Acid bath dead rock..is there negative effects.

[Livingjewels]

Does anyone know of any I’ll effects of acid bathing dead rock?

I stripped the organics off mine until the white come through..then fresh jetwashed it with clean water.

After a few months it started to get a lime green algae coating.

A few month later this then changed to a silvery grey / dark grey appearance.

Covered areas remained white/ cream coloured.

Some areas have gone like a dull black..

What I’m trying to ask is what should I expect from my rock as far as colouration goes, and would you expect any issues with it having stripped it clean..

I’m having long term issues with sps and the only thing I’m thinking it could be is the rock.
I cannot keep sps alive for more than a few weeks to a month..even the easiest of coral like guttatus, montipora just fade out and strip from the tips which exposes the skeleton.

Kh9.3
Po4 0.008
Nitrate 3 ppm
Cal 420
Mag 1220


Anybody got any thoughts.

[csb123]

The acid shouldn't do anything bad. The rock undergo various colors as different algae colonize it. You phos is a bit low. I would consider Alan ICP or Triton test to get a closer look at your chemistry. I was having similar problems with corals and found out my salt mix had very low potassium. Supplementing resolved the problem.

[Livingjewels]

I’m currently dosing nopox and have bio pellets running, and your right phos is getting on the low side.
I need to drop the nopox I think to avoid cyano/ Dino problems.

There is prolific growth of Gha going at the moment which is now starting to die out.. (slowly I may add.)
It can hopefully be ruled out that this has no relationship with the sps tip burn/ necrosis as I’ve kept different frags over the 9 months at varying po4 levels and the same thing happens time and time again.

I have a salifert potassium test kit, I may double check the levels again.. although when I have tested in the past it’s always in recommended levels of (410ppm)

I can’t think for the life of me what is happening with my tanks chemistry; on paper looking at my levels they should in theory be ok..

I recently changed 70% of my water out and replaced it with NSW.. from my local fish shop..(or that’s what they sell it as)

I might be forced into an ICP test if I canny resolve the issues I have: I was kind of hoping someone may have similar issues with the dead rock like I have.

[bertoni]

You might be seeing a number of organisms on the rock. Have you introduced any coralline? Your description sounds normal enough for live rock. Stripping it clean is fine, but the process removed anything living on the rocks, so whatever comes long with the animals, etc, is what's going to cover the rock.

[Livingjewels]

Hi Jonathan
I have seen some small patches of coralline starting to grow but it’s not as abundant as areas which have darkened out.

I have seen some small patches of coralline starting to grow but it’s not as abundant as areas which have darkened out. I also have some on my weir so it’s definateley present as the thank was brand new.

As you know from previous threads I’m trying to pinpoint why my corals keep dying.
There is only the sand and the rock now which I can think of.

This has been happening for near to 9 months.

[Vinny Kreyling]

Off the top of my head --
Has this tank ever had copper used?
A Polyfilter pad can determine if there is any in the water.

[dkeller_nc]

Soaking dead rock in hydrochloric acid in and of itself shouldn't have any long-term bad effects; the acid simply dissolves the outer layers of calcium carbonate, carrying any organics in the layer with it.

However, technical grade hydrochloric acid such as used for etching concrete may or may not have a good bit of metal contamination. Exactly what those metals would be could vary all over the map, but typical contaminants are iron, zinc and chromium, among others.

Having said that, I would think that it's unlikely that any metallic contaminants that could have entered the rock in the acid bath would remain, especially after a number of months of use in a tank with appropriate water changes.

But, when faced with issues like you describe, and having eliminated the much more likely lighting intensity/spectrum, amount of flow, alkalinity stability, inorganic nutrient concentration, oxygenation and other problems that typically result in poor SPS results, getting a Triton test to determine if you've an oddball contaminant like aluminum is easily worth the $50.

Since a couple of frags of acropora is around the amount charged for one Triton test, I'd think it would worth it just for the piece of mind.

[Livingjewels]

Originally Posted by Vinny Kreyling

Off the top of my head --
Has this tank ever had copper used?
A Polyfilter pad can determine if there is any in the water.

The tank was bought as ex-display but new..

I haven’t used copper within the tank since I started it up in jan 17.

I was looking at the polyfilter, it seemed an good avenue to go down to see if anything gets absorbed.
What I may do 1st is get an ICP done, people have been advising it for a good while, which I’ve put off for varying reasons.
I hoped to narrow the margins down and get things within permissible readings to allow me to fine tune the more obscure elements.
(I kind of knew that nutrients were on the high side)

Originally Posted by dkeller_nc

Soaking dead rock in hydrochloric acid in and of itself shouldn't have any long-term bad effects; the acid simply dissolves the outer layers of calcium carbonate, carrying any organics in the layer with it.

However, technical grade hydrochloric acid such as used for etching concrete may or may not have a good bit of metal contamination. Exactly what those metals would be could vary all over the map, but typical contaminants are iron, zinc and chromium, among others.

Having said that, I would think that it's unlikely that any metallic contaminants that could have entered the rock in the acid bath would remain, especially after a number of months of use in a tank with appropriate water changes.

But, when faced with issues like you describe, and having eliminated the much more likely lighting intensity/spectrum, amount of flow, alkalinity stability, inorganic nutrient concentration, oxygenation and other problems that typically result in poor SPS results, getting a Triton test to determine if you've an oddball contaminant like aluminum is easily worth the $50.

Since a couple of frags of acropora is around the amount charged for one Triton test, I'd think it would worth it just for the piece of mind.

As above really, I think it’s time to do it.. you are right..
ive spent £50 on three frags which are now going down hill within a week and an half..

One is unrecognisable to its former self, the other two are showing a few small areas of necrosis on the coralites.

I find that any smooth skins such as speciosa or bottle brush genus don’t take long to demise.
But longer term they all meet the same end..

[ATTACH][ATTACH]87BB6686-27F4-47EA-9BE2-5B2ECE1B7206.jpg[/ATTACH][/ATTACH]

[bertoni]

I agree with the PolyFilter idea. They are cheap, and sometimes help. CupraSorb will remove copper, but the PolyFilter will turn blue if there's much present, thus acting as a bit of a test kit.

I'm a bit skeptical about the Triton results. They have been shown to be inaccurate for at least some trace elements, and their methodology is a bit suspect.

The parameters you have given are reasonable as far as they go, given hobbyist kit accuracy. I might double-check other parameters, such as SG, temperature, and the like. I have had multiple heaters fail, for example.

For coralline growth, you might be seeing some generic issue with the tank, or you might need to import a strain that is compatible with your lighting. When I changed the lighting on one of my tanks from PC to metal halide, I killed off most of the coralline, and it never came back. I was happy about that, but you might want coralline. I'm not sure where you stand on that.

[Livingjewels]

I have now had my ICP test results back, here they are..

Reading through them nothing stands out to me, just wondering what your thoughts are, maybe you can glean something that I’m missing?

55D14781-9442-4510-A8D8-79B2CAB4BC0E.jpg

821E6FE8-20D6-4BFD-9B6D-318A5E450876.jpg

4FF729C8-8CC8-465D-B028-943F4A20FA58.jpg

BCDB9F59-C26F-4B0C-A3A5-68324A41E89D.jpg

[bertoni]

The only items marked out of line are the calcium, alkalinity, and iodine, from what I can see. Those levels are fine as is. I think the results are clean, although the accuracy of ICP can be highly variable.