Is my 300g tank about to crash ?

G

glennhornibrook

New member
I will try to keep this as short as possible. I will list water parameters , problems and the chain of events leading up to these problems. I would really appreciate any suggestions. I apologise in advance for any late responses but I live in a different time zone in Ireland.

Normal water parameters before 28th Oct (parameters are stable ,except for calcium, )
PH- 8.2-8.3
Alk- 8 dkh
Calc- 380 "“ 450
Magnesium- unknown
Salinity- 1.0255
Temp 25degC
Nitrate 0 ( at least according to my test kit )
Nitrite 0
Ammonium 0
Phosphate 0

My aquarium is a 300g mixed reef tank. It is sparsely stocked with 3 tangs, 2 clowns, 2 neon damsels, and a goby. Inverts: 8 acros, 2 montis, 1 birds nest, 1 stylophora , 1 finger leather coral, and some other softies like mushroom polyps and star polyps.

Chain of events:

26th October ; added 2 new across, 1 stylophora and a small giant clam ( which was eaten by my hermit crabs the next day. DOH! )
28th October : tested water and got results above as normal . ( calc 380 )
1st and 2nd Nov : PH rose to 8.5 so I tested other parameters.
2nd Nov. : Alk rose to 10.6 dKh and I tested magnesium at 1200 ppm

Symptoms:

1st Nov : Polyps on one established acro and birds nest stayed closed.
2nd Nov.: Regal tang started rubbing against substrate.
4th Nov ; 1 yellow tang showing redish patches on his skin. The other yellow tang has some small black spots on his skin. Goby and damsels are flicking on substrate and an additional acro and star polyps have closed up. The leather coral has completely shrivelled .
This is all very concerning and very unusual.

Things I did out of the ordinary :

1st Sept; Changed salt to new brand with high dKh
2nd Nov: added magnesium supplement ( far less than recommended dose. I rose it to 1215ppm over 2 days. )
31st Nov; used speed glue to attach corals.

Please share any ideas you might have as I'm afraid that things might get even worse.
Regards,
Glenn.
 
Sounds like your fish have a parasite. I would Qt them and treat for what ever is wrong. If you raised your alk and ph to quickly this will cause PE problems for a short while. I see no problem with switching salts even if the alk is higher. You corals will quickly adjust to this change. I also use super glue gel to fix corals I see nothing wrong with that. A change from 8 to 10 is large I would say that is what did it. Best thing you can do is just leave things be, do your regular water changes and test weekly to make sure thing stay in check.
 
Agreed with allsps40. Don't do anything drastic as it does not sound like a crash is underway but keep on top of things and bring the alk down. If you do small water changes then the high alk in the water should not have a large effect on things. I use a LMIII that does automatic changes daily 150 times throughout the day.
 
It sounds like you just did too much at once, just take it easy with too many changes with sps and they can actually be pretty tough. btw the alk change prob is the biggest prob. My 2 cents worth
 
Just make sure your not getting a shock of elec when you put your hand in the water if you are then you need a ground probe. If not the I would have to agree with everyone else... Good luck.
 
allsps40,
Did you mean PH (PE). The alk in the new salt is 12.7 dKh in comparrison to 7-8dKh in the old salt. I am trying to figure out if the spike in alk is a cause or a symptom of something else.

Dustin 1300,
Do you think that the alk is likely to stay here now that I am using new salt and the spike is unfortunate but over . Bare in mind I changed salt type 2 months ago.

Grant W,
I stopped using magnesium suppliment for now and I am using the approach of watching and monitoring with about 3% water changes daily. ( if the salt is the problem this could make things worse.???)

Danreefman,
The clam was guite small (about 1 1/8") but poisoning would make sense. Can toxin effect water chemistry (Alk). I am not using carbon at the moment. Do you think I should start as a matter of urgency or is ther side effects of carban use I should be aware of.

tynman,
I checked with multi meter and do not seem to have that problem but who is to say that it's not an intermittent problem. Only way to tell for sure is to sit watching the meter for a day.
 
Glenn, is the alk staying this high all the time or is just after a water change? I would assume that you are not dosing alk because of the already high number so this should be dropping over time. Small water changes should keep the alk to a good number (8-9) but not 11! If you are unable to bring it down with the new salt you could switch back to the old salt and just use a mixture of the new to make the the salt elements more desirable without having to waste the salt you currently have.
 
No negitaves to carbon. Get some in there asap. I run it full time and think everyone with a mixed reef should. The clam dying shouldn't affect alk like stated above small water changes. If you're going to bring the alk down again monitor it and do it slowly. It's on the high side but the wc's should do the trick.
 
Dustin1300,
The alk spiked and has stayed there since.I have started 3% water changes daily using the new salt but it's too early to judge effects.(I baught 5 22kg drums of it.) Red sea stopped producing the salt I was using and changed the properties of their salt . The high alk on it's own should not be a problem as many reef keepers aim towards this but the fact that it rose so quickly is not good at all. What do you think about keeping the salt now that the spike has already happened once alk stays stable at the higher levels.? Also do you think that the spike could be a symptom rather than a cause?
I was dosing ph- alk buffer but stopped when I saw high levels.
 
Brickyardgreg,
I am going to try the carbon. The salt I have would be inclined to keep alk high but within recomended levels would you leave the alk as it is once it stays stable going forward? I know some like to keep alk at the higher end. I was using alk buffer before this all happened. Do you think that alk spike and livestock symptoms could be seperate issues and just coinsidence they happened at the same time?
 
What kind of glue did you use? I'm not familiar with speed glue, only thing google brings up is some table tennis stuff lol.
 
onereef,
I checked volt leak with volt meter with no signs of leak. I can't rule this out though as it could be an intermittent fault.

james404,
The glue is a german brand called korallen-zucht.de. The guy at lfs just explained to me that it is a lime based glue which could raise alk but does not think that the amount raised would cause such problems.
 
A day later and water parameters are the same except alk which has dropped slightly to 10.2 dKh. There is no improvement in the corals, in fact, corals that have been showing good colour are appearing to go brown.
Symptoms on fish have worsened and one of my yellow tangs has stopped eating.

I am completely baffled. One week ago all was well and now I'm watching my dream tank unravel in front of my eyes.

At the moment I have QT on standby ( almost impossible to catch fish with aquascape, )and I've started using activated carbon. Besides that i'm testing water daily and observing. I've stopped using any additives eg. kalkwasser , alk-PH buffer.

I'm open to other suggestions and would really appreciate the help.
 
Need to give it time and bring it down slowly. I really don't think the fish problems are directly related to the alk but would guess most of your coral will turn brown and with good husbandry you will get all the color back:)
 
Like others have mentioned, it doesn't sound like a crash is eminent. Whenever I have quick changes in Alk, I do get a fair amount of STN. This usually occurs around a change in seasons where the ambient CO2 in the air of my house alters the PH (i.e. we close the windows, etc). However, the key is to not panic or you risk taking a precarious situation and making it worse.

In the future, should you wish to change salts, IME its better to mix new and old salt and slowly progress over to the new salt. Here's the progression I've used:

Week 1-2: 25% new salt/75% old salt
Week 2-3: 50% new salt/50% old salt
Week 4-5: 75% new salt/25% old salt
Week 6+: 100% new salt.
 
I also agree about the salt but the place that I buy the salt simply sceased to stock it. When I was picking new salt I should have matched the properties better.

Do you think I should just roll with the new salt now that the deed is done.?

Since yesterday there has been a dovelopment. I had been talking to the guy at LFS about my problem and a change that I made arrose. I did not realise it's importance earlier but I changed the reflective part of my lighting to mirror. He advised me to place the effected corals lower in the tank which I did and today the star polyps have opened up. The other corals have'nt changed but i'm hoping they are just slower to react.

Should I change the reflector back or should I acclimatise the corals to new light?

For the moment I will assume this is the problem with the corals and turn my attention to the fish while keeping a close eye on the corals.

I like to think (with propper feeding and stable conditions) that a healthy fish can overcome parrasites or infections.

Am I just being totaly nieve??

The alk seems to have leveled out all be it at a higher level than before.
The rock structure is glued together with lots of hiding places. Would sitting back and observing be a mistake? should I actively try to get fish into QT for treatment or would this cause more stress on the fish.

It seems to be black ich on one of the fish at least ,probably the same with the others but i can't tell for sure due to fish colour.
The fish have been healthy for a long time previously.

Thank you all for your continued help and support.

For some good news, my clowns layed eggs this morning so I must be doing something right.
 
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