Unable to keep corals...What's the deal???

[bguile]

Yeah...it definitely should. I wanted to have as little variables as possible.
So far, it's been 4 days since I added them to the QT. One of them has already died. He was acting pretty weird from the moment I removed him from the acclimation bucket and placed him in the tank. He was only swimming upside down almost like he couldn't upright himself. One of the shrimp shed their skeleton in the bucket. I dont know if it was him or not and maybe removing him from the water in that softened state caused him problems.

Today the other 2 shrimp seem to be doing fine. I thought another one died because I hadn't seen two of them at the same time for days. I dropped a couple of pellets for the one shrimp I could see and just as I was about to walk away I saw him poke his head out to grab some. I installed a ground probe into the coral QT after talking to a person at the LFS about my issues. I tested for voltage and didn't find any prior, but installed it nevertheless, just in case. I did a water change on all 3 of my QT's on yesterday.

So far, everything looks to be ok. We'll see what transpires this week. If all goes well through Friday, maybe I'll look at attempting a few zoo or xenia frags.

[fishgeeksrus]

I'd say 12 hours might be the problem...

[Reefland]

Well that's the best results so far...hopefully they will all survive.

[bguile]

Well, the party is over. The day following my last optimistic post, this is what I found:


This sucks. I dont know what else to do. The parameters of the tank at the moment I saw this was:
Temp: 79.9F
pH: 8.04
SG: 1.026
Ammonia: <=.025

The weird thing is that all of my Nassrius (sp?) snails are all still alive. I'm now suspecting problems with the water or salt. I use Instant Ocean and an RO/DI filter from here The Filter Guys. Everything's a suspect at this point! The TDS meter reads about 0 on the output. I can't remember the exact input number. I'm thinking about trying tap water and a different salt. Any suggestions?

[bguile]

In response to all the replies, I decided to do something radical.:eek3: I bought a different brand of salt, but havent used it yet...what a waste. then i sat and thought about what changed. everything was growing so good, then all of a sudden all just went south and it hit me like lightning from a flash summer storm:

This is a picture of the sediment and carbon block filters in my RO/DI unit. They are sitting beside new filters for comparison. You think this could be the reason for my woes? After installing the new filters my input TDS reading is 14ppm. I believe I've seen it in the hundreds prior. so hopefully I'm on the right track now. I'll keep the thread updated.

[rjs5134]

Bguile, why does the tds measurement of the input water matter after changing filters? IMO 14ppm is very low for your source water, my source reads over 200 and the output after RO/DI is 0. Also, after reading this thread from the beginning to the end for a second or third time, I would be surpirsed if copper was an issue. I can't believe copper would leach that quickly from fittings. You did say it was only hooked up briefly, right? If a main component like copper could leach that quickly, these fitting would(or could) deteriorate under normal conditions. I think we've all had fittings that lasted for years, even decades.

I too had a problem keeping some corals. I had mushrooms shrivel and disappear over a several week period and shortly after, clove polypps did the same(although after reading more I think I'm lucky for that one). I haven't determined a cause, but now have a small frag with 2 shrooms and some Zoos doing well.

Most of my problems in the past stemmed from temperature fluctuations. Now that I have MH lights, a high quality skimmer and a chiller the tank seems to be on auto-pilot. Finally at a point where I don't have to care for it like a newborn.

Aside from maybe looking at temperature as a factor, I don't think I helped much, but good luck and let us know how you do.

Rob

[bguile]

I'm guessing the only reason it matters in this case is b/c of where it's being measured. My "in" on the TDS meter is plumbed after the RO filter. So i figured with the high reading it was giving me indicated that the filters were getting worn. The output was still 0, but I don't know how that measures up when it comes to determining small amounts of contaminents that don't show up on our test kits either, like copper. If it could, then shouldn't we be able to use the TDS meter to measure the water already in the tank??? Just thinking out loud.

Thanks for taking the time to reply though. Although it may not be THE solution, it helps to see things from a different angle and maybe the solution would be easier to see then. Due to the variables that I've had since the problem began, it's hard to determine and say exactly what started the problem and if I was ever on the trail to resolving it. Copper just seems the easiest thing to blame it on at this point!

Since I changed out the filters, I've put a couple new creatures in the invert QT and will see how they're doing. I'll just have to keep reducing the variables until I can pinpoint the problem.

[rjs5134]

I think a high quality RO/DI filter removes almost all of those important contaminants, like copper. The TDS meter is designed to measure the dissolved solids in freshwater. The salt in saltwater would show up as a dissolved solid and therefore the TDS meter is not a good tool to measure copper.

Good luck.

[bguile]

It's been 7 days since I changed the sediment and carbon filters in my unit and did a 80% water change. All inverts are still alive! So we may be on to something. TDS readings are 3ppm in and 0 out. I did also add carbon to the tank so I'm not totally sure which did it, but I'm more convinced it was the water. Either way, I like to run carbon 24/7 so I will do the same in my main display once it's ready.