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Mr. Acro

SPS grows like MAD and than RTN's

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5 Comments
by
Mr. Acro
, 08-29-2010 at 04:14 PM (2521 Views)
This has been going on now for like a month. My tank is a 140 shallow reef tank with T5's. I have two 6100 tunzes for water movement. Run the lights from 4:30 to 11:30. I have a total water volume of 260. I have two 30 gallon breeder tanks plumbed into for sps frag tanks. These are full of water but no corals in them at this moment.
Water parameters are as follows
ph 8.4
Ca 380
Alk 8
NO3 15
NO2 0
NH3 0
temps. swing .3 degrees of 77

Tank has been running for now about 8 months. Chalices are growing fine and the same with zoa's. The funny thing is that my sps when introduced in my tank will start growing like a weed for about two weeks than start RTNing from the tip down. I started dosing vitamin C(one tablespoon twice a day) after this started with the sps. So I don't think thats the problem. I feed the tank(new life spectrum marine formula) and cyclopeze)

I have a CA reactor that I think is running stable. I have it on a slow drip. The ph monitor varies from 6.30 to 6.60. IS that too much of a swing? I really don't understand why it would vary that much. MAybe CO2 gets tripped and is released causing the sudden drop. But I have checked the lk in the tank when this happens and the alk stays the same. I run a carbon reactor with about 1 lb of carbon. Flow is moderate. It is time to change out the carbon but I don't think old carbon would cause the sps to RTN. I do have some sps that have not been affect. Green slimer, milli's, red monti cap, and idaho cap. I have a purple rimmed cap that has grown like crazy but now the purple is gone and turning white. Seems like my biggest problems are with smooth skinned acro's.

I plan on starting the bio-pellets when they become available.

Any thoughts?? Suggestions, Ideas????

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Tags: acro, rtn
Categories
‎ NEED HELP STAT! , ‎ Tank - Full Summary , ‎ Lighting , ‎ Water Chemistry , ‎ Questions - Need some input

Comments

  1. Blown76mav's Avatar
    Ca should be 450 range, Alk 9-11 for sps
  2. Mr. Acro's Avatar
    Though I agree the Ca and alk should be a little higher, that wouldn't cause the sps to repidly grow and RTN. If anything, it would cause them not to grow and kinda look bluh.

    So, what else do we know?
  3. ex-neo's Avatar
    do you add iodine?lugols?
    what does your Mag test at?
  4. Mr. Acro's Avatar
    I don't add iodine or lugols. I have neo mag in my CA reactor so I'm pretty sure the mag is around 1300-1400

    Don't add iodine/lugols because I have always thought softies and leathers benefited from that not sps as much
  5. Mr. Acro's Avatar
    I checked my alk yesterday. Still setting at 7. One nice thing though, my NO3 is down to 5. The RTNing seems to have stopped spreading to other frags. At least for now. I increased my drip on my CA reactor. I'm going to slowly raise my alk up to 9. Increase the flow in the tank via the tunzes. Nice when you can turn up your flow!!