Help tank crashing!?!?!?

[webbstock]

OVer the last few weeks the inverts in my tank have been turning up dead. First I lost 10 cerith snails then 5 astrea snails and now my hermit crabs are all starting to die (I can only find one out of 10 still alive). Also the cyanobacteria (red slime) is starting to spring up everywhere. any ideas what may be the cause? My nirates (see below) are about 20-30ppm, but I attribute that to the invert deaths. Does anyone know of a correlation between cyano bloom and inver t death? So far my fish are doing fine but my GSP is doing so-so (not as exposed as usual, but I also left the lights off for a day to try to minimize cyano growth.


Tank: 36 gallon corner. set up in early November 2006
canister filter /carbon 350 gph discharges through spray bars
2 maxi jet power heads (600 and 900)
Bak pak skimmer
48 watts lighting (PC and std. Fluor combo )
3" sand bed
about 60 lbs LR
3 chromis, 1 clown (added early January 07)
1 peppermint shrimp (added late january)

SG 1.024
pH 8.14 (very steady)
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 20-30 ppm
Ca 520
Phos ? (don't have test yet)

 

[dermer]

hermits are very hard to find at time and i have found them to be the cause of several of my snail losses if nothing else in the tank is dying i would not be to worried but do some water changes to get the nitrates down

 

[Reeses]

Cyano can be toxic, an will kill your snails and hermits. It's the same sort of thing that is responsible for "red tide".

 

[kweidner1]

I do not know if calcium can cause deaths but its awful high. You make no mention of skimmer...I had a 60 gal cube years ago with a mag 350....the only thing I could keep with success was fish only. If you are going to keep inverts with no skimmer your going to have to do many water changes. My guess would be Phosphates and nitrates. PO may gove a false reading due to algae bloom. Get religious on those changes, pull the algae you can by hand, reduce lighting cycle. Buy a skimmer.

 

[Poorcollegereef]

water changes water changes waterchanges... do about 5-10% every 2-4 days. Make sure your new water is nitrate free too! Also, look into upgraging to a serious skimmer, I am not a fan of the Bak-Paks, if hang on is you only option, remoras, tunze and deltec should be on your next purchase list. Remove all bio and mechanical filters in you canister. You should only have chemical filtration. Also look into a Alk. test and test pH right before the lights come on to see if there isnt a strange pH swing. Finally, looking into getting a sump/fuge with lots of macro algae... with a high quality skimmer and some chaeto, nitrates wont have a chance! Sorry about your tank and hope I am not too overburdening. =D Goodluck!!!!


Also since you have some insight into "Exploring mechanisms of Bacterial Toxin Assembly" you might be able to do some research on cyano for us! but I dont even know what Bacterial Toxin Assembly is =P

 

[webbstock]

Thanks for the suggestions, I am going to try to get things undercontrol. I am trying to design a 'fuge for some cheato, but the corner design of the tank makes it a little hard, but I think I have a good plan now after some research. just don;t let my wife know that I be spending even MORE money on the tank

Poorcollegereef - I agree about the bakpak, but it's all I've got for a skimmer right now. It's not really pulling that much skimmate and what it does pull is more like a "wet" skimmate than the nasty gunk that I would expect if organics were way high.

The only "mechanical" filtration that I have is the prefilter around the carbon on the canister, but I will remove that and see if that helps.

I didn't mention alk, b/c I can't find my sheet from my LFS with my last alk reading, but I was I know it was in the "good" range. Of course that was then and this is now...

Ca is a bit high, but I attribute that to moving all most of my corals to a friend's tank so there is no real draw on the Ca.

Also I know the hermits are dead as I found thier rotting bodies in the tank (they have been removed)

 

[Poorcollegereef]

yeah, I know how bad it can get with 'bad' skimmers, I had a prizm... it looked good....yes, I am ashamed....(beating head on table) but after a remora pro and my newer euro-reef things are much better!

Yes, skimmers are alot and I had to explain this to my gf (the ring is costing me more right now but...) its expensive to make water changes and a good skimmer can save you on the salt/water expense in the long run. try to siphon the cyano out if you can with airline tubing to keep that in check although it will still grow til te nitrates calm down.