Tank going to hades

[omreardon]

Alright, I had to go out of town last weekend for 4 days and when I got back my tank wasn't looking too happy, the sps polyps weren't opening and my rics weren't open totally either but I chalked it up to it being time for a water change. Did a 15 gallon change and waited for everything to get happier. Wrong.

Now none of the sps have polyps out, the rics are small, the zoas are closed and my frogspawn is barely out. A patch of diatom looking algae has appeared on the sand bead. My birdsnest sps has areas of the skeleton that are turning white and look to be dead. It looks very, very unhappy. The only things that look happy are my blue cloves.

I run a Sea Clone 100 protein skimmer in the sump and this week it has been pulling in significant amounts of clear/white bubbles and water into the collection cup, not skimmate like I'm used to seeing.

Specs:
46 gallon bow front tank
Aquatinics TX5 5 bulb T5 fixture (bulbs are a little old, need to be changed)
Sump with skimmer
Flow is from sump return and Korelia 2
Chemi Pure in sump

Livestock:
1 black occ. clown
various CUC
some sps corals, rics, frogspawn and zoas

Ammonia - 0
Nitrates - 8
Nitrites - 0
pH - 8
Calcium - 400
SG - 1.025

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Olivia

 

[cee]

Alkalinity? Magnesium?

 

[omreardon]

The only other test I have is KH which was 2...

Not sure if that is helpful at all.

Darn snow!! Can't get the water checked elsewhere...

Olivia

 

[cee]

If it is 2 dKH that could be your problem.

 

[omreardon]

KH = carbonate hardness

 

[acrodave]

that way low

 

[omreardon]

Okay, how do I fix it?

 

[acrodave]

buffer... but do it slowly

 

[omreardon]

define buffer... when I go to the store what am I looking for? Last time I was there there were lots of kinds of buffers

 

[acrodave]

if you get the kent marine its a liquid and called pro buffer. but any brand will work just say away from the powder stuff as it will raise it to fast

 

[omreardon]

Cool! Thanks Dave!

Olivia

 

[goreefer]

I use baking soda to raise my ALK.
It's much cheaper than any of the premixed buffers on the market. They mostly contain baking soda with a few additions.
All of the normal calculators list baking soda in their additions, and Randy Holmes-Farley also recommends it.

 

[omreardon]

Thanks.

I don't know my ALK, that's one of the tests I don't have. :-(

I'm heading out today with a water sample to the Coral Reef to have them test it, in case my tests aren't picking up something.

Olivia

 

[macclellan]

Alk is Alkalinity, which is KH.

Here's a conversion table for the three alkalinity-measuring units: http://ozreef.org/library/tables/alkalinity_conversion.html

 

[zaozao]

Have you checked the Temp?

 

[omreardon]

Thanks everyone!

I went by the coral reef and they checked my water and everything looks great except that the KH is low so I'm going to work on upping it. Everyone in the store was in on the discussion and we came up with the idea that there could be a toxin in the tank. Not sure what it could be but they didn't think that the alk was off enough to cause the level of issues I'm seeing. So I also got a couple of poly filters to try to get rid of whatever toxin is in there.

Keep your fingers crossed that the tank gets happier quickly.

Olivia

 

[planejane]

Hope everything is back to normal ASAP.

 

[GPhiAce]

HUGE warning, go slow in raising it. I nuked my tank by going to fast-- as I am sure Randy will not let me forget. Not sure of a toxin, but running carbon may help and how do you dose? and what salt are you using? RO water?

 

[EvilMel]

I have also used baking soda! But I didn't go quickly enough to nuke my tank...unlike Paul.

 

[omreardon]

Hey Paul and Mel (missed you at the store this weekend)!

I'm going slow in upping the alk, I think it's .5 meq/L every other day with the stuff I'm using. I'm using DT's Pure 3 step system. It has Ca, Alk, and Mg supplements.

I'm not running carbon but am using Chemi Pure and I have a package of Purigen I can throw in.

I use Reef Crystals salt and RO water.

I've had the Poly Filter in there for 24 hours and the filter looks the same so I guess it's not really filtering anything out.

The tank looks pretty much the same today. No better but not worse either.