Need advice - algae and cyno; nitrate 0, phosphate 0.3

[cpeguero]

For the food, do try several different pellets to see what works for you. I use the TDO chroma boost small size pellets (they have several sizes). I also use an Avast plank feeder in my sump. That way, food gets soaked in water then sucked up into my return pump and broadcast into the water column. The plank feeder does give you a lot tighter ci trip of how much gets fed, and you have more flexibility to feed smaller amounts throughout the day. 
 

I would definitely change salt brands. There shouldn’t be any phosphate in your new saltwater. Is it possible that could be coming from your ro water? I’m not sure if the saltwater test for phosphate will work on ro water….

 

Lots of folks use instant ocean successfully. I personally use HW Marinemix Reef salt. It’s one of the cheaper synthetic salts, but good quality. BRS is the only place in the states that carries it. If you use instant ocean, I think I’d go with reef crystals. Take a look at BRS at various salts. They post parameters for mixed saltwater in the item description based on their own testing. They did a video a few years ago comparing how well different salts mixed up and their parameters. Pick a salt that mixes close to the parameters you’re trying to get. 

[Kathryn Lawson]

I should have clarified, the phosphate is coming from my source water (results a few posts back). I have new filters on the way! However, I think it's probably a pretty minor contributor of overall phosphate in my tank, compared to the food.

Edited February 29 by Kathryn Lawson

[cpeguero]

Ah, that makes sense. Didn’t go back up to refresh on what all is going on. Do check out info BRS has on how the various salt mixes compare on final parameters and see what works with your situation. 
 

I chose the HW marinemix because it mixes up clean, so I don’t have to deal with cleaning out my saltwater mixing/storage barrels as much. If you are just mixing salt up as you need it, that’s less of an issue. It’s more expensive than instant ocean, and I usually buy a year’s worth when it goes on sale. 

[Kathryn Lawson]

Hi all. After a bit over a week of daily water changes (3 gallons a day on my 29+maybe 6 gallon system), my parameters are:

 

Nitrate 10.8

Phosphate 0.31

Alk 10.8

Calc 389

Mag 980

 

Cyano is still super thriving and corals are still looking pretty unhappy (as is my bubbletip nem, which is super shrunken to the point of almost being unrecognizable, and moving around). Even my softies are looking bad - among other things, some mushrooms have had their mesenterial filaments spilling out their mouths pretty much all the time, and a Kenya tree looks like part of it is dissolving into goo. Some of the corals that had been seemingly stable during the previous weeks have had cyano on them this past week and are now showing tissue loss/recession, so I'm getting pretty worried about the cyano, which I think is probably my main issue right now (I know my water parameters aren't great, but they also don't seem bad enough to match the impact I'm seeing on my corals).

 

I have heard some pretty good things about using coral snow (calcium carbonate) as a flocculent and to help against cyano, though it seems to be more recommended for prevention or light cases of cyano (which mine certainly isn't - the whole tank was covered in red before I siphoned it for multiple hours yesterday). Anyone have experience using coral snow for bigger cyano problems?

 

Besides considering coral snow, I'm feeling pretty close to pulling the trigger on using chemiclean, with the plan to siphon out the cyano I can beforehand, remove carbon, remove the skimmer cup, and add air stones in the tank during dosing. Anything else I should be aware of/do?

 

Oh, the one bit of good news is that my fish are fully switched over to pellets now - I moved up a size with TDO, and the current pellets seem to have a pretty good floating/slow sinking rate. I've been finally seeing every fish eating every feeding, which is a relief!

 

As always, thanks for your feedback!

Edited March 4 by Kathryn Lawson

[cpeguero]

Have you done an ICP test? Could ID something that’s causing some of this

[ReefdUp]

Glad you were able to get the fish switched to a different food. 

 

Are you using a good *reef* salt that brings alk/ ca/ mag to natural saltwater levels? You have to fix your mag and ca, or else corals will continue to suffer. If you aren't going to switch salts, you'll need to supplement. Now, that probably has nothing to do with the cyano thing, but it's still part of good husbandry. Were you testing daily? If so, do you have those numbers so we can plot them out? It would be good to see if it looks like the rocks are leaching phosphate.

 

I would keep using the bacteria-dosing but not vinegar or any other carbon source at this time.

 

I still wouldn't go the chemiclean route, but I can certainly understand your frustration and use of it. 

[Kathryn Lawson]

The salt I've been using is Crystal Sea Marinemix, Bioassay formula. Mixes up as

Nitrate 0

Phosphate 0.02 (was from RODI, but replaced filters last night so should be addressed now)

Alk 10.0

Calcium 388

Mag 940

 

It looks like this salt is low in calcium and magnesium compared to what is desirable. Since I've been using this salt for a year now, I'm not inclined to think this is the direct cause of the sudden/major issues I've been dealing with, though it is quite probably an underlying factor destabilizing coral health. I'm thinking I'll use up my current salt with these daily water changes, then once those are done (or sooner if I run out of salt), switch (probably more slowly than with daily changes, to avoid shock?) to a different salt - perhaps regular Instant Ocean (not reef crystals). Does this sound good, or should I consider an alternative salt or doing the switch during the daily changes?

 

An ICP test isn't a bad idea. Any recommendations for brand, likely prioritizing response time?

 

I'm also wondering about careful use of a phosphate reducer to help balance my nutrients slightly faster than water changes/biological growth can do alone, now that nitrates are right around where we want them. Thoughts?

[cpeguero]

I don't think changing your salt "suddenly" would be a problem. I'd honestly just stop using the current salt and pick a different one with parameters that line up with reef tank targets. 

 

Why do you not want to use Instant Ocean Reef Crystals? I know many folks use it with success - perhaps I'm missing something as I don't use it myself. BRS has lots of info on salts and how they mix. You'd likely be better off with almost any of the ones they carry. If you're looking for more direct advice, I'd pick HW-Marinemix Reefer, Aquaforest Reef Salt, Nyos Pure, or Red Sea Aquarium.

 

I've used ICP-Analysis.com tests. Seems to be reasonably priced and it's tested in Denver, so turnaround is pretty quick.

 

Nikki can comment better on potential long-term issues with low calcium and/or magnesium, but it could be that long term lack of nutrients has hit the tipping point for something, and possibly created a cascading effect in the tank (just guessing here).

 

Were you able to test throughout the week to see a trend in parameters? It looks like you saw a drop in phosphate of about 0.06 ppm. If that trend continues, you're a few weeks away from being in a better range. Personally, I'd stay the course and avoid adding a phosphate reducer to the mix. 

 

Is your skimmer running?

[Kathryn Lawson]

The main reason I'm considering IO over RC is that RC has more elevated alk, calc, and mag. I've read a number of forum posts with people commenting that they prefer IO because they don't have to worry as much about alk etc. swings when doing water changes like they experienced with RC.

 

Yes, my skimmer has been on and skimming very wet - I've been dumping it when doing the daily water change.

 

I wasn't able to measure phos every day last week - the measurements I have are 0.48 on 2/23 (at the end of the blackout, before starting daily water changes), 0.37 on 2/28, and 0.31 on 3/3. (Nitrate levels for those dates were 16.7, 12.4, and 10.8, respectively). So definitely heading in the right direction, at least! I just hope my struggling corals can hold out long enough to get nutrients balanced and cyano controlled

[Kathryn Lawson]

Last night (Tuesday) I spent 4 hours siphoning cyano (and algae) and trying to clean it off of corals. This is after I spent multiple hours on Saturday siphoning out all I could get then. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle against cyano - it's growing back so fast, and my livestock health just keeps going downhill.

 

My bubble tip nem was fully detached and shriveled up on the sand bed, my Kenya tree completely dissolved into goo (ended up removing it entirely), and cyano grew on my toadstool leather since Saturday (update, regrew overnight also), worsening the erosion of flesh that started with previous cyano growth on it. Flesh has entirely peeled off the chalice and bowerbanki I got recently from @ReefdUp, and I've also lost multiple heads of a blasto that got covered in cyano between Saturday and now.

On top of everything, my pump seems to be having issues, whining really loudly and changing flow rates around which makes my overflow gurgle really annoyingly (and yes, I cleaned the pump). Not going to go into this issue here, but it is a resurgence of a previous problem I thought I'd resolved, so I was feeling extra frustrated Tues night.

 

I know that when things go wrong in a reef tank it's really easy to overreact, change too many things all at once, and totally crash the system. But I also don't think the livestock in my system is going to last much longer unless I do something other than the daily water changes.

 

I typed most of the above text last night (Tuesday), but decided to hold off on posting and see how much cyano grew back in a single day. A surprising amount of cyano grew back just over the course of 24 hours (and livestock health further declined), enough that I decided I really did need to do something about it other than just repeated siphoning.

 

Current tank parameters (Wed night before daily water change. Haven't switched salt yet so calc/mag are still low. I plan to buy some new salt this week):

Nitrate 7.4

Phosphate 0.29

Alk 10.7

Calc 382

Mag 940

 

In reading about cyano in the reef aquarium, it seems that there's actually multiple microbes that have similar growth and are commonly labeled "cyano". Cyano is sensitive to H2O2 but sometimes not ChemiClean, and spirulina is not sensitive to H2O2 but will be killed by ChemiClean. I tested and the cyano in my system seems to be sensitive to H2O2, so I'm going to start there. Recommended dosing is 1ml of standard pharmacy 3% H2O2 per 10 gallons of saltwater, every 12 hours. Few side effects have been reported other than slightly negative impacts on algae, including desirable macroalgae (so I pulled mine and am keeping in a separate container for now), and possible sensitivity with Lysmata shrimp (which I don't have). So I added the first 4ml dose tonight, right into an area of high flow, and will see how things go!

 

Since phosphate is so much higher than nitrate, I also decided to add two small cubes of "phosphate removing media" that I'd gotten for free a while back. I don't want to drop phosphate too fast, and I certainly don't want to bottom it out, but I do want to get it lowering slightly faster than it is currently, especially since my nitrate is now right about where I want it. I'll keep monitoring closely.

 

One final update - I finally set up automated phyto dosing with a lit, aerated setup next to my sump! I've been culturing it elsewhere in my house for a while now, but kept using it to culture pods, and continually forgot to actually bring it upstairs and dose my tank! I know the H2O2 dosing may counteract the phyto dosing in the short term, but I'm timing the doses to have minimal overlap, and more importantly, now it's in place end ready to keep going once I'm done with H2O2 dosing.

 

Sorry for such a long update, and sorry for going against some of your advice to wait it out! I'm hoping my decisions make some amount of sense, especially in light of my struggling livestock. If it was just an aesthetic issue, I'd happily wait it out, but I don't think I have the time for that in this case.

Edited March 7 by Kathryn Lawson

[cpeguero]

I totally understand the frustration and need to act more quickly. I would recommend against dosing the phytoplankton right now, unless it’s somehow helping you get rid of cyano. It’s just adding more nutrients to your system, and perturbing it when you’re trying to get things stabilized. 
 

Also, I’d recommend doing the icp test, just to check for othet possible contributors. 

[gws3]

I think you've done a good job getting your nutrients at a better level. Keep up with the WC's and the phosphates should keep coming down.

 

Definitely change your salt. No decent salt should be mixing up with Ca and Mg so low. You definitely want to get those up. Ca in the 420-450 range. Mg I like to run elevated at 1400-1500, I strongly believe this will help prevent some of the algae growth. IO or RC would both be a big improvement over you current salt if your test results are correct.

 

How attached are you to your shallow "sand" bed? When I look at your tank pics the impression I get is you have a low flow area at the bottom where detritus is collecting. This is likely be fueling your algae and cyano growth. Personally I would remove the sand bed. This will allow detritus to collect in certain areas on the bottom glass where you can siphon it out regularly.

 

Do you have a pressure washer? I'd be removing a piece of live rock every few days and pressure washing it to combat the algae. Just one piece at a time so bacteria can re-establish.

 

Longer term, if the tank is too small to add an aggressive herbivore/grazer like a tang, you're going to need more clean up crew to keep the rock clean IMO. I'd add something like 30 astrea snails and 50 mexican hermits. Reeftopia or Salty Bottom Reef are good sources. One or two snails aren't going to move the needle with how much algae you have.

 

I liked Nikki's post #21. I would take this tank back to absolute basics. You could probably run this tank's chemistry successfully with just water changes. Add some clean up crew and keep removing algae/cyano manually.

 

You could treat the cyano chemically, but this is a band-aid fix IMO. I think you've got a big nutrient sink at the bottom of the tank and not enough clean up crew. You flow is probably on the low side based on the type of corals you're keeping, so there's not enough flow to keep the detritus suspended in the water column and get it to your sock & skimmer. This is where running bare bottom would really help out.

 

 

[Gatortailale]

Good stuff Graham. I agree about flow, & sand bed is probably a nutrient trap, especially if not using a vac type tool to export detritus. I also agree on adding lots of mouth’s and diversity in cleanup crew. I’ve been struggling in my 112 tank system with hair algae and had it looking better just before Christmas. Then on December 26 found out about detached retina/ 2 surgeries through January 18 and orders to not lift more than a gallon in weight and fear of infecting eye by reaching in tank resulted in setback. I recently added few hundred snails and 700 hermit crabs to try to combat in addition to water changes and harvesting what I could by hand. 

Keep trying, you will get it addressed.

[ranger]

I HAVE had massive sand beds in 20 plus tanks for over a 40 year period and dont do water changes or touch my beds.There has never been a trace of red slime except when i tried vodka dosing.Barebottom large water changes are 1 way but so is a nice deep sandbed with ozone and no water changes.Aci doses chemclean regularly it is crazy to me to not use it the second you see red slime.If i had to do water changes i wouldnt have tanks.Its does seem like the sandbed guys like myself are a dying breed.

[Kathryn Lawson]

Thanks everyone! My nutrients are definitely headed in the right direction now, though I think I'm probably going to have to start dosing nitrate tomorrow. Parameters after tonight's water change and cyano/algae removal are:

Nitrate 3.0

Phosphate 0.22

Alk 10.8

Calc 405

Mag 1020

 

Calc and mag are still low, but I haven't switched salt yet (partner was going to get some while running errands near Petco today but the store was closed by the time they got there, so I'll probably go myself tomorrow).

 

Aesthetically, I do like having sand in my aquarium, and more importantly, my next planned livestock addition has been a pistol shrimp and goby pair (obviously now I'm going to wait until my system is stable), so I do really want to keep some sand. That said, there is a lot of detritus building up in corners and low-flow zones, which I doubt is helping the nutrient situation. I had a bunch of frags on the sand also, further hindering flow. I moved them up onto the rocks tonight, and plan to stir up/siphon a bit of the sand bed every other day or so during the water change. Hopefully that will let me get the junk out while minimizing nutrient spikes and overall disturbance of sand bed life.

 

Regarding cleanup crew, I've had a really tough time getting snails. Earlier in the thread I described specifically picking out 5 actively-climbing snails (3 trochus, 2 turbo) from a reputable local store, but once in my tank they would extend from their shells but seemed unable to grab onto a surface or climb. This lasted for a number of days (I tried a number of different surfaces, etc) until they eventually died and further spiked my nutrient levels. I'd had the same thing happen in the past, getting an active snail from a different reputable local store, and once in my tank it would extend from the shell but not actually grab anything. I know @ReefdUp said not to worry too much about CC losses, but this pattern of immediate incapacitation with originally active snails seems very suspicious to me. I was talking about this with folks at the last WAMAS meeting and I think it was @nburg who mentioned he'd seen similar behavior followed by death when moving a snail he'd had for a while from a tank with low phosphate to a tank with high phosphate. I didn't drip acclimate the snails (I'm coming from freshwater where snails are practically as hardy as rocks, so although I'm used to using drip acclimation for shrimp, it didn't occur to me to do it for snails), so I think I'll try some snails again once my phosphates are lower (sub 0.1?) with drip acclimation this time.

 

For other CUC, my remaining tuxedo urchin (had 1 rock boring and 2 tuxedo initially, but the rock boring one died at the same time as those 5 big snails, and I haven't seen the other tuxedo since then) has been doing a really good job clearing even the really strongly "rooted" algae from the areas it covers. So once the tank is stable for a while, I'll probably get a few more tuxedo urchins as well, along with hermits and snails, and ideally some money cowries.

Edited March 11 by Kathryn Lawson

[Kathryn Lawson]

A question for you helpful folks: I'm going to have to temporarily move my reef tank on Wednesday for window installation. The current plan is to drain the display at least halfway and "slide" it over to the middle of my desk for the day (it's currently on the end of my metal-framed desk, in front of the window). The desk and the sump underneath can stay in place, thankfully! I'm picking up Instant Ocean salt tonight, and am wondering if this might be a good time to do one larger water change with the new salt to really boost calc and mag levels and drop phosphate, but also worry about shocking my system with the sudden change. Any idea what might be a safe amount of water to change out?

 

My display is a 29 gallon tank, with a 10 gallon sump (but the sump is not filled all the way - there's some extra space even when the return pump is off and the pipes have drained). My current daily change volume is 3 gallons.

 

I actually have an empty spare 29 gallon tank, so I technically could do even a 100% water change. (I learned when my first 29 gallon sprung a leak a few months in that I always want to have a backup option to hold all the tank contents!)

[gws3]

17 hours ago, ranger said:

I HAVE had massive sand beds in 20 plus tanks for over a 40 year period and dont do water changes or touch my beds.There has never been a trace of red slime except when i tried vodka dosing.Barebottom large water changes are 1 way but so is a nice deep sandbed with ozone and no water changes.Aci doses chemclean regularly it is crazy to me to not use it the second you see red slime.If i had to do water changes i wouldnt have tanks.Its does seem like the sandbed guys like myself are a dying breed.

 

Chemiclean is an antibiotic. There are plenty of folks who have used it without issues, but something that indiscriminately kills both good and bad bacteria could have harmful effects. It may kill the cyano, but it's unklikely that it will fix the underlying issue that's allowing cyano to fluorish.

 

What the OP has is not a deep sand bed. It's a shallow bed of very coarse material. The do not function the same way. I agree with you deep sand beds don't seem very common anymore.

 

2 hours ago, Kathryn Lawson said:

A question for you helpful folks: I'm going to have to temporarily move my reef tank on Wednesday for window installation. The current plan is to drain the display at least halfway and "slide" it over to the middle of my desk for the day (it's currently on the end of my metal-framed desk, in front of the window). The desk and the sump underneath can stay in place, thankfully! I'm picking up Instant Ocean salt tonight, and am wondering if this might be a good time to do one larger water change with the new salt to really boost calc and mag levels and drop phosphate, but also worry about shocking my system with the sudden change. Any idea what might be a safe amount of water to change out?

 

My display is a 29 gallon tank, with a 10 gallon sump (but the sump is not filled all the way - there's some extra space even when the return pump is off and the pipes have drained). My current daily change volume is 3 gallons.

 

I actually have an empty spare 29 gallon tank, so I technically could do even a 100% water change. (I learned when my first 29 gallon sprung a leak a few months in that I always want to have a backup option to hold all the tank contents!)

 

It's better to do a number of small water changes vs one large one. I wouldn't go over 50%. More importantly make sure your new water is similar ph, salinity, temp and alkalinity. Also that it's well mixed. 24 hrs with a strong powerhead should be fine.  I'd be more worried about a sudden change to one of those parameters than boosting Ca or Mg quickly.

[Kathryn Lawson]

Hey, everybody. I have switched over to Instant Ocean salt for the daily water changes now, and the tank move during window installation went surprisingly well. I decided to not stress about doing a major water change with everything else going on, so I just drained the tank down and filled it right back up again with the same water once moved. It's now back in its original spot, just with a new window right behind it.

Unfortunately, over a week of H2O2 dosing hasn't seemed to have much of, if any, effect and coral health still keeps going downhill. Water quality parameters have improved somewhat, though nitrate is almost gone and I'll need to do something about that in the next few days.

 

Current parameters:

Nitrate 0.6 

Phosphate 0.18 

Alk 9.8 

Calc 940 

Mag 411

 

Given that the main part of my crash seemed to happen right around when I started trying to raise my nitrate levels in an unsuccessful attempt to counter the cyano, starting nitrate dosing again with everything but the cyano in even worse shape than before didn't seem like a good idea. I finally decided to use the cyano treatment option I'd been holding off on: following a major round of algae and cyano removal tonight, I dosed chemiclean. I don't seem to have nearly the tank diversity I had pre-algae/cyano, and I'm feeling perilously close to giving up on the whole tank. I have an extra air pump set up in the main tank with tons of small bubbles, and have an additional fine bubble air stone in the sump, along with my skimmer cup removed so the foam overflows back into the tank, and my tank drain line opened up so it gurgles and constantly pulls in air (annoying, but worth it for the extra aeration). I also added back in all the macroalgae I removed before starting H2O2 dosing, and removed the carbon in my sump to prevent premature removal of the chemiclean.

 

I think I've done just about all I can do right now, though please let me know if there's anything I missed! Going to wait 48 hours, then do a 20% water change, add carbon, and put the skimmer cup back on. Here's hoping everything goes ok...

[cpeguero]

Those parameters look a lot better. Good job!

 

I hope the chemiclean works for you. I think I used it once, years ago. Went ok for me. 
 

Have you sent in an ICP test?

[Kathryn Lawson]

For ICP, I tried to upgrade a free sample I had (free version is just 5 elements, mostly what I've already been measuring). The packaging indicates I can pay a bit and upgrade it to a full test but I can't seem to do it on the company's app or on their website. I sent a message to their customer service days ago with no response. Just ordered a kit from a different vendor. I saved a sample from before I added the chemiclean, so will probably use that.

Edited March 15 by Kathryn Lawson

[Kathryn Lawson]

A good update finally!!! Chemiclean seems to have taken care of almost all the cyano! My fish and inverts have thankfully been totally fine (my firefish seem pretty terrified of all the air bubbles, but they have made a few short appearances), and excitingly, every coral that remains alive has shown marked improvement, better than they have in weeks! Zoas are open, lobo has puffed back up some, leathers and pulsing sinularia are showing polyp extension, etc. The only one still struggling is my toadstool leather, which I now realize must have something other than cyano going on, and is still melting away as the red-brown patchy growths on its surface spread. Can softies get brown jelly or something like it? I'm going to try to see if I can cut a clean frag tomorrow, maybe dip the remainder in iodine.

 

Given the remarkable improvement in coral health, I want to make sure the cyano is knocked back pretty hard for now. I left the first dose for 72 hours instead of 48 (since I still saw small amounts of cyano in the sand, overflow box, etc. at 48 hrs). Since I still see a few remaining traces of cyano tonight at the 72-hour mark (and thinking along the same line as how for human/animal health we use a longer course of antibiotics than needed to simply alleviate symptoms, to avoid development of resistant strains) I decided to run one more round of chemiclean, and added the dose tonight (second round as needed is recommended by Marc Levinson and some others). I'll let that go for 48, maybe 72 hours again, then do a big water change and add carbon to remove any remnants of the chemiclean.

 

Nutrients are doing reasonably well, especially since I'd figured the chemiclean killing off the cyano would result in a nutrient spike, but it seems that it didn't release too much. Phosphates are up a bit but nitrates have reached the point where I absolutely need to start dosing now to avoid hitting 0 (also why I'm going with a second round of chemiclean, since nitrate dosing really stimulated cyano growth last time).

 

Nitrate: 0.1

Phosphate: 0.22

Alk: 9.6

Calc: 411

Mag: 1120

 

Anyway, I'm so relieved that something finally seems to be going right! Now I just need to make sure I keep pushing things in the right direction and don't let the cyano rebound. I'm going to slightly increase the dose of Microbacter7 after the second round of chemiclean is done, and perhaps resume dosing of live phyto. Anything else I should consider? Should I start daily water changes again after chemiclean round 2 is done? Thanks for all the support, everyone - it's really been helpful to get feedback throughout this struggle!

Edited March 18 by Kathryn Lawson

[cpeguero]

Really glad to hear things are moving in the right direction!

 

I would recommend holding off on the phyto dosing until you get things steadied for a week or two. There are so many factors at play in our reefs that rapidly changing and adding new things can complicate the outcome. Definitely dose the nitrate to keep it from bottoming out, and since you can directly measure it’s impact.  At least that’s my take. Others might have some insights based on more experience. @ReefdUp

[Gatortailale]

I bought a bottle of microbacter 7 last fall when I was setting up a 65 seahorse, but ended up going with Dr. Tim's product.  Dr. Tim's makes several types of bacteria products for use beyond an initial tank setup one.  You may benefit from Dr. Tim's.  I just picked up some waste away and the eco-balance probiotic for my main system since it has been running since 2005.  Not that I'm having any problems, but I run ozone, skim heavy & use UV; never tried to replace beneficial bacteria.  I have had experiences of losing a few sps corals to a little slow stn.  Hence hoping beneficial bacteria will help.

 

As for dosing phyto - I also would hold off a bit longer until you see few weeks of no signs of cyano returning before adding more nutrients - and reestablish beneficial bacteria base.

[Kathryn Lawson]

Hey folks, my ICP test results are back!! Results here: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/210778

 

Interestingly, just about everything is in a good range, with the notable exceptions of phosphorus (which we knew) and... tin.

 

While it's possible it's a false positive, the level is high enough to seem relatively unlikely. A quick search has informed me that along with other standard heavy metal sources like malfunctioning equipment, tin can come from plasticizers in flexible tubing... I am using vinyl tubing for my drains and return line, and have gone through two sets because I had to increase the tubing size to decrease head pressure on my return pump and enable higher drainage rates to accommodate higher flow rates! Also, float glass is apparently made by pouring molten glass onto molten tin. If a manufacturer isn't careful to track which side was touching the tin, it can end up on the inside of the tank instead of the outside like normal. My tank is an Aqueon, so I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this was the case for my tank.

 

As a bit of history, my system was running (totally fine) for 6+ months before moving into the current tank (started small and upgraded, and then had a leak). I also didn't use a sump (or flexible tubing) at all until this fall, which was right after I started having issues with algae growth (I'd previously used a simple HOB and added the sump so I could have a refugium and extra filtration). So both of these potential causes of tin didn't start out with my system, and might explain why things were going well for quite a while before taking a downturn.

 

Also interesting is that SPS are particularly sensitive to tin. Before the tank crash that I've been associating with the major cyano bloom and alk swing, I was having some odd issues with SPS dying back. The alk swing was almost certainly from me starting to dose kalk in an attempt to help the struggling SPS.

 

Looking into potential options for tin removal, it seems cuprisorb is often recommended, and luckily I actually even have some already (had for a freshwater tank that had been having issues with shrimp and I'd wanted to rule out heavy metals). I'm thinking I'll be adding some to my system today!

Edited March 23 by Kathryn Lawson

[cpeguero]

Definitely interesting results. Metasorb is another product that absorbs heavy metals (just used it to try to get rid of excess aluminum in my frag tank), but of the cuprisorb will get the tin, use that. 
 

would be worth taking a good look at all your equipment to see if there’s any corrosion or other exposed metal. Basically eliminate the potential sources you can directly investigate. Once you’ve done that, and used the cuprisorb, I’d do another ICP test to confirm tin is gone. After a few more weeks, do another to confirm there isn’t still a source of tin. If there is, then going down the list of things to fix, in order of increasing work/expense, run an icp on your source water (though I think you may have done this) both tap and ro/di; you could replace the flexible tubing with another material or switch to pvc, and then, the ultimate is to upgrade your tank…… I’d be surprised if the tank glass is truly the source. I would think that any residual tin would get rinsed off fairly easily.