My first HUGE mistake!

[Floridaboy704]

Well as most of you know, I have the Aquapod 24. My reef has been up and going well for over a month. As most of you seen my other post, yesterday was an awesome day with the new addition of a false perc that I named Tank!

Yesterday was also the day that I decided to do my first filter mod on my system. It involved taking out the stock sponge and implimenting filter floss instead of the sponge. The stock sponges were huge and did not even filter very effectively. The floss works wayyyyy better than the sponge ever did at removing particulate matter. Well this morning I noticed my tank was just not as clear as it should be. I did catch the stromatella spawning again so that could be one reason. And second the calupera that I have in my in tank fuge seems to be wasting away, I see a lot of particulates in the fuge and the algae its self is turning pale... I have no clue why, but it is. Anyway more on topic...

I think that changing the sponge and adding the fish all in the same day caused a mini spike in ammonia. My params are:

Ammonia .25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
pH 8.0
SG 1.025
Temp 77-78

No corals look stressed, and tomorrow is my water change day anyway, should I bump my water change up to today?? Do you guys thing the spike will get worse??

Oh one other thing that may or may not be a factor. The chemi-pure was laying on the bottom of the chamber. I moved it to the 2nd tier of my filter mod (pictured below) so the chemi-pure would get good flow and eliminate dead areas in the bag. Do you think this is another reason??

Below is my DIY filter mod. I got rid of all of the bio-balls, ceramic media, and one of the two stock sponges when I first set this tank up some time ago. Only yesterday did I get rid of the last sponge and use filter floss on the first tier which is directly under the built in over flow. 2nd tier is chemi-pure... i removed the third tier completely.

Anyway I hope my spike wont get worse and my tank clears soon! Any ideas?

 

[Electrobes]

Maybe your culerpa went sexual? They waste away and dump their contents out into the water column fairly quickly.. try using carbon?

 

[Floridaboy704]

I am running chemi-pure elite. Everyone said that it is carbon and better than carbon so I thought I was doing the right thing??

Should I remove the caluerpa and go with cheato??

 

[mauls]

You think removing your filter media may have done something with the cycle?

 

[bsbarton]

My best guess is that removing all the media is causing the mini cycle.
I have carpula in my tank, Several times a week I give it a good shaking up. Rotating it around. All Algae will die off in the middle, lack of light and flow.

 

[HumbleLobster]

If you have something like AmQuel I'd suggest using it, it'll help with the mini cycle you are having. Marine life are very sensitive to ammonia, not so much to nitrite and nitrate.

When you removed the bio balls, did you add any live rock or anything like that to replace the biological media?

Also, how much live rock do you have in the display?

 

[kar93]

AmQuel is definitely something i'd recommend i had high nitrates and i started using AmQuel and they came down in no time.

 

[Floridaboy704]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12366542#post12366542 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by HumbleLobster
If you have something like AmQuel I'd suggest using it, it'll help with the mini cycle you are having. Marine life are very sensitive to ammonia, not so much to nitrite and nitrate.

When you removed the bio balls, did you add any live rock or anything like that to replace the biological media?

Also, how much live rock do you have in the display?

Let me clarify a little more, Im sorry... I removed the bio-balls and ceramic media and one of the sponges a long time ago when the tank was set up. I only left one of the sponges in for mechanical filtration. I have 25 lbs of LR in the tank from the beginning. When I bought the LR it came from a well established tank of 4 years. The owner even gave me all of the LS that I needed from the same reef. I also took 10 gallons of water directly from his reef when he did his water change so only half of the 20 gallons were new sea water. Needless to say I never even had a noticable cycle in my tank, thats why I got quite alarmed to see just a small spike. I check my params every once to sometimes twice a day to two days just to make sure. So I did not remove all of the filtration material at once it was done in the very beginning except for the one small sponge I just removed yesterday. Sorry about not being so clear

As of now the ammonia has dropped a little and my nerves are resting a little better. I suspect with my normal water change tmw will resolve the issue completely.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12366131#post12366131 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bsbarton
I have carpula in my tank, Several times a week I give it a good shaking up. Rotating it around. All Algae will die off in the middle, lack of light and flow.

Thank you very much for that tip. I actually did not think about that at all. I havent messed with it since I put it in. And the die off is probably what is causing some of the snow in my tank as well.

Geez what would I do without you guys!!
Thanks a million!