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asylumdown
03-03-2014, 07:34 PM
Hey guys,

I know i posted about this in another thread, but I'm absolutely beside myself. My coral has been dying for weeks now, but I went out of town on Wednesday until yesterday and came home to 40-50% coral loss. I can't figure out what's happening. Fish and inverts are all fine.

The coral damage began when I fixed a malfunctioning biopellet reactor, and switched GFO and calcium brands My alk spiked, which I thought was the initial cause, but now I'm thinking the alk spike was a symptom of the corals all ceasing to grow. What started out as burnt tips has devolved to full out colony loss in many cases, and nothing is the right colour.

Has anyone in Calgary experienced problems with coral after a switch in GFO or calcium brands recently? Can nitrogen deficiency cause this? My tank has always had biopellets, it's just working better now than it has in the past. I have a cluster of halimeda growing in the tank and macro algae is still growing in the overflows where my fish can't get to it, so there's obviously enough nutrients to support them.

Randomly, a couple of millepora colonies are still growing, while their next door neighbours almost completely dead.

With a complete stop in most coral growth, my levels are obviously not exactly where they should be, I can't seem to adjust the dosing rate enough. Alk is still around 8, when I'd ideally like it to be 7.5.

If I can't figure out a way to solve this, I don't think I'm going to stick with the hobby. In the past two weeks I've watched 2 years worth of work and several thousand dollars in previously vital coral disintegrate. On top of it I'm at a critical point in my thesis and I'm working 17 hours a day to try and finish it. I barely have enough time to feed my fish every day.

Basically this is the lowest I've been in my reefing career.

sphelps
03-03-2014, 07:58 PM
Explain the malfunctioning bio-pellet reactor. If left dormant and then re-fired pretty sure they'll nuke a tank pretty easily.

asylumdown
03-03-2014, 08:07 PM
The effluent line of the reactor clogged for a couple of days. It's a recirculating model though so I the pellets kept tumbling and I didn't notice. The entire reactor died, when I opened it, it smelled like a major gas leak had just erupted in my house. I removed the reactor, cleaned it out completely and rinsed pellets in fresh water until they stopped smelling. I then let them stand in fresh water that I replaced a couple of time for several days. During that time I modified the effluent line of the reactor to make it bigger so that it couldn't clog up with biofilm so easily.

When I got it all set back up I used the same pellets, which had no odour of any kind by then. I dosed the reactor with MB7 to get it going again, and it was very rapidly producing mulm again. With the larger effluent line, more water can transit through the reactor now, but it still moves way less water per minute through it than a non-recirculating model would.

monza
03-03-2014, 08:57 PM
Sounds rough, sorry to hear.

Maybe a pest? Flatworms, red bugs or other?

spit.fire
03-03-2014, 09:38 PM
Try pulling the biopellets off for awhile until things settle down

Myka
03-03-2014, 09:58 PM
Sorry to hear about your trouble. :(

Have you tested for stray voltage? How exactly are the corals dying? Sliming? Slowly receding? Quickly receding? Is the water or cloudy or has it been?

I would be taking both biopellets and GFO offline until the tank settles down. I would continue to run carbon. Which brands to you switch from and to?

Delphinus
03-03-2014, 10:10 PM
FWIW I am sorry to hear this. I sympathize, there are so many frustrations in this hobby.

Apart from the above advice, I would also look to the Ca and Alk parameters in particular and have them double-checked with different test kits if possible.

Are you dosing manually or using a calcium reactor? Do you use kalk? I might also be tempted to suspend any automatic dosing for the time being until things settle out.

How new and how much gfo is there? In particular with "mysterious SPS death" PO4 plays a significant role (too much of it, too much change with it, and so on). Have you tested for PO4, and what was the value? And what test kit or tester are you using?

If you had significant nitrate, I think you would see other symptoms, so I think we can rule out NO3, but it might still be worthwhile getting a trustworthy reading of that as well in the meantime even if only for ruling it out.

dudley moray
03-03-2014, 11:49 PM
That gas leak smell was likely hydrogen sulphide and probably what nuked your corals it doesn't take much

iceman86
03-04-2014, 12:14 AM
Sounds like parameter swings wich new gfo will cause if adding too much. Gfo will greatly decrease your alk when freshly introduced. Happened to me recently and I lost most of my sps.

My issue was that my alk kit was reading 1.5 dkh too high and I thought I had it at 7.5 when really it was at 6 and then I introduced the gfo and it lowered it way more wich caused my corals to bleach.

Ive also had similar issues when raising calcium too fast.

Make sure your test kits are reading correctly and try to keep levels as stable as possible to prevent further damage.

Seriak
03-04-2014, 12:58 AM
I lost most of my tank when I was overdosing my Alk. It got above 8 and the SPS started to get burnt tips due to my bio pellet reactor, then it approached 10-11 and the LPS receeded and the SPS all died. Then I started to lose head after head of LPS. I really watch my Alk now.

Something else may have sent your Alk through the roof, but your Alk swing probably had a big impact in the death of your corals.

brotherd
03-04-2014, 01:36 AM
This scares the crap out of me. For you to be baffled is disturbing for sure. I wish I had the knowledge or experience to help you.

jason604
03-04-2014, 06:24 AM
Terrible!! I can't imagine what will happen if this happened to me.

Spyd
03-04-2014, 02:27 PM
Time to go old school and keep things simple as you try to get through this. Take the pellets off line completely. Run carbon and do plenty of water changes.

The ALK spike can definitely hit corals hard. Really watch your levels in the mean time. I would check for ammonia as well. When things rapidly die off nitrates and ammonia can spike. Only way to fix these levels are through large water changes.

asylumdown
03-06-2014, 02:46 AM
Thanks for the responses guys.

Since I posted the last message I've pulled 4, 19 hours work days trying to get a paper finished and ready for publication, and I'm giving a talk at a conference on Friday, so my tank has had to sit there slowly dying while I try to attend to the busiest time in my life so far. Murphy's law I suppose. 6 months ago I had all the time in the world to deal with something like this.

My phosphate levels were 0.06ppm last time I measured as checked by the hanna ULR test, which was last Tuesday.

The other thing that I did shortly before this carnage began was switch salt brands to a cheaper option. I started using the fluval brand of reef salt because it was $25 cheaper.

One of the things that I've been terrified of is that I'm not 100% confident on my alk readings. Many a moon ago when I had my first tank and I knew nothing about reef chemistry, I was stupidly using seachem reef buffer without understanding what the product was or what it really did. At the time I kept getting 'normal' alk readings for a high nutrient tank of around 9, and I dosed accordingly. What I didn't realize was that 'reef buffer' is a borate salt, which contributes to total alkalinity, but is effectively useless from a coral's point of view. I had similar SPS problems then, and when I bought the Seachem test kit that allowed you to test for borate alk vs. total alk, I discovered that my carbonate alk (the only alk corals care about) was 4.5.

As far as I know, seachem doesn't make that test kit anymore. Part of me has been wondering if the fluval brand of salt has a high percentage of borate salts in it, which has been making me think my alk is normal, as the only test kits I have access to now test total alkalinity.

I went back to H2Ocean because I figure it's one less variable.

Myka - as to your question, it's not sliming, it's burnt tips one day (as in I wake up and all the tissue on the growth tips is just gone), then over the following days, more and more tissue just sloughs off. My worst hit coral now has one piece of one branch left living, the rest of the previously dinner plate sized colony is a white skeleton, with cyano starting to take hold in places. In one case a coral that never even had burnt tips looked fine, with normal polyp extension one day, then the next day literally half it's tissue was hanging off it in sheets. Other corals that have a different colour growth tip from the main body have turned monochromatic over the course of a couple of weeks, and once the whole piece is exhibiting zero signs of growth, the tissue closest to the tips starts to slough off.

Water is clear, fish are fine, snails and crabs are fine.

What I'm considering doing is taking every piece of equipment except the skimmer and water pumps offline and doing a 100% water change using H2Ocean salt. The other thing that's making me think there's some sort of contaminant in this tank (or disastrously lower alk levels than what my test kits are showing me) is that I have a 4 gallon pico tank. It has been doing fantastic with 100% water changes, but I've been using my display tank water as it's water change water. Shortly before I went out of town, as a test, I did a 'normal' 100% water change on the pico using my display tank water. 9 days later every single coral in that tank is exhibiting serious tissue recession, I'm going to lose one acan frag for sure, and probably a medium sized open brain. There's prolific brown 'slime algae' (the kind your snails would normally eat, but the mantis shrimp that tank was set up for eats all the snails) growing, so I know it's not a nutrient problem.

Ugh. The worst. I didn't even have time to type this reply.

Does anyone in calgary have rubber maid bins totalling 300 gallons that I can borrow? I don't have that much water holding capacity and I'd like to have all the new water mixed in advance.

Reef Pilot
03-06-2014, 02:45 PM
One of the things that I've been terrified of is that I'm not 100% confident on my alk readings. Many a moon ago when I had my first tank and I knew nothing about reef chemistry, I was stupidly using seachem reef buffer without understanding what the product was or what it really did. At the time I kept getting 'normal' alk readings for a high nutrient tank of around 9, and I dosed accordingly. What I didn't realize was that 'reef buffer' is a borate salt, which contributes to total alkalinity, but is effectively useless from a coral's point of view. I had similar SPS problems then, and when I bought the Seachem test kit that allowed you to test for borate alk vs. total alk, I discovered that my carbonate alk (the only alk corals care about) was 4.5.

As far as I know, seachem doesn't make that test kit anymore. Part of me has been wondering if the fluval brand of salt has a high percentage of borate salts in it, which has been making me think my alk is normal, as the only test kits I have access to now test total alkalinity.

With all your chemical mixing and dosing, are you sure you are ending up with the correct ionic balances?

Also, your comments re Seachem Reef Buffer are a surprise to me! I have been using that all along for my alk dosing, and the Seachem Advantage Calcium. My only complaints have been they are expensive and am looking for a replacement. But my SPS growth and colour couldn't be better.

Seachem also has/had Marine Buffer and Reef Builder, which I don't use.

And I just use Instant Ocean salt. Cheap, and seems to work well for me. I did use H2Ocean salt a long time ago (before I had SPS), but didn't like the expense.

From what you've said so far, can't say what your problem might be. Sounds almost like they are being poisoned by something. So would certainly confirm all your chemical parameters.

Reef Pilot
03-06-2014, 03:08 PM
Also, what brand carbon are you using? I remember people having corals dying a year or two ago, because of some impurities that got into the supply. I think Kent carbon was one example, with copper.

Reef Pilot
03-06-2014, 06:09 PM
As to seachems reef buffer it is only to adjust pH and it says it contributes to Alk. You need to use reef builder to boost your carbonate Alk. I think it evens says on the label that it doesn't boost carbonate.
Don't know where you get that from?? The only difference between reef buffer and marine buffer (which only boosts carbonate alk) is that it has a higher pK buffering agent which provides better pH stability in heavy bio load systems. But it still has the same carbonate alk as the others.
http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/ReefBuffer.html
It does say if pH is not an issue, then you can get away with just using the carbonate only buffers.

I do measure my alk (and other parameters) religiously and adjust my dosing as required to keep them in the desired range (and maintain the ionic balances). And as mentioned, my SPS has done great using the Reef Buffer, so can't argue with that. I don't know how important pH is to good coral growth, but it certainly can't hurt, I figure.

Magickiwi
03-06-2014, 06:22 PM
Don't know where you get that from?? The only difference between reef buffer and marine buffer (which only boosts carbonate alk) is that it has a higher pK buffering agent which provides better pH stability in heavy bio load systems. But it still has the same carbonate alk as the others.
http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/ReefBuffer.html
It does say if pH is not an issue, then you can get away with just using the carbonate only buffers.

I do measure my alk (and other parameters) religiously and adjust my dosing as required to keep them in the desired range (and maintain the ionic balances). And as mentioned, my SPS has done great using the Reef Buffer, so can't argue with that. I don't know how important pH is to good coral growth, but it certainly can't hurt, I figure.



From Seachem's website:

Reef Buffer™ will also raise carbonate alkalinity; however, it is intended primarily for use as a buffer in a reef system where the maintenance of a pH of 8.3 is often difficult. When pH is not an issue, Reef Builder™ or Reef Carbonate™ should be your first choice for a carbonate alkalinity supplement.

Second, I didn't reference a product name Marine Buffer, I said Reef Builder, which is a carbonate supplement. And I don't know exactly what you're disagreeing with? Your post said you were surprised that Reef Buffer doesn't manage your carbonate levels?

canadianbudz604
03-06-2014, 06:41 PM
I've been searching the interweb a bit to try and help out, but haven't come up with really anything. I did run across a thread about bad batches of fluval sea salt but they ended up going nowhere. One thing I noticed that whenever someone's bio pellets failed, they're tank crashed not long after. Any progress with the tank?

Reef Pilot
03-06-2014, 06:50 PM
From Seachem's website:
Second, I didn't reference a product name Marine Buffer, I said Reef Builder, which is a carbonate supplement. And I don't know exactly what you're disagreeing with? Your post said you were surprised that Reef Buffer doesn't manage your carbonate levels?

Well, when you said this "You need to use reef builder to boost your carbonate Alk. I think it evens says on the label that it doesn't boost carbonate.", that is what I disagreed with. It does not say that on the label or on any of the directions, that it doesn't boost carbonate alk. It indeed does add carbonate alk. Like I said it does both, adds carbonate alk and a pK agent to stabilize pH.

And if you look at the Reef Builder instructions, it says to use Reef Buffer in higher bio load systems where you also want to stablize pH. Here is the quote from their directions. "Use Reef Builder™ to raise carbonate alkalinity without affecting pH. Use Reef Buffer (http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/ReefBuffer.html)™ to raise carbonate alkalinity and pH". It also says you can use both together, but nowhere does it say that you have to use both to boost alkalinity or that reef buffer does not boost carbonate alk.

hfp75
03-06-2014, 07:27 PM
the hydrogen sulphide from the plugged reactor is my first guess.....

second is all the additives......

Scythanith
03-06-2014, 07:59 PM
My google Fu is weak right now but I recently read an article from Sanjay Joshi about the collapse of his 500g SPS dominated tank. Similar issues, burnt tips then total tissue release within hours. After all of his analytical thinking and methodology he deduces that one of the best things he could have done was larger initial water changes. All the tricks and tips from the pro's he knows were considered, but in the end he lost a large portion of his SPS.

If anyone knows of the article I am speaking of please put up a link!

Magickiwi
03-06-2014, 08:34 PM
Whatever is causing the loss it must be heartbreaking.

GoFish
03-06-2014, 09:14 PM
My google Fu is weak right now but I recently read an article from Sanjay Joshi about the collapse of his 500g SPS dominated tank. Similar issues, burnt tips then total tissue release within hours. After all of his analytical thinking and methodology he deduces that one of the best things he could have done was larger initial water changes. All the tricks and tips from the pro's he knows were considered, but in the end he lost a large portion of his SPS.

If anyone knows of the article I am speaking of please put up a link!

This? http://www.reefs.com/blog/2011/04/08/sudden-coral-death-in-a-thriving-tank/

Sorry to hear about your problems! I hope it all works out for you

Scythanith
03-06-2014, 09:21 PM
Almost. There was one with lots of pictures and a longer write up.

GoFish
03-06-2014, 09:33 PM
Ahhh herrr it is... http://www.reefs.com/magazine/160499-anatomy-disaster-i-bad-things-happen-best-us.html

Delphinus
03-06-2014, 10:16 PM
My phosphate levels were 0.06ppm last time I measured as checked by the hanna ULR test, which was last Tuesday.


I want to drill a little into this. I can't remember if you mentioned this already, so if you did sorry for asking again, but ... apart from the readings, what are you doing for PO4 control? Are you using GFO, if so, how much, and how often are you changing it out?

The reason I ask is that I use the same Hanna tester for PO4. The tested results always show nominal values for PO4 in the end (the Hanna ULR tester reports in ppb of P, to convert to PO4 you have to divide the reading by 1000 and then multiply by 3.0666) but even so, I notice problems with SPS when I let my GFO get too old.

As far as PO4 goes, I am absolutely convinced of 2 things:
1) Most SPS problems we see and especially those that we can't easily rationalize away to something else .... are usually PO4 related.
2) Testing for PO4 is just something we do to make ourselves busy but the results are meaningless. You might as well dip your finger in the tank, taste it, then emphatically state the first random number that comes to your mind. (It's important that you state it emphatically, otherwise you have to do the test again.)

It might not be THAT bad but OTOH, I think it's closer to the truth than we'd care to admit. I think it's getting into the territory of inorganic phosphate versus organic phosphate and how our test kits and testers can only give you readings of one of those (I forget which), but the SPS are inhibited by the one we can't test (we just hope that if we test for one, that the other is going to be reasonably close).

I notice a definite correlation in how well my corals are doing if I change out my GFO every week, versus at slower change out intervals. Unfortunately the cost of GFO and especially at my tank size (280g) it is quite cost prohibitive to be changing it out every week, so this is something I tend to get an "opportunity" to observe repeatedly. If I get all gung-ho and change it out every week, my SPS grows well. If I don't then .. not only do they not grow well, many will recede or let go altogether. It can be as little as letting it go one or two extra weeks between changing out my GFO.

And yet, the Hanna tester will repeatedly tell me that PO4 is not a concern because it will be 0.02 or something so low that it's in the "it can't be PO4 that is the problem" category. But like I said, I'm convinced that it probably is to blame for a large majority of otherwise-unexplainable SPS problems seen in the hobby.

kien
03-07-2014, 01:07 AM
Sorry to hear of your issues Adam. I feel for ya. Been there, done that, got the (wet) t-shirt, a couple of times over even. Other than another shoulder to cry on, I don't have much more to offer that hasn't already been mentioned.

At the end of the day, we are all trying to recreate a very very very very (did I mention very?) delicate natural balance that even Mother Nature herself struggles with at times.

Madreefer
03-07-2014, 04:00 AM
:focus:

Scythanith
03-07-2014, 03:49 PM
Ahhh herrr it is... http://www.reefs.com/magazine/160499-anatomy-disaster-i-bad-things-happen-best-us.html

Thank you! I couldn't find it for the life of me. Asylum, have you had a chance to read through this article yet? I know you said you were pretty busy but I figured it would maybe help to calm you down about the whole situation. Yes, it's heartbreaking but sometimes you just have to ride it out and look at it as an opportunity to re do your aqua-scaping.

Sorry I can't be more help.

Magickiwi
03-07-2014, 05:04 PM
[QUOTE=Magickiwi;884706]

I thought we were talking about trash bins from CTire ? Doesn't that mean we are trash talking ??

Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week.

Remember to tip your server and take a taxi if you've been drinking. And I'm really starting to think the drinking is a good idea...

Doug
03-07-2014, 05:06 PM
:focus:

Yes please.

Wheelman76
03-07-2014, 07:52 PM
I want to drill a little into this. I can't remember if you mentioned this already, so if you did sorry for asking again, but ... apart from the readings, what are you doing for PO4 control? Are you using GFO, if so, how much, and how often are you changing it out?

The reason I ask is that I use the same Hanna tester for PO4. The tested results always show nominal values for PO4 in the end (the Hanna ULR tester reports in ppb of P, to convert to PO4 you have to divide the reading by 1000 and then multiply by 3.0666) but even so, I notice problems with SPS when I let my GFO get too old.

As far as PO4 goes, I am absolutely convinced of 2 things:
1) Most SPS problems we see and especially those that we can't easily rationalize away to something else .... are usually PO4 related.
2) Testing for PO4 is just something we do to make ourselves busy but the results are meaningless. You might as well dip your finger in the tank, taste it, then emphatically state the first random number that comes to your mind. (It's important that you state it emphatically, otherwise you have to do the test again.)

It might not be THAT bad but OTOH, I think it's closer to the truth than we'd care to admit. I think it's getting into the territory of inorganic phosphate versus organic phosphate and how our test kits and testers can only give you readings of one of those (I forget which), but the SPS are inhibited by the one we can't test (we just hope that if we test for one, that the other is going to be reasonably close).

I notice a definite correlation in how well my corals are doing if I change out my GFO every week, versus at slower change out intervals. Unfortunately the cost of GFO and especially at my tank size (280g) it is quite cost prohibitive to be changing it out every week, so this is something I tend to get an "opportunity" to observe repeatedly. If I get all gung-ho and change it out every week, my SPS grows well. If I don't then .. not only do they not grow well, many will recede or let go altogether. It can be as little as letting it go one or two extra weeks between changing out my GFO.

And yet, the Hanna tester will repeatedly tell me that PO4 is not a concern because it will be 0.02 or something so low that it's in the "it can't be PO4 that is the problem" category. But like I said, I'm convinced that it probably is to blame for a large majority of otherwise-unexplainable SPS problems seen in the hobby.

Not arguing with you about po4 levels , and I change my gfo every month and my Hanna checker always reads less than 0.02. But here is an interesting article for everyone to read on the subject of po4.

http://www.reefsmagazine.com/forum/reefs-magazine/159813-skeptical-reefkeeping-ix-test-kits-chasing-numbers-phosphate.html

cuz
03-15-2014, 12:43 AM
any updates?

asylumdown
03-16-2014, 09:21 PM
The only update I have is that I'm probably done with reefing. I've lost about a third of my colonies, the rest are on their way. Even the few that seemed to have avoided the initial round of damage are now falling apart. Cyano has taken hold everywhere dead skeletons are exposed, and the tank generally looks like garbage.

I was never able to do a 100% water change, I'm just not set up to do that logistically. Starting today I'll be doing 50 gallon water changes every day until I've replaced the total tank volume 3 times over. I don't know what else to do.

I can't make sense of my test results. When this started, my alk spiked up past 9. I thought maybe that was why the tips were burning, though now I think it was a symptom, not a cause. I reduced the rate at which I dose alk solution by 40% over the next couple of weeks and my alk has stabilized at exactly 8. However, my calcium simply will not budge. One of the changes that preceded this carnage was a switch to bulk calcium that I picked up from Eli. I'm now dosing 180 ml of that dissolved at 1 cup/gallon day, which is 20ml more per day than I was dosing when my tank was robust, healthy, and growing rapidly, but the calcium levels won't move above 355ppm.

Mag is 1300.

So, while these levels aren't perfect, an alk of 8, calcium of 355, and mag of 1300 should not also equal this much carnage. Even a swing of alk from 7 to 9 or 9 to 8 shouldn't be enough to slow motion kill an entire aquarium.

I want to drill a little into this. I can't remember if you mentioned this already, so if you did sorry for asking again, but ... apart from the readings, what are you doing for PO4 control? Are you using GFO, if so, how much, and how often are you changing it out?

The reason I ask is that I use the same Hanna tester for PO4. The tested results always show nominal values for PO4 in the end (the Hanna ULR tester reports in ppb of P, to convert to PO4 you have to divide the reading by 1000 and then multiply by 3.0666) but even so, I notice problems with SPS when I let my GFO get too old.

As far as PO4 goes, I am absolutely convinced of 2 things:
1) Most SPS problems we see and especially those that we can't easily rationalize away to something else .... are usually PO4 related.
2) Testing for PO4 is just something we do to make ourselves busy but the results are meaningless. You might as well dip your finger in the tank, taste it, then emphatically state the first random number that comes to your mind. (It's important that you state it emphatically, otherwise you have to do the test again.)

It might not be THAT bad but OTOH, I think it's closer to the truth than we'd care to admit. I think it's getting into the territory of inorganic phosphate versus organic phosphate and how our test kits and testers can only give you readings of one of those (I forget which), but the SPS are inhibited by the one we can't test (we just hope that if we test for one, that the other is going to be reasonably close).

I notice a definite correlation in how well my corals are doing if I change out my GFO every week, versus at slower change out intervals. Unfortunately the cost of GFO and especially at my tank size (280g) it is quite cost prohibitive to be changing it out every week, so this is something I tend to get an "opportunity" to observe repeatedly. If I get all gung-ho and change it out every week, my SPS grows well. If I don't then .. not only do they not grow well, many will recede or let go altogether. It can be as little as letting it go one or two extra weeks between changing out my GFO.

And yet, the Hanna tester will repeatedly tell me that PO4 is not a concern because it will be 0.02 or something so low that it's in the "it can't be PO4 that is the problem" category. But like I said, I'm convinced that it probably is to blame for a large majority of otherwise-unexplainable SPS problems seen in the hobby.

I was previously changing my GFO every two weeks to 1 month, and had been doing it that was for nearly 2 years. A switch in brands to bulk high capacity GFO is on the list of changes that took place immediately prior to the damage taking place. Since this started I've changed the GFO once, and the next day three new colonies that hadn't been damaged before suddenly had huge chunks of flesh hanging off them in tatters. It's likely correlated and not causal, and I know other people who've used GFO from this same batch with no problems, but it's made me afraid to try changing it again.

Thank you! I couldn't find it for the life of me. Asylum, have you had a chance to read through this article yet? I know you said you were pretty busy but I figured it would maybe help to calm you down about the whole situation. Yes, it's heartbreaking but sometimes you just have to ride it out and look at it as an opportunity to re do your aqua-scaping.

Sorry I can't be more help.

Yes I did read it. And the pictures and description look and sound exactly like what's happening in my tank, only he had way more time and resources to chase down possible leads. I've been getting 3 hours of sleep a night without even looking at my tank, so I've not been nearly as exhaustive in trouble shooting as I wish I could be.

Whether this has been the result of parameters swinging or getting out of whack in ways that I haven't been able to test or figure out, or a contaminant of some kind, the problem is either with something in the water, or something I'm adding to the water. Today I'm taking my GFO reactor, my biopellet reactor, and my dosing pump offline. I'm throwing out all the new additives that I've been using and going out and buying the more expensive brand name versions of everything. I'm going to do 50 gallon water changes every day until either this improves, or the majority of my corals are so far beyond any hope of saving that this will become a FOWLR tank until I can find new homes for the fish and organize the trades to turn the tank space in to a closet.

If this does improve, I'll add back elements one by one. Starting with a dosing pump dosing brand name "big three" chemicals, followed by brand name GFO, followed by biopellets. What sucks the most is knowing that with this amount of damage, my tank's recovery will be measured in years (if ever), and that's longer than I'm going to live in this house.

And thanks everyone for chiming in. 50% of my unresponsiveness is that I'm too busy to eat most days, and 50% because even thinking about my tank makes me feel sick to my stomach right now.

kien
03-16-2014, 10:05 PM
sorry to hear Adam. This hobby can be a rough roller coaster ride of extreme ups and downs. I've been through coral die off a few times.. Most recently just a month ago where my DI had exhausted and I was dumping in poisonous water into my tank for weeks before I figured it out. An immediate removal of my DI and a couple of 50% water changes did the trick in stopping a complete wipe out this time around. But it's still painful.

Scythanith
03-16-2014, 10:09 PM
My own personal experience with bulk chemicals is that I have no personal experience with bulk chemicals :) I wanted to go to them for $$$ reasons but my LFS owner highly recommended I don't for the exact reason you may be running into now. He recommended I use either the Tropic Marin of Fauna Marin systems. There is no way I can say the bulk chemicals are what caused your problems, but logically what else did you change that could impact your tank this dramatically?

If you're using a quality brand of salt, it should test pretty well for the big three parameters. Just buy doing frequent large water changes hopefully that can dilute the contaminants and maintain your values. I'd suggest you get back to dosing with commercial products as soon as possible though to promote some stability.

The good thing about this hobby is that once you get knocked down, fellow reefers are usually happy to help you out with frags, etc. to get you back on your feet.

Good luck!

hfp75
03-16-2014, 10:12 PM
I sympathize for your situation!!

I tried to save few bucks and used HC-GFO and with a Hanna tester I was able to prove that the same levels of PO4 that went in to that reactor also came out!!! I have switched back to Rowa and we are back on track with total success!!

Sometimes the name brands cost more but they seem to be predictable....

lastlight
03-16-2014, 10:17 PM
Really sorry to hear things haven't improved Adam. Can't imagine loss on that scale.

I sympathize for your situation!!

I tried to save few bucks and used HC-GFO and with a Hanna tester I was able to prove that the same levels of PO4 that went in to that reactor also came out!!! I have switched back to Rowa and we are back on track with total success!!

Sometimes the name brands cost more but they seem to be predictable....

HC-GFO from where?

I doubt properly working gfo knocks the levels down noticeably with one pass. I always thought it would take a small amount out (too small a change to detect) but it's the continual running of water through it that brings the overall level down in a measurable manner over time?

brotherd
03-16-2014, 10:39 PM
Surely there must be someone local that has the knowledge and experience to go to your home and assist with this situation while you attend to your studies?

asylumdown
03-17-2014, 12:09 AM
I just want to clarify - I in no way think it's the bulk chems that are responsible, I know tons of other people who are using the exact same ones from the exact same batches without problems, but I also know that I changed a lot of things in a short amount of time before this all began, which if this is a 'syncopated event' of a bunch of small changes working together to cause a serious problem, returning to the brands I was using before this all began is (at least I hope) a way to eliminate one avenue of stress.

In any case I got some more advice today and a 100% water change really does seem like the best way forward. I resisted it because I'm sooooo not set up to do that, but tomorrow I'm going to try and track down 6 more of the 55 gallon rain barrels to start making water.

gregzz4
03-17-2014, 03:10 AM
Stick with it Adam :smile: We're rootin' for ya !!!
I know it's depressing but I can't imagine not running my tank now ...

Somebody on here local to you must be able to loan you a tank large enough to hold your WC water for a week

Stick with it and you'll be happy you got through it :biggrin:

How much water do you need to hold to do a 100% WC ?
300g ? 350G ?

Put a post up looking for loaner tanks ...

If I was in your town I'd be there to help you stay in the hobby

gregzz4
03-17-2014, 03:15 AM
A 50g from this guy, and a 100g from that guy, and another here and there is all it takes to do the job !!!

lastlight
03-17-2014, 03:31 AM
or buy a 300g plastic trough. then you can store it somehwere in case you need it again. easy enough to move alone.

ronau
03-17-2014, 03:56 AM
I have a new Laguna PT795 (51"x32"x18") basin and a couple 32 gallon brutes you can borrow.

asylumdown
03-17-2014, 05:11 AM
or buy a 300g plastic trough. then you can store it somehwere in case you need it again. easy enough to move alone.

Do you know where to pick one of those up in Calgary?

I have a new Laguna PT795 (51"x32"x18") basin and a couple 32 gallon brutes you can borrow.

Thanks man, I'll PM you.

kien
03-17-2014, 05:17 AM
Do you know where to pick one of those up in Calgary?



Thanks man, I'll PM you.

Dude, I just totally remembered that I bought a 150g trough last summer to house my Koi temporarily. I still have it and am not using it at the moment if you want to borrow it.

kien
03-17-2014, 05:17 AM
Do you know where to pick one of those up in Calgary?



Thanks man, I'll PM you.

Also, I got mine at UCA up by Airdrie. They sell farm stuffs.

lastlight
03-17-2014, 05:37 AM
Do you know where to pick one of those up in Calgary?

I would try UFA if Kien's suggestion doesn't pan out.

kien
03-17-2014, 05:39 AM
Also, I got mine at UCA up by Airdrie. They sell farm stuffs.

I would try UFA if Kien's suggestion doesn't pan out.

Right, UFA, not UCA. They had big 300g ones there for sure, but they are expensive !

asylumdown
03-17-2014, 05:45 AM
Well I'm hoping to avoid having to spend hundreds on a single use item, so kien if I can borrow yours I can make up the balance with garbage bins that homedepot will hopefully let me return. I'll pm you. This will not be a small undertaking.

Delphinus
03-17-2014, 04:08 PM
I think I have a 24-30ish g rubbermaid brute that I somehow inherited off a Canreefer. It has also been used for waterchanges in its life and whilst in my custody it has really only taken up space. You can have or borrow this if you want.

i have crabs
03-17-2014, 04:14 PM
Ive been losing close to 70% of my sps over the last 1-2 months, too like a stn type of death with no apparent reason, dont think i swithched anything that i can think of but at this point im gonna have a fowler in notime

kien
03-17-2014, 07:14 PM
Ive been losing close to 70% of my sps over the last 1-2 months, too like a stn type of death with no apparent reason, dont think i swithched anything that i can think of but at this point im gonna have a fowler in notime

Wow.. So this is a trend, apparently. I wonder if there is any commonality. We need a club. Also, sorry to hear of your issues too.

Palmer
03-17-2014, 07:48 PM
FWIW if you do decide to start up again I can throw you some LPS and SPS frags if you want them.

i have crabs
03-17-2014, 09:14 PM
On the plus side of killing my corals, they all fit into one of the 2 sides now and i can have non coral safe fish in the other side haha, about 2 weeks before i started having problems i overdid a dose of kalk but things seemd ik a couple days after so maybe not related, it also looks like possibly brown jelly disease in some of my corals but who knows, at this point im just letting it do what it wants and ill keep what lives the rest probably arnt getting replaced

waynemah
03-17-2014, 11:00 PM
Not sure if this was covered, but could it be due to the snow melt and water quality? I notice my DI resin changes color within 2 weeks in the spring whereas it'll last a month any other time of the year.

cuz
03-18-2014, 02:50 AM
I'm going through the exact same thing to.. burnt tips followed by stn,,, I'd say I'm close to 60% sps die-off..

I've got a few 300g brand new potable plastic tall water "cisterns" your more than welcome to borrow if you come get them or find a volunteer...

jason604
03-18-2014, 03:12 AM
this thread seems so depressing. So many ppl with mass sps die off

asylumdown
03-20-2014, 06:10 PM
On the plus side of killing my corals, they all fit into one of the 2 sides now and i can have non coral safe fish in the other side haha, about 2 weeks before i started having problems i overdid a dose of kalk but things seemd ik a couple days after so maybe not related, it also looks like possibly brown jelly disease in some of my corals but who knows, at this point im just letting it do what it wants and ill keep what lives the rest probably arnt getting replaced

I'm going through the exact same thing to.. burnt tips followed by stn,,, I'd say I'm close to 60% sps die-off..

I've got a few 300g brand new potable plastic tall water "cisterns" your more than welcome to borrow if you come get them or find a volunteer...

Well I'm not happy it's happening to you, but I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one. Look closely at your corals that this is happening to, the best description I can give is thus:

1. tissue at the growth tips is just gone one day. It's the worst on the side facing the lights

2. The polyps get all weak and floppy. It's like they lose their ability to retract in to the cup or hold any tension in their tissues. From far away it looks like you have the most insane polyp extension ever. Close up it looks like the polyps are just hanging out of their cups.

3. the texture of the remaining tissue gets all weird. Smooth skinned corals get rough and bumpy looking, some of them change colour drastically, darkening (but not browning) across the entire colony. It's actually quite pretty in some for a short while, until all their tissue detaches.

4. In some colonies, little blisters begin to form that look exactly like super tiny bubble-gum bubbles that are about to pop, these hang off the coral and blow about in the current. When they pop they take large chunks of tissue with them.

5. In the corals that don't form bubbles, it's like half the tissue from the outside of the polyp cup just strips off, where brown algae quickly colonizes, making the whole coral look like it's been raked over a cheese grater.

6. Finally, entire strips of tissue just slough off. Entire branches to entire colonies lose all their tissue practically over-night. This is followed within days by colonization of the skeleton by cyano. I'm pretty sure cyano can harvest the phosphate right out of the coral skeleton.

lastlight
03-20-2014, 06:30 PM
I had those bubbles you're speaking of on a few of my corals when my sps were dying. when things stabilized i saw a few of them shrink and disappear.

it's actually strange but my problems started shortly after i bought all those frags from you. i have a hard time believing there's any connection though as your tank looked incredible when i was over.

asylumdown
03-20-2014, 06:30 PM
I just realized that I haven't posted a single pic:

Feb. 23 - You can barely tell that the tissue from the tips of this stag are gone
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6498_2_zps35267a05.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6498_2_zps35267a05.jpg.html)

Today (from the other side) -
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6580_zpsc76a5261.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6580_zpsc76a5261.jpg.html)

Feb. 23 - This coral was one of the first to show signs of damage
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6503_2_zps0570125c.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6503_2_zps0570125c.jpg.html)

Today - (it's totally dead)
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6582_zpsc8ac17cb.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6582_zpsc8ac17cb.jpg.html)

Feb. 23 - The tips are all burnt, but it's hard to see in this photo
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6499_2_zpse2e255de.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6499_2_zpse2e255de.jpg.html)

Today - Kind of hard to tell, but probably 1/3 of the tissue, all the way down each branch is gone
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6581_zpsfef96112.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6581_zpsfef96112.jpg.html)

Feb. 23 - this used to be my favourite coral. It started with just burnt tips
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6500_2_zps1e7ab53b.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6500_2_zps1e7ab53b.jpg.html)

Today - I don't think there's any saving it. There's no more than a couple cm anywhere on the coral that doesn't have damage
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6583_zps822250b8.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6583_zps822250b8.jpg.html)


And I don't have any earlier photos of these guys but:
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6578_zps80dd7ff0.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6578_zps80dd7ff0.jpg.html)
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6577_zps164648a6.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6577_zps164648a6.jpg.html)
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6576_zpsc250b5d6.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6576_zpsc250b5d6.jpg.html)

And finally:
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g411/asylumdown/IMG_6573_zps482a61b3.jpg (http://s1100.photobucket.com/user/asylumdown/media/IMG_6573_zps482a61b3.jpg.html)
You can't really tell form this pic, but the small frag in the dead centre of this pic is a Pink lemonade. It presently has several of those blisters I was mentioning. The freshly de-fleshed white skeleton next to it was a beautiful teal acro with blue tips 3 days ago.

Ugh.

The only glimmer of good news is that since I haven't been able to pick up the big tubs yet (I'm hoping for this weekend), I've been doing at least one 45-50 gallon water change every day since Sunday, and I *think* today I see the first possible signs of improvement. At least I haven't lost an entire colony in a couple of days anyway.

asylumdown
03-20-2014, 06:41 PM
I had those bubbles you're speaking of on a few of my corals when my sps were dying. when things stabilized i saw a few of them shrink and disappear.

it's actually strange but my problems started shortly after i bought all those frags from you. i have a hard time believing there's any connection though as your tank looked incredible when i was over.

the thought that this is some sort of pathogen has crossed my mind more than once. The fact that it's favouring acroporas, and the fact that it's happening in the whole tank all at once seems disease-esque. But after I did that major round of fragging and selling, every single coral healed over and started growing aggressively from the places I had cut them. And that was in what... December? Everything was growing like weeds until February when this started.

I have one montipora digitata colony, and one montipora capricornis colony that have continued to grow normally since this all began, while another monti cap and my forest fire digi have shut down completely, with tissue recession in a few places. None of my euphyllias or my elegance coral have been damaged, but my only colony of acans has lost a ton of tissue, so if it is a disease it's a disease with a very weird taste for coral species.

asylumdown
03-30-2014, 11:57 PM
Well I think I've stopped the carnage. I was not able to do a 100% water change, but with Ronau's tub and the storage bins I had I was able to do a 60% water change. I was hoping to let things just settle with no intervention for at least a week, but it turns out that even in 375 gallons of water my surviving SPS is still consuming enough alkalinity that 48 hours without dosing would have been as fatal as whatever was just going on.

I set up the doser again and have spent the past 4 days trying to get it dialled in. I'm basically back to square one on dosing solution rates, so I started with less than half the amount I used to dose and am slowly increasing it every day based on the results from my tests. Today I had to manually dose some of the alk solution as my dKH has fallen in to the 5's and that scares me. I just need to find the new sweet spot to keep it in the neighbourhood of 7.

I have however stopped losing entire colonies, and the only new tissue loss I've seen since the 60% water change has been on patches of coral that looked like it was already too far gone to save. I have a couple acros that have started to form plate edges along the margins of where the tissue died, and on a few the dead patches are perceptibly starting to shrink. I'm still not sure if a couple of my largest colonies are going to pull through, as I think "too far gone" happens long before the tissue actually pulls away, so we'll see over the coming months whether they get normal looking texture and colour back and start growing again, or RTN in the middle of the night.

I've done HEAPS of online research, and I'm almost 100% positive now that this was the result of a biopellet overdose. I've seen similar reports from people who've OD'd their tanks on carbon (both liquid and solid), and Randy Holmes-Farley on RC found that his tank has an upper maximum dosing limit of vinegar, above which his corals start to suffer. When I fixed my biopellet reactor, I should have treated it like I was setting up a new reactor on a new system for the first time, since my bacterial population was completely wiped out when I took it apart and cleaned it, and my modification allowed for at least 10X the flow through rate. Instead, I put the same amount of pellets I'd built up to over 2 years back in the reactor (about 3L), and left the new 1" effluent gate valve open at 100%. In retrospect I'm not sure why I was so baffled as to what was happening, I basically followed a step-by-step "how to crash your tank" recipe.

With no pellet reactor nitrates have been rising fast, however. At this rate, and the rate at which I do water changes, and the amount of water that I change each time, it looks like my tank would stabilize between 10 and 15 ppm nitrate. That is about 10 to 15 times higher than it's ever been in this tank's history. I'm worried about compounding the stress of the past month and a half by allowing nutrients to sky-rocket, and I'm not thrilled with the idea of daily water changes in perpetuity, so today I put the pellet reactor back online, but with exactly 10% the recommended volume of pellets for my system. I have a gigantic pellet reactor so it looks kind of silly, but I'm going to do it right this time. I'll track the effect this has on nitrates over the next 6 weeks, and I'll only add more pellets if the nitrates don't perceptibly fall.

It's going to take a while to get all my parameters to stabilize, and until they do I'm not really going to worry about what's going on inside the tank, as I don't really expect my corals to get back to their former glory until all the major ions and the nutrient profile remains constant for a period of months. Once the chemistry has been stable for at least a month I'll start to worry about the visual effect this has had - specifically the explosion of cyano that now blankets half the tank. For now it gets a pass. For some reason my sand is cleaner than it's ever been though, so from far away it doesn't look that bad.

brotherd
03-31-2014, 02:30 AM
Sorry if I missed it but what salt were you using before the event started and what are you using now?

jason604
03-31-2014, 02:41 AM
Glad Ur tank is slowly recovering. Wish u the best of luck on getting as close as u can to 100%

asylumdown
03-31-2014, 03:44 AM
Sorry if I missed it but what salt were you using before the event started and what are you using now?

I've used H2Ocean for the lifetime of the tank. Right before this all started I switched to Fluval's new salt as it was a little cheaper, but when things started going south I switched back to H2Ocean. There's plenty of people who use that salt so I'm not sure if I think it was a real contributing factor or not, but it was one wild card I could easily take out of the equation.

KPG007
03-31-2014, 03:39 PM
Good to hear things are getting under control. I hate to see a big beautiful system die off like that.

Good luck with the rest of the recovery.

asylumdown
04-07-2014, 10:40 PM
ugh, well I hated to have to do it but I didn't have much of a choice. Cyano got so unbelievably out of control I dosed the tank with chemi-clean on Friday.

Dosing a harsh chemical when things were already so out of whack was not something I wanted to do, but I was siphoning was seemed like a pound of the stuff off my corals and rocks every night, and by noon the next day it would be back plus more.

I have a few corals that got severely damaged that I'm desperately trying to save by cutting away dead skeleton back to just below living tissue. It seems like it's working as anywhere I've cut (if I was able to actually get to where there was healthy tissue), corals are healing over with new tissue and teeny tiny new polyps are forming, and anywhere that exposed skeleton remained cyano free corals have built up new tissue growth edges and the dead spots are shrinking. However, about half of them are so damaged it's not possible to cut all the dead skeleton away as the pattern of necrosis looks like what you'd get if you raked the branch down the fine side of a cheese grater. Cyano got to the point where it was blanketing nearly all places where the skeletons became exposed, and I've found clear evidence that the cyano actually kills coral tissue it remains in contact with for too long. I've got one frag of millepora that never got damaged in the first wave of STN/RTN, but it's small and the rock it's on got carpeted in cyano. About 3mm of it's plate died in a ring around where it met the slime. I have another nearly dinner plate sized colony that had the cheese grater look to it, and cyano formed a continuous mat across the mid-section of the coral. Anywhere that was beneath the cyano is now bare skeleton, even though that coral seems to have stopped losing tissue days before the cyano took hold. I'll probably have to cut the entire thing in half.

So it was a choice between doing nothing and risking the cyano possibly preventing recovery of my corals/killing more than what was already damaged, or dosing with a harsh chemical and hoping I can take back control of the trajectory the tank is on.

Moral of the story kids - don't get lazy and think that just because something has worked great for years in spite of any neglect or ill considered decisions you might have made does not mean that will continue to be the case.

brotherd
04-08-2014, 02:04 AM
Brutal. Do you still have hope at this point?

asylumdown
04-08-2014, 02:23 AM
Actually yes. I have my own theories about cyanobacteria but my experience with it is that once it's given the opportunity to proliferate it's very tenacious. It took advantage of an opportunity and became a threat in its own right, even though I seem to have corrected whatever it was that started this in the first place (I think it was biopellets, but who's to say really)

I left the chemi-clean in the water a day longer than recommended before doing the water change and I'm letting my skimmer do what is essentially another slow motion water change right now, but even in just three days of the the 'drugs' working their magic, corals that were continuing to decline under advancing sheets of cyano seem to be forming hard lines in the spots where the tissue had been dying. That's generally the precursor to new growth plates IME, so I'm optimistic.

Whether this will have long term effects on stability in other areas I can't say, but as a short term solution it seems to have helped

brotherd
04-08-2014, 02:49 AM
I remember you battling cyano a while ago. Do you run a refugium? I'm wondering if the Chemiclean dose would be more effective if it was spread out over the major chambers of the system rather than dosing all of it into just the display or sump? Your situation is very unnerving.

asylumdown
04-08-2014, 05:10 AM
yah that was in November. I've wondered if something 'broke' in the bacterial chain of my tank when I did that that somehow lead to all of this 4 months later, but I have had a hard time convincing myself of that. Namely, after I did the chemi-clean dose in November, the tank was pristine for 3 months. The coral colours were banging, I sold TONS of frags, things were growing like crazy. The only problem I was having was with my BP reactor clogging after I started dosing with MB7, something that had never been an issue for almost 2 years prior.

The onset of things falling apart when they did was incredibly sudden. It was literally like someone had poured a cup of poison in the tank one day. It also coincided within a matter of days of me re-setting and modifying my pellet reactor, and changing brands on a bunch of products. I've now talked to a bunch of people who are using the same products I have with zero issues, and what happened to my tank follows the general description of what people who've OD'd on organic carbon have seen.

I'll always be more inclined to think it was the obvious, temporally linked event rather than some unknown, slow acting time bomb whose fuse was lit months before but left no evidence until all of a sudden everything coincidentally just fell apart the same week I flooded the tank with an unprecedented amount of carbon polymers, species of which have been shown to be toxic to SPS corals in high concentrations. However, I'll never really know. I changed too many things too quickly and wasn't (/couldn't) test all the relevant parameters that could have been affecting things.

In any case, as of today, the corals are growing again and the cyano is gone. Whether that's a permanent thing or false ray of hope I'll figure out in the coming weeks.

Seriak
04-08-2014, 01:36 PM
So are you still using pellets?

asylumdown
04-08-2014, 07:27 PM
yes, but I'm looking in to replacements. I don't think it's pellets that are the problem per se, but how they get used and how little their mode of action is understood. There are definite red flags about them - first and foremost of which being that no one has even the slightest clue about how much of the polymer makes it in to the water column, or even where the majority of the nitrate reducing activity is taking place (in the reactor, or in the tank using the carbon that dissolves/breaks off the pellets?). The fact that people report it takes weeks to see a reduction in nitrates has always made me suspicious - I've run the reactor at a slow tumble with not a lot of water pass through, and the bacterial mats that form inside of them grow lightning quick. The entire column of pellets can be fused in a thick, white, microbial mass in as little as 48 hours. Alternatively, when the pellets are tumbling fast enough to prevent clumping, there is usually zero build up of bacterial mulm anywhere in the reactor. Also, it's not uncommon for people to add pellets to their system and within days see the entire tank turn in to a lush cyano garden. I've always wondered if that means that the bulk of the 'work' pellets do is actually taking place inside the water column using carbon that's sloughed off, but you'd need to do some really sophisticated organic carbon analysis (that to my knowledge no one has ever done) to know for sure.

If I could find a nitrate control method that made sense with my setup that was not pellets I'd switch, but my tank is too heavily fed to not have some sort of intentional nitrate control system in place. Adding a gigantic refugium or remote DSB is physically not an option and I don't really have any space for something huge and bulky like a sulphur denitrator or an ATS. The only other 'proven' method is liquid carbon dosing, which is basically the same thing with a different delivery method but I don't know I'm ready to commit to switching. Dosing it in liquid form has the benefit of giving you precise and immediate control over how much carbon you're adding, but at the end of the day no one really understands the full spectrum biochemistry of carbon dosing anyway. I might end up switching to vinegar or vodka/vinegar dosing at some point.

In the meantime, I'm running my modified reactor with 10% the pellets it used to have before I increased the effluent pipe diameter, and I've restricted the flow through it significantly. I'm also monitoring my nitrates and will only add small amounts of pellets if the nitrates continue to climb over a period of weeks. This seems to be a safe level, but then again maybe pellets had nothing at to do with the what happened in the first place.