Corals are sad. And I've got nitrate

S

Sarahbell430

New member
My 90 gallon is about 5 months old since cycle completed. I have added fish over time with no losses other than Benghai's murdering each other. I had a bloom of cyano that chemi clean took care of about 8weeks ago. I stared adding corals at that time with great success. Tiny frogspawn.....zoa frag....pipe organ. All doing great and spreading. Two weeks ago, my rbta shriveled up and died :(. My cleaner shrimp also stopped being able to walk and died. I removed both and then got an obnoxious cyano bloom. I treated twice. Did 20 percent water change. It Came back the next day. Dosed again and before water change it's back again. Before the bloom I ordered a lta online ( horrible timing ) ...so it is in there now with a cleanup crew that came with him of 10 astreas..10 margaritas and 10 zebra hermits. The lta hasn't attached ( not surprised ) but the cyano bloom is still alive and kicking and I think my frogspawn Is dead along with a plate coral I got two weeks ago. All parameters are good. 0 ammonia. 0 nitrite. 0 phosphate. But I noticed today I have between 20-40ppm nitrate level. Is this killling my coral and causing cyano bloom?..I did turn off all lights for 24 hours during last chemi clean dose ( which did not work ) and I think that's what killed my plate and frogspawn.
I'm not adding anything for the foreseeable future until I figure out what is going on. Tank isn't overstocked with only 7 small fish ( 2 baby naked clowns, fire fish, lavender tang, starry blenny, Benghai cardinal and lyretail
Anthias

Please help!,,
 
I should mention I have 4 ATI t5s and 2 MH for lighting. T5 are on about 9 hours a day and MH are on for 5 hours within the time the t5's are on
 
chemiclean has risks particularly depending on efficiency of your skimmer. The fact that you are continuing to have trouble plus nitrate above 5 might point at that as a source of problems. What skimmer are you using?
 
I'm not using a skimmer. Do I need to? I have a ten gallon sump. But I only use it to drain into a filter sock and then pump it back to the tank. I have noticed in the last two weeks that there is foam pouring out of the top of my filter sock every day ...and I change it daily
 
Being quite new to this myself my opinion probably doesn't matter that much. In saying that though a 90g tank without a skimmer seems a real stretch to me. I'm not running one in my 90 litre tank but if I had a bigger tank a quality skimmer would seem necessary. Also without the skimmer isn't there a continuous supply of chemiclean in your tank after 3 doses?

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There are too many tanks that run just fine without skimmers to say that one is a necessity.. They can be beneficial though and some can't seem to run without them..

But yes nitrate levels in that range are known to cause problems with most corals..

Just using chemiclean can cause problems too in certain cases..

I'd suggest you avoid using chemiclean right now and treat the cyano with a 3 day lights out period along with siphoning out as much as you can with water changes..
You need to perform multiple water changes to reduce the nitrates to an acceptable leve (sub 10 or less) and to also remove the excessive other dissolved organics feeding/causing the cyano..
 
A couple days won't hurt it one bit. Is there sun on the ocean every day?

If I had to guess, the double dose of chemiclean is what did them in. With no skimmer they more then likely died from lack of oxygen in the water.

You mentioned a couple pretty hardy LPS's that died, what are your ALK, CAL, and MAG levels?

In my biocube I ran around 40ppm and my euphyllia couldn't have been happier. While that may be contributing to the cyano, I don't think that high will kill your corals.
 
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I don't have a mag test kit. Calcium was low ( don't remember the reading). I got a supplement but never dosed it due to everything seeming to crash.
Chemi being the cause makes a lot of sense. the rest is going in the garbage. Just shut lights off and covered the tank with a blanket. I'll have my fingers crossed until Wednesday
 
You don't have to cover the tank with a blanket. Ambient light is just fine.

Complete darkness for several days causes weird things to happen. It's also best to leave the top open for gas exchange.
 
Personally dont think you need a skimmer but I run one. Having a skimmer running while using chemi clean is beneficial being that it produces bubbles, oxygenates the water. Which is what you need to do while running chemi clean. You could of used power heads on the surface to agitate the water....Which ever, you need oxygen. You also need to do a 20% water change when the chemi clean is done with its cycle...All the info for what I just said is written on the box it comes with. Worked great in my tank with the skimmer running with out the top on and a 20% water change when done. Nothing died, corals all stayed open,,,,nothing happened at all except for the fact the red slime was gone.
 
After an 8-day power loss in winter, I had nitrate exceeding 150. After trying every method recommended to remediate (corals like it about 5)---a new and potent skimmer began to knock it down and down, and within a couple of weeks---problem solved. Nothing likes high nitrate, and failure to thrive is a frequent complaint in tanks with excessive levels of nitrate OR phosphate---both somewhat survivable by desirable critters, but not conducive to growth and health. A weak skimmer was pulling something looking like a cup of highly watered tea from my tank once a week: during the mopup by the potent one, it was extracting about two cups of thick blackish goop and dark green water every few days.
 
Sarahbell430 said:
I don't have a mag test kit. Calcium was low ( don't remember the reading). I got a supplement but never dosed it due to everything seeming to crash.
Chemi being the cause makes a lot of sense. the rest is going in the garbage. Just shut lights off and covered the tank with a blanket. I'll have my fingers crossed until Wednesday
Click to expand...

DO NOT PUT ANYTHING THAT SOAKS WATER OVER THE TANK, EVER!

Omg, I did that exact thing a couple months back. The towel accidentally touched the water, and the next morning half the tank's water was on the floor. I make it a rule now to never leave anything that absorbs water near the tank, never hang a towel at the rim of the tank!

As for nitrates, the most common suggestion you will hear is to decrease food, or to increase your nutrient export.

There are many successes of reef tanks with no skimmer/no sump/no problems. But they have success because they manage to balance the nutrient in and the nutrient out.

I'll recommend a skimmer to start off, as I couldn't imagine reefing without one. There is a certain satisfaction to knowing it is doing it's job when you clean off that black gunk from the skimmer cup once every couple days. Also, with a skimmer, you can also add in carbon dosing (skimmer is essential for this) to up the nutrient export in the future if needed.
 
Don't cover the tank. a) you can accidentally drain it, as describe. b) room lighting is FINE, and total blackout can make your fish sleep while they're eaten alive by snails and crabs c) you just may need to repeat this 3 day (4th day gentle lighting only if you have corals) procedure once a month until your skimmer can uptake the problem.
 
came home today - anemone is dead - candy cane monti looks bleached zoa looks fine - just closed and same with toadstool leather. Fish seem fine and blanket is gone
sand looks pretty good - chemi clean is in the trash.....fingers crossed til wednesday
i feel like my tank is crashing
 
New myself and re-learning from the experts don't even know the "lingo", but 20+ years ago I used natural sea water with an undergravel and powerheads. Protein Skimmers at the time where unknown or too expensive so I used Poly-Bio Marine Poly Filters, they are known to remove pollutants, chemicals, phosphate and organics before they convert to Nitrate. My humble opinion is to use this now to remove the junk, they work fast very fast. That will get you some time to get a Protein Skimmer and figure out the issue with the experts.
 
Are u sure that it is cyno that u have? Chemiclean has always worked for me the couple times I have used it. I don't think it is the cause being the fish are ok, but without a skimmer u need to make sure u have plenty of oxygen in the water during treatment. Whether it be airstones or something else.

Anemones can be tricky, especially after being shipped. So it's hard to say if their deaths are related. Chemiclean can be hard on shrimp, so it may have been the cause for the shrimps death. Especially if u did back to back doses.

As far as the coral. U really need to be testing for alk, calcium & mag before u try any hard corals. Why the tank is maturing for the first 6 months or so is a good time for the aquarist to learn how to keep the big 3 params stable.

U may want to try a polyfilter so u can atleast wright off contaminate as the source of the polyfilter is good
 
Doesn't chemiclean need strong oxygenation while in use? Skimmer or airstone? Well with no skimmer it is likely that the chemiclean suffocated things out since here was little to no oxygenation of the water.


Corey
 
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