think back, it was shortly after I moved this drain cemented to the DSB was when I started having my problems.
I took my fuge off-line from my system. Removed all of my frags critters and macro algae and drained all of the water. Then I went through the process of mixing the sand bed, filling with fresh salt water and draining. I did this about 5 or 6 times and then left everything settle. I then put the fuge back inline with my system and over the following weeks I started to see tiny bits of sps starting to grow back.
It has now been about 2 months since I totally reset my fuge/dsb and I can see my corals coming back. Colors are coming back to the few sps's that did survive, and new ones are growing where colonies use to thrive.
It was the disturbing of the dsb that released toxic compounds into my water column and they weren't detected by any of my tests! Hopefully this story helps someone in the future who is banging their head against the wall wondering why their corals are dying.
Thanks to all for their input over the months to my problem.
Jan
Well, it's been about a year since my sps's started shedding their tissue. They continued to die off over a period of about 5 months. I lost almost all of my acros. My monti's and zoa's for the most part were fine. During this period I also lost a naso and Kole eye tang, and copperband butterfly.
Here's a list of things that I thought were contributing factors:
- Changed MH bulbs
- low salinity
- alk swings
- changed RODI filters
- Not feeding enough food to my fish, thus starving corals
Eventually I did find the answer and turned my tank around...
I have a 30 gal inline fuge with a dsb in my basement. One of my drains from my display into the fuge became clogged because it was resting on top of my dsb. When I tried free the drain from my dsb it fused to the sand bed. When I freed the pipe from my dsb it pulled up a big chunk of solidified sand that went all the way down to the bottom of the dsb.
When I started to think back, it was shortly after I moved this drain cemented to the DSB was when I started having my problems.
I took my fuge off-line from my system. Removed all of my frags critters and macro algae and drained all of the water. Then I went through the process of mixing the sand bed, filling with fresh salt water and draining. I did this about 5 or 6 times and then left everything settle. I then put the fuge back inline with my system and over the following weeks I started to see tiny bits of sps starting to grow back.
It has now been about 2 months since I totally reset my fuge/dsb and I can see my corals coming back. Colors are coming back to the few sps's that did survive, and new ones are growing where colonies use to thrive.
It was the disturbing of the dsb that released toxic compounds into my water column and they weren't detected by any of my tests! Hopefully this story helps someone in the future who is banging their head against the wall wondering why their corals are dying.
Thanks to all for their input over the months to my problem.
Jan
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