HELP!!!! Urgent

P

PookieJusz

New member
Our 120 gallon tank needs desperate help

Everything was fine a couple days ago

Today, my 4 emerald crabs are dead as well as my 2 scallops.

3 of my corals have a black/brown ash like substance on them and look very poor including my bubble coral

We checked our water and everything was perfect. Calcium was a bit low but everything else was spot on (i.e. amonia, ph, nitrite, nitrate, phos etc)

We did a 25 gallon water change

Does anyone have any advice??? I don't want to lose anything else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
maybe run some carbon for a few days, maybe a poly filter. do a bigger water change. did something get in the tank? what do you add to the tank? do you know your dkh?
 
Metal

Metal

I had no idea that metal was harmful

I have been dipping my knife in the tank after i cut up shrimp

Could this hurt???????????
 
Unlikely, knives are typically made from metals that are not very reactive and it would not be in there long.

You need to find out what has changed. Mentioned above was carbon and polyfilter I agree with both.
 
copper would be the problem if there was a penny in the tank. leaving metal in would be a problem, dipping a knife in is not a problem. i have knives, scissors in my tank from time to time, no problem
 
No, dipping metal into it won't hurt anything.
How long has it been set up?
Could be ammonia spike, still cycling (even though test reads 0)
 
When things die off like that and all of the tests appear normal, IME poison has gotten into the system. As far as your knife being harmful, it would need to contain copper or brass. As stated above, run carbon, use a polyfilter, do water changes.
 
We have a very large sump filter with a refugium (sorry about spelling)

We have a protein skimmer and a light on the refugium which i guess kills bacteria.

Recently we did a first dose of Kalkwasser into the sump because our calcium was in the mid to high 300's and we were told that kalkwasser would help.

We mixed 7 teaspoons into a jug of our aquarium water and put it into the sump.

We have added a few corals but no addition of fish or inverts have been added.

Maybe this info will help with a diagnosis
 
Do you have any stray current going into your tank? Do you have a grounding probe? Have you run a copper test? Carbon is the best thing fast.
 
doing alot of large water changes will def help. as long as the water is the same temp/salinity you would do a 100% water change without much worry. i have done such on a few tanks without issues.
 
We do have a ground

Tank is fairly new but the cycle has been done

Its been 3 months and we went through long hair algae etc but out levels of everything including amonia have been spot on for weeks and weeks
 
you may have spiked your ph by adding the kalk. using a seperate products is much safer, easier than kalk. i would reccomend using super buffer dkh and turbo calcium to raise alk and calcium accordingly. you can not add the two products in the same day though.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11701455#post11701455 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by PookieJusz
We have a very large sump filter with a refugium (sorry about spelling)

We have a protein skimmer and a light on the refugium which i guess kills bacteria.

Recently we did a first dose of Kalkwasser into the sump because our calcium was in the mid to high 300's and we were told that kalkwasser would help.

We mixed 7 teaspoons into a jug of our aquarium water and put it into the sump.

We have added a few corals but no addition of fish or inverts have been added.

Maybe this info will help with a diagnosis
Click to expand...

If you're saying that you mixed 7 teaspoons of kalk with water and dumped it into the sump all at once, then this is the problem. 7 teaspoons is enough to make a fully saturated kalk solution of 3.5 gallons, which should then be dripped at a rate of just a few drops per second. Kalk has a very high pH. If you dumped that in all at once your tank experienced a huge pH spike. (Kalk is to be mixed with RO/DI water, not saltwater, and then dripped as your top-off water to replace evaporated water).

I would do a number of large water changes, and then get on a program of measuring your Alk, Calcium, and Magnesium. They go hand in hand. Here is some reading for you:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

http://web.archive.org/web/20021127040526/http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/chem.htm

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html
 
if you add kalkawasser too fast it will cause the ph/ alk to rise. i would recommend checking your ph and alk to check on that if you did add all the kalk quickly. although i dont see kalk killing your tank as described, you would notice your tank being cloudy. most important thing to do is run carbon, and i would probably do a 20 percent water change every day for 3-4 days total.
 
If your ph is too high, soda [seltzer] water [bar soda] will help get it back to normal but test all along the way and don't overdo it in the other direction.
You have 2 things going on: kalkwater is used for dripping in by the teaspoon in 2 tsp-per-gallon solution: a gallon of it is far too much...ph spike may have started what's going on. It will self-correct in a number of hours, so don't overdo the soda. You probably also have some dieoff going on, so run carbon.
 
Whatever you do, do it SLOWLY, Dont do a 100% water change, and just go SLOW with any changes in a reef tank. And the rest are rest about adding calcium, this sounds like the problem
 
I tested the PH and we are at 8.2

Its perfect but maybe it went sky high and then came down to where it should be?

My larger concern is the corals and the black residue that was on them. I read up on brown slime disease but it just doesn't seem to be this.

I will continue doing a water change everyday and hopefully i don't lose anything else

The black ashlike stuff on the 3 corals is really scaring me though.
 
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