Corals dying

[SueT]

Matt, sorry to be so late in getting back to you about the reactor situation I experienced. I had someone set this calcium reactor up at the end of september and it worked great for 3 weeks. I was very impressed and then all heck broke loose. The levels went sky high and I could not throttle them back. During this time I was doing water changes and trying to get the reactor back to normal.

It was finally throttled back to what it runs now at 480ppm and alk. at 13.2. Mike Paletta thinks that the extremely high alk. may have started the entire process of burning some of the corals/frags and with the die off, some thing's in the mud bed died too. So it could very easily have started the mud bed leaching back into the tank before the new year. Or things could have been hanging on for longer and the mud bed dying happened more recently. As for now things can't be traced back to anything more than the reactor instability as my corals/frags were doing fine and my own idea that adding a calcium reactor might get me better growth.

[matt]

Sue, when I read your post my first thought was 'uh-oh' because I've used my aquarium as kind of a tweaking ground for my reactors; constantly trying to get maximum efficiency. But, I don't think I've ever run the tank higher than dkh12 or Ca 460 or so. Then I thought, well, maybe because the corals have not been growing lately, the alk might have spiked due to lower Ca demand. So I checked this morning, and my alk, Ca, and ph levels are right on the money.

The more I think about it, there are 2 or 3 key events that probably contributed to this. 1) I simply did not stock my sand bed aggressively enough, and an order from inland arrived in rough shape, which I never replaced. 2) the flatworm treatments undoubtedly attacked some sand bed life 3) adding a large fish around this time (copperband for aiptasia control) probably pushed extra phosphate into the system.

I'm going to heavily restock my sand bed, if anyone in San Antonio has some bristleworms, I'll buy them. I'd like to add 100 or more small worms in the next few weeks. I'm also probably going to remove a fish or two and some liverock. Then I'll try building up the tank eco-system very slowly over the next several months.

Oh yeah, Sue, it's likely that your reactor went nuts because you lost fine control over the CO2 input. A terrific solution to this is to use the Dwyer flowmeter to control CO2 flow intead of the needle valve that comes standard on aquarium regulators. It's much more reliable. Also, the first few weeks of running a reactor are a bit sensitive; you're adding a lot of CO2 into the tank, which is good for growth IF it's controlled correctly. And something many people forget is that the reactor is recycling tank water, which means that if you raise your Ca and alk over a few days, for example, then the reactor is now adding Ca and carbonate to water that already has higher levels, and already has a lower ph. Thus, it's effect can snowball. It's sort of a balance issue.

[Instar]

I have some small bristle worms and a little live sand I can bring you. Providing I can catch the darn bristle worms. They are always stinging me when I don't want to catch them. I have pure cultures without flat worms of these and a couple different types of pods too. Maybe I can bait some up to one spot where they are easy to scoop up. Do you want to shoot for.. say Thursday evening or Friday. You're money is no good here, its a donation to get you going again. I'd like to find some sand this grain size cause I keep using it to seed other tanks and need some more. Its aragonite about 0.3 to 0.5 mm grain. Not fine like sugar fine or southdown. Its a great sand bed and starter.

I was reading something about too many fish in your tank and had a long reply to that and lost it to fat fingering the keys. Anyway, I have at least as much fish load as you, if not more with two garbage can tangs, the pair of maroons and 4 copperbands that eat a very rich diet and some small fish; And some softies, including leathers too. With export routes, equipment (skimmers, etc) and water maint appropriate, its not a problem so long as maint is proportional and fairly regular IMO. Not really exactly the same as a large leather bio mass. I've had tanks with a lot more than this in them.

[matt]

Larry;

Thursday evening is perfect; thanks!

I think I'm going to frag the two large millipora colonies; save the bases and a few of the healthiest tips, and donate the rest to experienced reefkeepers who would like a shot at bringing these back to life. I will do this on Thursday or Friday evening if anyone is interested in picking up some frags. Obviously, these are not healthy corals and I suggest anyone interested quarantine the frags.