coral troubles

[justahobby]

Most of my coral are suffering and I can't find the culprit. Zoas, lps, sps, and gorgonian are all affected. It coincided with using a new batch of DIY alkalinity and coralife salt. I stopped the alk and did a watt change but the problem continued to worsen.

My current parameters:
PH: 7.9
No3: 5
Alk: 100 mg

I didn't bother with calcium since I'm sure its still at or slightly above 400 and wouldn't cause the decline in health. I haven't been dosing magnesium. Didn't bother testing phosphate either since I don't have algae taking over. Yes, the alk is low, but it was at a good level when the problem first arose.

I would love to hear ideas, input. Right now I am leaning towards an impurity in the coralife salt.

[LuckySingh]

Sorry to hear that man.....nothing changes over night unless u dose ur tank wrong or could be a water change with bad salt....
I would like to know more about equipment....any reactors???

[justahobby]

It's a biocube 14. No reactors or skimmer. Run carbon, weekly....sometimes biweekly water changes, running T5's. I cut back on lighting just in case, but no changes except the yellow polyps stretching higher for light.

[Bill S]

Did Sherita have a problem with RC or Coralife?

I just plain won't buy ESU products, which include Coralife. Just carp products, as a whole.

[justahobby]

I don't recall Sherita's problem, but the more I hear your opinion on their products and the more personal experiences I have,.the more I agree.

[Kristy]

Sherita's was Coralife too.

[Europhyllia]

Her old salt was Coralife. Her new salt that she attributes the problem to was Reef Crystals I belief:
http://www.maast.org/showthread.php?66417-Tank-is-crashing!

Well that sucks.

My guess would actually be some kind of contamination through the DIY supplement you made. What did you use?

[Europhyllia]

and what is the actual dissolved measure of it? Like what's your dKh now?

[Neptune@gabesfish]

There has been no other reports of bad salt ..very much doubt it was that .Im with Karin on the DIY being the problem. Sorry this happen and hope you find problem

[Mr Cob]

how's it going now Justin? Did you lose anything? Let me know if you need me to hold any for you.

[justahobby]

The DIY was baking soda cooked. I also stopped dosing the alk and did water changes..... problem continued. The only constant has been the coralife salt. I will be testing ammonia when I get home. When I read Sherita's thread it seems like the issue was Coralife not RC.

[Europhyllia]

Short story, I got a new bucket of salt, did water change 2 days ago, matching salinity, temp, ph, alk. Right after the change, everything got really mad.

The new bucket of salt is Reef Crystals, the old bucket is Coralife. Something I noticed........the Coralife bucket has no odor to it, the Reef Crystals has some kind of odor.......hard to describe.

What is your alkalinity measurement?

[Big_Pun]

what are you using baking soda for? bio cubes are easy to keep parameters at appropriate levels just do water changes, way to easy to overdose 14g system. I've been using reef crystals for 2 years with no problems and looking around the net there is no evidence that a bad batch was put out.
do you have your own ro/DI system, check that out.

[justahobby]

The way I read it Karin is she purchased a new bucket of salt (coralife). Things got mad and she ended up getting a newer bucket of salt (rc) so the new became the old.

My current alk is 2 meq/l. I stopped dosing the alk and did water changes which why it is low.

[justahobby]

I promise the alkalinity is not the problem.

[justahobby]

Ammonia results:

My tank: 0.3
Coralife: 6.0 (not a typo!)
RODI: 0

[justahobby]

Also, 6.0 is as the limit the test shows. I am amazed at how well my tank was able to process the ammonia. Of course it was at the expense of coral :-(

[Europhyllia]

weird!

My next guess would have been the aluminum from the baking soda but I guess it's your ammonia.

[LuckySingh]

bro i completely understand how stressful it is when u deal with the situation like this knowing ur live stock is still in the polluted water....dosing could effect biocube in seconds in a improper manner...before u run any chemical through it i would suggest to hve someone else run a few test of ur water....however the chances of the salt to play foul in this situation is still hard to figure but possible...u might hve sme dead critter ...
how deep is ur sand bed??...i would say gently stirr ur sand bed by putting ur fingers through it slowly to let pass sme oxygen through it and increase a bit of flow in ur tank aswell..leave the top open if u hve the lid on it..keep us updated

[justahobby]

New batch of Red Sea salt mixing and tested:

Ammonia: ZERO

[Europhyllia]

The way I read it Karin is she purchased a new bucket of salt (coralife). .
Sherita says:

The one that caused the problem was Reef Crystals. It also had a weird smell.

Maybe the salt got contaminated at the shop? Where did you get it from?

[Bill S]

what are you using baking soda for? bio cubes are easy to keep parameters at appropriate levels just do water changes, way to easy to overdose 14g system. I've been using reef crystals for 2 years with no problems and looking around the net there is no evidence that a bad batch was put out.
do you have your own ro/DI system, check that out.

Justin, I agree with Chris on this. For a 14, changing water is the very best way of keeping up.

Anhydrous baking soda was a regular of mine with the 215 reef.