Need Help ASAP!!!!

Noobtosalty

New member
Getting ready to go on vacation and my tank is frigging crashing the water is turning white-ish cloudy most of my corals aren't looking good at all The anemones and Xenia the fish seam to me doing ok.... WTH should i do i leave in less than 24 hours for vacation and i am freaking out!!!!! I only have a 10 gallon QT Tank!! Only thing that i have changed was i put new bulbs in my light on Thursday. I have water mixing as we speak for a water change What should i do?
 
And the water is kinda fishy smelling. I cant usually smell it but today i can smell in the bottom floor of my apartment
 
First, what are your water parameters? (temp,salinity,Ph,etc..). Second, I would have someone watch over your tank while ur gone... and might as well go w/ 50% change.
 
Check your equipment, make sure everything is working properly. Make sure your heater is not cracked, could possible be leaking electricity.
 
Did you add some of those corals you were talking about in the other thread? Maybe it put a strain on the system and crashed the bio. If you can get some of the bottled bacteria that aids in cycling and add it daily to boost the Eco system. What are your parameters? Nitrate spike? Ammonia ? Ph spike? Post your test results. And of course water change def something is dead if it smells bad. Try to find the source of the smell as best you can.
 
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The largest water change you can possibly handle might hold off disaster and I mean at least a 50% change. Any chance something has died in the tank? A big snail perhaps, or something like that? Your tank should smell like a clean beach, so if you have a foul smell, something must be dead. In a small tank like that, it could be your problem. Even if you have to rearrange rock to find something dead, it would be worth the effort. As luck would have it, the timing of vacation and tank troubles couldn't be worse. Do you have a reefer friend who could watch the tank while you're gone? You might just have to resign yourself to coming home to a total loss. I'm so sorry you're going through this.
 
i have a feeling that if those dates are correct in ur signature line, tank is barely 3 months old. whitish water and a fishy smell make me wanna say its just a bacterial bloom very common in new young tanks. i will fade away in 3-4 days on its own even if u didnt do anything. but for vacation purpose do a 50% water change and i am quite sure it would be alright.
do check for other signs everyone else mentioned like parameters ,cracked heater, over dose of some chemical or accidental dropping of something in the tank etc. but most likely if there is nothing wrong its bacterial bloom.
 
Did you add some of those corals you were talking about in the other thread? Maybe it put a strain on the system and crashed the bio. If you can get some of the bottled bacteria that aids in cycling and add it daily to boost the Eco system. What are your parameters? Nitrate spike? Ammonia ? Ph spike? Post your test results. And of course water change def something is dead if it smells bad. Try to find the source of the smell as best you can.

Yes i added 1/3 of the tank which is 2 piece's of live rock with assorted corals on it and a few frags and a few small zoa colony's. I am checking the parameters right now and i am setting up my qt tank
 
i have a feeling that if those dates are correct in ur signature line, tank is barely 3 months old. whitish water and a fishy smell make me wanna say its just a bacterial bloom very common in new young tanks. i will fade away in 3-4 days on its own even if u didnt do anything. but for vacation purpose do a 50% water change and i am quite sure it would be alright.
do check for other signs everyone else mentioned like parameters ,cracked heater, over dose of some chemical or accidental dropping of something in the tank etc. but most likely if there is nothing wrong its bacterial bloom.

its a different tank that has been setup for a while.
It's a 92 gallon corner tank with a 29 gallon as the sump
Would the lights have something to do with it?
I am trying to make as much RODI Water as i can right now!!!!! Its not pumping it half as fast as i wish it would!!
this is my biggest fear !!!
 
My parameters are the following
Temp 78F
Salinity 1.025
NH4 0.5 mg/l (highest its ever been)
Nitrate 25 mg/l (highest its ever been)
No2 0.0 mg/l
PH 6.5
 
Was the LR added out of water for a long time? Could be die off of the rock if it was out of water for a while. I would def get some bottled bacteria to aid in boosting the bio load . Add it after changing the water. And prime will help to stabilize the water if it's ammonia notate or nitrite.
 
PH 6.5 is that a typo? Do a water change as soon as you can. If you have to go to a LFS and buy pre mix do it if possible. If you have prime I would add it now at an elevated dose.and try to get that PH up with buffer or baking soda. JMO. But the numbers aren't that bad yet not great but not deadly. Did you add other lights or change your photoperiod.
 
The live rock that was added was out of the water maybe a total of thirty seconds.... Draining water now as we speak... And the pH isn't a typo
 
Should i change my Power compact bulbs to my old one's? Should i move as much of the corals that dont look good to QT?
 
That sucks man hope you get it figured out. The fishy smell is what makes me think something is dead. It could be PH alone leading to the crash. That's pretty acidic at 6.5 for a reef environment. A water change will help stabilize it but for now if it was me I would add a little baking soda to some tank water and stir it up and add it over the day to try to get the PH to rise up to where it should be along with water changes. you can use the reef calculator to get the amount of BS you would need to get to you target PH. What about alk and calcium did you test them. If you dose or have dosing pumps could it have possibly overdosed?
 
ph of 6.5 is acidic and thats what we use in cal reactors to strip elements off aragonite.
water changes, ph buffers what every u can do. also make sure ph kit is correct before doing anything. take a sample to LFS and have them double check.
 
It doesn't hurt them to be out of the water for the little time it takes to add your new water back in. They're out of water in the ocean during tide changes. Just make sure your new water is the right salinity and temperature before you change it.
 
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