Ritter's 75 Gallon Reef

I think alkalinity got too high. 2 of the monti caps looked burned and a couple of the acros have burned tips. I thought they were going to heal but lately the orange cap looks worse. I think removing too much nutrients makes alk burn worse so I took the GFO offline and cut the white lights photoperiod back to six hours and see what happens.

Here's what my two look like now, also a pic before the dosing.

This pic is before dosing for Alk.


These is the same Cap and my other one after dosing baking soda for a few weeks.

Here's a pic of mine. It's worse now than in this pic. If removing the gfo doesn't help I'm going to frag off the outer pieces. The center is still orange.

After doing some reading on my problem I think my guess was correct. Too low nutrients and too high alkalinity. I think I'm stripping the water too clean so I either need to lower the alk to 7 or below, which I don't want to do, or slow down on the gfo. I have been running my alk between 8-10 for over a year now by baking soda dosing and running a cup full of gfo in a reactor. The change in what I'm doing probably came from adding the big skimmer. I'm pulling out more nutrients than before and in combination with using the gfo I may be getting the water too clean for the alkalinity of my tank. I found this post while doing some reading,

we should consider that in a ULNS tank, there are fewer stray organics, which is the point. Now, CO3 (carbonate), which is what Alk actually measures, is a reactive substance. In overabundance (high Alk) it may well start to react with what nutrients it can find in the water, but then move on to living tissues, where it may be actually attacking the structure, thus tip burn. It may, also, be that the increased attempt fo the coral a metabolizing carbonate upsets their metabolism.

Not that my tank is ULNS by any means but maybe I'm being a little too aggressive with the gfo. I can't find any other explanation why an alkalinity of 8-10 would cause burns.

I'm trying to read up on a lot of this info as well. So if you don't mind could you link me any articles on this.

I haven't found any articles yet but it seems to be the consensus on forums. I know that zeovit users keep alk. low because they strip every bit of nutrients from the water and dose to feed the coral what it needs. I didn't think I was going to that extreme of cleaning the water but maybe I pushed it too far. I started with small amounts of gfo and the problem started as I increased the amount.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2010441

I'm trying to study up on vsv dosing... which will create a ULNS. I'm just trying to read up on the other tank parameters and what I would have to dose.

Matt
If you are changing 20% biweekly, you should never need to dose unless you got some crapy salt like the bucket I got. Believe me if you don't need to dose don't start, it gets to be a real pain. There should be no need to dose a nano if your salt mix is up to par. The only reason one should have to dose is if they have a larger tank and do not do regular water changes, this is the only reason to dose.

Sorry to hijack the thread here for a minute. ;-)

I wasn't researching for my 29g. I'm not changing a thing at the moment. Everything is going GREAT. I'm researching for a future 120g. :-) When I say future I mean like... a few years.

There comes some point, either tank size or amount of stocking, that it is not cost effective to do water changes instead of dosing. I don't know what that point is but weekly water changes won't keep up with my alkalinity demand and I don't consider my tank heavily stocked at all. Don't worry about the hijack, any discussion is good.

Found a good article. I know you're not vodka dosing, but I believe this high alk concept will be true for any ULNS.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

Here's a quote:
Burnt tips - Some users of organic carbon dosing have reported the tissue loss at the ends of their SPS. These "burnt tips" have recovered once the user reduced the alkalinity levels within their tank to alkalinity levels closer to natural seawater (7-8 dKH), pictured below. Unfortunately, the root cause for this is not known.

Check out the difference in some of my corals since the switch to leds.

Blue Milli. I've had this piece for a year and it's the slowest growing ever.


And after a couple months under leds.


Red planet under MH,


And leds,


Nice improvements in less than 2 months time. I'm happy with the lights so far.

Some new addtions and FTS.

Pink Birdsnest


Need ID on this one. Some kind of favia but I don't know exactly which.


I think this is a Grapes of Wrath Platygyra,


Need ID on this blue acro too.


Ponape birdsnest, Thanks Tony!

I forgot the FTS.

Wow, leds are a nice improvement over the mh, the colors say it all man.

Looking great!!! I love the ponape birdsnest. I'm glad you like the lights too. How are the acans doing?

I had a little recession on the bigger acan at the top where the light was really bright on it. I can't even tell it was receding now and the smaller acan never had any problems.

Btw, the bigger acan has some glow to it again. When I bought it the colors under the lunar lights were really bright; blues, pinks, greens. After some time in my tank it lost it's glow and was just blue, white and gray. It's glowing again under the LEDs but I don't have lunar lights anymore.

ritter678 wrote:
Need ID on this one. Some kind of favia but I don't know exactly which.

Goniastrea palauensis. People on reefcentral.com are always helpful.

More new ones.

Lord of the Rings Zoas,


Ponape Birdsnest, not bad for 2 weeks growth.




I also picked up about 100+ heads of Tubbs Blues that weren't opened for photos yet and some Rainbow Palys and Yellow Palys.

I also picked up this! If this isn't the ORA Pearlberry I've been looking for it's close enough for me. Anyone else think it's the Pearlberry or something else? I'm super happy with it no matter what it's named.

Sweet additions! How do the Tubbs look under the Blue LEDs? I was really curious how they would look.

That ORA Pearlberry is ridiculous!

If that aint a pearlberry it sure is purty. I'm curious to as to the Tubbs blues under the blue lights, get us a pic when you can.

I'm getting myself convinced it's the Pearlberry. I've looked at a bunch of pics and I can't find anything else really close. It has a little green tint that doesn't show up in the pic. Not only did I find a frag but a nice sized colony. I didn't get the corals in the tank until late last night and this morning the Tubbs still weren't open. I looked in the tank after the lights were out and my lobo had these long tentacles out and it was touching the Tubbs so I hope I didn't mess up but I think I caught it in time. The tentacles weren't latched on but the sure were touching one side of the Tubbs. I'm hoping they will be open tonight when I get home but I've read the Tubbs are notorious for not opening for a while after being moved.

I also found out that Palythoas will survive in a trash can overnight. I forgot that there were 2 corals in one bag and I pulled the Lord of the Rings colony out and threw the bag away. There was a frag of some bright yellow palys still in the bag. I got up this morning and checked on the corals and couldn't find the frag and looked over the whole tank with a flashlight before it hit me. I dug through the empty bags and found the coral and dropped them in the tank. They started to open up immediately even with the lights out. There wasn't any water left in the bag but it was still damp enough to keep them from drying out.

Texas Trash Palys?

matt_longview wrote:Texas Trash Palys?

Literally!

The Tubbs Blues were fully open when I got home. These are the smallest polyps I've ever seen on a zoanthid.




And under the blue leds....they are blue.