Did I just recycle my tank?

[CamoFan]

Please move or delete this if in incorrect forum topic

I’ve lost about 3/4 of my stock after a 5gal water change and minor filter maintenance (replaced old quick clear with new and replaced nitrite/ammonia pads) and I rinsed the media in my filter water to remove large debris.

I scrubbed some algae of my rocks as normal and removed a large amount of it as well. I assume my higher phosphate is because I removed the hair algae. My corals are not happy and the remaining fish are at the top rear left of the tank.

Water testing showed I have the following:

Temp: 79F
Salinity: 1.021 read on Hannah and 1.026 on Red Sea (averaging it comes to 1.023
Ammonia: .2-.4ppm (Red Sea)
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate:0ppm
Phosphate: .15ppm
Alk: 7.0
No CALC or MAG tests

If I did recycle my tank (which I think I did), what can I do to preserve the remaining fish?

 

[Dburr1014]

(replaced old quick clear with new and replaced nitrite/ammonia pads) and I rinsed the media in my filter water to remove large debris.

Water change, no.

But can you expand on this?

How did you rinse?
And you replaced all the pads on the filter when you rinsed?

It's best to do one, wait a week, or at least a few days, then the other.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

no, you can't recycle a cycled tank. The bacteria is mainly in the rocks, a water change won't affect the bacteria at all. Fish should not die from any amount of water change, the problem is something else. Perhaps the water temp or salinity was not matched properly..... IDK

 

[CamoFan]

Water change, no.

But can you expand on this?

How did you rinse?
And you replaced all the pads on the filter when you rinsed?

It's best to do one, wait a week, or at least a few days, then the other.

I have an FX-4 canister. Before I dumped the water in my filter, I dunked the media in the filter body and rang it out a few times and scrubbed it with itself to get large strands of algae off. I did not replace all of the media. Only things replaced were the nitrite, ammonia and phosphate pads which are meant to be replaced every so often like the quickclear. The filter also came with ceramic media that is also another place for beneficial bacteria to house themselves.

I figured that a small water change and replacing 3 pads wouldn’t cause this. I lowered the salinity since it was high at 1.027 down to 1.023 (averaged)

 

[Stephen8169301]

salt at 1.027 is better then 1.023 how did you lower all at one shot?

 

[Stephen8169301]

You need to have a stable salt gravity reading if you don’t this is causing most if not all your issues

 

[KorD]

I am going though this right now, I have not lost livestock, but my tank is having a dino burst and it looks just like the ugly stage. I did. the rock cleaning, sand cleaning, and a 5 gal water change to bring up the salt salinity a little more. My tanks been going for three years.

 

[CamoFan]

salt at 1.027 is better then 1.023 how did you lower all at one shot?

I have a Hannah salinity reader that was recently recalibrated using the provided solution and I also have a hardly used Red Sea refractometer. Hardly meaning I’ve only used 5-7 times so it should not have wandered too far off of when I got it. Hannah was giving me a 1.021 and Red Sea gave me a 1.026. I average the readings, giving me 1.023. Both should be accurate so I’m having difficulty figuring out which is correct.

 

[52728299]

Please move or delete this if in incorrect forum topic

I’ve lost about 3/4 of my stock after a 5gal water change and minor filter maintenance (replaced old quick clear with new and replaced nitrite/ammonia pads) and I rinsed the media in my filter water to remove large debris.

I scrubbed some algae of my rocks as normal and removed a large amount of it as well. I assume my higher phosphate is because I removed the hair algae. My corals are not happy and the remaining fish are at the top rear left of the tank.

Water testing showed I have the following:

Temp: 79F
Salinity: 1.021 read on Hannah and 1.026 on Red Sea (averaging it comes to 1.023
Ammonia: .2-.4ppm (Red Sea)
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate:0ppm
Phosphate: .15ppm
Alk: 7.0
No CALC or MAG tests

If I did recycle my tank (which I think I did), what can I do to preserve the remaining fish?

A bit odd seeing elevated ammonia and no nitrates/nitrites. Don't think it would hurt to throw in some nitrifying bacteria.. how olds the tank?

 

[Stephen8169301]

I have a Hannah salinity reader that was recently recalibrated using the provided solution and I also have a hardly used Red Sea refractometer. Hardly meaning I’ve only used 5-7 times so it should not have wandered too far off of when I got it. Hannah was giving me a 1.021 and Red Sea gave me a 1.026. I average the readings, giving me 1.023. Both should be accurate so I’m having difficulty figuring out which is correct.

This is where you need to start before anything do you have a lfs?
There is no averaging salt gravity readings it’s needs to be set to one reading

 

[CamoFan]

A bit odd seeing elevated ammonia and no nitrates/nitrites. Don't think it would hurt to throw in some nitrifying bacteria.. how olds the tank?

Tank is at least 3 years old at this point

 

[CamoFan]

This is where you need to start before anything do you have a lfs?
There is no averaging salt gravity readings it’s needs to be set to one reading

I do, but there not open for another fee hours.

This is where you need to start before anything do you have a lfs?
There is no averaging salt gravity readings it’s needs to be set to one reading

I do, but they don’t open until 10am eastern time.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

A bit odd seeing elevated ammonia and no nitrates/nitrites. Don't think it would hurt to throw in some nitrifying bacteria.. how olds the tank?

When in doubt, microbacter out?

 

[GARRIGA]

Fish don’t start gasping from a salinity change due to WC. Why you have ammonia might be the test kit because that seems odd with no nitrite or nitrates. No nitrates seems really odd without means to be reducing it and algae alone isn’t doing that unless tank overrun with it.

I’d be less worry about what was removed and more concerned with what might have been added. Fish don’t just go to the top unless oxygen is being deprived.

 

[52728299]

Imo lowering salinity is usually not super detrimental to livestock. Much more so if raising it quickly imo. Just going off of your dkh reading I would guess the salinity is on the lower side of your testing but confirmation on what the reading is would be good.

But, you've lost a lot of livestock it sounds like and I personally see ammonia as more of a concern to me..

 

[Stephen8169301]

I do, but they don’t open until 10am eastern time.

Take your water sample there is your best bet but make sure they do all your readings and not with api test kits

 

[Gomez Adams]

1.021 read on Hannah and 1.026 on Red Sea

Get a reliable hydrometer. Seriously. That's a heck of a swing.

I scrubbed some algae of my rocks as normal and removed a large amount of it as well.

What did you scrub them with?

Are you sure somebody else, or maybe even you, inadvertently used that scrubber to do something else like clean the sink with some detergent or bleach?

Also, this:

And you replaced all the pads on the filter when you rinsed?

It's best to do one, wait a week, or at least a few days, then the other.

 

[Dburr1014]

I have a Hannah salinity reader that was recently recalibrated using the provided solution and I also have a hardly used Red Sea refractometer. Hardly meaning I’ve only used 5-7 times so it should not have wandered too far off of when I got it. Hannah was giving me a 1.021 and Red Sea gave me a 1.026. I average the readings, giving me 1.023. Both should be accurate so I’m having difficulty figuring out which is correct.

You should calibrate every time used.
Pick one, test for accuracy with the other.
Find out which is correct.
How did you calibrate each? Or how would you if you didn't.

With all the information, you didn't recycle, but as said, something else is happening.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, it’s not possible to undo a reef tanks ammonia control by removing filters a reef tank doesn’t need in the first place. Salinity shock and the irritants from partial cleaning of algae and maybe undisclosed sand disturbance is key, it’s not ammonia. The stated levels are not what a digital kit would read, those are the levels most people report from fully running reef tanks using those cheap kits especially after in-tank scrubbing casts around waste clouding and detritus and algae irritants and organics that make those kits misread. That specific gravity climb was very harmful, it would have been better to go up slow over four days time. Nice clue hunting from the troubleshoot group, nice catch on the salinity quick spike.


the harm from messing with inline filters in a reef tank isn’t from loss of bacteria it’s from partial cleaning that upwells waste back into the system, we could remove anyones entire filter system from any reef tank on this site leaving only the rocks as LCinder said, and the ammonia control would continue on just fine. We’d have to remove the filters in a way that did not reintroduce waste back into the system, and if the algae was significant we’d have done a tank disassembly cleaning to remove animals from the cleaning water before the job was done. Preemptive cleaning in small batches is best vs one big catch-up run plus salinity spike

 

[Garf]

I do, but they don’t open until 10am eastern time.

Your build thread indicates you’ve been losing fish to disease, but just a fortnight ago. You don’t think this is related?