125 gal reef Falling Apart

[kjord97]

OK well, i really hope maybe someone has an answer for me.
This is a diary log over the past 3 weeks of what has been going on. The tank is a 125 gal 3 yrs old reef. Has a 5 gal Aquafuge Refugium RF24 AFLG (CPR), Seaclone Protein Skimmer 150, hang on tank 50 filter, with kent marine carbon bag in it. i have 2 sets of 36" Aqualight Pro (ESU) as my lighting. 300 watts of metal halid and 260 watts of actinics. i have my refugium on 24/7 lighting, my halids are on from noon till 7pm and my actinics are on from 10 am till 9 pm. leds at night. The tank has been doing great for 3 years. About last month i started to notice my zoos closing up. Please read, it is lenghty sorry about that.

Starting diary

Sat June 24th 2006
So my tank is doing great and everything is thriveing, execpt !!!!! my zoos and polyps. They have all seemed to not open as much over the past month or so. I have been keeping track of water quality and everything is on the money. I have no idea why they have all closed up. Well most of them all. I still have one group of polpys that are looking great and always look great. My green, blue, and orange zoos have all closed up and only seem to half open every now and then. If anyone has any suggestions to help out, please help out. Maybe i am missing something in the tank.

niTrates : 0ppm
niTrites: 0 ppm
ammonia: 0 ppm
ph : 8.3 ish

temp 80ish

10 gal water change every 2 weeks 125 gal tank

add kalkwasser on the odd weekends in between water changes.

food goes in cycle 1st night redstuff 2nd night flake 3rd night frozen and repeat the cycle.

hopefully i can figure this out and get them back open.

Mon Aug 7th 2006
well after speaking with some guys at WWM i have taken all the zoos out of my tank and placed half in lissa's FOWLR and the other half in the Hospital tank. I am going to give them a month to see how they turn out.

On the other hand, i noticed last night that for the past few days my mushrooms are staying small and jumping off the rocks, my plates are not expanding, and the frogspawn is staying small. The leathers, xenias, ricordia, kenya tree and stoneys look awsome. The only thing i have done to the tank is remove the zoos, and i removed all the caleapera algae from my refugiums. there is still some algae in the refugium, it was another type, looks like a fern. I also order some macro alage off of ebay, which should arrive this week. I tested water last night, and trates trites ammon 0ppm, ph 8.2 temp 81 .


I remembered from WWM that alot of people use a small filter on the back of tank with carbon in it, to filter chemicals in the tank. So last night i started up a little fliter with a carbon bag in it. See how that does.

Mon Aug 14th 2006
Wonderful news everyone, All my zoos that i placed in lissa's tank and the hospital tank and making a come back wonderfully. They are looking great and opening up more and more. I even noticed the blue zoos that phil sold me are comming back. Everything in my tank is looking better and seem to be comming back to life. I only lost one coral in the main tank, ( one of the stoney's i won at the raffle). I have been doing some intensive research on why my zoos were dieing. Well i have since cleaned up my refugium and got rid of the culpera. I replaced all my macro algae with some better stuff. I got some green ferns and some cheato and some red macro. The only other item i have yet to wonder about is the lighting. I have the MH's about 6 inches above the tank and the lost part of the tank is 26 inches from the bulb. I wonder with most of the zoos being at the middle to top part of the tank, if they finally started to melt from the lights. And if it were the lightsm why did it happen now and not a year ago when i bought them? Maybe one day i will figure it all out.

Wed Aug 16th 2006
yeah i am out of words, and i think lissa is gona kill me for stressing so much. everything i have put into her tank and the hospital tank is doing great. So i have no idea what to think.


All 3 tanks have the same setup EXECPT

125 reef 5 gal refugium, skimmer, MH lights and now a carbon filter

45 fowlr ( becoming a reef ) 5 gal refugium, no skimmer, and PC lights and no carbon has zoos and mushrooms from the 125 doing great

20 hospital no refugium, no skimmer, PC lights, hang on filter with a sponge. has zoos, anenomes and xenia from 125 doing great.

in the 125

Performed a 15 gal water change last saturday, checked levels and everything is good as far as trits, trates, ph, temp, salinity, and ammonia.
BAD news all 3 plates have closed, the frogspawn is not comming out as bright and the 2 leathers are not opening, remaing zoos are closed, mushrooms are staying small and some jumping off. GOOD news The kenya tree is bigger and brighter than ever, xenias are doing great, sps is doing strong, ricordia is doing great, along with candy cane is doing great, anenomes doing great, oyster is open and feeding well and fish are all doing good. i also noticed today that coraline alage was starting to form on the glass again, after last month i noticed it had all disappeared.


I did notice today alot more red slime starting to form so i turned off the protein skimmer and carbon and dosed with Chem Clean. I will wait 48 hours and do a 20 gal water change.

Fri Aug 18th 2006
i think i found the problem. i have noticed that my hermits have disappeared and can only find about 4. i also noticed that hair alage is beginging to take over the tank. i think my phosphates may be high, will only find out once i can find a test kit.


today i did a 20 gal water change since i dosed with chem clean 2 days ago. I must say the tank looks horriable. my frogspawns and plates are completely closed up. all my mushrooms are mush, but my leathers, kenya and xenias look great. i moved the big plate to lissas tank, it looked like it was starting to die. after 1 hour in her tank looked a bit better. i started my skimmer back up and my carbon filter, i am now looking for some poly fiber to filter the water. i have been told and have been reading that it works wonderfully for a pre filter and as a filter on the tank. i am also looking for a good way to get rid of the hair algae.

Tue Aug 22nd
Well i did another 10 gal water change and i vaccumed the rocks and sand. Now that the carbon has been running for 3 days the water is crystal clear and the yellow tint is gone. I have leanered that having lots of softies in the tank will cause your water to yellow. It is beacuse they realease chemicals into the water, that with out carbon or frequent changes in water build up and can cause the tank to slowly fall apart. I will keep everyone updated.


Right now everything is comming back to life.


Wed Sep 6th,

I noticed today that the PH is a bit higher than usual. I have no idea what is going on in the tank. One day the corals look like they are comming back and the next they are all closed. My leather has not opened in about 12 days, it keeps shedding off a layer of film. My other leather looks great on the other side of tank. I ordered 75 hermits ( mix of blue leg and red lef ) today and should arrive tomorrow. I hope they can help get the algae off of the rocks. I checked the cheato in the refugium and it has doubled in the last week in size. I have been doing water changes ever week and vaccuming allot in the tank. I notice on 1 half of the tank i am getting alot of algae buildup on the sand, which i have never gotten before.

I NEED SOME ADVICE.


Sat June 24th 2006

 

[Billybeau1]

Wow, lots going on here.

Why dont you start by telling us what your S.G. , Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium levels are.

 

[coralnut99]

I would also test for phosphates at this point too. Also curious why you "add kalwasser" between biweekly waterchanges, and how you're adding it. My first guess is your system suffered an extreme alkalinity swing, but can't be 100% sure.

 

[kjord97]

current as of last night

ph 8.3
ammonia 0ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
nitrate 30 ppm
calcium 390

lots of green algae growing on rocks, i can drop a snail on a path and the snail leaves behind a clean patch of rock.

i just did a 15 gal water change on saturday and i am planning on doing another 15 gal this friday.

i use well water,very clean, used a TDS meter and it read 15ppm.
i plan on getting a ro unit in the future. My water is good, as my 2 other salt tanks have no problems and everything is flurishing great. only the 125 gal is being effected right now.


never checked alk mag, i dont have a test kit for it.

 

[kjord97]

this is how i add kalk

This is how i currently do it.

i mix 1 gal of water in a jug with 1 teaspoon of kent marine powder kalk. i shake it and then let it set for 12 hours. I then take the jug and pour it slowly into a kent marine aqua doser making sure i dont disturbe the milky substance at bottom of jug. i then drip the 1 gal jug into the tank at 1 drip every 12 secs. takes about 3 days to drip the 1 gal in. am i doing this right? I see other people make up 5 gal at a time and continuously drip for 24/7. I only drip for 3 days every week. I also notice alot of people use kalkwater as a top off every day. I top off my tank with 1 gal of fresh water a day. how would i do this with kalk. isnt 1 gal of kalk a day to much.

my tank is a 125 gal reef, with a 5 gal hang on back refugium. also have a hang on tank skimmer and a hang on tank filter with my kent marine carbon that i replace monthly.

 

[Billybeau1]

Specific Gravity ?

 

[coralnut99]

Though I don't or have ever owned one, there's more than enough anti-seaclone threads out there. I would put a good skimmer on your shopping list right behind an RO unit. Well water quality can be inconsistant. Also the 5 gallon fuge isn't doing a tank as big as this much benefit. I would think about a refugium/sump settup in the future. The bigger the fuge the better as it will help stabilize water parameters in the long run.
Alk tests kits are cheap. Your LFS should have a salifert kit.

 

[kjord97]

2 bad the best LFS is 90 minutes away. all i have close to me is a petco 30 mins away, which i stay far away from. everything i get i order online. That is why we started a local reef club www.smmas.org to help each other out.


specific gravity is 1.025 using a plastic gravity meter.

i am going to buy a refractometer next month.

 

[kjord97]

i have been thinking about the refugium for a while. The tank use to be set up in a 45 gal with the same equipment. I assume the tank has finally peaked and is falling apart. The 5 gal refugium for the 45 gal was great, but for a 125 gal reef i dont think it is doing that great of job. You are right and that i think it does need a bigger sump.

 

[kjord97]

i have never had a problem with the seachem skimmer, i have had it for 3 years since my first salt tank and have had steady use. I clean out the collection cup every 2 days, full of black sludge. never get micro bubbles, and it always works great. i just have to make sure i clean the filter on the inlet weekly or the performance in flow goes down. my other 2 tanks dont have a skimmer, and never have, and anenomes and zoos with the shrooms look awsome.

 

[coralnut99]

I wasn't inferring that it wasn't skimming actually, just that's it's pretty much undersized for what I think is a moderately stocked mixed reef. Along the same lines of the 5 gallon refugium. Lots of skimmerless systems out there.

 

[kjord97]

i am thinking i have lots of excess nutrients in the tank, i am going to change my carbon bag again, it is about 2 weeks old now. i really hope that the 100 hermits i bought can clean up the algae also.

 

[coralnut99]

The hemit army should help clean things up, but keep in mind that they are just turning the algae into waste, so keeping up w/ water changes and maintenance is critical. To think about down the road: Consider adding a carribbean sp. of cucumber. Phenominal detrivore that keeps sand beds spottless. Also, in time the hemits will whittle down thier own numbers, as well as the snail population. So be prepared to further trim their numbers as well as replace some astreas.

 

[kjord97]

i think that is also what has happened to the hermits that were in the tank, over the corse of the last year or so, the hermits have lowered in population in the tank, and you just never realize how much they clean up till they are all gone.

 

[kjord97]

well my army of hermits and snails arrived today, making adjustments now to get them ready to be added.