Frag Tank Meltdown

[Hubtech]

Hey Guys,

Woke up this morning to about 10 Discoma melted in my 8 month old frag system. The system is pretty simple, 50 Lowboy, single powerhead, HOB with marine pure, and a bag with the remaining MarinePure balls in it. So, I checked Nitrate and it was 0, so I assumed my tank was simply too clean, fed the tank and left for the day (had a few appointments). Get home this evening, get the kid to bed and start to dig into the problem and discovered ammonia.... I dosed prime (10ml) and will go snag a bottle or 10 of biospira in the morning.

My acan are looking kind of ticked off now.... I've been stockpiling frags and growing them out for months now...

WHAT DO I DO? There are 3 fish in the tank, Yellow Tang, Lawnmower Blenny, and a Sixline

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

20% water change. Match alk.

 

[Hubtech]

Sorry, meant to say I did a 10g water change as well!

 

[xPhilx]

Hey Guys,

Woke up this morning to about 10 Discoma melted in my 8 month old frag system. The system is pretty simple, 50 Lowboy, single powerhead, HOB with marine pure, and a bag with the remaining MarinePure balls in it. So, I checked Nitrate and it was 0, so I assumed my tank was simply too clean, fed the tank and left for the day (had a few appointments). Get home this evening, get the kid to bed and start to dig into the problem and discovered ammonia.... I dosed prime (10ml) and will go snag a bottle or 10 of biospira in the morning.

My acan are looking kind of ****** off now.... I've been stockpiling frags and growing them out for months now...

WHAT DO I DO? There are 3 fish in the tank, Yellow Tang, Lawnmower Blenny, and a Sixline

Oh No! I'm not a pro in this area, but ammonia is normally from extra proteins in the tank from either over feeding or dead livestock. My goal would be to find the source of the ammonia. Advice I have read say to do a water change of at least 10% right away too. Are your other readings in line?

 

[rock_lobster]

The ammonia is from the dead shrooms. But your on the right path. Big waterchange, prime(keep dosing daily until no ammonia detected), keep testing daily. No telling what caused the initial melt.

 

[Hubtech]

Yeah. cal is 400, alk is 7.8 which is where this system stays. nothing dead, I'm honestly not sure what has happened. hopefully prime will detoxify it for the night until I can go buy a case of biospira in the tank tomorrow

 

[xPhilx]

Yeah. cal is 400, alk is 7.8 which is where this system stays. nothing dead, I'm honestly not sure what has happened. hopefully prime will detoxify it for the night until I can go buy a case of biospira in the tank tomorrow

Keep us posted. Wishing your tank a speedy recovery!

 

[Hubtech]

will prime inhibit the repopulation of beneficial bacteria?

 

[Maritimer]

I don't believe so - at least, I've never heard of it doing that.

~Bruce

 

[Hubtech]

Just tested ammonia and we're back down to zero.... I think I'm going to go pick up a few new tests today, along with an ammonia badge, and some BioSpira. Acans still look pretty bad (few white specs on my bowerbankis) and they're just generally deflated looking. Unrelated (possibly) one of my large RFA decided it needed to spawn last night while I was testing. Interesting to say the least. Should I do another water change today?

 

[Maritimer]

Another water change isn't likely to hurt anything except your salt budget and your back . . .

And it might just help stabilize things in there.

~Bruce

 

[Hubtech]

yeah I'm thinking about doing another 5g or so when the kid goes to sleep for why nots.
I moved 10 of my acan clumps into my little 46 mixed tank today. by the end of the day they didn't look any happier there. hoping they perk up over the next couple of days.

 

[Rakie]

Carbon, water changes. Might need stronger biological filtration, be it some live rock or more bio media. I'm partial to Seachem Matrix over all the other brands myself. Sounds like you're on the right track though.

 

[Hubtech]

can't peg down what happened... didn't end up losing anything after the mushrooms, I did add a bag of carbon to the HOB. it's not bio-filter, I've got MP balls in it. I moved my "dont want to lose" corals to one of my reef tanks for a few days, let the frag system stabilize and moved everything back in. not sure what was up