freetareef
New member
did you have a lab test your tank water? how is your tank doing?
A year of random mini-crashes..cant figure it out, about to give up.
- Thread starter EnderG60
- Start date
freetareef
New member
bump...
I had a few local reefers test my water and everything was within a good margin so I dont think any of my levels are way off.
So far I have cut back on my 3 part dosing(cut it all in half for 2 weeks then re adjusted and im running alot less to keep my levels now), replaced my RODI unit and did a 95% water change with the new water and IO salt, changing carbon every 2 weeks now, replaced bulbs, replaced UV bulb, tried dosing strontium(saw no difference over a month), cleaned all the pumps, upped the daily water change to 2 gallons a day from 1. started doing additional monthly 100g(20%ish) water changes, cleaned the fuge and dipped a few of the corals.
As of now in the past month I have only lost a head of frogspawn and some candy cane and a chalice is looking bad but everything else is holding or starting to color back up again.
Ill keep this up for another 3 months and see what happens before I try to add anything again.
So far I have cut back on my 3 part dosing(cut it all in half for 2 weeks then re adjusted and im running alot less to keep my levels now), replaced my RODI unit and did a 95% water change with the new water and IO salt, changing carbon every 2 weeks now, replaced bulbs, replaced UV bulb, tried dosing strontium(saw no difference over a month), cleaned all the pumps, upped the daily water change to 2 gallons a day from 1. started doing additional monthly 100g(20%ish) water changes, cleaned the fuge and dipped a few of the corals.
As of now in the past month I have only lost a head of frogspawn and some candy cane and a chalice is looking bad but everything else is holding or starting to color back up again.
Ill keep this up for another 3 months and see what happens before I try to add anything again.
gmate
MASC Member
I hope you find relief from this soon.
Just to chime in, I highly doubt it's the pond foam. If you used Tetra Waterfall or Beckett's, they're both water resistant, fish safe, and UV resistant. There have been countless threads on RC with those products being used in-tank with no issues.
Just to chime in, I highly doubt it's the pond foam. If you used Tetra Waterfall or Beckett's, they're both water resistant, fish safe, and UV resistant. There have been countless threads on RC with those products being used in-tank with no issues.
elegance coral
They call me EC
I honestly don't see a big mystery here.
Can you post pic's showing the conditions inside the tank, including the sand and LR? It's hard for any of us to diagnose a problem we've never seen.
Can you post pic's showing the conditions inside the tank, including the sand and LR? It's hard for any of us to diagnose a problem we've never seen.
acropora1981
New member
I've seen that one in my system, except i ended up with lyngbya instead of regular cyano. Had bleached corals for about 8 months.
Aqualund
New member
PH - 7.9-8.2
Alk - 2.5-4 mg/L
Calc - 380-500
Mag - 1200-1500
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 1-5
Phosphate - 0.05-0.01
The only parameters not varying here is your nitrite and ammonia. Everything else is swinging...A LOT. What test set are you using to measure your phosphate? I only trust the red sea pro phosphate test kit.
If you have an unbalanced system like you have right now, any levels of nitrates and phosphates will provide enough for cyano and nuisance algae. I would recommend these things to fix your problem:
1. Install Phosban reactor with Bio Pellets
2. Install Phosban Reactor with GFO
3. Replace your Homemade Protein Skimmer with an industrial grade Skimmer.
4. Test for every other element to ensure youre not leaching anything into the system.
5. 20% water changes daily (with RO/DI water that reads 0, you should never use RO/DI water that reads ANYTHING on the tds meter) with reef crystals or a salt that has buffer, calc and mag in it.
6. Try to maintain these levels for at least 3 weeks consistently:
PH: 8.2
Calc: 450
Mag: 1300
Alk: 4mg/L (but I have 8mg/L for growth)
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 78 degrees
If you do this, the bacteria will thrive enough to bring an equilibrium to your tank, and the correct levels of elements in your water staying stable for a long period of time will bring everything back to normal.
You just cant have stuff varying so much and so often.
Alk - 2.5-4 mg/L
Calc - 380-500
Mag - 1200-1500
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 1-5
Phosphate - 0.05-0.01
The only parameters not varying here is your nitrite and ammonia. Everything else is swinging...A LOT. What test set are you using to measure your phosphate? I only trust the red sea pro phosphate test kit.
If you have an unbalanced system like you have right now, any levels of nitrates and phosphates will provide enough for cyano and nuisance algae. I would recommend these things to fix your problem:
1. Install Phosban reactor with Bio Pellets
2. Install Phosban Reactor with GFO
3. Replace your Homemade Protein Skimmer with an industrial grade Skimmer.
4. Test for every other element to ensure youre not leaching anything into the system.
5. 20% water changes daily (with RO/DI water that reads 0, you should never use RO/DI water that reads ANYTHING on the tds meter) with reef crystals or a salt that has buffer, calc and mag in it.
6. Try to maintain these levels for at least 3 weeks consistently:
PH: 8.2
Calc: 450
Mag: 1300
Alk: 4mg/L (but I have 8mg/L for growth)
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 78 degrees
If you do this, the bacteria will thrive enough to bring an equilibrium to your tank, and the correct levels of elements in your water staying stable for a long period of time will bring everything back to normal.
You just cant have stuff varying so much and so often.
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um yeah those ranges are over a year of testing, there is never any large swings in any value week to week.
over the past 2 months all my values have been constant with maybe a 5% swing in any given value over a week.
PH: 8.2
Calc: 450
Mag: 1450
Alk: 3.5mg/L
Nitrate: 2
Phosphate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 76 degrees
and Ill get some pics of the effected corals soon as I can. its really nothing special to see though, just random corals with random patches of STN.
oh and by daily water changes I mean, one pump removes 2g of water and one pump replaces it. When this is done my ATO is shut off. it does this every day and I do an additional 100g change ever month now.
over the past 2 months all my values have been constant with maybe a 5% swing in any given value over a week.
PH: 8.2
Calc: 450
Mag: 1450
Alk: 3.5mg/L
Nitrate: 2
Phosphate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0
Salinity: 1.025
Temp: 76 degrees
and Ill get some pics of the effected corals soon as I can. its really nothing special to see though, just random corals with random patches of STN.
oh and by daily water changes I mean, one pump removes 2g of water and one pump replaces it. When this is done my ATO is shut off. it does this every day and I do an additional 100g change ever month now.
welp, just lost 5 more corals and 4 more fish over the past week.
So this weekend I will start fragging all my corals, dipping them and moving them to a separate system. Then all the fish will be put in a different system and treated with meds and hyposalinity after which I will bleach the system and dry out all the live rock and sand.
Everything will remain in quarantine for 2 months, after which I will set the system back up.
Ive been avoiding this for a year now, but I cant see any other option at this point.
So this weekend I will start fragging all my corals, dipping them and moving them to a separate system. Then all the fish will be put in a different system and treated with meds and hyposalinity after which I will bleach the system and dry out all the live rock and sand.
Everything will remain in quarantine for 2 months, after which I will set the system back up.
Ive been avoiding this for a year now, but I cant see any other option at this point.
If your going to do a complete tear down, I would bleach the rock and then do an acid bath to strip everything (P04...) this really helped me (see my original post here). I got muratic acid from Home Depot, dilute 10/1 with water. There are some good threads here discussing how tos. I did the rock, replaced the sand on a Friday and had the tank back up and running Sunday pm. GOOD LUCK!
Green Chromis
New member
If you can afford it, I would buy all new rock and sand and make sure the rock has as much life on it as possible. Do you have a hood on your tank that is made of pressure treated wood and is it sealed so when water hits it and drips back into the tank it doesnt leach the toxic chemicals they use to treat the wood with back into the tank? :idea:
elegance coral
They call me EC
Why can you not post pic's of this system??????
We are trying to diagnose a problem we've never seen. There's a reason why doctors will not treat you over the phone. We don't know anything about your system. We don't know what the sump looks like, how the filtration is set up, how the display is set up, what growths you have in the display........ Nothing. None of us can diagnose your problem, with any degree of certainty, without seeing the system.
Based on what you've said in this thread, I really don't see much of a mystery here. Nutrients build up, and animals die. You remove the dead or dieing animals, clean the system, and do some good sized water changes. The system runs fine for a while until nutrients build up again. Then more animals die, you clean up the system, and the whole precess starts all over again.
We are trying to diagnose a problem we've never seen. There's a reason why doctors will not treat you over the phone. We don't know anything about your system. We don't know what the sump looks like, how the filtration is set up, how the display is set up, what growths you have in the display........ Nothing. None of us can diagnose your problem, with any degree of certainty, without seeing the system.
Based on what you've said in this thread, I really don't see much of a mystery here. Nutrients build up, and animals die. You remove the dead or dieing animals, clean the system, and do some good sized water changes. The system runs fine for a while until nutrients build up again. Then more animals die, you clean up the system, and the whole precess starts all over again.
My camera is busted and my brother kept forgetting to bring his over.
Too late now anyway, I took the tank down over the weekend and all the inhabitants have been dipped and moved to QT. I lost 2 fish to the dipping, and almost all my corals but the softies died in QT due to a heater failure.
Fish are in Hypo, and Im going to bleach and acid treat all the rock and sand this coming weekend. Ill get the tank back up around the end of march and Ill be adding ozone and a calc reactor to the system.
Once its back up Ill get some test corals and if nothing dies in 3 months after that Ill start restocking.
Too late now anyway, I took the tank down over the weekend and all the inhabitants have been dipped and moved to QT. I lost 2 fish to the dipping, and almost all my corals but the softies died in QT due to a heater failure.
Fish are in Hypo, and Im going to bleach and acid treat all the rock and sand this coming weekend. Ill get the tank back up around the end of march and Ill be adding ozone and a calc reactor to the system.
Once its back up Ill get some test corals and if nothing dies in 3 months after that Ill start restocking.
