Lost my large colony of Green Seratopora

[+SChrisEV]

I'm pretty sure it was RTN, but I have zero understanding of why. It really sucks it was going SO well for so long, my largest colony of any SPS, any coral actually. All grown from a small frag. I have a couple weeks at work that I was super busy, preparing for, then moving our office. I'd leaving early in the morning, and get back well after lights out. I noticed some minor recession the couple weeks before but it was very minor and did not seem to be spreading much at all.

These were the water parameters that I tested over the weekend, they all seem okay:

Ammonia .0 ppm
Nitrite .0 ppm
Nitrate 0.0 ppm
Ca 485 ppm
Mg 1400 ppm
KH 3.5 Meq/L - 9.8 dKH
Phosphate/PO4 .03 ppm

My salinity is (as usual) at 1.025

My pH is between 7.98 and 8.2 from early am to night

Temp is always between 78.1 and 78.7 (thanks to a fan controlled by the APEX)

here is a 7 day graph of temp and pH to see the "swing" that I have day to day. This was leading up to 9/6

Any ideas? I do't really want this to happen to any other coral, really sucks, it's a real bummer!!

[victoly]

How alk dosed ?

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[Juiceman]

Yeah, ALK is the normal culprit. I have a few frags of Green Seratopora that I'll give you if you'd like.

[+SChrisEV]

Thanks Juiceman, There were a few (pretty small) areas of the coral that still had tissue and polyps so I frag those pieces, before I add any more coral at all I'd like to figure out what happened, to try and avoid it again.

I'm not dosing ALK at all. Only dosing I'm doing is adding kalkwasser (from BRS). Once I started to add kalk I was testing a little more frequently. Here are my tests over the past couple months:

7/4/2013 3.0 Meq/L 8.4 dKH
7/28/2013 3.8 Meq/L 10.6 dKH
8/3/2013 3.5 Meq/L 9.8 dKH
8/24/2013 3.3 Meq/L 9.2 dKH

9/7/2013 3.5 Meq/L 9.8 dKH

I started dosing Kalk about 7/25/2013

My understanding is that 2.5 - 4 meq/L - 7 - 11 dKH is acceptable for a reef aquarium, so it seem like I am in the correct area. 10.6 dKH is high, I did a water changed and reduced my dosing a bit. I actually just adjusted it down a little more over the weekend, but just slightly. I'll test again tonight or tomorrow to see were it is now. Still think ALK is my issue?

[victoly]

It's almost never the nominal level of alk that is dangerous, but rather the relative speed at which the alk changes. I ended up ceasing using kalk not because it wasn't keeping up with demand (it was), i just hated the constantly upward creeping pH. Maybe your ATO is a little better tuned than mine, but i was getting fairly large kalk dumps and consequent alk swings using it. Just something to ponder. The second piece to this is that seriatophora can be a very temperamental coral. sometimes they just go because they hate you, not because of anything you did or did not do. try again with some of rory's frags and see whats up.

otherwise, your stats all look fine to me.

[+SChrisEV]

"Hate me!" But I talk nice to them and everything!!!

Well, I went with Kalk cuz my Ca was dropping faster than I liked between water changes, but only a little, so I figured kalk was a good "first step". I did change how I was adding kalk, I did not think to mention that. I was adding it with my ATO, but then I picked up a dosing pump and decided to separate those two. I need to look at when I did that in relationship to all of this, it was a couple weeks after I started to use kalk. If anything that made it more stable, less swing, I think!

Based on "the relative speed at which the alk changes" maybe that is/was the issue. I'm going to do a little more testing over the next week or so and see how stable that is. Given I have to work, always gets in the way, I'll probably only test at night, but I don't think that kalk will change ALK (swing up and down) that quickly from hour to hour will it? I mean assuming I'm not dosing much, and doing it consistently.

[Juiceman]

Maybe a Kalk user will chime in, but I had problems when I wasn't dosing ALK buffer equally all day. Dose yours dose equally all day and night?

[+SChrisEV]

Yes, I am dosing equally all day and and night. I read about dosing more at night to try and keep the pH up when the lights were off, but I have not done that.

[esacjack]

maybe lowering alk too quickly? I encountered something eerily similar in one of my tanks recently. All my sps were doing great, encrusting, growth.. Then I performed a water change to try and lower my Alk. (it was 10ish). A few days later, everything started looking crappy, then overnight I lost three acros and some zoas.. Ive been at a loss as to what it could be, but the only thing that -drastically- changed, was a drop from Alk 10, to alk 8. I was using Kalk as my supplement in this tank, it was the last tank still using kalk.

[victoly]

maybe lowering alk too quickly? I encountered something eerily similar in one of my tanks recently. All my sps were doing great, encrusting, growth.. Then I performed a water change to try and lower my Alk. (it was 10ish). A few days later, everything started looking crappy, then overnight I lost three acros and some zoas.. Ive been at a loss as to what it could be, but the only thing that -drastically- changed, was a drop from Alk 10, to alk 8. I was using Kalk as my supplement in this tank, it was the last tank still using kalk.

Yeah, 10-8 will definitely do it.

[victoly]

"Hate me!" But I talk nice to them and everything!!!

Well, I went with Kalk cuz my Ca was dropping faster than I liked between water changes, but only a little, so I figured kalk was a good "first step". I did change how I was adding kalk, I did not think to mention that. I was adding it with my ATO, but then I picked up a dosing pump and decided to separate those two. I need to look at when I did that in relationship to all of this, it was a couple weeks after I started to use kalk. If anything that made it more stable, less swing, I think!

Based on "the relative speed at which the alk changes" maybe that is/was the issue. I'm going to do a little more testing over the next week or so and see how stable that is. Given I have to work, always gets in the way, I'll probably only test at night, but I don't think that kalk will change ALK (swing up and down) that quickly from hour to hour will it? I mean assuming I'm not dosing much, and doing it consistently.

It wont or shouldn't change too much hour to hour. A good gauge might be to test once right before a dose time, and then one a few minutes after a dose to see how much it changes as a result. I didnt know earlier that you werent dosing via ATO, so i think it's less likely that a big alk dump is the culprit. But you should definitely look into splitting your dosing up to the period after your lights go off to help mitigate some of the pH swing involved with kalk dosing.

[+SChrisEV]

So, should I dose less in the day and more (frequency) at night, or not dose at all during the day? I'm using the BRS Dosing pump, I believe it is the 1.1 mL / minute version. I got the pump second hand so I'll have to verify that, but if that is right I dose 5.5 mL over 5 minutes then nothing for 10 minutes then repeat, on and on and on....

So, if I can do some simple math, I dose for 6 hours in a 24 hour period, 396 mL total. Assuming that is a good amount (based on my tests) should I change this to dose that 6 hours (396 mL) "tighter" over the lights out time? Or should I follow a completely different approach?

I stopped dosing it from my ATO, cuz the AquaLifter was getting clogged and the 1.1 mL dose was not keeping up with my evaporation. Based on (if this was the cause) losing the colony I'm asking all these questions, I don't want to loose anything else! Thanks in advance for the help/direction.

[victoly]

The problem with condensing kalk dosing vs just straight 2 part, is that you get a pretty big pH swing with kalk. You're already mitigating that partially by using a dosing pump vs ATO. Depending on how much a dose of kalk raises your pH/alk, you might try to start dosing as soon as lights go out in your tank. you should be able to see a noticeable decrease in your day vs night pH. However, devils advocate here, there is something to be said for consistent dosing in smaller volumes (i.e., the way you're doing it now).

First, I'd collect some data.

Do a test immediately prior to and 5 minutes after a kalk dose. See what affect that has on your tank.

Double your dose to simulate a condensed night dose.

Let us know what your results are and we can science up this biznitch.

[+SChrisEV]

I'll do that, but looking like it has to be tomorrow evening.

[esacjack]

you still have a ground probe installed right chris? You havent noticed anything else 'iffy' goin on?

[+SChrisEV]

I actually don't have a ground probe installed, but no I have not seen anything else going on.

[+SChrisEV]

Okay , tests are in... BUT I was wrong on my math in the start, so the rest of the number (as far as how much I dose) was wrong above... I do dose 5 minutes on, then 10 minutes off... bit that equals 4 doses an hour, or 5.5 * 4 = 22 mL an hour, and 528 mL over the course of the day, not 396 mL as I posted before.... all in all this does not change much, still looking at the option to dose more (or entirly at night) and not during the day, to minimize my pH swing from over the day.

So on to the test results. I actually did three test, test three was really just to verify test 1...

I'm using the Red Sea Reef Foundation test kit, I feel there is a pretty good margin of error, just in reading, but I was looking more for fluctuation in the result than an exact reading...

Test #1 was done right before the START of a 5 minute dose cycle. ~ 3.2 meq/l or 9.0 dKh

Test #2 was done and the END of the same cycle... The reading was basically the same: ~ 3.2 meq/l or 9.0 dKh

Test #3 confirms the same...

Now my dKh could easily be 9.1 or 9.2, or even 8.9 but again there was very little change between an individual 5 minutes on 10 minute off cycle.

So the question is, can I, or SHOULD I change this up and try to dose more during the night hours, still trying to dose about 528 mL in a say 13 or 14 hour window in stead of a 24 hour window??

Thoughts?

[Bpb]

This relates. It's not an answer. But another question.

What is worse? Swings in alk or swings in ph? Seems to me if you limit your kalk dosing to nightly, it'll keep the ph more stable, but you'll have rising and falling calcium and alk as opposed to dosing throughout the day...but the daytime part will cause a bigger ph shift.

I'm sure some people will say "well that's why you should dose 2 part and not kalk".

[FarmerTy]

In my experience, swings of alk are the devil and are less tolerated than swings of pH.

[+SChrisEV]

a pH swing is far better than an ALK swing, the question, at this point, IS, can I dose at night (it seems that a lot/or some do) and NOT have much of a ALK swing.

[victoly]

I would say that if you didnt notice a measurable change in alk over a given dose, then its probably safe to double the dose during night time dosing. As we all know, kalk is just a gateway drug to 2 part of CaRx's

[FarmerTy]

I would say that if you didnt notice a measurable change in alk over a given dose, then its probably safe to double the dose during night time dosing. As we all know, kalk is just a gateway drug to 2 part of CaRx's

Hilarious! I skipped right over kalk and went 2-part... when that was not enough for me, I went all in with the CaRX.

[+SChrisEV]

Yeah my plan/hope is to use kalk for a bit then step up to CaRx, QUITE a cost difference!

[+SChrisEV]

To loop back to the original post, it's probably still to early to be 100% sure, but I was able to salvage a few frags from the colony of Seratopora, I stuck them in a but of epoxy and stuck them to a rock, they are doing well, one had a slight bare spot and it has filled back in already. Still sucks that I lost that large colony, but so far it looks like I'll still have part of it to enjoy!