Mike's 200g
- Thread starter MichaelW
- Start date
reefmutt
Active member
Hey Mike, really sorry to see that the meltdown continues.. totally sickening.
I'm going through my own but it doesn't seem quite as bad.. it'll probably be about a 50% loss for me..
When my alk first dropped and shocked the tank, some corals looked bad immediately- those ones have all been removed. Many, however looked great right after but have over the past months or so turned brown, dried up and are dying.
Despite this, I believe that there is nothing wrong with the tank at the moment because a few corals are growing and seem perfect.
I think the shock from that alk drop and subsequent changes is the cause for me.
It can take a long time for corals to react and show the damage..
Could your ongoing problems just be continued fallout from the nutrient drop and dyno issue?
Have you tried adding a new piece and seeing what happens to it?
I've added a couple new ones that are doing fine.. it might be a good test for you..
I'm going through my own but it doesn't seem quite as bad.. it'll probably be about a 50% loss for me..
When my alk first dropped and shocked the tank, some corals looked bad immediately- those ones have all been removed. Many, however looked great right after but have over the past months or so turned brown, dried up and are dying.
Despite this, I believe that there is nothing wrong with the tank at the moment because a few corals are growing and seem perfect.
I think the shock from that alk drop and subsequent changes is the cause for me.
It can take a long time for corals to react and show the damage..
Could your ongoing problems just be continued fallout from the nutrient drop and dyno issue?
Have you tried adding a new piece and seeing what happens to it?
I've added a couple new ones that are doing fine.. it might be a good test for you..
MichaelW
New member
I am waiting to add any new pieces because I am basically going to use this as an opportunity to rid AEFW from my tank once and for all. I will remove whatever acros I have still alive into the new frag tank and leave tank acro free for a few months (be painful to look at), during this time I will do an extended lights out (like 5 days) not for algea or dino, as it's gone, but to hopefully kill off any remaining encrusted acro pieces. Will try and follow up with a series of largish water changes (no acros to worry about any parameter swings) to hopefully get what ever is causing this problem out of the tank. The hardest thing right now to know what to do with is my efflo. It is still alive, showing no tissue loss, but has lost color. Not sure I want to move it into the uncycled brand new frag tank... But worried it will die if left in display (and then can't rid AEFW either. Looking to see if anyone local has an established type Qt for it. Don't want someone to put in DT as I don't know if it's a bacterial issue that could be passed on, and the possibility of flatworms.
slavetonet
New member
Sorry to see your tank sour.
I would be very careful with dosing bacteria of sort and extra carbon fuel.
Lets just say I have come up with problems with them in the past.
I would be very careful with dosing bacteria of sort and extra carbon fuel.
Lets just say I have come up with problems with them in the past.
markalot
...
I agree, I stopped all vinegar and bacteria dosing and I don't think I will ever go back. My skimmate is still dark but doesn't stink up the house anymore. I am no longer a fan of carbon dosing, though obviously it works for many people. If there's bad bacteria in the tank carbon dosing is just feeding it, in my non scientific opinion.
Mr.Fishtank
New member
Smell your pro bio s and see if it smells bad. Could be dosing dead Bactria. Just a thought.
MichaelW
New member
I think the bacteria and carbon source were doing something. They had been great for so long And when I did stop for a while earlier when my issues began nutrients did rise quite a lot. I have never had my tank as nice as it was when running full Af line. And I believe in the bacteria driven systems that they work.
I have had a bottle of pro bio s smell bad before, still used it and never had any problems from it and nutrients remained low. This bottle doesn't have much of a smell to it.
I have had a bottle of pro bio s smell bad before, still used it and never had any problems from it and nutrients remained low. This bottle doesn't have much of a smell to it.
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
Sorry about the continued problems. One thing that has always worked for me is water changes. It might not be practical for larger tanks...but it works.
I dont have the time at the moment to catch up on your thread but I'll suggest this:
1. Stop all the dosing (other than for Ca/alk and Mg).
2. Carry out 20% water changes every 3 days for at least 10 times. Ensure RODI is working well and no chloramines are getting through. Use different salt brand (to eliminate potential issue of bad salt batch etc, or other issue).
3. Feed fish moderately.
4. Set skimmer to skim wet (need to collect 1/4 cup of skimmer cup every day).
5. Run some GAC but not so much that water is stripped.
6. Keep up the flow.
I make the above suggestion based on this: I've made plenty of dumb mistakes/followed certain trends/dosed "magic" potions. On so many of those occasions I had corals begin to strip, show signs of distress/tissue thinning, tissue looking dry.
Yet I still have many of my corals which are over 5 years old or more (my Red Planet is around 7 years old).
In all of those times of my stupidity I managed to turn bad situations around by following a protocol similar to what I outlined above.
I really hope things turn around.
Good luck.
I dont have the time at the moment to catch up on your thread but I'll suggest this:
1. Stop all the dosing (other than for Ca/alk and Mg).
2. Carry out 20% water changes every 3 days for at least 10 times. Ensure RODI is working well and no chloramines are getting through. Use different salt brand (to eliminate potential issue of bad salt batch etc, or other issue).
3. Feed fish moderately.
4. Set skimmer to skim wet (need to collect 1/4 cup of skimmer cup every day).
5. Run some GAC but not so much that water is stripped.
6. Keep up the flow.
I make the above suggestion based on this: I've made plenty of dumb mistakes/followed certain trends/dosed "magic" potions. On so many of those occasions I had corals begin to strip, show signs of distress/tissue thinning, tissue looking dry.
Yet I still have many of my corals which are over 5 years old or more (my Red Planet is around 7 years old).
In all of those times of my stupidity I managed to turn bad situations around by following a protocol similar to what I outlined above.
I really hope things turn around.
Good luck.
Myka
Reefing since '93
Hey Mike, sorry to hear it has become so bad. Have you considered adding a small Acro frag to see if the tank is still Acro-sour or if the current Acros are just too damaged?
Fwiw, Triton test PO4 in my tank at 0.001 ppm. From your description it just doesn't sound like a nutrient issue, especially if you have other types of corals in the tank that are still doing well. Maybe the suddenly low nutrients was enough to damage the corals and start a perfect storm, but I do think there is some sort of bacterial issue at play. IME, bacterial issues are the only things that are "impossible to stop".
Fwiw, Triton test PO4 in my tank at 0.001 ppm. From your description it just doesn't sound like a nutrient issue, especially if you have other types of corals in the tank that are still doing well. Maybe the suddenly low nutrients was enough to damage the corals and start a perfect storm, but I do think there is some sort of bacterial issue at play. IME, bacterial issues are the only things that are "impossible to stop".
Did you happen to purchase any new AF products when you started to have issues? The reason I ask, as I said a few weeks ago somewhere in your thread is I am wondering if AF has a bad batch. I started the aquaforest products then two days later I started having all the same issues that you describe. I posted the products for sale in my local reef club forum and Avererly (who is active here in the sps forum) reached out to me and wanted to buy my AF products as extra since he just purchased his own and mine was selling cheap. A few days later he contacts me and ask if I had issues with AF and I told him what happened in my tank and he said the same thing happened to him with his own AF products (he never did buy mine). He and I only dosed a couple drops so there is no way that it elevated any metal levels in my tank.
I started doing massive water changes over the next few days to try and get out whatever was in the bottles. I lost a lot of my sps corals but finally what sps I have left are starting to show polyps again. I truly believe there was something bad with the AF products. I also posted photos in a different thread what was happening to my corals when I started AF.
Whatever is happening in your tank I hope you get it figured out and are able to save what you have left!
I started doing massive water changes over the next few days to try and get out whatever was in the bottles. I lost a lot of my sps corals but finally what sps I have left are starting to show polyps again. I truly believe there was something bad with the AF products. I also posted photos in a different thread what was happening to my corals when I started AF.
Whatever is happening in your tank I hope you get it figured out and are able to save what you have left!
MichaelW
New member
Time for an update on the tank situation.
Whatever happened in my tank basically took out all sps. I have a couple bits of monti left that seem to be making a comeback but that's it. All my old acro died, we're struggling so I pulled, or I just got rid of. The strange thing is some of the dead skeletons were bright bright pink in appearance. I am not sure if this is an indication of some type of infection or what. During this time I also discovered 2 pumps leaking stray voltage into the tank and not sure if this could have been an issue or not. I did not notice the voltage before as I stand on carpet when working in the tank and was preventing a path to ground. As soon as I touched tank while standing on tile I got zapped.
Anyway I have made a large amount of water changes in the tank and also been running carbon. I personally think thi,gs are better now as some montis are showing improvement. There is much more algae growing on the rocks right now anditsclear nutrients are much higher than normal (stopping the np pro and pro bios and probiotic reef salt will have done this). Howstly have not tested parameters in a while now so don't know what they are... But with the large amount of water changes and having hardly any coral in the tank I'm sure things are not too bad.
Anyway, New year, New start to move forward. During this time I set up a 50 gallon frag tank (48x24x10) it is lit my a 3ft 8 bulb sunpower however it does not seem thesunpower is putting out what is expected for some reason. The frag tank itself has its own sump, but, that sump drains into my display tank sump. With the twist of a few valves and pushed of switches I can have the tank running as an isolated system or as conected to my display. I originally was running it isolated and moved some of my struggling acros out of the display and fragged them, dipped and placed in New frag tank... They still continued to slowly decline. I do have a couple New acros in there that are doing ok. I have now got rid of all my old acros from that tank and just a couple days ago I decided I will run the tanks as one system. I will see what happens to those New acros over the next few days to see if they decline (giving me an indication something is still up with old tank water). Whatever happens the acro frags will be taken out, even if doing well, so I can start a period of acro fallow to rid flatworms. This will also involve getting in the display and epoxying over the few bits of acro still surviving on the rock work.
I will also be re doing the plumbing of my 10gallon frag tank in a similar fashion to the 50 gallon so it can be ran isolated or connected. Again hoping to give it it's own sump for slightly more water volume. The plan is All tanks will be connected usually, but then I can turn the 10 gallon to a coral qt for New arivals and isolate it by turning a valve. Right now I'm trying to research the best acro qt procedures. BRS just did a pretty good video on this, but nothing was mentioned about repeated dips (weekly for example) which I would have thought was necessary for eggs. After all qt procedures are done I can then turn the valves again and run them connected once again. This is my hope to prevent any flatworms etc getting in again.
Whatever happened in my tank basically took out all sps. I have a couple bits of monti left that seem to be making a comeback but that's it. All my old acro died, we're struggling so I pulled, or I just got rid of. The strange thing is some of the dead skeletons were bright bright pink in appearance. I am not sure if this is an indication of some type of infection or what. During this time I also discovered 2 pumps leaking stray voltage into the tank and not sure if this could have been an issue or not. I did not notice the voltage before as I stand on carpet when working in the tank and was preventing a path to ground. As soon as I touched tank while standing on tile I got zapped.
Anyway I have made a large amount of water changes in the tank and also been running carbon. I personally think thi,gs are better now as some montis are showing improvement. There is much more algae growing on the rocks right now anditsclear nutrients are much higher than normal (stopping the np pro and pro bios and probiotic reef salt will have done this). Howstly have not tested parameters in a while now so don't know what they are... But with the large amount of water changes and having hardly any coral in the tank I'm sure things are not too bad.
Anyway, New year, New start to move forward. During this time I set up a 50 gallon frag tank (48x24x10) it is lit my a 3ft 8 bulb sunpower however it does not seem thesunpower is putting out what is expected for some reason. The frag tank itself has its own sump, but, that sump drains into my display tank sump. With the twist of a few valves and pushed of switches I can have the tank running as an isolated system or as conected to my display. I originally was running it isolated and moved some of my struggling acros out of the display and fragged them, dipped and placed in New frag tank... They still continued to slowly decline. I do have a couple New acros in there that are doing ok. I have now got rid of all my old acros from that tank and just a couple days ago I decided I will run the tanks as one system. I will see what happens to those New acros over the next few days to see if they decline (giving me an indication something is still up with old tank water). Whatever happens the acro frags will be taken out, even if doing well, so I can start a period of acro fallow to rid flatworms. This will also involve getting in the display and epoxying over the few bits of acro still surviving on the rock work.
I will also be re doing the plumbing of my 10gallon frag tank in a similar fashion to the 50 gallon so it can be ran isolated or connected. Again hoping to give it it's own sump for slightly more water volume. The plan is All tanks will be connected usually, but then I can turn the 10 gallon to a coral qt for New arivals and isolate it by turning a valve. Right now I'm trying to research the best acro qt procedures. BRS just did a pretty good video on this, but nothing was mentioned about repeated dips (weekly for example) which I would have thought was necessary for eggs. After all qt procedures are done I can then turn the valves again and run them connected once again. This is my hope to prevent any flatworms etc getting in again.
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slavetonet
New member
Sorry to see things went bad on your tank.
MichaelW
New member
Yeah not exactly sure why. Some corals I had had since I very first started reefkeeping. But time to look forward and re build.
Anyone now the best way to get rid of those annoying tube worms that leave webs all over our corals (forgot heir name right now) I have a few and as there isn't much corals in tank anymore it's probably a good time to try and address them.
Usernam Invalid
New member
Sorry to hear of the loss what a bummer. On the bright side have a blank canvas to start with. Like your idea on the QT/frag tank setup I run one of my frag tanks the same way.
Best way I have been able to manage those pesky tube works is to remove the rock they are on and chisel them off. Making sure every bit of the tube is removed if not they just come back. I have also noticed they will diminish in very low nutrient water.
Best of luck in the new year
Best way I have been able to manage those pesky tube works is to remove the rock they are on and chisel them off. Making sure every bit of the tube is removed if not they just come back. I have also noticed they will diminish in very low nutrient water.
Best of luck in the new year
kainic
Member
If you refer to Vermetid snails, the bumble bee snail (Engina mendicaria) is a predator. Thay will also predate on snails smaller than them.
reefmutt
Active member
Very sorry to to hear that it was a total loss, Mike.
I sincerely hope you rebuild this year. I'm sure you will.
How did your father in law's system do? Any problems for him?
Those vermitid snails are seriously bad news in sps tanks. That web they cast is very efficient at catching all that great stuff we add for the fish and corals and it will eventually stress an acro into decline.
The only thing that worked for me was the hammer and chisel method. Or crushing them with long nose pliers. Glueing over the opening won't work, they just make a new opening. They reproduce rapidly so now's a good time to make sure you eradicate them.
I didn't know about the bumble bee snails being a predator. Good to keep in mind!
Mike, new year, maybe a clean slate fts shot so we can compare in a year from now and be in just as much amazement as your past 'one year growth' shots.
Good luck! I like the sound of your system now.
I sincerely hope you rebuild this year. I'm sure you will.
How did your father in law's system do? Any problems for him?
Those vermitid snails are seriously bad news in sps tanks. That web they cast is very efficient at catching all that great stuff we add for the fish and corals and it will eventually stress an acro into decline.
The only thing that worked for me was the hammer and chisel method. Or crushing them with long nose pliers. Glueing over the opening won't work, they just make a new opening. They reproduce rapidly so now's a good time to make sure you eradicate them.
I didn't know about the bumble bee snails being a predator. Good to keep in mind!
Mike, new year, maybe a clean slate fts shot so we can compare in a year from now and be in just as much amazement as your past 'one year growth' shots.
Good luck! I like the sound of your system now.
MichaelW
New member
Thanks for the top I had not heard this. Do they prey on anything else (apart from smaller snails as you mentioned) that we might wish to keep in our reefs?
MichaelW
New member
Hey Matt nice to hear from you. Of course I will re build. Love this hobby even through the downs. In general I would say I have had mainly success, but this has been by far the worst "loss episode" I have had.
My father in laws tank seems to be settling down now. He runs more of a mixed reef than me and his lps are looking great. His sps don't hold the same colors I was keeping... But hey at least he still has some alive! Lol.
Yeah that a good idea I will take some shots of how things are now and to show the new frag system additions. However as I won't really add anything for a few months I will wait for my first installment of the "one year growth pictures" when some new corals are added.
The one problem I am having now is it seems the small amounts of acro that were encrusted on the rocks are actually coming back now...normally a good thing but in this case I want it fine so I can be fallow! Never thought I would say I actually want acro to die!
