need help asap

[wawruck]

John got up this morning and tank is not doing well. We have a Nitrate spike and have no clue why. If someone can call asap to give us a clue. To give as much background, tanks been set up for approx. 6 months, was set up with live sand, LR, and red sea water, water changes are every two weeks. Last water change was yesterday, was a 2 gallon change. This morning John added in a thing of chem-i-pure, and did a 1 gallon water change, and added in another capful of prime. The only test we've doe is a strip test, I am going to start the better test as soon as I post this. After testing I will post levels.

Liz

931-431-9073

 

[JohnnyW]

A little more info on this:
The fish aren't looking bad at all (yet). Waving Hand and Kenya Trees are both looking quite crappy. The Waving hand is pretty hardy so when I noticed it looking really shriveled up, thats what made me rush to start checking water conditions. Besides some phytoplankton being added yesterday, there has been no other food added just yet. We feed one frozen cube every 3 days to the fish and target feed a the candy canes and anemones. We haven't had made any major changes to the tank or anything. I removed a little of the excess LR to help seed the new tanks that are cycling now. The only addition lately has been a small hairy mushroom frag from Terry and Terrie.
Only other change is the water. Before now, the water has been primarily red sea from Pet Palace and occasionally instant ocean. Yesterday was the first time that we used our setup here at the house. We have a Kent Maxxima RO/DI hooked up and we are using the SeaChem Reef Salt.
Tank is a 24 gallon aquapod with:
25 lbs LR
30 lbs LS
Sponge, bio-ball, and ceramic rings for filter media.
Also been running active carbon for a few months.
Just put in one unit of chemipure this morning to try and get things right again.
Hope some of this helps.

 

[Sk8r]

Sponge and bioball and rings are likely part of your problem. Filters build up nitrate. Somebody check me on this, but I'd rinse all of the above in salt water, as probably where the nitrate is coming from. I know I'd look to get rid of them [gradually], raising level of live rock to 1 lb per gallon. The filters only retard the ability of the live rock and sand to do their job, because they alternately take the detritus, and then clog up and don't, and they never build up the bacteria that breaks it all the way down to gas.

 

[wawruck]

we have enough LR in there, 25 pounds in a 24 gal. aquapod. I haven't done the water test yet, as 3 kids have been running me around. My question with rinsing off the sponges is that I thought that the bacteria growth on them was good.

 

[tmcghee]

I would suggest a larger water change as soon as you can. Test your RO/DI water for nitrates, then when you mix up some Red Sea or Instant Ocean for the water change, test it for nitrates to see if the salt mix is OK.

Terry

 

[wawruck]

T&T,

Just tested the mixed SW from the tub that it mixed in (same water that was used in the water change yesterday). Water came out just about perfect, no high levels of anything. So it doesn't seem to be the water going into the tank, it is something within the tank that is causing it.

 

[tang fever]

If you're positive that your new water supply is ok, then I agree that a 25% or more water change would be a good idea. Just make sure that the temp and salinity is very close to tank especially when doing larger quantities.
If your water supply is in fact good then something in your tank has most likely stirred up your sand bed.
You may just need to ride this out. Don't do anything too drastic.

 

[Angela Short]

This happened when I took out some LR from my nano and stirred up the sand bed pretty good. Caused a mini cycle and my stuff shriveled up pretty bad but pulled through. Do you mix and areate your water well before doing the change? Newly mixed SW that hasn't had time to mature can just cause more problems in a small tank. I would let it mix with a PH a minimum of 24 hrs before I do another change. I bet you realeased more junk from the sand than you thought if you took the rock out recently. Doesn't take much disturbance to release toxic junk. Also my anthilia didn't fare well at all with chemi clean for red slime but sprang back in time. What is chemi-pure? That may be the culprit.

Yes your sponge and rings have good bacteria on them but with LS and 25 lbs of rock you have more than enouph bio. Like mentioned before they tend to just trap the food/deitrus away from the things that can process it like the clean up crew so it just rotts and fowels the water. The tank can process the tiny amounts of ammonia it makes very well but not the buildup of nitrates/trites. Hope this helps some...

 

[wawruck]

The water was mixed and left for right around 72 hours before being used. It is mixed in a 32 gallon rubbermaid trash can, with a maxi-jet 1200 powerhead and the temp. is maintained.

That may be why then, we took the rock from the bottom back, and it might of stirred up to much.

Will keep updated.

thanks, Liz

 

[Angela Short]

I hope it levels off. My nano went nuts when I messed the sand bed up moving some rock around so I bet that had something to do with it.

 

[JohnnyW]

I don't know if moving the rock around did it. We have had to almost completely tear down the tank and move it at least twice so far, not to mention the once or twice that I had to rearrange most of the rock due to corals being to close together and affecting each other.
After everything though, it seems like the nitrates have begun to drop slowly for now. Waving hand still looks like poo though.
Thanks everyone. Will let y'all know how everything is looking tomorrow.

 

[APFish]

How old is the rubber made? Phosphates leach from these pretty bad. Also, sand is a sink for nitrates, I agree w/ everyone else do a 20% water change and ride it out. How about dead stuff? Anything missing?

Rob

 

[wawruck]

Well to give an update.

It looks like almost everything survived. We still have 2 kenya trees that aren't back.

Also our yellow clown goby that wasn't eating has disappeared now.

Last test the nitrates were between 20-40 which is still higher than I'd like but the tank doesn't look stressed now.

 

[SRT80]

Try some seachem stability. When I set my 10 gal up. I used dry base rock and live rock from my tank. It went through a mini cycle. Was showin 10-20 nitrates. After using the stability, the nitrates went to 0. Just follow the directions on the bottle. I know petsmart sales it. Hope it helps.

Steve

 

[JohnnyW]

Thanks everyone. The nitrates have dropped significantly now. The waving hand and the kenya trees have started to return to normal. The waving hand isn't as open as it was before, but it is almost there.
Before the nitrate spike, everything was all accounted for, but a day or two later, our small yellow clown goby went missing. My wife used to call it "sunshine", but I told her that I changed its name to "crabfood". Been over a week since the last time anyone has seen it, and he's not hiding in the overflow or anywhere else that I can see.
So far it looks like everything is stabilizing back out. Hope it stays that way.