[deany]

My tank has been runing 14months and i had only ever done 1 water chance everything was doing well all sps were growing like mad and all nice colours but i have always had algea problems so i thought i would start doing a 50g water change each month my total tank volume is about 2200 lit so its really not a big water change.So i made the water up 2 days ago i got the 50g drum from a plummers shop and i give it a rube down even no it was spotless.I drained the 50g from my 7f sump i made sure all the parm were matching my tank i even heated the water till the same temperature as my tank i done it all last night just before i went to work and everything was looking bad even all my lps and my sps were not looking good.Came in there just after night shift all lps are looking ok but all sps are looking bleached but u can still see the polyps on them my heads away at the min i have about 40 sps just have to sit back and see if any survive.

[lindsay]

Hi m8 jas here ,well i would start by looking at the drum you have for the water changes ,is it food grade ,if it is not then the oils and waxes can leach into the water .If it were a fresh water tank you would get away with it bit for some reason salt water will draw them out .

Fresh drum left with water mixing in there could very well be the problem.You have said you washed it and so on but this will not rid the oils as there in the plastic itself .

Yours


jas

[Crabbit]

Did you test the results of the fresh salt before adding? We have been discussing this on here already, what is everything coming out as now compared to before?

[lindsay]

Deany can you give me a ring m8 ?.

[Norvern Rob]

What salt was this? I lost nearly all my SPS after a water change recently, and am wondering if it could be related. My bucket was tested by the makers and found to be totally out of wack.

[Crabbit]

What are you using?

[Norvern Rob]

The bucket was KZ. It tested at almost 2400ppm Mag and 640ppm Ca with Salifert kits - I sent it back to KZ who have tested it alongside another bucket from the same batch. That bucket was fine, mine wasn't but they haven't told me what their lab results were.

I lost around 20 SPS colonies, the day after the water change I noticed the polyps had started retracting, then the tissue started thinning and eventually they stripped. The Montis are all ok, it's the Acros that went. I suspect a trace element overdose but I may never find out - my tank water is being lab tested at the moment and i've done 1500L in water changes to try and get the tank back to normal.

Obviously I can't say with 100% certainty that the water change caused it, but it would be a mightily big coincidence if it was anything else.

[Crabbit]

Bummer I guess that we should all test a new fresh bucket before using it from scratch as a standard procedure. I hope every thing pulls through for you.

[deany]

sorry for slow replys every body i have been up to my eyes with work and with a small baby poddling about doesnt help i have made the water up so i will do some tests on the salt 2morrow all my tests on the tank seem to be spot on now i havent lost anything at the min only colour which should come back i think my system didnt like the big water changei hope thats all what it was and i like to say a big thanks to lins & jas for all ur help

[lindsay]

No probs m8 .

[Cam]

Norvern Rob, on Mar 20 2009, 03:45 PM, said:

The bucket was KZ. It tested at almost 2400ppm Mag and 640ppm Ca with Salifert kits - I sent it back to KZ who have tested it alongside another bucket from the same batch. That bucket was fine, mine wasn't but they haven't told me what their lab results were.

I lost around 20 SPS colonies, the day after the water change I noticed the polyps had started retracting, then the tissue started thinning and eventually they stripped. The Montis are all ok, it's the Acros that went. I suspect a trace element overdose but I may never find out - my tank water is being lab tested at the moment and i've done 1500L in water changes to try and get the tank back to normal.

Obviously I can't say with 100% certainty that the water change caused it, but it would be a mightily big coincidence if it was anything else.

Hi,

I had a very similar problem a couple of years ago with a bucket of Kent salt. Mg was 2300 and ca &dkh were waaaay out as I remember. As kent had gone bust at the time I couldn't do much about it at the time.

Cam.

[lindsay]

Just a quick queston ,with the above salt buckets that had strange readings ,how big a waterchange did you do on the systems that resulted in problems ?.

[Norvern Rob]

lindsay, on Mar 23 2009, 10:36 AM, said:

Just a quick queston ,with the above salt buckets that had strange readings ,how big a waterchange did you do on the systems that resulted in problems ?.

Mine was around 12%, I often did that sort of volume as I run balling light and like to keep eveything in balance. Since then i've done 1500L of water changes in 6 weeks and the remaining SPS (and the Carpet Nem) are finally starting to recover - so it wasn't just a case of Mag and Ca being out, when I returned the salt Thomas Pohl actually said he couldn't believe the salt was his as all the parameters were so far out.

I'm suspecting some kind of trace element overdose but I'm waiting for lab tests on my tankwater to come back, and hopefully that will shine some light on what happened.

I know one thing, it has put me off doing large(ish) water changes. I am switching to full balling and doing a 5% water change every 3-4 weeks.

[Social D]

I think i agree with this but its such an unknown subject in the Water world, But back to the soiled planet you can indeed kill plants with overdosing trace elements it doesnt take much beleive me some plants can handle it better than others.

In the plant kingdom you firstly have to have the right conditions for the trace elements to work as it were .. if the Ph of soil is out of wack then added trace elements will have a damaging effect or wont be consumed leaving a build up of unwanted trace elements.

If you then then add more than they need it will kill them, certain plants need potassium to green up .. as do Certain corals like Montipora, If you add excess Potassium to the tank and its not been consumed then the rest will suffer, This is why i wont add potassium to my tank for the sake of one individual coral ... or a plant.

It is better to stay with small changes the less the better, A healthy plant/coral can be killed over night if it been used to deprivation of trace elements, and if you suddenly ''feed' it then it simply will not cope and its metabolism will not cope.


You either add the trace elements or not, both Coral/plant will do very well either way, When you start to add them and they arent used to then you could ... see a downhill problem.

Putting the both together i would think something else in the tank was outta sync and this has caused the problem .. or the salt has a very high concentration of one elements that the corals do not like..

I see many compare the ocean to our tanks but in reality dosing what i see a small rock pool with the likes of potassium esp is bad news, in the ocean it has billions of gallons to dillute the elements, whereas the small rock pools we keep cannot consume the extra added trace elements
We keep rock pools in our homes not oceans so lets forget sudden changes or add any extras ...

Be interesting to see the results