Jeff Miotke
Community Member
Ill start with at this point I AM SO DAM frustrated I want to throw in the towel. And even worse my wife wants me to bag it call it a failure and sell it all off.
The crux is of the issue is that the water chemistry will not stabilize. Something is very very wrong.
Since Ive set this tank up it burns 1 to 2 dkh per day. Yes per day. With NO LIVESTOCK that would consume it.
No coral.
No coralline.
A few fish.
I have spoken with many folks and NOBODY can explain to me what is going on. Ive read everything on the forums I could find.
So. Normally this would be explained by precipitation. Look at the glass, heaters, pumps, sump and check the sand. NONE of these areas have shown any signs of precipitation.
Ive tried the following to hit my target numbers of dKh of 7.5 to 8 and Calcium of 420 to 430ppm:
Increase dosing. This increases consumption/precipitation rate.
Decrease or stop dosing. This results in the dKh bottoming out around 5.
No dosing for 3 weeks to allow for any CaCO3 nucleation sites to be poisoned and no longer precipitate. After resumed by adding 0.5 dkh Alkalinity per day
Different types of dosing: 2 part (both recipes using carbonate and bicarbonate), balling method, tropic marin bio calcium
90% water change to reset
Changed Salt mixes
Checked Mg over and over and its around 1500 (probably high reading with RedSea test kit)
Nothing has made any difference. Same consumption. The calcium and alkalinity just disappear over night every single day.
I have a 20 gallon frag tank that I pictured previously. This is where my corals are and they are doing OK. The Alkalinity and Calcium levels in this tank are solid. No daily swings. Normal consumption of 2 to 4 ml/week of 2 part.
So I've looked at the differences between the tanks and the difference outside of equipment (pretty sure I can eliminate the equipment from consuming alkalinity/Ca as at this point it would be a solid block of concrete.) is that the display tank has sand and rock.
The sand is Caribsea special grade live sand. It looks normal. It behaves normally. It has no clumping. I stir it and nothing out of the ordinary happens just a bit of detritus kicks up. No signs of anything wrong.
The rock is Caribsea life rock. It is the manmade purple stuff. Ive been closely observing everything in the last few weeks and noticed that the rock is no longer purple. It is encrusted with grey/greyish green/brown. I tried brushing the rock off and this does nothing so this coating is certainly attached. Is it possible that the rock is precipitating the alkalinity/calcium?
I reached out to the LFS and they never heard of such a thing but quickly qualified it with they don't know of anyone who did a full tank build with this rock. They were kind enough to reach out to Caribsea. Caribsea of course denied that it could be the rock causing the issue.
So I'm left with a mystery and a tank that has very unstable water conditions. Ive tested coral in the tank and it either barely hangs on or dies. I'm stuck. Its been 6 months and I cant put any coral in my REEF tank.
What would you do? Looking for any and all advice.
The crux is of the issue is that the water chemistry will not stabilize. Something is very very wrong.
Since Ive set this tank up it burns 1 to 2 dkh per day. Yes per day. With NO LIVESTOCK that would consume it.
No coral.
No coralline.
A few fish.
I have spoken with many folks and NOBODY can explain to me what is going on. Ive read everything on the forums I could find.
So. Normally this would be explained by precipitation. Look at the glass, heaters, pumps, sump and check the sand. NONE of these areas have shown any signs of precipitation.
Ive tried the following to hit my target numbers of dKh of 7.5 to 8 and Calcium of 420 to 430ppm:
Increase dosing. This increases consumption/precipitation rate.
Decrease or stop dosing. This results in the dKh bottoming out around 5.
No dosing for 3 weeks to allow for any CaCO3 nucleation sites to be poisoned and no longer precipitate. After resumed by adding 0.5 dkh Alkalinity per day
Different types of dosing: 2 part (both recipes using carbonate and bicarbonate), balling method, tropic marin bio calcium
90% water change to reset
Changed Salt mixes
Checked Mg over and over and its around 1500 (probably high reading with RedSea test kit)
Nothing has made any difference. Same consumption. The calcium and alkalinity just disappear over night every single day.
I have a 20 gallon frag tank that I pictured previously. This is where my corals are and they are doing OK. The Alkalinity and Calcium levels in this tank are solid. No daily swings. Normal consumption of 2 to 4 ml/week of 2 part.
So I've looked at the differences between the tanks and the difference outside of equipment (pretty sure I can eliminate the equipment from consuming alkalinity/Ca as at this point it would be a solid block of concrete.) is that the display tank has sand and rock.
The sand is Caribsea special grade live sand. It looks normal. It behaves normally. It has no clumping. I stir it and nothing out of the ordinary happens just a bit of detritus kicks up. No signs of anything wrong.
The rock is Caribsea life rock. It is the manmade purple stuff. Ive been closely observing everything in the last few weeks and noticed that the rock is no longer purple. It is encrusted with grey/greyish green/brown. I tried brushing the rock off and this does nothing so this coating is certainly attached. Is it possible that the rock is precipitating the alkalinity/calcium?
I reached out to the LFS and they never heard of such a thing but quickly qualified it with they don't know of anyone who did a full tank build with this rock. They were kind enough to reach out to Caribsea. Caribsea of course denied that it could be the rock causing the issue.
So I'm left with a mystery and a tank that has very unstable water conditions. Ive tested coral in the tank and it either barely hangs on or dies. I'm stuck. Its been 6 months and I cant put any coral in my REEF tank.
What would you do? Looking for any and all advice.
