need help bigtime tank crash!!

J

joshnano

New member
Unfortunately something has gone terribly wrong with my nano reef. About two months ago things started to go downhill polyps started to close up and not open. This is when i started to try and cure the problem i reserch things that may be lacking from the water.
I was doing weekly water changes of 25% with natural seawater and nothing else. I fed the fish every three days and i was running three powerheads for flow, T5 lighting and a tunze nano skimmer that was working well.
Since then i have tried making up my own water using an rodi unit and coral marine salt but then things only got worse. I have also tried adding trace element mixes to the water, I have completely renewed the argonite with new live stuff and i have recently taken the inturnal filter box out because i thought it may be causeing nitrate.
Some recent tests:Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0PPM
Nitrate was 5ppm but now 0ppm
PH 8.2/8.3
SG 1.026
I am really upset and confused and i dont know what has caused this, my tank was running fine with plenty of corals and fish, now i am reduced to one fish, a few closed up zooanthids and mushrooms and one shriveled leather, there is also no coralline left.
Please give me some help and/or any suggestions.
thanks for reading.
 
Maybe you are doing too much. When you do things like replace the sand and mess with the filter you may be upsetting the bacterial balance in the tank. Most of the time it isn't stuff lacking from the water but too much nutrients.
 
IMHO the natural seawater might have caused the problem. By the time you started making your own water it was too late.

I would start over using synthetic seawater only.
 
rcmike has a point. I would listen to anyone that can fly a helicopter inverted! No really...I would get rid of the leather for now...they can really slime up a tank thats in trouble. Then, just do 20% water changes every week and NOTHING else for at least a month. I will bet you that everything will end up back to normal by the end of that time. Remember...just water changes and NOTHING ELSE.
 
Forgot to ask...when you say natural seawater...you mean water you got from the ocean or some of that boxed natural sea water from a manufacturer?
 
There are lots of people who have been using NSW for years with no problems. I am not saying it wasn't the problem but it is unlikely unless it was collected from a polluted area. Are you getting it close to shore or a ways out?

Mark426, That isn't my helicopter, it is Alan Szabo Jr's. I can hover inverted but haven't got the hand of flying around inverted yet. Maybe this year I'll figure it out.
 
OH MY! Ocean water! Thats what got you pipped at the post.
You were just lucky for time you used it. Like Dragon said, you just dont know what the heck is in water straight from the ocean. Please dont do that. Try the 20-25% water change EVERY week with synthetic salt and your ro/di water. Do this and nothing else from now on. No dosing, no additives, etc.
 
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is there a way i can tell if the rodi unti is actually rodi or just ro because i bought it off ebay NEW but i came with limited information as it was foreign
 
to see if your rodi is bad check your tds with a tds meter. m sure there are other methods but that is the main one im aware of.

EDIT: I just reread your post and realize that my info was for bad water and not to tell the difference between RO and RODI. To tell the difference see if there is a DI resin in one of the canisters
 
I am thinking your ocean water may have caused the crash. Recently, a sewage treatment plant dumped thousands of gallons of untreated sewage into the bay. This incident was on the news. When they investigated, they found out that it had dumped sewage a few weeks before. So you never know what could be in the water.
 
Sounds to me as if something has poisoned the tank. Are you running carbon?

I would make sure that your RO water is actually clean. Get a TDS meter and an add on DI. If the TDS of the RO is not to spec (hard to tell with imported stuff) then replace them with name brand cartridges.

Do a few 100% water changes a couple days apart. Try to get the temp and salinity the same before the changes. Run a lot of carbon and filter floss.
 
100%? a couple days apart?

I'm no expert, but I think you must have meant 10%

There could have been anything in that sea water, and the RO unit could also be infected (again, I'm no expert)

I have used tap/salt mix for over a year with no problems whatsoever (knock on wood)

I would do 10%-20%, once a week with plain ol tap and see what happens. that RO unit could be bad
 
No, I meant 100%. If you get the water close then it wont really matter. The stress is likely going to be less than whatever nuked the tank. I'm no expert either but I would solve the questionable RO system then try to rid whatever is in the tank as quick as possible. As the poster described it, the tank is almost dead already.

I would drain the tank to the bottom, and fill it back up. I would put the one fish that is left in a bag while doing this.

Not something I would recomend on an established healthy reef by any means. The posters tank is anything but that IMO and might have been slowly poisoned over a couple of months.
 
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