Major Tank Problems, Ideas?

papagimp

papagimp

COMAS Rocks!
For those of you that have yet heard, I've been having some trouble with my 55g tank recently. For the last month or so, any and all SPS in my tank have been slowly RTNing away to nothing. Last week my pom pom xenia crashed (small pieces looking like they'll pull back though) and several other small frags either dying or already dead. So no fun. Also lost my Male Bangaii during all this. Started seeing problems with increasing nitrate levels and slighty elevated Phosphates. Mangaged to get phosphate under control but have yet to get my Nitrates back down under 80+ppm. And to top it all off Nitrite and Ammonia readings were sitting at 0.5ppm and 1.0ppm respectively. Been performing very large water changes for the last week, every couple days.

Any idea's or thoughts people? Only recent changes to setup include changing out one of six bulbs on the light fixture, emptied some rubble rock from refugium. And started dosing B-Ionic 2-part supplement system. And overall flow has changed from a Seio to a couple Koralia's. This has given the tank a better type of flow but not nearly enough of it. Several dead spots still and do plan to add more flow, hopefully this weekend. (1400gph total right now) Aside from this, nothing has changed to the system. All livestock deaths have been accounted for, nothing dead that I don't know about, unless a small hitchiker that I didn't know about in the first place died. Feeding has been cut back some, nitrates were never present with current feeding regime either, so doubt that was a problem. So I'm at a loss now and stand to lose many more corals and fish If I can't get my tank fixed.
 
oh..also, is there less water flow at the tank surface now? that can have a major effect on the corals by slowing down the heat exchnage.

plus..........now its getting warmer, what are the temperature fluctuations from high to low temp over the course of a day and what are the high and lows.

Paul.
 
That sucks that you lost the male Bangaii.

I hope your tank pulls around.

Weird thought, I am assuming that your flame scallop is accounted for?
 
Well Paul, I did not consider heat an issue, even with flucutation, since it's no different than it's been since I initially setup the system. I've always have had high's during the day and about a 4 degree drop at night. 76-80 throughout a 24hr period. Surface agitation is still going strong. I compensated for this when changing powerheads out. Ph has been sitting 7.8 for the last year but once I started dosing with the B-Ionic supplements, I've gotten it back up to 8.3. Alk had also been running around 7dKH for the last however long and the B-Ionic has also gotten that up to 11dKH, which is where I've been trying to target. Ca levels stay about 400ppm.

fwiw, I've got a purgin, carbon, phosban, and polyfilters all running right now. Even with surface agitation, I had seen an oily buildup occuring last week, this has since gone away since performing large water changes and adding the polyfilter. (which appears almost completely saturated after only a few days.)
 
papagimp- several weeks back in another forum didn't you buy more live rock or dry rock off another reefer?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9859318#post9859318 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nIx_tank
Weird thought, I am assuming that your flame scallop is accounted for?
Click to expand...

Yup, and if I tilt my head enough and squeeze it around the backside of the tank, I can even catch a glimpse of a few tenticles thingies sticking out feeding from under a rock ledge. Sure glad I get to view this $30 punk whenever I want uh? :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9859321#post9859321 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mm5150
papagimp- several weeks back in another forum didn't you buy more live rock or dry rock off another reefer?
Click to expand...

Yes I did, I have taken this into account as well, I swapped out several larger pieces for some of Praters Dry base rock. I'm sure this had some impact, but the fish bioload was also alot lower at that time, and it has been up and running in the tank long enough now that I would imagine I would have spoted problems sooner. But it's still on my list of possible culprits. Removing alot of that rock that i did could easily have removed plenty of aerobic bacteria and possibly some anerobic zones from the more porous rock to this more dense base rock. The amount of rock in the tank should be plenty even without the dry base rock though. I'm sitting at about 2lbs per gallon right now. Without praters stuff, maybe 1lbs per gallon minimum. I did add a few more pieces of very well seeded and fully cured live rock a few days ago. This stuff had been up and running in a 3 year old system, only about 10lbs tops, but figured it may help some.
 
i would say the rock change is the culprit.

Its not the rock amount you have but the bacteria spreqd across it.

Remove 25% of the rock and thats 25% of the bacteria gone.
You then hit a new nitrogen cycle, resulting in ammonia and increased nitrates.

Add to that changed water chemistry with the B-ionic....that can have an effect.

The carbon you are using, what kind is it? is it marine safe since some carbons have lots of phosphates in them.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9859414#post9859414 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pwhitby
The carbon you are using, what kind is it? is it marine safe since some carbons have lots of phosphates in them.
Click to expand...

Cheap stuff from Petsmart.


As for the rock change, wouldn't you see a spike a little quicker than this? It's been awhile since I added that base rock. Last post I put on Praters thread on thecomas site was from October, and that was when I was getting pickle, not when I picked up the rock, it had been a month or so prior to that. So what, like 7 months now? Seems I would have noticed long time ago if that was going to cause issues, tank had done fabulously until about a month ago.
 
yeah that seems a while back for that to happen.

Im left with temp....sure you arent creeping a degree higher now its warm and humid???

P.
 
Let me also add this, when removing all rubble from my fuge, I did manage to kick up alot of crap, ALOT!!! and removed about an inch of sandbed (about an inch left now, which is what I initially started with, and worked great like this for awhile) And had not check nitrites or ammonia prior to that. So I cannot be sure if doing this started the nitrite or ammonia spike or if the problem was there prior to messing with the fuge. It honestly did not occur to me to check the nitrite and ammonia when I first noticed SPS deaths occuring. Spikes could very well be unrelated to their deaths. Very poor record keeping on my part here.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9859483#post9859483 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pwhitby
yeah that seems a while back for that to happen.

Im left with temp....sure you arent creeping a degree higher now its warm and humid???

P.
Click to expand...

It doesn't get any higher at temp peak, but does reach the temp peak quicker. It took several hours during Winter to reach high temp during the day and likewise for the temp lows at night, Since increase in ambient temperature, the highs and lows are hit in about an hour.

Also, slight increase in Diatoms on the sand, but not a whole heck of alot, it's actually decreased during the last week. Was covering most the sandbed, added my new nass. snails, ceriths, and a new queen conch and fighting conch, sandbed has looked 10x better.
 
I did the same thing about a year back and it took several weeks and then all of a sudden I had a large spike just like I was cycling a new tank.
 
That's what I was thinkng is happening MM5150, I have heard of tanks suddenly loosing bacterial populations and going though a new cycle. Doesn't happen overly often from what I understand but can happen.
 
FWIW, a study was done on various Activated Carbons, and it turns out that the stuff from WalMart was only slightly different then the top brand (Diamond something...) I'll have to find that article.

Adam, I think I know the largest problem, but I'm not 100% certain from the cause. I think some of the problem might be from the rock change. You'll be surprised how much bacteria good, porous rock can have in it. I think the removal of some rock/bacteria has caused a slight problem that has created a domino effect. The new Ammonia level from lack of bacteria probably started to get the SPS first, the SPS deaths added to the Ammonia, and the next susceptable thing died and added to the Ammonia, and so on. It's all theory though. Honestly, based on that theory, I would be filling my sump, refugium, and any extra space you have with bioballs. You know what I've always said about bio-media, "There's a time and place for it", and this is one of those times.
 
How big is the sump and how much sand was removed? How much rubble? 3lbs of decent rubble is a lot of surface area similar to the bioballs Travis is talking about. If you removed a sq ft of sand 1" deep plus all the rubble, I would bet that triggered the amonia spike which kicked off another cycle. The amonia at 1 ppm is deadly. Removing the sand probably disturbed anearobic areas, along with kicking up "ALOT" of crap. I would bet this has a role in the new cycle.

The addition on of the B-Ionic and changes in pH and Alk, how fast did that occur? Did you start that regimen the same time you made the changes to the sump? If so, that combined with the spikes probably wasn't good.

My $.02

Dave
 
I've seen what little rubble Adam has in his refugium, and I doubt that this was the major cause. My largest concern would be taking the large amount of rock and replacing it with denser base rock.
 
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