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fishyman19 View Drop Down
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    Posted: August 27 2013 at 11:01am
For those of you who don't already know, I have a new 90 gallon set up. The first night it was set up I lost most of my coral due to salt issues. Mainly it came from being misinformed on the water I received from the previous owner. That has been taken care of and I got my salt back up to 1.26 then down to 1.25.  My question however is that is has been by itself raising up to 1.30 over the last couple days. What would cause it to do this? I'm not adding anything to the water but RO for top offs and I know the water I add is RO(I had to do it last night and tested after it was down to 1.25) Is there salt buildup somewhere or something that I should look for?

I've never had this issue with my 56 gallon, if anything It maybe fluctuated between 1.23-1.25 in between water changes, but it never went up. The old tank also never had a built in overflow either. Could that be a reason why?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Molli Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 11:24am
That is a huge fluctuation for that size tank!  Is it possible the prior owner dumped salt into the tank and it was never properly stirred up and it settled in rocks and sand is is now slowly dissolving?  How did you increase the salinity in your tank?
 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote builderofdreams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 11:44am
How are you mixing your salt and what are you testing the salinity with?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishyman19 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 11:53am
The only chance of that happening Moli is if it was in one of the chambers or in the sump or something.  There was no rock in the tank that I took with me that was in the tank. Also the sand was rinsed heavily before it was placed in the tank.

With my old tank I did a 5 gallon water change weekly and put the salt into a 5 gallon jug with a pump and let it run for a few hours. Some weeks because of lack of time this wasn't done and I just shook the jug myself for about 20 minutes. Yes I know this isn't the best way to do this but it never changed anything this drastically. On this tank yesterday was my first water change and I just used RO water to get it down.

But last Friday night when my wife and I got home and I noticed everything was dying I put the correct amount of salt in a 5 gallon bucket and mixed it with a big spoon for about an hour.  I use a Refractometer to test my salt with. And I both tested the RO water and my wife's tank to make sure I wasn't going crazy ha.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote BobC63 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 12:07pm
Have you added a lot of 2 - part Ca or Alk solution lately?
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote builderofdreams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 12:23pm
Is everything dead or dying now. Was everything dead or dying from unmixed salt being sent into the tank? I  am really confused.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 1:03pm
Salinity of 1.030 is not terrible. Normally, coral can handle it, if it comes on as a slow rise from 1.025 . That's the kind of salinity increase we might see in one of two situations:
1 - where saltwater was being used for top-off, or
2 - where water was evaporating without top-off
Sounds like those are not the case so the next thing to look at is the Refractometer:
1 - Is the glass being wiped off after each use?
2 - did it get out of calibration somehow? was it dropped?

The most recent coral issues may be due in part to a possible increase in salinity, but in a much larger part would be due to the latent effects of the recent catastrophe. Any kind of problem like what this tank experienced, living in RO water for a day, is going to reverberate within the system like an echo. It may take a month or more for it to fully recover with different things dieing along the way. Macroalgae in the system, especially if illuminated 24/7, will speed the recovery.
What coral are now dieing?
Were these coral that survived or coral added since the event?
Feel free to call me to discuss immediately in more detail.

Aloha,
Mark Hug
808-345-1049 anytime

Oh, about the comment re mixing saltwater, you may be interested to know that in the last 8 years or so, artificial salt mixes have been improved. Quick mixing gives no problems. I add salt to a container stir it for a minute until it seems to be dissolved, then pour it back and forth twice between two containers and then pour it into the tank. Smile No deleterious effects.


Edited by Mark Peterson - August 27 2013 at 1:15pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishyman19 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 1:18pm
I guess I should explain myself a little bit better. I purchased the tank last now that I think about it Friday night 2 weeks ago. We got to setting up Saturday morning and got everything in around 6 that night. I went to a show I was performing at and came home that night to most of my coral either bleached or dying. I took out what I could save and stuck it in my wife's tank.

I was pretty puzzled so I tested all the things I could to see if I had any issues with Nitrates, PH or those things. All were stable and where they needed to be. So I went oh crap! Let me check the salt. I checked the salt and it was at .90. I was told by the person I received the tank from that it was salt water that had been running in the tank and that I could just use that water. Turned out later on that it ended up being just RO water. The only thing that kept the tank going and didn't kill everything was the 50 gallons of saltwater from my tank that I put in. It was no fault of the person I got the tank from. We were both just miss informed.

So I started to take out all the coral that looked like it still had life in it and placed it in my wife's nano. The dead or too far off to bring back coral was taken out of the tank Sunday and thrown away. I had started Saturday night to bring the salinity back up to where I have been told it needed to be. The tank got back up to 1.25 probably Monday evening last week. But my original post is questioning the fact that over the last couple days without me adding anything to the tank but RO for top offs, it has been creeping up to 1.30. I don't know if there was too much salt put in the tank or if there was leftover somewhere from when we emptied the tank.

Mark the Refractometer is cleaned after each and every use. I tested the RO water to calibrate the thing and make sure it was at zero which it was. I also tested my wife's tank to make sure I wasn't going crazy. So I don't think the issue is there either.  i think it either has to be that something somewhere is holding salt that was put in and has slowly been releasing it or I'm going crazy. LOL I've run into more problems with this thing in the first 2 weeks then I did the whole year and a half with my other tank. But hey that's the hobby right?


Edited by fishyman19 - August 27 2013 at 1:20pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Molli Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 1:26pm
OK so if I read this right you had a 90 gallon tank of basically RO water and increased the salinity to what it should be by adding 5 gallons of very salty water.  Do you have really really good circulation in your tank or is it possible that the 5 gallons of water you added has taken several days to really mix well with the rest of the water in your tank and your salinity reading is slowing increasing due to that?  I know I'm reaching here but given what you have posted I can't think if any other way your salinity level could increase like this. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishyman19 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 1:32pm
More or less yes moli, i suck at explaining things lol. I probably added about 10 gallons of water over the next couple of days after I found the issue.  I was told to never add that much all at once am I correct on that? I have 4 pumps going in there plus the return pumps and it looks like the circulation is great. It's very possible though that there is a build up of it somewhere. I'll just have to keep watch.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 2:02pm
Aloha,

Yes, it does sound like there was a pile of salt still dissolving.

What I understood from what you wrote is that the only salt in the newly set up 90 was the saltwater from your old tank. Combining the two sources, the salinity ended up at a specific gravity of much less than what coral can survive in. Your figure of 0.90 salinity is impossible. Pure water has a specific gravity of 1.00. and that is death for coral. I would have to go back and check the other thread, though it doesn't matter much now, I believe I said that where there was no salt, it must be brought up to 1.020 immediately.

If I understand this next aspect correctly, the tank was below survivable salinity for 3 days! This is definitely the reason for continued coral issues, as I explained in the previous post. At this point it's a waiting game. Waiting to see what death follows next. This is a problem I have seen before and helped others to deal with. Macroalgae is awesome to help alleviate pollution problems.
Sorry, it's not pretty right now but it will recover in time. Smile
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishyman19 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 2:56pm
Yeah I figured that would be the case. It wasn't below the needed survivable salinity for 3 days. After I noticed the issue I started to raise it and by sunday morning it was at 1.23 so it was getting better. All the fish are fine and the coral I put back in there are doing great. I had someone to tell me to move all the dead or dying coral and I did that and my skimmer was running like a madman for about two days. I emptied it 4 times in about 18 hours. It was crazy. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2013 at 9:32pm
One day instead of three. That gives hope that things will turn around soon. I'm really sorry for your loss. I know how it feels to have tanks in distress. It has happened to me more times than I care to admit. I'm going through it now myself. A few drops of triple strength laundry detergent got in my system. I'm adding bottled bacteria to help with recovery. Eventually, there may need to be an addition of LS from another tank to restart the population of bugs and worms that died off.

I typically say that coral are easier to keep than fish, but on the other hand I'm fascinated with how fish can live in very low salinity. I recently acclimated some Mollies and a Green Spotted Puffer to 1.026 salinity. I'm happy to say that the Puffer is growing well in the 55 gal sump and looking even better now than he did at Walmart. Big smile

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishyman19 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 31 2013 at 6:35pm
I'm sorry to hear about your tank Mark, I hope yours gets back up and running as well. I was wondering if I could throw another question your way.

The tank has been up and going for a couple weeks salinity is back to 1.025-1.26 flow is good and the tank and coral that did survive is starting to make a comeback. I am however getting some brown algea forming on the sand at the front of the tank. At first glance it seems like diatoms, but looking at it closer its got little air bubbles in some spots and some areas it's a little filmy. Could that be another type of diatoms? Or is it something else?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote fishyman19 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 31 2013 at 6:37pm
I do have a conch snail that has made a dent so it does seem like it could be something that can be eaten.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 01 2013 at 6:53am
Yes, it sounds like a combination of Diatoms and Dinoflagellates. Dinoflagellates are a brown stringy algae that holds air bubbles on slime threads. Any time a tank crashes or has a major die-off, these two algae take advantage of the temporary situation. Sometimes Cyano may also appear. In time they should go away. To ensure that they do go away is the reason I mentioned earlier about using Macroalgae illuminated 24/7 for a while.
Aloha,
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