Something is wrong with my tank..

ChefZilla

ChefZilla

Active member
Ok heres the story...Well im sure i messed up.
1st as you all know that i have a Cyano problem.. Corals were beautiful, Growing good, great colors... That was 4 weeks ago. Soo i read that dripping kalk water will help preciptitate phosphates. Soo i tried, Started with a low dose. 1/4 tsp for 1 gallon of top off dripped through out the night. Things started looking good. Getting more growth tips on my sps (mainly birdsnest) Good polyp extension, color ect.. Well 1 week in i changed my GFO, Went from 1 1/4 cup to 1 1/2 cup (again to help with cyano) And i also changed my carbon (1 cup) well 2 weeks ago i noticed that some of my sps was browning out, and having lil white "fuzz" on them that comes and goes (kinda like they were sliming but not creating the stringy slime) Also some zoas staying closed, And the ones that didnt seem affected i fragged them and they melted. Theres a few things that i think are the culprit..
1..dripping kalk
2. changing out the gfo and carbon at the same time.
3 My water store which had between .02-.03 tds water to .06-.08 at another store.
Here are my levels in my tank as we speak...
Nitrate and ammonia are 0.. Copper 0 KH at 8 PH 8.2 (tested at 8.0 this morning with no lights on) Calcium seems high but dont have the API chart (was 30 drops to make it blue, I understand that API isnt the best). salinity is 1.024-1.025 ( it jumps back and forth on my meter) Phosphates are in between 0 and .25 on api test kit. These are the only tests that i have (no magnesium or others)
Next thing im about to do is test for stray current in my tank but gotta figure out how. Soo if anyone has a complete test kit (not api) and can help me out it would be greatly appreciated! Ohh and i do monthly water changes of 25-30 gallons. And i just plumbed in a 24"x20"x8 frag tank (i think 14 gallons) with NSW. So i have a total water volume (minus rocks, corals, sand) of approximately 135-140 gallons of water. Thanks for the advice:wave:
 
Stability is key. immediately stop whatever you are doing, dosing, supplementing. test your water with a reliable test kit to get true results and bring the parameters to ideal values. ASAP!
 
Thats what im doing. No dosing, Doing 15 gallon water changes every week till it shows improvement than will change to 20 gallons every 2 weeks
 
Probably a none issue, but when I stopped being lazy and changed from monthly water changes to weekly water changes my corals really took off.
 
Did you test your alk? To me it is the most important test. I've been running a mixed reef and the only thing I test for is alk besides salinity and ph. If it is low the water changes will help. I use Elos and LaMotte. Don't trust the others.

I love kalkwasser. 1 tsp per 1 gallon of top off water every day. just my 2 cents
 
i thought cyano was actually a bacteria? so when you change gfo and minimalize phosphates it really wont make much of a difference??

kinda like a question to your question. sorry.

but one weird thing i noticed in my old tank was the only area that had cyano was the corner of the tank that sunlight would hit every morning.

but what about flow is there dead spots where the cyano is growing?
 
ChefZilla said:
Ok heres the story...Well im sure i messed up.
1st as you all know that i have a Cyano problem.. Corals were beautiful, Growing good, great colors... That was 4 weeks ago. Soo i read that dripping kalk water will help preciptitate phosphates. Soo i tried, Started with a low dose. 1/4 tsp for 1 gallon of top off dripped through out the night. Things started looking good. Getting more growth tips on my sps (mainly birdsnest) Good polyp extension, color ect.. Well 1 week in i changed my GFO, Went from 1 1/4 cup to 1 1/2 cup (again to help with cyano) And i also changed my carbon (1 cup) well 2 weeks ago i noticed that some of my sps was browning out, and having lil white "fuzz" on them that comes and goes (kinda like they were sliming but not creating the stringy slime) Also some zoas staying closed, And the ones that didnt seem affected i fragged them and they melted. Theres a few things that i think are the culprit..
1..dripping kalk
2. changing out the gfo and carbon at the same time.
3 My water store which had between .02-.03 tds water to .06-.08 at another store.
Here are my levels in my tank as we speak...
Nitrate and ammonia are 0.. Copper 0 KH at 8 PH 8.2 (tested at 8.0 this morning with no lights on) Calcium seems high but dont have the API chart (was 30 drops to make it blue, I understand that API isnt the best). salinity is 1.024-1.025 ( it jumps back and forth on my meter) Phosphates are in between 0 and .25 on api test kit. These are the only tests that i have (no magnesium or others)
Next thing im about to do is test for stray current in my tank but gotta figure out how. Soo if anyone has a complete test kit (not api) and can help me out it would be greatly appreciated! Ohh and i do monthly water changes of 25-30 gallons. And i just plumbed in a 24"x20"x8 frag tank (i think 14 gallons) with NSW. So i have a total water volume (minus rocks, corals, sand) of approximately 135-140 gallons of water. Thanks for the advice:wave:
Click to expand...

i have salifert test kits for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph ,alk, mag, calcium.let me know if you want to brinng some water to test it.
 
I think you might be changing too much at one time. Try not to make sudden changes and keep an eye on your alk around water changes
 
Danmartis. I'm going to have to take you up on that offer. Where in van nuys are you? And six2seven, yeag I think it was everything all at one time that caused my problem. That's why I'm going to be doing weekly water changes till it gets everything in order. Than I might keep the weekly water changes for a peace of mind
 
Well I went over to Danmartis house. And he checked some things. Well needless to say I figured out what was making my tank crash. It's my salinity. Was extremely high! 1.034. Well I asked him cause I had a hunch because yesterday I got out my old hydrometer and it registered off the charts. I went and grabbed my jbj meter and ran a test, said 1.025. I'm like ok cool but ill recalibrate it and retest. Calibrater it and still said 1.025. Soo now I gotta slowly reduce my salinity also buy a good refratometer! My question is how slow should I change out the water? I'm thinking remove 5 gallons of sw and replace with freshwater till its down to where I need it. Here's my other numbers taken with new salifert tests. Nitrate, nitrite 0. Calcium at 490 magnesium at 1500. Alk was at 7.3. A lil low but not going to dose anything till the water is at the correct salinity. A big thank you to Danny for doing the tests for me!
 
ChefZilla said:
Well I went over to Danmartis house. And he checked some things. Well needless to say I figured out what was making my tank crash. It's my salinity. Was extremely high! 1.034. Well I asked him cause I had a hunch because yesterday I got out my old hydrometer and it registered off the charts. I went and grabbed my jbj meter and ran a test, said 1.025. I'm like ok cool but ill recalibrate it and retest. Calibrater it and still said 1.025. Soo now I gotta slowly reduce my salinity also buy a good refratometer! My question is how slow should I change out the water? I'm thinking remove 5 gallons of sw and replace with freshwater till its down to where I need it. Here's my other numbers taken with new salifert tests. Nitrate, nitrite 0. Calcium at 490 magnesium at 1500. Alk was at 7.3. A lil low but not going to dose anything till the water is at the correct salinity. A big thank you to Danny for doing the tests for me!
Click to expand...
my pleaseure! i hope it will get better :) ,and thanks for the birdsnest i love it :).
 
When you lower your salinity all your parameters are going to come down.Going to have to take it slow,test and dose.
 
1.034! Holy cow chef. Pickling juice. Hehe. Drop it slowly especially if you got sps in there. I wouldnt drop more than 2 increments / 24 hour. 1.032... 1.030... 1.028... Etc
 
Chefzilla,

I have a refractometer from MD that I'd be happy to give you, if you need it.
I was going to sell it; but I'd be happy to see it go to a reefer that really needs one for their tank.

Send me a PM, if you'd like it.

Cheers-
 
Mike, no ato... My meter was off big time... Always thought I was keeping it calibrated with the solution jbj provided.. from what the solution says I was spot on.. but I guess not. :-(
 
Brent
I think I have a spare refractometer in my garage that you can use until you have your sitch under control or until you get a new one. I can bring it out when I come to see you. Let me know. Can your calibration solution go bad?
 
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