9 month old tank cycling again?

[mandylv23]

I have a 40b FOWLR that's approximately 9 months old. I haven't added anything new in months. It's a HOB filter system with LED lights that are adequate for the tank since I have no coral. Salinity is perfect, we have a refractometer, temp is 78-79. Nothing has changed.
Stock: 2 clowns
1 yellow tang
1 6 line wrasse
1 small long yellow and black striped fish (never could ID the fish)
For the pat week the ammonia has been off the charts! We do not over feed, we do regular scheduled water changes. About 1 month ago we lost our chocolate chip star. What would be causing it to cycle again?

 

[brandon429]

http://reef2reef.com/threads/new-ta...d-cocktail-shrimp-live-rock-no-shrimp.214618/


It cannot recycle, cause ammonia spikes that is, unless you have dosed meds to the tank, an unreasonable waste store amount has been stirred up such as a sandbed or loss of a large animal

Per that thread above you have not lost bacteria at all
You have either a faulty test reading or you have a large dead animal in the tank, or a problem with source water. By eliminating bacterial loss right off the bat you narrow the cause down to probably two possible options, don't rule out false test reading lots of reef tank additives cause false readings. Show a tank pic

Even small amounts of true free ammonia make fish pant unable to breathe. No fanworms will be opened up, dead fireworms and pods about...you don't even need a test kit to see the effects of true ammonia poisoning as all life forms visible in the tank will indicate free ammonia by either dying or indicating obvious stress. It's the most toxic of params we work with

A massive fish bioloading and too small surface area can cause your issue, but not in retrograde after nine mos. tell us about your fish behavior, snails and crabs, small animal behavior. Seeming ammonia riddles are never hard to locate and trace out. Ammonia is the single most predictable compound we work with in reefing you can assess it biologically and correct it all without any test kit. But if one is consulted, it must not be API ammonia

 

[mandylv23]

Yellow tang started hemorrhaging, that was my first indication being I had just tested water a few days before. The only thing that had died was the star fish and it was one of those magical disappearances.....just noticed after a few days he wasn't around anymore....ammonia spikes happened about 2-3 weeks later....nothing else was changed, moved or stirred....
Since two water changes (20%) in the past week and a half my tang is looking normal again but ammonia is still highly elevated. As for source water we have a RODI system.....we use it for all 3 of our tanks and none of the others have had any problems....no dosing is done in this tank because we have no coral or other reason to do so....we only have about 8-10 crabs.....had more but they have dwindled down over the months.... Star fish are a few, others were picked apart by larger hermits, etc.

 

[mandylv23]

 

[brandon429]

Nice detail. As we continue tracing the starfish is a potential valid source, and timing is set by decay variables etc it can range and delay. We see people in shrimp cycling threads get all kinds of delay in spikes etc, and it takes quite a bit to overcome nine mos establishment time.

I believe your readings with the supporting details in my opinion use binders and adsorbing media until decay is complete, or take tank apart in non recycle order of ops and clean out the source.

 

[mandylv23]

Binders? Carbon?

 

[brandon429]

They make poly pads for ammonia, liquid dosers as well


Shockingly nice looking tank that's a heck of a rock stack to work with

Also, it's amazing that much live rock could not process the required ammonia boost, are there any fanworms alive to glean detail about recent ammonia history from

 

[brandon429]

I'm shocked one starfish could overpower that much rock

 

[mandylv23]

I was wondering if maybe part of my problem was because I didn't have a protein skimmer on this tank? But phosphates are not noted, I also use reef crystals to mix our water....

 

[brandon429]

A protein skimmer would have helped. Extra aeration to meet increased biological oxygen demand due to decay, and by exporting proteins before decay-some but not all. Agreed so far these are compounding factors in your reading. It's fascinating biology that even before details given or pics, ammonia is traceable 100%

 

[mandylv23]

Never had any fan worms....and that's why I'm also stumped on what's going on....TDS meter reads 5 on our RODI... My other two tanks are thriving.....the only difference is this one doesn't have sump or protein skimmer.....this is our 20 Year olds sons tank....which we do 100% of maintenance (go figure) lol

 

[mandylv23]

Hers a few pics of other tanks

 

[brandon429]

Your ammonia here can be arrested at the source by taking apart that fine rock structure and retrieving the goodies

 

[trido]

Brandon gave some solid advice above and I really agree that it seems you should have enough rock to do a pretty good job of handling a die off shock from the starfish. I have to ask how big is your HOB filter and because of that I wonder if you have low Ph due to a lack of skimmer and aeration that might be causing part of the issue.

 

[mandylv23]

It's an Aqueon 75 on a 40b

 

[mandylv23]

I've been trying to talk my son into letting me at least upgrade to a canister filter, I'm sure that would help....I will also try to replenish my CUC and maybe pick up some poly pads tomorrow, if ammonia continues to give me grief I will try cleaning LR, I just didn't want to mess up my bacteria anymore than it already is....

 

[mandylv23]

I have some crushed coral in HOB to help keep PH stable.....PH reads 8.2-8.3

 

[brandon429]

The coolest part of that initial link is that you just boosted your bac, not lessened it. Bacteria do not go away after addition unless meds or desiccation is at play. If you ceased feeding that aquarium for nine years, but left it still open to share air with the general room, in nine years it still has nitrifers. That's probably six or more football fields worth of convoluted surface area all laid flat, fascinating aspect of good quality live rock. There are complexes of several strains of bac at play, mixed in various scum layers competing with cyano and all kinds of critters that constitute contamination.

Bugs and skin cells and other non marine bacteria and fungi and all kinds of flotsam get into the reef and are protein based, this how tanks both self seed and self feed during fallow periods

You had a source of protein rot/denaturing that overwhelmed the current bac, feeding them nicely for one round at the expense of the higher order animals comfort.