Bacterial bloom few weeks into cycling

[Chefnate]

Hi need a bit of help here. All was fine with the tanks and water levels etc. I added corals and a piece of live rock, also a red starfish and a fire shrimp. All was fine last night. Woke up this morning and they’re all dead, corals seem ok and on further inspection I find worms on my rock and corals, tank parameters are all over the place. Are these ok or are they pests?

After being spot on yesterday, my water parameters now are :

Ph 7.4
Ammonia 2.0ppm
Nitrite 0.5ppm
Nitrates 20ppm
All done on api kit.

Do I need a full restart??
Any help greatly appreciated

 

[Brew12]

Hi need a bit of help here. All was fine with the tanks and water levels etc. I added corals and a piece of live rock, also a red starfish and a fire shrimp. All was fine last night. Woke up this morning and they’re all dead, corals seem ok and on further inspection I find worms on my rock and corals, tank parameters are all over the place. Are these ok or are they pests?

After being spot on yesterday, my water parameters now are :

Ph 7.4
Ammonia 2.0ppm
Nitrite 0.5ppm
Nitrates 20ppm
All done on api kit.

Do I need a full restart??
Any help greatly appreciated

I'm sorry for your problems.

I highly suspect the ammonia is what caused problems with your inverts. Corals and algae can consume ammonia so it would be less a problem for many of them. That is likely why they look fine.

Was the tank cycled prior to adding the piece of live rock? Did the live rock piece stay wet the entire time? It looks like you may have had some die off from the new live rock which caused the ammonia spike.

And those look like bristle worms. Some people don't like them but as long as their numbers don't get too high I like having them. Nice part of a CuC.

 

[Brew12]

Do I need a full restart??
Any help greatly appreciated

Oh.. and to answer this... no, you do not need a full restart. You just need a little more patience. Give it a month or two before adding any live shrimp and a few extra months before adding a starfish. Starfish especially will do better in a very mature stable system.

 

[Deep dive coral]

Hi need a bit of help here. All was fine with the tanks and water levels etc. I added corals and a piece of live rock, also a red starfish and a fire shrimp. All was fine last night. Woke up this morning and they’re all dead, corals seem ok and on further inspection I find worms on my rock and corals, tank parameters are all over the place. Are these ok or are they pests?

After being spot on yesterday, my water parameters now are :

Ph 7.4
Ammonia 2.0ppm
Nitrite 0.5ppm
Nitrates 20ppm
All done on api kit.

Do I need a full restart??
Any help greatly appreciated

First things first. Deep breath.... good..... now that you have calmed a little bit you just experienced what is called a mini cycle. All is ok. When you added all of those creatures at one time you shocked your system. We have all done it. Leave the rock and the bristle worms for now with the few corals. They will be fine. Add a dose of bacteria if you still have any. If not go out and get microbacter7. Almost all reputable salt water stores have it. This will normalize your tank again.

When adding new friends slow is better. Especially for a new tank. Where did you get the LR from?

 

[Deep dive coral]

Also your PH is a bit low. Try to bring that up to at a minimum 8.12

 

[LAReefer4Life]

Let it cycle and be super patient. I waited 12 weeks after adding Live Rock/CUC before I added any fish.

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

 

[Chefnate]

Hi so, apparently my starfish etc is all very much alive, bar the fire shrimp. I’m now getting an algae by the looks of things and hermits are covered in it? Any advice?

 

[Deep dive coral]

That algae is good. Means the tank is doing its thing to become established. Just be mindful of feeding right now. Try not to over feed.

 

[BeejReef]

That's some nice rock. U dun good!

 

[Chefnate]

So just done a test after having issues before, so almost a week and a water change later. My ammonia has seemingly gone through the roof.
It’s sitting around 8ppm!! No nitrites and the algae seems to be growing rapidly compared to last pictures I posted

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

at this point with the fluctuation that you have had with your parameters, I would buy a second test kit for your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I know its extra money, but I don't believe you're throwing it away... a different test for reference is a good thing just incase. I would also want to check the other parameters like the big 3 (Alk, Calcium, Magnesium) as well as phosphates. if all your parameters are out of whack, you need to try and do your best to bring them back in order slowly, SLOWLY...…. i'm sorry you're going through this but its a new tank and you need to be patient ( I know everyone keeps telling you that, but its the truth! I was hard for me but nothing good every happens fast in this game.....

 

[Chefnate]

at this point with the fluctuation that you have had with your parameters, I would buy a second test kit for your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. I know its extra money, but I don't believe you're throwing it away... a different test for reference is a good thing just incase. I would also want to check the other parameters like the big 3 (Alk, Calcium, Magnesium) as well as phosphates. if all your parameters are out of whack, you need to try and do your best to bring them back in order slowly, SLOWLY...…. i'm sorry you're going through this but its a new tank and you need to be patient ( I know everyone keeps telling you that, but its the truth! I was hard for me but nothing good every happens fast in this game.....

Do I need to vac my sand??

 

[Brew12]

Do I need to vac my sand??

It looks like diatoms. Not much you can do other than add a few snails. Once the free silica in the tank is consumed they will die off. It's part of the new tank uglies and is actually a good sign.

 

[Chefnate]

It looks like diatoms. Not much you can do other than add a few snails. Once the free silica in the tank is consumed they will die off. It's part of the new tank uglies and is actually a good sign.

Ok that’s cool, I just need to test my water AGAIN‍And see if I can add some snails

 

[Darth.Daddy12]

Hi all, new to marine aquariums.
Just after a bit of advice if I may. The water was crystal clear for quite a while, while tank is cycling. All of a sudden it’s become cloudy. Bacterial bloom?? Normal and clear on its own?

Also, I’ve had contradictions on which way to face the wavemaker. I’ve got it facing towards the pump inlet ?

I’ve got a fluval evo 52ltr

Deleted cause lost moved on few weeks and much of what said has changed..

Update.. something is wrong with testing.. 8ppm ammonia and I don’t even thing algae would be thriving..

Are you rinsing out the test tubes every time? The fact you can’t keep PH stable is concerning.. you don’t have enough water movement for gas exchange.. turn pumps up as high as you can just before blowing sand around with outlets pointed towards surface..

Smell your tank.. doesn’t it smell foul? At 3ppm you would smell your tank from across the house.. at 8ppm you should need a respirator to be in the same room with the tank lol.. I don’t think your at 8ppm..

You have way too much life in the tank to have ammonia that high.. everything would be dead.

 

[Chefnate]

It looks like diatoms. Not much you can do other than add a few snails. Once the free silica in the tank is consumed they will die off. It's part of the new tank uglies and is actually a good sign.

Just a question, so I’m obviously going through what seem to be stage 4 of 6 of cycling, and starting to get whisps of hair algae growing. I just checked my water and the ammonia is of the chart, with nitrites appearing also. Any advice or leave it be?

 

[Brew12]

Just a question, so I’m obviously going through what seem to be stage 4 of 6 of cycling, and starting to get whisps of hair algae growing. I just checked my water and the ammonia is of the chart, with nitrites appearing also. Any advice or leave it be?

You pretty much need to leave it be. The algae will help lower ammonia also. I think having a little algae in a tank is a good thing prior to adding fish.

 

[Barnabie Mejia]

You pretty much need to leave it be. The algae will help lower ammonia also. I think having a little algae in a tank is a good thing prior to adding fish.

Agreed, I think the only thing you need to be doing right now is testing your water.

Did you get new test kits yet? also whenever you are done testing, it is good practice to rinse the cuvettes, vials, etc with RODI water.
I usually dump and rinse mine in the sink, and then final rinse them in the RODI water and then hang them to dry.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Do a good water change, lower whites on the lights, and add a good bacteria culture to aid in seeding tank such as Dr. Tims or fritz turbo zyme 900. As HotRocks mentioned, Take 2 steps back and let tank iron out.
Do NOT let impulse get the best of you. My main tank is a 660g and even i have to go slow.
THERE IS NOTHING FAST WHEN IT COMES TO SALTWATER.
Being on R2R, while you are awaiting your next introduction in your tank, do read the many forums and read of others successes and failures as a guide for moving forward.

 

[Chefnate]

Do a good water change, lower whites on the lights, and add a good bacteria culture to aid in seeding tank such as Dr. Tims or fritz turbo zyme 900. As HotRocks mentioned, Take 2 steps back and let tank iron out.
Do NOT let impulse get the best of you. My main tank is a 660g and even i have to go slow.
THERE IS NOTHING FAST WHEN IT COMES TO SALTWATER.
Being on R2R, while you are awaiting your next introduction in your tank, do read the many forums and read of others successes and failures as a guide for moving forward.

Just a heads up, two different test kits for ammonia the difference is phenomenal!!
Api kit reads excess of 8.0ppm
Salifert reads 1.5ppm