!!!!??? It's happening again!
 

My corals are dying again and this time I have zero explanation for it. Everything was recovering from the carnage in February/March, the system was dialled back in, Everything that survived had healed over and was starting to send out new growth tips and then 2 days ago BAM!

Every single coral that had been losing tissue before is losing tissue again. It's starting at the growth tips, so basically all the recovery they've made since I spent 10 days doing water changes, and two weeks testing the water every single day vanished in 48 hours.

This time I've literally changed nothing. No equipment has changed, no chemicals have changed, nothing about the pellet reactor has changed (it's still got 10% of the pellets in it recommended for a system my size), I'm still on the same pale of salt I was using after everything started growing again. I literally haven't touched the tank in two weeks.

I'm so beyond ready to rip this thing out and turn it in to a closet.

Does anyone in Calgary have a recommendation for a lab to do a full work-up on my water? They only thing I can think is that something is poisoning my corals. I've gone over all my equipment but maybe I'm missing something that's leaching copper or something in to my water?

I'm ready to give up.

Oh man that rly sucks!!! Maybe it in the rocks n leaching out slowly?

Sorry to hear Adam :-(. If you're ready to give up then i would make a suggestion to get rid of your DI. It was causing me issues. I haven't been using DI for over a month now. Worth a shot maybe. Of course, you will still need to do some hefty water chnages again to get out whatever is currently in your tank.

These are long shots but any chance something like a foreign object...maybe a metal clamp in a submerged area or even a penny could have got into the water? Are there power-heads in any of the tanks with magnet attachments that could maybe be rusting?

As in the DI resin on my RO unit? What was yours doing?

I've looked, I can't see anything obvious. the magnets on my MPs are all intact (I replaced one about 6 months ago that was looking worn), and the magnets on the various koralias in my sump all look brand new. That's why I want a commercial lab to test for heavy metals, I just can't figure this out.

The only other thing I can think is alk. While I was doing the water changes and re-setting everything it got as low as 5.5, then over the course of 2 weeks I got it up very slowly back in to the 7-7.5 range. Things started recovering the fastest when it was around 6. I haven't tested it since last weekend, but today it's 8.5. Like last time I'm not sure if the spike was because the corals have stopped growing or if it slowly crept up and caused damage. In any case I turned off the dosing pump to get it to come back down in to the 7s.

My tank is no where near low nutrient at this point though, so even with (a very small amount of ) biopellets on the system, I just can't accept that an alk of 8.5 would cause so much damage.

Params:
Alk: 8.5
Calcium: 415
Mag: 1260
Nitrate: about 2ppm
PO4: 0.11

I hadn't been running GFO for the past two weeks as the pellets weren't kicking in with PO4 levels of 0.008ppm, which is where they sit with the reactor running. The nitrates are finally starting to fall from a high of about 5ppm. Anyone think those numbers would indicate coral damage?

As for rust, that wouldn't do it. I have hose clamps in my sump that have been there for years. Rusted solid. No issues. I also have add magnets get exposed and rust up, again, no issues.

Put one of those color-changing Poly Filter pads in the system and see if it turns any colors.

There was a problem with some carbon, but that was a couple years ago.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog...or-reef-carbon

I think a couple of people here on Canreef ran into that.