This close to giving up....

[jeffrey_ropp]

I went to see the good folks at Vivid Aquariums today (in Canoga Park, CA). Though they don't offer any water testing services, my conversation with Dave, the owner, seems pretty helpful. Here's a summary of his thoughts and my next moves:

1) Like many have suggested the rapid snail death indicates something toxic. He recommended a Poly-Filter. If copper is present, the filter should remove it and change to blue. It will also remove other contaminants. Any idea how long it would take to show blue (or other colors)? I've positioned the filter in my internal overflow, so all water is being filtered.

2) I'm also going to use PhosGuard for the first time to lower phosphates (which my useless Salifert can't detect because it doesn't stay in the water as many have noted). As of this afternoon, I have a bag filled with 1/2 liter sitting in a filter sock.

3) Reducing my lighting to 8 hours/day from 12.

A few other notes and responses to some of the questions.
1) I have never treated the tank with anything. Its been in my possession for a few years.
2) The snails have been removed. The hermits added at the same time appear to be fine.
3) While battling the cyano over the last couple months, I've noted that the rock has quite a bit of green algae growing on it. Once uncovered, my small yellow tang goes for it. It also reminds me of rock during cycling as lots of detritus appears to be present as well. Would this exist given the shortage of clean-up crew crabs and snails?

Thanks again for your thoughts, questions, and encouragement. I'll continue to update this thread as things change.

 

[The REeFFers]

JEFF your going in the right direction with this but, I really think people haven't expressed the light issue to you enough. all i did was cut my lighting in half and it was gone in 2 weeks. i remember reading that cyano is photosynthesis or along the lines of that. what kind of lighting are your running ? MH, T5?? because 8 hours is still alot. I run 8 t5s in total. with only 4 hours a day having all 8 to be on, and the other 4 hours being 2 bulbs. so yes the viewing time it up there but the time that the cyano can grow at this full rate is low

 

[Spssteven]

You might want to reduce your light another 2 hours from 8 to six just till you fix your problem.

Also phosgaurd isn't any good, it doesn't work like at all. Sorry.... Try to get another brand Like rowaphos or warner marine phoshar. Ever brs gfo.

Poly filter great idea. I would also try to find someone to test you water too.

Good luck

 

[jeffrey_ropp]

12 days later and it seems that things are moving in the right direction.

Changes
1) Ran the Poly-Filter for a week, but did not detect any copper, iron, nor aluminum.
2) Reduced my lighting to 8 hours per day.
3) I've been running PhosGuard in a bag for 2 weeks.
4) Recalibrated my refractometer and found the my specific gravity was quite low: 1.022. This apparently resulted from my salt mix and was perpetuated by the inaccurate measurements.

Observations
1) The cyano is basically gone!
2) All the hermits that were recently are active and seem healthy.
3) I tried adding another Trochus snail and acclimated it over a 3 hour period. Later I found that the stores SG was 1.027 and my tank was only 1.022. He died 2 days later and was obviously not in good shape right away. Still unsure of the cause of death.

Next Steps
1) Slowly raise my salinity by topping off with SW. Target = 1.024
2) Replacing my 11 month old T5 bulbs
3) Running GFO in a reactor
4) Running carbon in a bag

If I had to guess at this point, it seems that my tank was unhealthy as a result of a few factors which I'm correcting. I'll keep posting so that others might benefit.

Please let me know what you think.
Thanks,

 

[gumbii]

good to hear you're doing stuff to fix it, and not doing to the tank what your avatar is doing...

 

[sharkE]

i have stray voltage in my tank... only thing that is showing any type of noticeable suffering is my neon green TS... i think i need to just run a grounding probe and be done with it... not really sure what is causing the issue. i know that my UV is adding some voltage into the tank but I think that there are other things (pumps as well) that might be contributing... grounding probe FTW

 

[solitude127]

Good to hear.

 

[firereef]

Hang in there man! Firereef loves you.

 

[slick6669]

No one really asked how old your tank was? Or did u add new rock to cause a mini cycle but if things are going in the right direction it's good to hear! I had that happen right after my tank cycled anything touched my water and died...idk why but got thighs going good had a cyano outbreak and used some redslimer remover and was back to normal