Reef Cleaners order, anyone?

[Ryan@OB]

Hey Local Reefers,

I upgraded to a bigger tank about 5 weeks ago, and things have been going downhill for about 2 weeks. During this upgrade I kept a close eye on my parameters.

There was an all swing for about 2 days when I was doing the tank transfer. It went from 9 to 6.8, and now it is steady at 8.5.

My other params are OK, which some major concerns with metals.

Alk: 8.5
PH: 7.8
Phosphates: 0.1
Nitrates: 30
Calcium: 503
Magnesium: 1538

ATI test concerns (results vs normal range):

Bromine 106.0 mg/l 70.12 mg/l
Lithium 643.4 µg/l 177.9 µg/l
Aluminium 80.16 µg/l 0.10 µg/l

My acros are slowly receding from the base. I've dipped them a few times in Melafix but that doesn't seem to do anything.

I've been doing weekly 15-20% water changes to get the nutrients down.

I use a roller mat, large skimmer and a refugium, so idk why my nutrients are so high.

Anyway, any help or advice is greatly appreciated. I'm losing acros that have been going strong for 2 years...

Ryan

[Ryan@OB]

Some other notes:

During the upgrade I replaced my old sand with new sand.

I checked every pump and magnet in my tank. All is fine.

[hydrahawk]

Did you add more rocks? If you did, was it dried or alive? How big is the current tank?

[pirate2876]

Oh man, sorry to hear. I've had high aluminum and it never really had an effect on my acros, but that's just my exp with that. I have also issues when I changed tanks, even adding new sand, so I think that's whats happening. I'm of the belief that bacteria/micro organism cultures in the sand and rock are needed for SPS to thrive and unfortunately changing tanks disrupts that bacteria and takes time to recover.

[Ryan@OB]

Hey thanks for your response.

Since posting this I confirmed that black bugs are decimating my acros. I do believe that they were always there, and the tank transfer helped them populate all the acros.

[Ryan@OB]

Sorry to brush over the other questions!

I didn’t add any new rock.

I did add all new sand (live sand) and another package of marine pure balls.
All montis and stylos are doing great. It’s just the acros that are getting destroyed by the bugs.