Thinking of a reeboot

[snowmansnow]

I've been at this hobby 13 years. Not NEARLY as long as some, but long enough to know when to cut my losses and attempt a reboot.

My current reef tank had me a little baffled, until recently. I would put in corals and the would turn the most beautiful neon colors and then it would happen.. EVERY TIME. Tissue necrosis, BUT... not one like I've seen before. Oddly enough HALF of a stick would slough off. What I mean is VERTICALLY along a centerline up and down half the coral would die, and the other half would be fine. Yup crazy stuff. I have plenty good equipment and enough experience to keep things alive, but DANG things just haven't grown.

So a month or so again I realized it was time to redo my RODI filters and.. what do you know.. I had my hoses hooked up wrong. I'm convinced I had been pumping some kind of toxin in my tap water into my reef through top off water and water changes (despite my 0 TDS reading). I even ran carbon through a few months, but I'm not convinced I was able to scrub the water enough with it.

ODDLY I've noticed this. UNDERNEATH some epoxy where I had some plugs glued was what looked JUST LIKE rust. Now in a reef tank you never really know what stuff is until you test it so who knows. I'm also not entirely convinced I don't have stray voltage of some kind although I have removed my heater because I KNOW heaters are famous for it. Could my SICCE pump be leeching something? SMH

So at this point things look bad. I have sticks, but half of them or gone on one side, or they have a band of no tissue around them. I'm super frustrated because I KNOW I can grow a reef tank. The dead sticks were once super colorful and thriving.. then BAM. This has happened about 3 times in the last year or so on this tank, and I CAN NOT figure out what is happening.

So what would you do? (I'm already in the process of a big water change on the system ) salvage what sticks you can and scrub the rock? Toss it and restock the LR? 100% water change?

Yup you can tell I'm at a loss. What am I missing here?

 

[kzoo]

Have you thought of sending your water out for triton testing?

 

[bcavalli]

+1 I agree send your water out to get tested. BRS recently published an article about Membranes and how they may not reject ammonia @ 100%. Im going our on a limb but it's posssible, as you suggested, that contaminates may be passing through your RO/DI setup and compounding the issues. Maybe try doing water changes with RO/DI water from an lfs for a few months. Maybe just maybe that will help. . This is truely a tough hobby and non forgiving with a tank more than a few years old!

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

I am too new to reefing to have a valued opinion on this, but the Triton water test sounds like a very cost effective check before starting over.

 

[Adam]

Triton gives you good info but there are others out there too.

https://www.icp-analysis.com/">icp-analysis.com</a> </em>[/B]does water testing in Colorado and the cost is less. $30 for a single, $100 for 4 tests.

Also, [B][I][IMG]http://atiaquaristik.com/en/?one_page_portfolio=icp-oes-analyse">ATI</a></em>[/B] got in the ICP game as well. They have a page for Euro customers but teamed up with [B][I][IMG]https://www.marinedepot.com/ATI_Lab_Test_Kit_for_ICP_OES_Complete_Water_Analysis_Water_Test_Kits_for_Saltwater_Aquariums-ATI-UZ21850-FITK-vi.html">Marine Depot</a></em>[/B] to do the same testing for us in the US. Theirs gets sent off to Germany too, there's even speculation it's done at Triton's lab but I think they're doing it in house. The nice thing about this one is for $40 they will do your tank & RODI water too.

With what you have going on you the ATI test looks like a good option for you.

With you're RO setup you were getting zero TDS because the DI was removing most everything that got past the membranes. Like Brett said ammonia is not something the DI will get and because it has no negative or positive charge for the resin to grab the molecules. Due to this lack of charge the water will still show zero TDS. This is true for anything in the water that is neutrally charged and this is the same for the membranes. Carbon is best for removing these type chemicals and organic compounds before they get to the membranes.

I change the sediment filter every 3 months and I have pressure gauges on my main water inlet and after the prefilters. When I see the pressure drop 10-15psi on the gauge after the prefilters I change the carbon. That PSI drop is taken when the system is making water, not when it is flushing the membrane. When the TDS starts rising before the DI then it's time to change the membrane. To know how well your RO is working you need to know the TDS of the supply water and what you're getting after the RO when the unit has been running for around 20min to a half hour. You should be seeing a 95-100% difference depending on the water inlet pressure. My water is 40-46 TDS and after the RO stage it's 1 to 2 TDS but I'm running 2 membranes, when I was only running one I would get zero. I also have pretty high pressure at 94 to 98psi.

I hope this info helps and the tests will give you some good data to see what is potentially going on with your tank before rebooting.