Why cant I keep digita alive?
- Thread starter MAReefer1
- Start date
"I have had the same problem with montis for years - caps and digis. The polys generally look good but the tissue will fade and recede. All my easily measurable parameters are good (pH, alk, Ca, Mg). I've noticed the large water changes cause them to turn around and look better."
Exact same exp here. I've had colonies that I thought were completely dead that came back after a couple of water changes.
Be very careful with the idea that adding Ca will lower alk. If the alk is high and you boost the Ca you can get massive precipitation which is not good at all. I like calfo's analogy - you have a bowl full of marbles, half red and half white. white is Ca and red is alk. if the bowl is full and you add more of one color you'll be forcing existing marbles to spill out (precipitation). You need to let the alk drop, then get things balanced where you want them.
On the top off water - if your not supplementing anything and the alk is that high I would suspect the make up water. GET the RODI. (sending you a PM)
Also interesting - I tend to see my monti's decline when I get lazy about water changes, I see surprisingly little coralline, (Mg is close to normal) and I have a mixed reef. I wonder if we are both seeing chem warfare issues?
Exact same exp here. I've had colonies that I thought were completely dead that came back after a couple of water changes.
Be very careful with the idea that adding Ca will lower alk. If the alk is high and you boost the Ca you can get massive precipitation which is not good at all. I like calfo's analogy - you have a bowl full of marbles, half red and half white. white is Ca and red is alk. if the bowl is full and you add more of one color you'll be forcing existing marbles to spill out (precipitation). You need to let the alk drop, then get things balanced where you want them.
On the top off water - if your not supplementing anything and the alk is that high I would suspect the make up water. GET the RODI. (sending you a PM)
Also interesting - I tend to see my monti's decline when I get lazy about water changes, I see surprisingly little coralline, (Mg is close to normal) and I have a mixed reef. I wonder if we are both seeing chem warfare issues?
could very well be, I have no coraline growth in my tank at all, its non existant.
Yea, I don't know.
I've seen the same pattern repeat for 5 yrs now in my systems. I've had the same monti digi and cap colonies appear to compeltely die then come back in a big way several times over that 5 yrs.
I'm consistently slow about water changes, then notice an overall decline in tank health, do several water changes, and see things spring back - especially the monti's. I have lots of sinularia and sarcophyton sp's (likely chem warefare problems). The leathers don't seem to suffer much, but the monti's don't do so well with my not doing enough water changes.
To correct your levels, IMO your best bet is a bunch of water changes with good make up water. Depending on the salt you use, usually both ca and alk are a bit low with fresh mixed SW. I'd use regular IO or whatever your already using and maybe boost the Ca but not the alk (so that you'd be removing high alk, normal Ca water and replacing with normal ca, lowish alk water. No matter what the water changes can't hurt.
What salt do you use? This could be helpful for directing advice (ie, if your using reef crystals, you could easily switch to reg IO, then supplement the Ca but not alk)
Check your PM.
jk
I've seen the same pattern repeat for 5 yrs now in my systems. I've had the same monti digi and cap colonies appear to compeltely die then come back in a big way several times over that 5 yrs.
I'm consistently slow about water changes, then notice an overall decline in tank health, do several water changes, and see things spring back - especially the monti's. I have lots of sinularia and sarcophyton sp's (likely chem warefare problems). The leathers don't seem to suffer much, but the monti's don't do so well with my not doing enough water changes.
To correct your levels, IMO your best bet is a bunch of water changes with good make up water. Depending on the salt you use, usually both ca and alk are a bit low with fresh mixed SW. I'd use regular IO or whatever your already using and maybe boost the Ca but not the alk (so that you'd be removing high alk, normal Ca water and replacing with normal ca, lowish alk water. No matter what the water changes can't hurt.
What salt do you use? This could be helpful for directing advice (ie, if your using reef crystals, you could easily switch to reg IO, then supplement the Ca but not alk)
Check your PM.
jk
My experience is pretty much identical to yours Jimmy. On the chem warfare front, my tank has been almost exclusively sps for a while. The only non-conformists are a large frogspawn, a good sized favia, a handful of ricordia, and a fairly large gorgonian. I've even isolated the ricordia (the only soft coral) and that didn't seem to have any effect. The gorgonian is a wildcard, but I haven't heard of people having chem issues with them. I've tried testing the more obscure stuff like iodine and strontium and haven't found issues there. Running carbon doesn't seem to have measurable effects. The only thing yielding consistent results is a good water change.
By good water change, I mean about 15-20g on a 55g tank. Not using straight tap water is definitely the place to start. You really have no idea what's getting in your tank.
I did have a theory that there was something building up in my system - coming in from my evaporation top-off water. Let's say I started with a fresh system of new make-up salt water which may have some residual crap that slipped through the RODI. My 75g evaporated around 2g/day, so after a month I would have dumped in about another whole tank's worth of RODI - doubling the concentration of whatever bad stuff didn't get filtered out of the tap water. Maybe when the junk reaches say 3x the original concentration, montis start getting unhappy. I do a 30g water change - ((30x3)+(30x1))/60 = 2x concentration so now montis start looking better until another month of top-off mucks up the water again. I'm not the most diligent as far as RODI cartridge maintenance either. My 75g tank rebuild also coincided with new DI cartridges and pre-filters - all the montis looked smokin for 6-8 months.
That theory fits with your situation MA. It'll be interesting to see if things change for you when you use clean water.
PS - I used to use Tropic Marin and now use IO. Had the same problem with both salts.
By good water change, I mean about 15-20g on a 55g tank. Not using straight tap water is definitely the place to start. You really have no idea what's getting in your tank.
I did have a theory that there was something building up in my system - coming in from my evaporation top-off water. Let's say I started with a fresh system of new make-up salt water which may have some residual crap that slipped through the RODI. My 75g evaporated around 2g/day, so after a month I would have dumped in about another whole tank's worth of RODI - doubling the concentration of whatever bad stuff didn't get filtered out of the tap water. Maybe when the junk reaches say 3x the original concentration, montis start getting unhappy. I do a 30g water change - ((30x3)+(30x1))/60 = 2x concentration so now montis start looking better until another month of top-off mucks up the water again. I'm not the most diligent as far as RODI cartridge maintenance either. My 75g tank rebuild also coincided with new DI cartridges and pre-filters - all the montis looked smokin for 6-8 months.
That theory fits with your situation MA. It'll be interesting to see if things change for you when you use clean water.
PS - I used to use Tropic Marin and now use IO. Had the same problem with both salts.
