Devisissy
Kiss My Wrasse
Resently lost power due to a wind storm. 4 days, 3 nights. I had a generator running two heaters and one pump. My tank is a 45 gallon nano. It's a deep sand bed and the tank is still new. I have been having on going issues with nitrates being much to high. Before the power outage I was winning. I had them from 40+ down to 20. I achieved this by adding more flow in the way of larger pumps so that more water would be moved over the filter media, and I added Seachem Matrix in one of the baffles. I also did a thorough cleaning of the back chamber, (it's an AIO) and added an extra WC each week. Last but not least, I got a pack of reef worms. Before the power outage I was at 20. Then we lost power.
It's cold here so tank dropped from 80 to 73, even with gennie running heater. I didn't have enough power to run the main pump so I could only run a smaller powerhead for water movement. So no water is moving over media. It was like this for three and a half days. When power finally came on I did an emergency WC. Planning on doing another one in two days, I decided to test the water. So exactly 48 hours later I test tank. All parms were spot on except PH was a tad low, for me, and alk a bit high, but my nitrates were less than 5. I used red sea kit, and my old API. Both were the same. I ran test twice to make sure. I didn't do that second water change and this morning tested again. Zero! How? How is that possible? Should they not be through the roof considering corals and fish sat in poo water for 4 days? I checked ammonia just to make sure in a panic, nothing. I'm at a loss.
It's cold here so tank dropped from 80 to 73, even with gennie running heater. I didn't have enough power to run the main pump so I could only run a smaller powerhead for water movement. So no water is moving over media. It was like this for three and a half days. When power finally came on I did an emergency WC. Planning on doing another one in two days, I decided to test the water. So exactly 48 hours later I test tank. All parms were spot on except PH was a tad low, for me, and alk a bit high, but my nitrates were less than 5. I used red sea kit, and my old API. Both were the same. I ran test twice to make sure. I didn't do that second water change and this morning tested again. Zero! How? How is that possible? Should they not be through the roof considering corals and fish sat in poo water for 4 days? I checked ammonia just to make sure in a panic, nothing. I'm at a loss.
