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 State of the Tank: (cont.) |
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This has NOT been a good month, at least not as far as my corals are concerned. And while I've only lost a handful (and even those were from a very localized area), most of them were really 'prized' by me so the losses really hurt. The problem seems to be phosphate poisoning, though not so much in the 'conventional' sense. What seems to have happened is that ONE of my old and long established pieces of live rock has become "full", much like an old sandbed, and is now leaching back phosphates. The way it was explained to me, the corals that were growing on this rock were wicking (sucking) up this phosphate into their own biomass, and this is what eventually killed them. I was also told that proof of this could be found by breaking the affected coral skeleton near its base. If it's greenish inside, it was phosphates that probably killed it. Unfortunately, as I am still on the West Coast (at this writing; 8/23/05), I am incapable of performing this test and by the time I had learned about it, Ray had thrown the skeletons away.
But I suppose the theory DOES make perfect sense. I mean, as "Bomber" so succinctly put it on RC:
"Corals are just live rock with a thin layer of living tissue over it. Coral skeletons act the same way live rock acts it that they can wick up nutrients, like live rock wicks up nutrients when it's sitting in dirty sand." |
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...or 'dirty' water, I suppose. So if there's ANYTHING that should be called "Old Tank Syndrome", it's probably this.
Now, while I doubt that my water is very high in phosphates today, I'm sure it has been in the past. Unfortunately, the past for this tank encompasses nearly TEN YEARS, seven in its current configuration. So some of this rock has been doing its nitrification work for quite a while. It's bound to get full. Also, I tend to overfeed a bit...okay, a lot, and I've had some problems with the effectiveness of my previous skimmer due to clogging. Oh, and also my occasional laziness when it comes to blowing detritus out from behind and between the rockwork...and my lack of good water flow in some areas...
Look, you get the picture.
So I guess this problem shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. But it does; especially the fact that it was so localized. Oh, and the timing could've been a little better too. Not just because I'm out of town but also because I was still on such a high from last month's successful sump and skimmer swap. In fact, at first I thought they might even have been the SOURCE of the phosphates! I don't remember where I read it but there was some discussion a few years back about new acrylic and plastic leaching |
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