tank crashed now what.???

[jimbo78]

So last Wednesday/Thursday I lost almost everything. Not sure why, I have my guesses. Here is the events leading up to it. Started the tank about 6 months ago . Its a 60 g cube with a 25/30 g sump. I used dry rock and dry sand and seeded it with rock from my somewhat neglected nano. After the cycle and addition of fish/feeding I had a huge bubble algae outbreak transferd from my nano rock. (Stupid me I know better but wifey made me rush). I tried emeralds but wasnt s=ing enough progress. I ended up pulling almost all the rock out and scrubing it. Couple weeks after that I had a huge cyano outbreak that seemed to be only where the bubble algae had been. So after that I got a phosban reactor. After a week or two I hadn't seen much change, and with my wife constantly asking ( why is there the red stuff) I added half to 3/4 dose of chem clean. I think my mistake wss not throwing a filter sock on at that point was the killer. The cyano started to die off and cloud the water. Skimmer went nuts and I turned it off for a while. The water stayed pretty cloudy bet fish and corals seemed happy. Then..... last Wednesday my wife gets home and call s me to say 2 anthias are dead. (They were eating out of my hand the night before). . I get home and the other anthias is there and my pair of clowns seems stressed. Bye the time I ate dinner and got my son to bed the other anthias went floor surfing. I had 6g on hand and did a water change and in the morning the clowns seemed ok. Next day my wife gets home and clowns are dead.i had put a couple jugs in my car and got another 12g of nsw, and the next day changed 20g.
I finally got socks delivery and they were red super fast. During this whole time no test was off par till the first 2 anthias died and everything had seemed ok even with the cloudy water. When the first fish died there was a ammonia spike to .25 ( basically just enough to register). I tried putting a poly filter in to sèe it it would show some outside cause color change but nothing. The only thing that makes sense is that the amount of dead cyano caused a o2 drop. 6/8 red filter socks later my last two corals and invertes seem ok and the water is clear.

 

[jimbo78]

Been a week and test are fine, how long should I wait to get more fish? I could have a qt up right away or skip and move
my last two corals in a tank and add fish to my main and do hypo if necessary

 

[knukles55]

The thing with this hobby is simply waiting just from my old experience throwing so much at the tank at a tIme throws off all the bacteria growing in the tank. like you stated before the fish probably jumped out due to depleted oxygen from the red slime remover that product should be used with an air stone for depleted oxygen. I just dont believe in all these products that take away problems to me its just a patch and doesnt take care of the source. I wouldd see if your bulbs needed replacing and cut down the light cycle a little more with a nice hermit crab and snail crew ready. I know I just crammed a bunch of information in a few sentences but in your current situation since youve just done those big water changes I would let it run its course cut back on the lights and feed less and just wait a while before you start stocking slowly.

 

[jimbo78]

The o2 levels were the only thing that makes sense to me also. The weird thing is that none of the invertes seemed to be affected. Still have hermits , snails , emeralds, and cleaner shrimp. I have been putting a small amount of food in every couple days .

 

[rovster]

Wow, lots going on there. Did you pre cure the dry rock? If not you may have been fighting a losing battle from the beginning and just made it worse with all the changes and chemicals. Properly treated dry rock won't fuel these outbreaks. You can do the time before, or do the time after, but you'll be dealing with a lot of these outbreaks and based on the countless threads like this, you can't really fight it. Sorry to hear. Another thing I will add is that anthias are very delicate and require pristine water. Something I question was even there to start. Sorry about your loss.

 

[elviraveloz]

My tank is already 2 1/2 years already and I can't keep Anthias alive, very picky and delicate fish. NOT FOR A BEGINNER.

 

[Sagz70]

I would say turning the skimmer off was a bad thing. With Chemi Clean I read that it depletes your oxygen a lot so you should add a bubbler or let your skimmer run and let it overflow back into your sump for oxygenation.

I used chemi clean on my last tank that had a bunch of SPS, LPS, Softies, Inverts, and Fish. I lost nothing at all and I added an air stone and let my skimmer run through out the whole process. Also did a large water change 72 hours after my dose.

Sorry for your loss though, it's tough when you have such a big outbreak but hopefully you learn from it. At least it gives you a reason to upgrade!

 

[nivram]

Just skimmin your thread I saw you used chemi clean. I believe lack of oxygen may have plaid a part in your losses. Sorry to hear about that I always suggest to people to throw a air stone in the tank when using products for red slime removal.

 

[AquamanE]

IMHO- it all started with a "not ready" biological load.

When tanks are new you have to ignore the red and green cyano. Its just part of the biological cycle. Compound the lack of biological filtration you throw in other oxygen depleting products.... its a receipe for disaster.

Then one top of that you add Anthias, a very delicate species of fish.

Sorry to say, it was all expected.

 

[silver17jo]

Sorry buddy good luck

 

[jimbo78]

IMHO- it all started with a "not ready" biological load.

When tanks are new you have to ignore the red and green cyano. Its just part of the biological cycle. Compound the lack of biological filtration you throw in other oxygen depleting products.... its a receipe for disaster.

Then one top of that you add Anthias, a very delicate species of fish.

Sorry to say, it was all expected.

I know I rush ed things a bit. But I had also gone through the normal expected cycle. Diatoms , hair, and cyano. If anything I had over "feed " during cycling process. I wanted to over produce bacteria. My only regret is that I had a couple bubbles of bubble algae on the lr that I seeded with. My over feeding during the cycle caused such a bubble outbreak that my wife was constantly in my ear about it. Everything was testing perfect, corals and fish wrre doing great til I added the chem clean( thanks fmas raffle). Had I known about the o2 concerns I would have done it different. . Going forward I will try to not let the wife pressure my to adding stuff.

BTW Eddie, I have a gurka cellar reserve for you , and if you haven't yet you should try a rapture. ..

 

[canesfan44]

I agree with everyone else. I got into this hobby more than 20 years ago and have made a whole LOT of mistakes in that. Rule #1 for me is patience. I wait no less than 6 months before adding any fish or coral to a new tank regardless of how quickly, or slowly, the tank goes through the initial cycles and algae outbreaks. I've made the mistake of prematurely stocking new tanks several times of the pat 20 years. It's one of the most difficult parts of starting up a new tank, especially with constant peer pressure to add fish and corals, but I learned my lesson (I should say lessons because it definitely happened more than once). In my opinion, the two most important words and ideas in this hobby are stability and, of course, patience.