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Thread: Brown SPS one more time

  1. #1
    kotlec's Avatar
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    Brown SPS one more time

    I know It was talked about many times already, still I cant solve the problem.
    Have purchased Hanna for phosphates lately and reading is 0.02. So my concern about having elevated P are not valid anymore. Scrubber is doing its job !
    Nitrates are also undetectable. The only problem that I feel I can have is that maintaining stable Ca and kH is very hard due to small water quantity and high coral load. Ca jumps sometimes in 380-500 range and kH 7 - 8.8. This is better lately too as I got dosing equipment and it is finally tuned. All mentioned above does not harm SPS growth rates , only color. I was about to start blaming instability, but remembered that all corals browned in few days after introducing in to my tank . So they had no time to feel any instability at all in such short period.

    Other bad effects that I have in tank are week coraline growth (almost nonexistent) , some zooanthids and mushrooms dyeing whatever I do , snail death (introduced 7 - survived 2).

    The most thriving animal in my tank is pink birdsnest . Least brown and most growing.



    On the right side are few acros. One should be green and others blue. All brown ...

    Please share your ideas. I cant decide which direction should I try to change things.
    I have very small amount of carbon, purigen and P remover in back chamber but not exchange it very often. Whatever I have tried - nothing made any difference yet. That leads to idea - I never did the right move yet.


    p.s. forgot to mention brown film on all glass has to be cleaned every second-third day .

  2. #2
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    Hi P. Even though it measures "low".

    No coralline
    Dirty glass
    Brown acro

    If P were low, you just could not have dirty glass or no coralline. P is probably from dying things. I have the same problem with snails because of changing salinity because I still topoff manually and sometimes change it by 2% which way too high.

    I think P is flowing quickly from the dead things to your scrubber, and hitting your sps on the way. Everything that dies puts lots of P into the water, and it has to flow somewhere.

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    Thanks for answer

    Should I use more Rowaphos then ?
    I have automatic topoff, my salinity is not changing that much ( I hope).
    All story is 1,5 years long. What can be dyeing in my system ? I should not have anything alive to date
    I remove dead snail imediatelly when I see it is not moving during 2 days and not let it root.

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    A few things.

    What kind of growth are you getting on your scrubber? green , brown, oily?
    WHAT are you feeding the system?
    what kind of lights are you running? Corals will brown out do to lack of par as well as high p . the beneficial bacteria that coral uses to photosynthesis is actually brown and will multiply to meet the needs of the coral in a low light situation. Just throwing that out there.

    If your kh swings were the issue they would just melt(at least mine do)

    How much flow do you have in the display? DEad spots allow food to sit and rot behind rocks near the coral thus the p and n and ammonia are hitting the coral before your scrubber can do its thing. SPS require quite a bit of water movement to expell waste. It could be an issue as well.

    As far as snail and soft corals dieing, My first guess would be copper. But then all your coral would be TOAST. So im stumped on that one. /shrug. Maybe tank is too clean?

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    Hi Wopadobop

    I am getting most yellow growth with green strings on the screen edges. Not a sign of slime or oily brown.
    Feeding 0.5 gram once per day of assorted frozen food.
    I have DIY LED's over display. They seem very bright to my eyes. Have no access to any par meter unfortunately. 36 total watt over 16 galon of XPG and XPE from Cree.
    Water is moved by AquaBee 1000 for return , that works with no head loss as sits in back chamber and Tunze nanostream 6015

    I would not thing this is copper poisoning snails. I would not expect that good PE that I am watching all the time, be it copper case.

    Please watch this old short move, may be some ideas will come. Not much has changed- only corals are doubled in size since.

    http://youtu.be/xcKW3qyr3yo


    P.S. Exchanged Rowaphos 2 days ago after measured phophates at 0.02. Measured today again with Hanna checker - 0.00

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    well I am stumped. as far as the browning. you have plenty of light, I would think bleaching before browning. Looks like plenty of flow as well.

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    Forgot to mention. I have to blow sediment from rocks regularly, as it is accumulating in big amounts. I can not understand where from it goes as I feed really rational. I use filter floss in back chamber after that to catch all debris from water and get pile of that in couple of hours.

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    Sounds like the scrubber is not filtering because it is burning. Try less hours.

    The Rowaphos can't stop the P that is flowing from the dead things; the P hits the sps before it ever touches the Rowa.

    Sediment on the rocks is normal for a natural tank because of the periphyton and foramnifera that grow on the rocks; it collects stuff that drifts by, and all of this is eaten by cuc. Just like in the ocean.

  9. #9
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    Reducing hours then.

  10. #10
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    Kotlec - looking back at some threads you had a waterfall with a really strange alien growth. Did you ever get round to adding iron to cure this, and if you did, was there any improvement.

    I see you are also having a calcium swing that seems way out of the normal. Just a thought but pH could cause both of these problems, along with livestock death, coral tissue recession, underpopulated micro fauna ( excessive unprocessed detritus ) etc. are you sure that the basics in aquarium control are maintained ?

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