hi, I'm Dave from San Diego.
I travel quite often to Orange County (almost every weekend it seems).
I'm a stock day-trader in the morning, software consultant by noon and enthusiast reefer by evening.
I started my first 50gal tank two years ago and it crashed and burned due to my constant experimentation.
So the answer to my first failure was simply to upgrade to a 125 gallon tank (in January of this year).
I threw the kitchen sink at this new build to make sure it was a success: 3 Kessils + 4 ATI bulbs, Rollermat, zeovit skimmer, ATS scrubber, UV sterilizer, vertex controller, etc...
...and 8 months into the new tank (48"x30"x20"), I threw in a few SPS frags to test it out. ALL of the frags lost 100% flesh/tissue within 12 hours!
I then sent in a Triton test and got back results with high heavy metals and vanadium (what the heck is this?).
I spent the next month doing 200% water changes and ran GAC + detox + cuprisorb + rowasPhos passively.
Sent in another Triton test and result came with the same high levels of metals and vanadium.
So 3 weeks ago I took out the Jebao pumps and marinePure ceramic block (since I'm just narrowing down the root cause at this point).
I've sent out yet another ICP test, this time with ATI. In the mean time, I have had a few hardy SPS frags (digi, stylo, birdsnest, montis) in the tank and they've survived over 2 weeks now. This is a great sign for me and I'm hoping to get past this nightmare of an issue soon.
I travel quite often to Orange County (almost every weekend it seems).
I'm a stock day-trader in the morning, software consultant by noon and enthusiast reefer by evening.
I started my first 50gal tank two years ago and it crashed and burned due to my constant experimentation.
So the answer to my first failure was simply to upgrade to a 125 gallon tank (in January of this year).
I threw the kitchen sink at this new build to make sure it was a success: 3 Kessils + 4 ATI bulbs, Rollermat, zeovit skimmer, ATS scrubber, UV sterilizer, vertex controller, etc...
...and 8 months into the new tank (48"x30"x20"), I threw in a few SPS frags to test it out. ALL of the frags lost 100% flesh/tissue within 12 hours!
I then sent in a Triton test and got back results with high heavy metals and vanadium (what the heck is this?).
I spent the next month doing 200% water changes and ran GAC + detox + cuprisorb + rowasPhos passively.
Sent in another Triton test and result came with the same high levels of metals and vanadium.
So 3 weeks ago I took out the Jebao pumps and marinePure ceramic block (since I'm just narrowing down the root cause at this point).
I've sent out yet another ICP test, this time with ATI. In the mean time, I have had a few hardy SPS frags (digi, stylo, birdsnest, montis) in the tank and they've survived over 2 weeks now. This is a great sign for me and I'm hoping to get past this nightmare of an issue soon.
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