Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post

markalot · 11/25/2014, 10:47 PM

Thanks Matt.

I'm glad i was forced to look at the timing again. I switched from LED to T5 but after the browning happened, so I can hopefully discount that change.

I have a timed topoff system since my evaporation is fairly constant. I was using saturated Kalk (no vinegar) and 90ml two part a day.

I started adding 45ml per gallon of vinegar to gallon of Kalk topoff water and that's when the troubles began. My Alk had been a constant 8 - 8.5 for two months and then over a week the Alk rose from 8.5 to 10.0 before I turned off the doser. It continued to rise, slowly, to 10.5 and I diluted the topoff to start a very slow fall back to 8.0 over 2 weeks.

I measured my topoff amount for the first time and calculated just a bit over a gallon a day topoff, which means I was dosing 45ml of vinegar a day.

I have this FTS, links to the fullsize pic, that shows that coral still having good color even after the rise to 10.5. According to what I wrote on another forum my dosers were turned off and Alk was dropping from 10.5 to 9.8 over 4 days.

4 days later my KH hit 8.6 and I commented that I was losing .25 KH a day and the coral above had browned out completely.

2 days after this I measured P and N for the first time and got the high readings. Over the next week every SPS lost color, some more than others. One acro had significant tip dieback, others had some basal STN, some more significant STN. Too many changes to really say what happened, which is why I'm lost at the moment. Do I go back to what I was doing before, ignoring P and N and figuring it was elevated all along? Do I get P under control, stabilize Alk, and wait it out?

11/25/2014, 10:47 PM	#49
markalot ... Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Florence, KY Posts: 3,806 Blog Entries: 3	Thanks Matt. I'm glad i was forced to look at the timing again. I switched from LED to T5 but after the browning happened, so I can hopefully discount that change. I have a timed topoff system since my evaporation is fairly constant. I was using saturated Kalk (no vinegar) and 90ml two part a day. I started adding 45ml per gallon of vinegar to gallon of Kalk topoff water and that's when the troubles began. My Alk had been a constant 8 - 8.5 for two months and then over a week the Alk rose from 8.5 to 10.0 before I turned off the doser. It continued to rise, slowly, to 10.5 and I diluted the topoff to start a very slow fall back to 8.0 over 2 weeks. I measured my topoff amount for the first time and calculated just a bit over a gallon a day topoff, which means I was dosing 45ml of vinegar a day. I have this FTS, links to the fullsize pic, that shows that coral still having good color even after the rise to 10.5. According to what I wrote on another forum my dosers were turned off and Alk was dropping from 10.5 to 9.8 over 4 days. 4 days later my KH hit 8.6 and I commented that I was losing .25 KH a day and the coral above had browned out completely. 2 days after this I measured P and N for the first time and got the high readings. Over the next week every SPS lost color, some more than others. One acro had significant tip dieback, others had some basal STN, some more significant STN. Too many changes to really say what happened, which is why I'm lost at the moment. Do I go back to what I was doing before, ignoring P and N and figuring it was elevated all along? Do I get P under control, stabilize Alk, and wait it out? __________________ -- Mark 150G (72x18x27) \| 35G sump \| SRO-XP2000INT Skimmer \| ATI SunPower T5 / NanoBox LED hybrid 60" x 4 + 8 NanoBox v3.1 arrays Last edited by markalot; 11/25/2014 at 11:40 PM.