Did I just recycle my tank?

[CamoFan]

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

I lost the one clownfish to brook and the other clownfish I had to put down because she didn’t eat for a long while. No other fish showed symptoms of being sick after that and they were eating well and active. Unless I’m missing something, I didn’t see any signs to show sickness.

 

[Garf]

I lost the one clownfish to brook and the other clownfish I had to put down because she didn’t eat for a long while. No other fish showed symptoms of being sick after that and they were eating well and active. Unless I’m missing something, I didn’t see any signs to show sickness.

Ok, assuming you’re correct, have you induced a bacterial bloom that is stealing the oxygen in the water?

 

[brandon429]

Sickness is assumed until preps are ran to exclude it, its that bad nowadays. Quarantine and fallow

the entirety of the disease forum is how to prep tanks against disease, how adding any single coral or snail from a pet store brings in new disease / how the tank + all entrants have to be fallow prepped before addition into a display. if current fish had disease it’s a good detail catch to note that along with current fish stress, the combo of events that happened. Rule out ammonia stress

we see patterns developing in disease forum posts where even tanks that went years without fish disease get an outbreak from a deep tank cleaning, somehow latent disease can be kicked up and expressed during tank cleaning runs if the basic disease preps were excluded at the start of the setup or during its stocking phase.

 

[Dom]

I'm curious to know what was the last fish you placed in the tank and how long ago was that?

 

[Salty_Northerner]

@CamoFan what's the pH of your water?

This is what I would do in your situation. Test the water which you've already done. Take some sample water to your lfs which you're doing.

Toss the phosphate and nitrate pads in the garbage and just use some type of floss to collect the waste from your tank.

Place a bag of activated carbon in your filtering device. Take your gyre and place it near the surface of the water and get a lot of turbulence happening for gas exchange. Grab a bottle of bactor 7 or Fritz zyme 9 and add it to your tank.

A little side note, do yourself a favor and grab a tropic Marin floating hydrometer and that will give you your precise salinity every time. Don't trust your refractometer and properly calibrate your Hannah tester.

The carbon will get rid of anything that you or somebody else may have accidentally introduced into your system and putting your pump as close to the surface of the water to agitate it violently to do gas exchange and by adding some beneficial bacteria should turn things around within a couple days. This advice is what I would personally do.

Best of luck and I hope this turns around for you quickly.

 

[CamoFan]

I went to my LFS. Their results using the reef master kit from API mirrored my results except my pH was low. 7.6 when my kit was saying 8.0. Bought some Dr. Tim’s one and only for the ammonia which was .04ppm and buffer.

Turned my gyre and filter output higher to move some more water and put a bag of carbon in alongside the carbon disc that comes with the filter. I’ll run a pH test after a few hours and report back

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Sounds good, can't wait to see what your results are.

I have a strong feeling you're going to turn your system right back around very shortly.

 

[CamoFan]

Sounds good, can't wait to see what your results are.

I have a strong feeling you're going to turn your system right back around very shortly.

The surviving fish are swimming about the tank now and have eaten. My GSP is opening back up and my Duncan has stayed open. My 2 zoa frags decided to stay shut. Salinity is 1.023 and whatever algae I have in the tank is turning white and dying off.

I’ll give it 2-3 weeks before I start adding fish back to my tank. I really miss the Midas blenny and royal gramma. 2 extremely awesome fish and I will be adding them back once I get my tank straightened out.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

The surviving fish are swimming about the tank now and have eaten. My GSP is opening back up and my Duncan has stayed open. My 2 zoa frags decided to stay shut. Salinity is 1.023 and whatever algae I have in the tank is turning white and dying off.

I’ll give it 2-3 weeks before I start adding fish back to my tank. I really miss the Midas blenny and royal gramma. 2 extremely awesome fish and I will be adding them back once I get my tank straightened out.

Sounds like you're on the right path my friend! By myself only add half the recommended dose of Fritz zyme 9 when I do a 10% water change and I find my nitrates really drop to a desirable level while maintaining or basically teetering on the phosphorus/phosphate level of .020ppm

Keep us updated as this has been a learning curve for myself as well.

 

[CamoFan]

Sounds like you're on the right path my friend! By myself only add half the recommended dose of Fritz zyme 9 when I do a 10% water change and I find my nitrates really drop to a desirable level while maintaining or basically teetering on the phosphorus/phosphate level of .020ppm

Keep us updated as this has been a learning curve for myself as well.

I use prime as my dechlorinator but I don’t usually dose bacteria when doing water changes but I think I’ll start doing that now. I’ll probably pick up fritzyme myself and use that for water changes. The Dr. Tim’s should work fairly quick though.

Out of curiosity, I decided to do a pH test with fresh reagent and it looks like my pH went from 7.6 to 8.0 - 8.2 after 1.5-2 hours of the recommended dose of 2tsp of seachem buffer. So, I’m happy with that.

 

[brandon429]

If two sources are using test kits searchable to be found in 1000 ammonia misread threads here, it means you're twice as likely to be misled into buying cycling bacteria by using old cycling science

Can you post a full tank shot, we use those as offset to non digital nh4 test readings in false cycle stall study threads. Nh4 isn't supposed to be zero, on those test kits, in a running reef.

Reef tanks eat up ammonia in 15 mins yours didn't warrant extra bacteria, the cycle isn't the cause here. Same goes for pH

Can we get a full tank shot
(Fts=a surface area verification. Your rocks about to be shown well past the cycle date handle ammonia control just fine even without digital ammonia test kit verification. We know this by looking up the test readings from seneye owners who use the same rock stack about to be shown in the full tank pic)

 

[CamoFan]

Update:

Temp: 80F
Salinity: 1.022 SG
pH: 8.3 (from 7.6)
Ammonia: .02-.04
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 1.5ppm (from 0.0)
dKH: 8.8 (from 7.7)
Phosphate: .07 (from .18)

Seems like things are returning to normal albeit rather quick. The duncan is open a bit (majority of the heads are open) but since the night lights are on, it’s reaching for light. The GSP is opening up slowly but both my zoa frags are closed tight and I assume that once nitrates start coming back up, they’ll open. Fish have retreated to their nighttime spots and have been eating well again.

I’ll do some more tests in the morning and report back.

 

[CamoFan]

Tank seems to be the same over the course of the night. But, ammonia seems weird to me. Measured it at .4 - .8 this morning using the Red Sea marine care kit when it was .2 - .4 yesterday. Used the API this morning and it read .50. It seems a water change is in order but I’m seeing no ill effects on the fish. I dosed Dr. Tim’s one and only yesterday.

Duncan is open and GSP still thinking about opening. Zoas still closed. I’m attributing the zoa closure and GSP not coming out all the due to the presence of ammonia. I’ll do a 25% WC today.

Temp: 80F
Salinity: 1.022 SG
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: .4 - .8 with Red Sea, .50 with API
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 1.2ppm
Phosphate: .07
dKH: 8.8

 

[CamoFan]

FTS as one suggested

 

[CamoFan]

Update

A 25% water change was done yesterday around 10am. GSP has come out completely, duncan remains out and both the zoa frags are thinking about opening up since I saw some color instead of the grey polyp. I’ll do another 25% water change on Sunday and see where we are. Hoping that the zoas will be out when I get home from work tomorrow morning.

 

[Garf]

A temperature probe stuck on the glass with a sucker is scary to me. I cable tie mine to a small anchor rock, to keep it submerged.

 

[CamoFan]

A temperature probe stuck on the glass with a sucker is scary to me. I cable tie mine to a small anchor rock, to keep it submerged.

I now have it super glued using cyanoacrylate super glue. Won’t be budging anytime soon.

 

[lodestone]

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?

I just thinking if not disease related. Maybe cleaning the hair algea did it. when the algea is in full bloom, it's growing absorbing all that nitrate. While your canister filter has a lot of media, it's growing bacteria that's making the nitrate from nitrite. Cleaning all filter elements sometimes kills that, while you do have beneficial bacteria in rock it just does not have that output your canister does, like direct contact. I going to assume nitrite or nitrate spike. So I am thinking it did a mini recycled of your system. I could be wrong but sounds like it.

 

[lodestone]

I went to my LFS. Their results using the reef master kit from API mirrored my results except my pH was low. 7.6 when my kit was saying 8.0. Bought some Dr. Tim’s one and only for the ammonia which was .04ppm and buffer.

Turned my gyre and filter output higher to move some more water and put a bag of carbon in alongside the carbon disc that comes with the filter. I’ll run a pH test after a few hours and report back

Anything below 8ph could be a bad for your reef and saltwater fish.

For reference I watched this about ph.

https://www.youtube.com/live/hTQI6z7jEfw?feature=share

It's made me view pH a bit different then I use too. While not saying it's your main cause something is causing having ph 7.8 or lower I think. I am learning as well.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Tank seems to be the same over the course of the night. But, ammonia seems weird to me. Measured it at .4 - .8 this morning using the Red Sea marine care kit when it was .2 - .4 yesterday. Used the API this morning and it read .50. It seems a water change is in order but I’m seeing no ill effects on the fish. I dosed Dr. Tim’s one and only yesterday.

Duncan is open and GSP still thinking about opening. Zoas still closed. I’m attributing the zoa closure and GSP not coming out all the due to the presence of ammonia. I’ll do a 25% WC today.

Temp: 80F
Salinity: 1.022 SG
pH: 8.2
Ammonia: .4 - .8 with Red Sea, .50 with API
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 1.2ppm
Phosphate: .07
dKH: 8.8

Your salinity is pretty low... Especially for coral. Slowly raise it to 1.025-1.026. your nitrates and phosphates are low as well, especially for soft corals that like dirtier water.

And fwiw, coral uses ammonia for food so small amounts of ammo in the tank aren't the reason your coral isn't opening.

Also, I've had GSP and zoas close up for a week or so after a move... they can be like that so you may not need to do anything.