My whole tank is crashing!!!!! (Pics Included)

[IansAquatics]

Ok so with in about the last 3 days my tank has completely crashed!!!!! All of my coral is dying/melting/bleaching. Then today all my inverts are dead 2 Fireshrimp, 3 turbo snails, All Hermits, and i have no apparent trace of any pods remaining when a week ago i had a flourishing abundance. Also on a side note which I also find strange all my macro algae is dying as well.

Now let me kind of give you a back story. About a week ago, my tank was running low on water so and was started to suck air so i just put some dasani sealed wated bottles in my sump to bring the water level back up. This is generally the way i do it until i can get water, because i made the mistake of turning off the return pump one day and half my tank drained into our floor so i dont do that anymore. anyways to make this shorter eventually i ran out of water bottles and had to resort to just turning off the pump and putting my heater in the DT in front of a power head and left like that for 2 days until i could get some more water.








Right here is the before this was taken about 2 months ago.


Ok so here is where things suddenly go bad. Let me first start off by saying that i dont dose my tank with anything hardly ever with the exception of chemiclean which ive used twice before over the last 3 years and never suffered any ill consequences. Infact most of my corals looked even better and ive done stupid things like leaving it in my tank for extended amounts of time almost a month before a water change and still nothing bad has ever happened.

so about 2 weeks ago i dosed my tank with some chemiclean and i always use a very conservative amount i generally dont go anywhere near the recommended dosage. So for instance my tank is a 125 with a 30 gallon sump, total water dispersion is roughly 150 gallons and the directions say i level scoop per 10 gallons. So i only did about 9 scoops and waiting a week or so and it had almost eradicated all of it except for a patch on the right side of the tank. so then i added 5 more scoops which is still under the recommended dose for my size take.

ok so heres where the diagnosis of my tank failure becomes unclear atleast for me. the same time i added the second dose chemiclean was about a day before i completely ran out of water and was forced to turn my return pump off. so my theory is , is that it possibly didnt get recirculated all the way through untill i turned my pump back on there in turn zapping my tank but even then i was under the recommended dosage so im still not certain it is the man cause. so since my lfs was closed for the fourth weekend i had to resort to going to wally world and i got 6 gallons of distilled water to get my water level back up to where i could turn my return pump back on. also the same time i did this i changed out my gfo which i hadnt done in about 3 months simply because its expensive and my tank was looking incredible but figured what the hell why not change it out while im doing everything else.

So here are my possible outcomes
1. chemiclean it the main culprit
2. the distilled water from walmart was bad
3. Replacing the GFO shocked all my corals by drastically lower phosphates levels.

But Im still not sure about any one of these. because like i said before ive used chemiclean with wonderful results. ive bought distilled water from walmart a lot with no ill effects. and once before when i was an idiot was using tap water and i had gha covering my tank and i bought some phosorb to get rid of my phosphates and it did shock my corals for about 3 days but nothing died.

Also i have bullet proof corals when i was still new to this, its amazing i didnt kill anything. But now that im fairly experienced everything has gone all to hell. i wasnt worried that much intil i woke up this morning and all my xenia was dead well over a sqaure foot just melting. all my zoas are closed up. my torches are melting my anemonies are exploding. i really just dont know what to do at this point. ive already lost about 600 dollars worth of coral in about 3 days. another thing my water is pretty cloudy not really cloudy, but not crystal clear like normal which i thought was odd.

in an attempt to fix everything i did a 50 gallon water change. hoping that chemiclean was the cuplrit but things have only gotten worse since my water change and i also started running 2 bags of carbon hoping to pull out anything bad in my water. any help guys would be awesome.

 

[apstreck]

Unrelated to your current question, but how are you moving your water from DT to sump? You should be able to turn off your return pump without losing any water... what happens if you have a power outage?

 

[whosurcaddie]

Well sorry to hear about the decline in your tank. I'm betting its a combination of all three that has sent it spiraling downward. I'm sure you know this but reef tanks are meant to be stable no big changes everything done in moderation to keep as stable an environment as possible. You changed three things all at once. In the future I would stop using chemiclean altogether. Regular water changes is all that's needed to keep a healthy tank clean and stable. I'm talking as little as 5 gallons a week. I would get an ATO system or have a way to keep your water level from dropping so drastically. You want your salinity to be stable not constantly swinging from one spectrum to another. And lastly I would buy your own RO/DI unit I recommend the 4 stage value plus from BRS. Its so much easier to be able to make your own water.

 

[IansAquatics]

i use i believe a deeep blue 1500. and i have gate valves and check velves on my tank. just where ive never used them they sealed up. also it normally never overflows. there was just this one instance where somehow it back siphones through the main return outlet.

and i know stability is the key in this hobby. like i said i just thought chemiclean was the main culprit so i wanted to get it out as fast as possible,

 

[apstreck]

I've read that check valves have a tendency to fail with saltwater applications. What I did was drill a tiny hole just below the water line in my return...yeah you lose a little bit of the flow coming out of the nozzle, but in theory it will break the siphon as soon as the water level drops to that line.

 

[shesacharmer]

I can't reach the valve to shut mine off, it's behind the canopy, so I turn the inflow nozzle up as high as it will go so that once water level drops below the level of the top of the overflow it breaks the siphon. I did that until I learned what all the proper levels for my tank were to avoid an overflow in case of power outages...which we have frequently.

 

[Mrramsey]

Sorry to hear of your problem. I am new to saltwater as well. I agree with the others that is was a multitude of issues that contributed to this. What are your current water parameters? Salinity, pH, Nitrates, etc...


I am making my next comment for others that may be reading this with a similar problem.

This is an expensive hobby when it comes to your livestock and a healthy tank. A tank crash can cost you big. I have chosen easy corals for my skill level in the hobby but even with that choice they do require stability. Make sure that you have the proper tank setup and this would include an ATO and a readily available source of RO or RO/DI water.

Depending on how your sump is designed and how much of your systems water can evaporate before you were adding water could drastically affect your water parameters. for instance. My return chamber at the worse case will lose 2 gallons of water if my ato failed and the pump started sucking air. In my system thats like 1%. Now if my return chamber was so large that I was evaporating 15 gallons now my system is off by 10%, salinity is now at a hypersaline level, nitrates etc are at higher concentrations as are any items that are being dosed.

Maintaining a proper water level is a critical part of the system and in the grand scheme of things pretty darn cheap compared to the $600 of lost corals in this case. My ATO tops off when 1 pint of water evaporates in my system thus my params are rock stable. One thing is for sure in this hobby... it pays to plan for these things well in advance.

 

[animalkingdom]

I think a few things are at play here as well. First off you really need to look into the design of your tank, overflow, and sump. Properly set up you wont need check valves and the sump will contain all the water that can potentially back siphon.

The main reason for your crash is low dissolved oxygen. Chemiclean crashes your dissolved oxygen and without a return pump going your water agitation is minimal worsening the effect. This also probably had major affects on your pH as well. The oxygen levels will kill the fish and in time coral, but more likely your coral is suffering from a pH swing.

In conclusion get your tank plumbed in an appropriate manner to prevent too much back siphoning, make sure to always keep your tank well aerated when using chemiclean (better not to use it), and keep an eye on your salinity (your current description makes me think it may fluctuate a lot).

One other thing, get the bottles of distilled water from walmart rather than dasani for emergency top off, drinking water has a lot more contaminates than distilled water and the distilled gallons at walmart are cheaper.

 

[Amoo]

I'm not trying to kick a man while he's down, as I really do hope you can save what you have left in your tank, but $150 for an ATO and $150 for an RO/DI and we may not be having this conversation. You've already lost twice that so far and are in danger of losing more. Good luck man.

 

[Zer0.]

I'm not trying to kick a man while he's down, as I really do hope you can save what you have left in your tank, but $150 for an ATO and $150 for an RO/DI and we may not be having this conversation. You've already lost twice that so far and are in danger of losing more. Good luck man.

yup. as someone else said Bulk reef supply value plus is like 150 bucks, makes 75 gallons a day of 0 TDS water (in my short experience) and has all the extras you want i.e. membrane flush kit to extend dowmembrane life, pressure gauge, and dual inline TDS meters. And yes I spent a whole 150 bucks on my ATO, but I love this AutoAqua Smart ATO, It works great, comes with pump, and uses optics so there are no moving parts, also has built in failsafes in the programming. Good luck

 

[Zer0.]

or you could DIY ATO and probably spend 1/10 as much money like it looks like Mrramsey did. If you do go with float valves make sure you get a second backup shutoff float valve in case the first one fails and put snail guards on them.

 

[pete33]

$51. Only been using it for 6 months but no problems yet.

http://autotopoff.com/products/DS1/

 

[DrBoxedWine]

I get nervous making a DIY ATO. This is definitely a personal thing, and it depends on how confident you are in your handyman skills, but piece of mind is an amazing thing and definitely has a value. I'm planning on going with a Tunze ATO, but the Hydor one is under $100. A worthwhile purchase when you consider the alternative (potential flooding). DIY stuff is a lot of fun, but unless your tank is on a concrete basement slab where no water damage can occur, i'd leave the projects to more seasoned vets.

BTW, seriously sucks about your tank dude. It sounds like the others have helped figure out the problem, don't let it chase you out of the hobby! And also, I admire your determination to keep a 125g without having your own RODI Hahaha.

 

[Zer0.]

I get nervous making a DIY ATO. This is definitely a personal thing, and it depends on how confident you are in your handyman skills, but piece of mind is an amazing thing and definitely has a value. I'm planning on going with a Tunze ATO, but the Hydor one is under $100. A worthwhile purchase when you consider the alternative (potential flooding). DIY stuff is a lot of fun, but unless your tank is on a concrete basement slab where no water damage can occur, i'd leave the projects to more seasoned vets.

Agree ^

The thing that kept me from trying the hydor one is the funky electircal plugs (no ground). From what i read you have to use their water pump.

Check out the AutoAqua Smart ATO, its kinda pricey at $150 but I'm loving mine. Got it on a QT tank with no sump, and the optics still work great on the very agitated water at the top of the tank. Also price isn't that bad considering it comes with its own pump that works well. Looks like its actually about $50 cheaper than the tunze you were considering. The unit itself looks nice too (however it doesnt really matter if your just going to stick it in sump )

 

[Sk8r]

First thing when facing a tank crash is to get all viable specimens out to clean new water, and never mind cycling: just do frequent water changes and test often. That done, clean out the dead stuff, which will take the bio-pressure off the ailing tank.

Chances are if you do that fast, the sick tank may do a halfhearted cycle or just recover and come back strong.

 

[DrBoxedWine]

As someone else mentioned Prime does a great job binding the ammonia until the bacteria can break it down. The only problem is that only lasts 24-48 hours, so you'll need to dose pretty much daily. I do water changes along with this so the prime concentrations don't get really high. This was in a freshwater tank where large water changes aren't as big of a deal, however.

And yeah i like the Aquasmart Smart ATO, my only concern is that it's new to the market. I had a tank break in my living room, and now I'm SUPER paranoid. My main reason for going with the Tunze is that its' been around the block, and it seems to last for the long haul.

 

[MellowReefer]

You added 6 gallons of fresh water to your system at one time, and you are wondering if the store sold you bad water? yeah, bad because its FRESH water and your tank is salt water. That much fresh water at one time would be enough to change the salinity quite a bit and kill all inverts. You need to at least top off twice a day if you don't have an ATO.

 

[IansAquatics]

none of this was constructive in the least(with the exception of a few). my plumbing has nothing to do with the issue. im not new to this hobby, ive had a very nice tank for a quite a while now with no issues. and to address the the whole chemiclean sucks out all the oxygen in the tank. i know this is why i ran two massive air stones and still have them in place. thirdly when i said i put dasani water bottles in my sump. im talking about sealed water bottles. strictly for water dispersion thats all. i didnt actaully put drinking water in my tank. and finally whoever said that adding 6 gallons of rodi water to your tank all at once will drastically change your ph is just plain dumb. maybe if it were a 20 gallon tank yes, but not 150 gallons of water. i do weekly 7 gallon top offs every sunday and have for over 2 with wonderful results.

i was simply wanting suggestions as to what you guys think couldve crashed my tank, not every ones opinion on what the best plumbing set up is.

 

[Heliman]

Just take a deep breath and stop to consider that all the comments about effective plumbing ARE very constructive. After all, if you had a conventional, fail-safe plumbing set-up, with an in-house RO/DI unit and auto top-off, then you would not have had the situation where you are doing unconventional /dangerous things to compensate for a less than effective plumbing set-up.

Omce you start wandering away from tried and trusted methodology you get quickly into a dark place in this hobby.

The respondents/posters are all trying to help you avoid a recurrence by getting the basics right.

Please dont shoot the messenger.

 

[albano]

So for instance my tank is a 125 with a 30 gallon sump, total water dispersion is roughly 150 gallons...

At this point I'm not sure what happened to your tank, but, especially if you're dosing anything, you should know your actual tank volume.
A 125g reef tank does not hold near 125g and a 30g sump (which most people run sumps at a lower volume) is probably 1/2 that.