Alright, month of October my tank went to poop. Was gone 3 weeks in Oct and the person watching the tank did what they could for the system which wasn't much. I treated Boyds for cyano and the cyano disapeared along with the growth on the scrubber. I mean scrubber went from thick green growth to bone white. My magnesium was undetectable so have been dosing Ca since. I recently replaced T5's with a Hydra LED system but before that, been noticing a ton of recession in pretty much all of my corals. Probably due to lack of Ca. Tank was running beautifully with minor cyano before vacation. Been running scrubber only for over a year now. System is a 36gal Elos Midi with 1st gen L2 scrubber and have been feeding about 2 cubes a day. Lights on for 9hrs. API test kit as of this morning PH 8.2 KH 9/161.1 Nitrate 5ppm Phos 0-.25 Mag unreadable (salifer test kit) Calcium undetectable and dosing tropic marine one scoop every other day starting in november Salinity 1.026 Also been noticing a lot of dirtitus in the sump. Placed a mesh bag of 2Tbls of carbon in the sump and corals started to recess further. Thinking of skimming on top of the scrubber. Thoughts? Turbo I believe you have been experimenting or running a skimmer along side the scrubber. Was wondering on cycles between running each. Pics Screen after 2 days 9hr cycle FTS: cloudy water as I stirrup up the sandbed a bit Lobe dying Hammer all but dead Also for the Hydra I'm running all blues, violets and UV at 35%, Whites at 20% and Red and Green at 10% which was recommended. Corals initially opened happily to the new lights at the t5's needed changing but again have pooped the bed. Getting really frustrated.
I'd say you have a test kit problem. There's just no way you should have "undetectable" readings for both Mag and Cal. These test kits are sort of the reverse of what you might think in the respect that you add drops in the titration stage until you exceed a chemical barrier which causes the color change. So the higher your level you are testing for, the more you must add of the titration reagent. So maybe some clarification on why you say they are undetectable is in order. I use Salifert for Cal and Mag. Let's take Cal for starts. Take 2mL, add 1 scoop #1, 8 drops #2, swirl for 10+ seconds. Mixture is pink. Add drops of #3 until it turns blue. The higher your calcium, the more you have to titrate until you see blue. So if you never see blue, then you're over 500ppm. Refill the titration syringe and add more drops. Each 0.1mL on the syringe represents 50ppm. So if you end up dripping in another 0.1 mL, you're at 550. (corrected my error). Same goes for Mag, if you use the whole syringe (1.0 mL) and you don't see the color change over from purpleish-whatever to grey or steel-blue, then you're over 1500, refill the syringe and continue dripping. Each 0.01mL = 15ppm
Chemi-clean strips oxygen out of the tank. Seen far to many people 'follow the instructions' with that product only to end up killing all their fish and coral. Biggest issue is it tells you to turn off a skimmer if you have one, which is the worse thing to do with this product. Yes, it will overflow the skimmer so you must remove the cup, but you have to keep it running to keep oxygen levels good in the tank if you dosed the recommended dosage. It is done, but in the future I would highly recommend not using chemi-clean or other antibiotics to kill cyano because it also kills the majority of the good bacteria in the tank, which then puts your tank back into a cycle. Siphon the cyano and a few large water changes along with carbon should be more than enough to get cyano to go away naturally without using the 'nuclear bomb' approach. Now, what I would do if possible, is I would do a near 100% water changes on your tank daily for the next few days. It will quickly flush out the bad stuff in the water and what I feel is the best chance for survival for the corals. If you try and wait it out or just make little changes I have a feeling the corals will still decline and die before things stable back out.
Thanks. Not running a skimmer but did continue to run the scrubber during the dosing. Did well over the recommended WC after 48hrs. Did a 50% change again this morning. Really didn't want to use the chemiclean but a good friend and long time reefer had great things to say. Well, I will not be using that again. Turbo, I went back and retested the Mg (salifer) and Ca (api) (santa is bringing me new test kits) after the water change. Mg turned grey/blue after the last drop so at around (prob still a little high) 1500 and Ca tested at 420ppm. I'll continue with larger water changes and hope for the best.
Well Ace, the large water changes seemed to do the trick. Was doind small ones but large was the way to go. May still lose a lobe but the hammers and frogs are showing great signs of life.
I recommend vacuuming your sump. Place a couple small power heads in there to assist. I vacuum mine at least once per month, using a small 3/8" hose. Use a brine-shrimp net to scoop up the cyano, as well as dinoflagelates.
