from you guys that keep SPS. Just got home after being gone for 4 days (Diving in Vortex springs Fl). I intentionally had my friend who kept an eye on things not feed the DT just my QT. Everything looked great when I got home except one of my favorite acros which is in the final throws of RTN. All the other SPS looks fine with good polyp extension. The "pink" tabling acro I got from the meeting at Shawn's house actually is coloring up (just not pink). All fish and inverts look good. LPS and zoas look exceptionally happy. The only other change is my cucumber moved about 8" after being in the same place for months. He looks fine though, actively feeding. I've had this acro for four months and it has been one of the more stable ones I have. Tested all parameters this afternoon. Salinity 1.026, pH 8.3, temp 79.2...all of which are stable. Chemistry....Ca+ 450, Mg+ 1380, Nitrate 2.5. The only things that have changed are my PO4 which has risen to 0.04 (was 0.00 the night before I left) and my Alk fell from 8.5 to 7.8 while I was gone! I've been gradually increasing my dosing as my stoney corals have grown but recently my alkalinity demand has increased dramatically. I've recently increased from 80 cc to 105 cc of two part solutions a day and I still can't keep my alkalinity up. Bumped it to 125 cc/24 hours today. Is that more than expected for a tank my size and ith the size colonies I have? (total water volume estimated at 165 gallons) Is the alkalinity drop what caused the RTN? What could be the reason for the rapid increase in calcium and particularly alkalinity demand?
I hate to hear that. It's kinda scary how fast something like that can happen. Hopefully someone else has some of that acro and can get you a replacement. Greg was talking with me at the meeting about the importance of having your favorite pieces in different tanks, so your experience really drove that point home with me. I hope that you can figure out what caused it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
RTN has no answer and no current cure. My suggestion it take it out and frag off the RTN above the tissue. Hopefully you can save some of it.
Hey David, you can save part of the acro if you can frag a good piece ahead of the RTN. Hopefully you can save some of it. I don't think this was caused by your Alk. change. RTN is some what of a mystery it could be any number of things but I don't think your parameters have anything to do with it, that all looks good to me.
If you Calcium is to high, 450 is on the upper limits of high to me , it's hard to keep Alk up. You may want to back down on Cal. This may help you bring up your Alk. Have you seen any Calcium buildup on heaters , on the impeller shafts of you pumps or the magnets on you vortech pumps? This could be where some of your Alk. and calcium is going.
Did that acro have good flow? There are some great articals in this months Coral magazine about good flow. Could something have settled on it and made it mad?
Great thought Corey. Haven't seen any precipitation but I haven't been looking for it. I'll turn my Ca+ doser off and check it every day till it gets down some. It had gotten away from me a little and had got as high as 470. Flow was really good where it was, high in tank even with one MP40 and just lower than the other. I always commented to my self when looking at it that its polyps were always moving. Thanks Greg. That helps!
I had a another thought about your Alk. and Calcium. Maybe your salt mix is low in Alk. so every time you do a water change it brings down your Alk. You may want to test your newly made up saltwater to see where your levels are at. Something I do when I get a new bucket of salt is try and mix it up as best I can by rolling the bucket around on the floor and turning it end over end. This may help mix up the salt because during shipping the larger sized salt particles settle.
I kind of quit checking that because it didn't vary much but I will. That still might be part of the problem though because it used to test a Calcium of about 480 and alk of 11. I've stepped up my water changes a little and that might be why my calcium crept up but I still can't explain the alkalinity dropping so fast.
