UNS 90L
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Need some help please, ever since the salinity incident things have been going up and down, but never really back to normal
Params have been hovering around this
35 ppt, alk 9.3, mag 1400, calcium 430
Ive been running carbon in 2 hobs and just added a uv sterilizer right now, doing 25 percent wcs 1-2 times a week
All the zoas have been closed up since the swing, and the torches were all okay until today
1-2 torches have been losing a little tissue, but my frogspawn and hammers have lost a lot. goni barely opens and anemone is pissed
a couple snails died as well, but phos is close to 0 and nitrates is always under 5
there's a lot of surface agitation, but i do see bubbles forming at the surface everyday
the other things that have happened are that the wavemaker stirred up some of the sand, but my sand usually gets moved by snails since its around an inch deep, and i fragged some zoas a day or two before the swing
fish show no signs of stress
Params have been hovering around this
35 ppt, alk 9.3, mag 1400, calcium 430
Ive been running carbon in 2 hobs and just added a uv sterilizer right now, doing 25 percent wcs 1-2 times a week
All the zoas have been closed up since the swing, and the torches were all okay until today
1-2 torches have been losing a little tissue, but my frogspawn and hammers have lost a lot. goni barely opens and anemone is pissed
a couple snails died as well, but phos is close to 0 and nitrates is always under 5
there's a lot of surface agitation, but i do see bubbles forming at the surface everyday
the other things that have happened are that the wavemaker stirred up some of the sand, but my sand usually gets moved by snails since its around an inch deep, and i fragged some zoas a day or two before the swing
fish show no signs of stress
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I think that big salinity swing may have thrown your system out of balance and shocked some of your inhabitants (corals and bacteria). So it's going to take some time for the tank to stabilize even if you get your parameters back to normal. The damage may have been done already, and your corals and inhabitants are trying to make a comeback, while others may already starting its decline. Salinity swings are a big shock to the system, similar to alk. But usually, hyposalinity (low salinity) is not as bad as hypersalinity (high salinity)...depending on how low you got and for how long.
Do you have any idea on how long was the salinity swing lasted and how low did the salinity go down to? What happened with the ATO? Do you have a controller like APEX? Controllers are invaluable to keep issues at bay or at least notify you when something is wrong. It may seem like a lot of cost for all the widgets, but its a great tool to troubleshoot when things do go wrong, or it can cut off ATO pumps when salinity drops or send you a message. I've also had tank crashes before (adding kalk as make-up ATO water), and you learn quickly that have controllers help tremendously and not as pricey as they seem once you factor in all the cost for a crash.
If you can check for ammonia and nitrite, and see if you have any from the die off. If not too bad, I would actually slow down on the water change as your parameters look good. And you probably want some phosphates and nitrates in the system.
What you are going through is probably a mini crash due to the salinity. The best you can do is keep the system stable. Do water changes when necessary. Good luck! Let us know what makes it and what doesn't. Perhaps, if other reefers can help you restock what you have lost. I have some zoas and shrooms to get you back on your feet once the tank is back in order.
Do you have any idea on how long was the salinity swing lasted and how low did the salinity go down to? What happened with the ATO? Do you have a controller like APEX? Controllers are invaluable to keep issues at bay or at least notify you when something is wrong. It may seem like a lot of cost for all the widgets, but its a great tool to troubleshoot when things do go wrong, or it can cut off ATO pumps when salinity drops or send you a message. I've also had tank crashes before (adding kalk as make-up ATO water), and you learn quickly that have controllers help tremendously and not as pricey as they seem once you factor in all the cost for a crash.
If you can check for ammonia and nitrite, and see if you have any from the die off. If not too bad, I would actually slow down on the water change as your parameters look good. And you probably want some phosphates and nitrates in the system.
What you are going through is probably a mini crash due to the salinity. The best you can do is keep the system stable. Do water changes when necessary. Good luck! Let us know what makes it and what doesn't. Perhaps, if other reefers can help you restock what you have lost. I have some zoas and shrooms to get you back on your feet once the tank is back in order.
31 ppt is not crazy low. So hopefully, your tank will recover since you have corrected it.
Just in case, what do you use to measure salinity? I would take your refractometer to a LFS to calibrate, and also bring a sample of your tank water to the LFS to verify. Just to make sure that's correct before doing any more corrections.
Just in case, what do you use to measure salinity? I would take your refractometer to a LFS to calibrate, and also bring a sample of your tank water to the LFS to verify. Just to make sure that's correct before doing any more corrections.
31 is not bad, mine has been there before when I've been not on top of calibrating refractometer. How fast did you recorrect salinity to 35? I know you've probably already done it, but if this happens again, correct slowly. Drifting from calibration is generally slow (unless it's like an ATO dump or a water change gone very wrong) so it's usually not too bad. Correcting usually happens faster, and thats the dangerous part IME. I'd take at least 2 days to correct up that amount, not sure what others would do?
those little bubbles are probably just some protein/scum buildup on the surface from probably angry corals and critters shedding more mucus (and/or critters like bacteria or dinos or such that feed on those things blooming). A quick paper towel along the air/water interface works wonders (i do this relativley frequently since i run skimmerless) and really improves gas exchange, so will help in keeping things balanced. otherwise, just stay the course and I hope stability comes soon for you!
those little bubbles are probably just some protein/scum buildup on the surface from probably angry corals and critters shedding more mucus (and/or critters like bacteria or dinos or such that feed on those things blooming). A quick paper towel along the air/water interface works wonders (i do this relativley frequently since i run skimmerless) and really improves gas exchange, so will help in keeping things balanced. otherwise, just stay the course and I hope stability comes soon for you!
I unfortunately recorrected the salinity to 35 ppt almost immediately, i should have done it slower
rip, really thought this gold torch would pull through hopefully the other heads will, gonna do an iodine dip and clean that head out
rest of the torches don't have much recession, seeing some on the holy grails but thankfully none on the sungod
none of the hammers and frogspawn have bailed yet, anemone went under the rocks
zoas havent melted away yet, mainly praying for the strats to pull through
chalices, yumas, and favia look unbothered
had to throw away my JB, it was just melting away
any tips on getting phos/nitrates up? also got a free ICP test from OC Coral show, wondering if I should send that in now
rip, really thought this gold torch would pull through hopefully the other heads will, gonna do an iodine dip and clean that head out
rest of the torches don't have much recession, seeing some on the holy grails but thankfully none on the sungod
none of the hammers and frogspawn have bailed yet, anemone went under the rocks
zoas havent melted away yet, mainly praying for the strats to pull through
chalices, yumas, and favia look unbothered
had to throw away my JB, it was just melting away
any tips on getting phos/nitrates up? also got a free ICP test from OC Coral show, wondering if I should send that in now
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I'm sorry about the torch, thats such a bad feeling. The need to cut and dip and then just watching and waiting for it to continue or not, very rough.
As others suggested I think minimizing water changes is good (lets nutrients rise and keeps stable).
UNLESS you notice/suspect bacterial infection issues popping up. Signs would be tissue melting, not just receding like STN from stress but hanging off and turning to dark slime, and if sloughed slime touches another coral, that coral starts receding too. In that case, frequent small water changes are the way - you need to dilute out the 'bad' bacteria so siphoning off nasty looking coral mucus, sloughed tissue (on a daily or twice daily basis depending on how much is being produced). essentially 5-10% water changes while siphoning hotspots.
But in terms of upping nutrients, I use sodium nitrate and sodium phosphate (forget if mono or dibasic) off Amazon i mix up to a concentration such that 1 mL into my tank rases tank by 1ppm for nitrate or 0.01ppm phosphate. Probably ammonium would be better to dose than nitrate for N, but nitrate is a little safer.
So if you think things are just unstable from the event (most likely), try to wait it out, triage corals that look dire not just stressed, and keep nutrients up and monitor parameters from time to time like ca/alk/nutrients to know when you're back to normal. Or, if you think kicked off an active bacterial infection, frequent removal of dead tissue and small water changes to account for that, but be suuuuper careful to match water params when doing these water changes.
As others suggested I think minimizing water changes is good (lets nutrients rise and keeps stable).
UNLESS you notice/suspect bacterial infection issues popping up. Signs would be tissue melting, not just receding like STN from stress but hanging off and turning to dark slime, and if sloughed slime touches another coral, that coral starts receding too. In that case, frequent small water changes are the way - you need to dilute out the 'bad' bacteria so siphoning off nasty looking coral mucus, sloughed tissue (on a daily or twice daily basis depending on how much is being produced). essentially 5-10% water changes while siphoning hotspots.
But in terms of upping nutrients, I use sodium nitrate and sodium phosphate (forget if mono or dibasic) off Amazon i mix up to a concentration such that 1 mL into my tank rases tank by 1ppm for nitrate or 0.01ppm phosphate. Probably ammonium would be better to dose than nitrate for N, but nitrate is a little safer.
So if you think things are just unstable from the event (most likely), try to wait it out, triage corals that look dire not just stressed, and keep nutrients up and monitor parameters from time to time like ca/alk/nutrients to know when you're back to normal. Or, if you think kicked off an active bacterial infection, frequent removal of dead tissue and small water changes to account for that, but be suuuuper careful to match water params when doing these water changes.
Torches are usually the first to melt. And once they start melting, they tend to spread through the whole colony. Some call it brown jelly, but I think it's just its guts and once that brown stuff touches another coral...they start melting too. I dremel cut the bad head quick before it can spread, but it's hard to recover in my experience for torches. Not impossible. I saved 1 head from a colony of 7-8 heads. It's tough. Torches are so cool, but they are pretty sensitive to swings similar to SPS.
I think the ATO dumped again, I noticed the water level was higher than usual and checked the salinity, calib refractometer again too. Dropped to like 30-31 ppt. Going to look into getting a new ATO if I can't find out what's going on with this one. Might have to clean the floating part for this tunze.
For now I'm raising it slowly this time, I put the ATO in a bucket of higher salinity water and gonna let evaporation do its thing and take a few scoops out everyday
For now I'm raising it slowly this time, I put the ATO in a bucket of higher salinity water and gonna let evaporation do its thing and take a few scoops out everyday
Which model of ATO? Tunze osmolator?
I use the Tunze osmolator 3155 (previous generation to the current Osmolator 3).
Do you have a check valve on the tubing of the ATO? Personally, I drilled a hole in the tubing (inside the ATO, so water squirting out of hole stays inside ATO), and it acts like a syphon break as my ATO is higher than my sump. I don't really trust check valves.
I use the Tunze osmolator 3155 (previous generation to the current Osmolator 3).
Do you have a check valve on the tubing of the ATO? Personally, I drilled a hole in the tubing (inside the ATO, so water squirting out of hole stays inside ATO), and it acts like a syphon break as my ATO is higher than my sump. I don't really trust check valves.
