need help...

not sure whats going on... its driving me nuts bc things are fine one min and gone the next.. SPS is such a pain in the ass..

ok so i get home from work last night and notice my fire ice encinata has burned tips.. and this morning its dead, as well as a peach milli... wtf.. out of nowhere. drives you nuts some times..

i have no algea growth nothing out of the ordinary and everything else looks good..
i run a BRS dual reactor with carbon and bio pellets and another reactor with PO4x4
change my filter sock every 2 -3 days and rinse my frozen food before i feed..

amonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
mag 1375
cal 470
ph 8.2
alk 8.5
po4 .50 but has been this way for months..
did a 30g waterchange 2 weeks ago
just did 30g again today

retested po4 still 0.50???? is that possible?
making another 30g for tomorow


any sugjestions would be great!

maybe overdose mag or alk...or rapid water change

neither, i dont dose either.. just regular water changes.. and i use 1/4 in lines with rio pumps to do my water changes slow in slow out...

lighting?

LED's by ecoxotic.

link to my tank thread,
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/tank-threads/111889-finally-92g-corner-alive.html

how long have u had those lights? maybe u burned them? just a thought im not an expert on the leds or sps but ive read that u can do this with leds. whats ur light cycle?

maybe it was the tide and fabric softner :lol2: but seriously it seems something is out of whack. did you do anything to the tank before last night? how is the flow in those areas? are these newer pieces or old. how long have you had the leds on with those corals? have you checked the po4 of the new water just for reference. how high are those corals on the rocks? im out of ideas :scratchch

Tonyscoots84 said:

maybe it was the tide and fabric softner :lol2: but seriously it seems something is out of whack. did you do anything to the tank before last night? how is the flow in those areas? are these newer pieces or old. how long have you had the leds on with those corals? have you checked the po4 of the new water just for reference. how high are those corals on the rocks? im out of ideas :scratchch

Click to expand...

i just ran out of fabric softner..

the peach milli is new(swap) but the ice fire was 2 weeks old and had pollyp extension. didnt touch the tank.. i have an mp40 and an mp10 onthe tank plug a mag 18 for return flow. the LED's have always been on this tank and not moved. the pieces were in the center level of the tank abt 12in down. and the light is abt 10ish inches above the water..

i tested the new water and both fresh and fresh made salt and theyre at 0, well yellow on api is zero(ish) but the po4 has always been high not something new.. and my other corals are ok.. both higher and lower..

rbtwo4 said:

how long have u had those lights? maybe u burned them? just a thought im not an expert on the leds or sps but ive read that u can do this with leds. whats ur light cycle?

Click to expand...

i dont know if i burned them, maybe the ice fire b ut not the milli.. the LEDs are not new been on the tank since it was set up abt 4 months. my lights go on at 11:30am and go off at 8:30pm

well since the pieces are newer that kind of says it right there. that would be my best conclusion. same thing happened to me it was approx. 2 weeks before the sps i had did the same thing.

i have other pieces that i got at the same time as the milli, actually a second piece of the same one, doing fine.. and the ice fire i had longer was doing great than boom brown tips and gone in a few hours..

yeah if pieces were newer that may be why. maybe the people u got them from use different salt or their water was worse or more pristine then yours. or they had different lighting, flow, positioned somewhere else in tank. couldve been a lot of stress for them. sorry for the loss bro hope u got them cheap.

cheap??? lol

lol i dunno about sps lol

that was abt an 80$ loss

Echinata are super sensitive to begin with, just look at them wrong and they crap out..how long have you been running bio pellets?

bio pellets have been running abt 3-4 weeks tops.. and the po4x4 have been abt 2 weeks..

also i tested my wate with a different test kit found nitrates are at 30mg/L which isnt good.. just did 35 gallon change and filling up to do it again tomorow..

i am noticing that SPS are stable living organisms and more sensitive sps is more sensitive in changes.if yu are not dosing your alk will get lower and lower until yu do a water change and then that might bring alk back up so its constantly swinging.if you dose small amounts through the day it will keep you levels a bit more stable and a cal reactor will always be stable.if you know it or not alk can be depleted very quickly in a reef tank.alot more then calcium.if your alk is not stable you will lose some more sensitive pieces

Mike what brand test kit do you use for po4
I would only use a Hanna checker nothing else if you want accurate
Also if you want sps you need a doser or a reactor IMO
If there is such as a litle change sps will bleach.. Even water changes with different water levels can bleach sps... I would invest in either or give up sps.. Alk swings kill sps!!
I lost many colonies due to this

Did you dip the Echinata? As stated earlier in the thread, they are extremely sensitive and as such should not be dipped. Some corals will not show distress immediately when placed in a different setting, but will die a slow death. I don't consider any new frag as doing well until I start to see new growth.

I have no idea about your Millie however, but if all your levels are good and other SPS are thriving I wouldn't do anything but watch and see at this point.