Tank crashed - how do deal with the damaged and dead?

[Phoerut]

My tank crashed

This was the series of events that caused this:

Reef flux added

24hours later crazy ammonia spike - why this happened I’m not sure - like off key maxed out my testing kit and I wondered how everything was still alive. Fish okay. Some of my corals look ticked. Urchin was dead or dying. Spines still in tact but didn’t look good.

Added fraction to neutralise it. Nearly a whole bottle, couldn’t get any sea water in there until the morning.

Next morning huge water change. I accidentally put 10 litres of RO in thinking it was sea water but the salinity didn’t drop to much but it probably did for a minute. Nothing looked any more adversely effected.

Conducted more tests. Ammonia at 0. Magnesium at 1200. Alk at 5. Ph way way too low. Corals are literally dissolving now. Bought magnesium up to 1350 and alk up to 6. Very quickly. It was stupid but I made a lot of mistakes because I was freaking out at this point.

The rest of the night snails dropped dead. And I every coral in the tank is suffering severe damage if not completely dead. Fish and shrimps are all okay.

I know everything basically went wrong but can someone comment on my complete failure here so I can improve (be gentle, I’m gutted).

Also how do I determine dead and not dead among corals? When will I see improvements if I’m going to? With such a large die off, I wouldn’t want another ammonia spike.

 

[fishguy242]

Take a breath, get parameters back to normal, remove all dead inverts...
lots of good advice from yesterday...

Corals turning black and dying?!!

I had a huge ammonia spike yesterday, I still have no idea what caused it. Treated it with reef fraction until I could buy some sea water and change it. Got the ammonia under control then the ph and alk dropped, corrected that but my corals are still dying by the minute. Is this a delayed...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[gbroadbridge]

Reef Flux (flucanazole) would not cause an ammonia spike.

Did you check Ammonia with another test kit?

 

[Koty]

I would put skimmer on full and add a serious amount of GAC (with high flow through it) and no WC that will add instability. As a biochemist my general advice : never!! add any antibiotic or antifungal medicine to a reef tank. The colarlteral damage may always be around the corner and more than you expecr.

 

[Phoerut]

Take a breath, get parameters back to normal, remove all dead inverts...
lots of good advice from yesterday...

Corals turning black and dying?!!

I had a huge ammonia spike yesterday, I still have no idea what caused it. Treated it with reef fraction until I could buy some sea water and change it. Got the ammonia under control then the ph and alk dropped, corrected that but my corals are still dying by the minute. Is this a delayed...

www.reef2reef.com

Thankyou! I’m just in a state of complete despair. It’s just so awful watching it die. My tank broke my heart on valentines

 

[Phoerut]

I would put skimmer on full and add a serious amount of GAC (with high flow through it) and no WC that will add instability. As a biochemist my general advice : never!! add any antibiotic or antifungal medicine to a reef tank. The colarlteral damage may always be around the corner and more than you expecr.

Okay going to max out the skimmer, what is GAC btw?

 

[Phoerut]

Reef Flux (flucanazole) would not cause an ammonia spike.

Did you check Ammonia with another test kit?

It’s the same test kit that tested 0 earlier. I didn’t have another one. Do you think a dead urchin would cause I spike of that proportion?

 

[Tim'sReef]

Hi sorry this happened to you. Not any direct steps you could take, but i have one piece of advice. Don't stress too much, yes maybe you made a mistake but i could also be something out of your hands or experience.

Just take this event as a learning experience. Every coral or fish that dies gives you a lesson on how you should keep them. Now I'm not telling you to just let them die but you can only do the best you can in this life. Everybody in this hobby has had problems so dont feel to bad. It's how you deal with the problems that shows what type of reefer you are. Good luck!

 

[fishguy242]

GAC is carbon , rinse before using. what size tank ?

 

[Phoerut]

Hi sorry this happened to you. Not any direct steps you could take, but i have one piece of advice. Don't stress too much, yes maybe you made a mistake but i could also be something out of your hands or experience.

Just take this event as a learning experience. Every coral or fish that dies gives you a lesson on how you should keep them. Now I'm not telling you to just let them die but you can only do the best you can in this life. Everybody in this hobby has had problems so dont feel to bad. It's how you deal with the problems that shows what type of reefer you are. Good luck!

Thankyou that was a really nice thing to say. You are 100% right I need to just let it be sometimes. My panicked state just made things so much worse too.

All my fish and corals have names and stuff so I’m personally attached to them now. Nothing in there was worth more than £40 but I’m sitting here staring at a £5 mushroom coral (my day 1 coral) like noo not Melvin .

 

[Phoerut]

GAC is carbon , rinse before using. what size tank ?

Right okay I’ve got a bit of carbon in there but nothing to hold it. It’s a 170litre (I didn’t rinse it before putting it in yesterday) another mistake I made. I thought the carbon dust might help. Idk why. But this is my ghetto contraption. Lol don’t judge.

 

[crusso1993]

Thankyou! I’m just in a state of complete despair. It’s just so awful watching it die. My tank broke my heart on valentines

As has been mentioned, good advice from yesterday’s thread.

Small tanks are less forgiving than large ones. Unfortunately, what you’re experiencing is not too uncommon. Tank issues happen even to people that have been at it for many years. As a matter of fact, there’s a friend on here that has been reefing for over 50 years that is currently experiencing problems. So, don’t beat yourself up too much.

Try to look in the bright side. For example: just in this thread you’ve heard from people from the US, Australia, Israel and the Netherlands. Where else can you go to make such a diversity of friends trying to help? Chin up!

 

[Phoerut]

Right okay I’ve got a bit of carbon in there but nothing to hold it. It’s a 170litre (I didn’t rinse it before putting it in yesterday) another mistake I made. I thought the carbon dust might help. Idk why. But this is my ghetto contraption. Lol don’t judge.

 

[Phoerut]

As has been mentioned, good advice from yesterday’s thread.

Small tanks are less forgiving than large ones. Unfortunately, what you’re experiencing is not too uncommon. Tank issues happen even to people that have been at it for many years. As a matter of fact, there’s a friend on here that has been reefing for over 50 years that is currently experiencing problems. So, don’t beat yourself up too much.

Try to look in the bright side. For example: just in this thread you’ve heard from people from the US, Australia, Israel and the Netherlands. Where else can you go to make such a diversity of friends trying to help? Chin up!

I came into this hobby thinking it would be a challenge but not this much of a challenge. I thought to myself I have a university degree in marine biology what could it possibly throw at me that I don’t already know and this hobby put me on my butt completely. The people on this page are literally responsible for my tank keep journey so far, it’s not even a credit to me. I genuinely feel bad because I’m always asking questions yet can’t answer anyone else’s. The support and love in the reefing community is like no other thank you so much guys for constantly rushing to help me So grateful. If anyone needs any support I’m always down to help anyone too but I only have 1 years (exactly to this day) experience.

 

[Phoerut]

Okay so update.

the lights have just come on. I’ve put them all the way down to 5% so they don’t get shocked. Good idea or no?

a mushroom coral I presumed dead has started to eject its guts in response to the light. Shall I keep them in darkness?

just about to conduct a full set of tests and I’ll update on those too

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

My tank crashed

This was the series of events that caused this:

Reef flux added

24hours later crazy ammonia spike - why this happened I’m not sure - like off key maxed out my testing kit and I wondered how everything was still alive. Fish okay. Some of my corals look ticked. Urchin was dead or dying. Spines still in tact but didn’t look good.

Added fraction to neutralise it. Nearly a whole bottle, couldn’t get any sea water in there until the morning.

Next morning huge water change. I accidentally put 10 litres of RO in thinking it was sea water but the salinity didn’t drop to much but it probably did for a minute. Nothing looked any more adversely effected.

Conducted more tests. Ammonia at 0. Magnesium at 1200. Alk at 5. Ph way way too low. Corals are literally dissolving now. Bought magnesium up to 1350 and alk up to 6. Very quickly. It was stupid but I made a lot of mistakes because I was freaking out at this point.

The rest of the night snails dropped dead. And I every coral in the tank is suffering severe damage if not completely dead. Fish and shrimps are all okay.

I know everything basically went wrong but can someone comment on my complete failure here so I can improve (be gentle, I’m gutted).

Also how do I determine dead and not dead among corals? When will I see improvements if I’m going to? With such a large die off, I wouldn’t want another ammonia spike.

How old is your tank? Sand bed looks pretty clean. Although I don’t use it anymore, I’ve used reef flux before with no issues.

 

[Phoerut]

How old is your tank?

This tank is only 2 months, I upgraded from a fluval nano 13.5. I did not transfer any sand or live rock because a bryopsis problem that still made its way over and an extreme bristle worm problem. Hermits moved moved over first, Corals we’re dipped and moved over after 3 weeks along with the fish. I washed out my sponges in the new tank. Ammonia did spike and then drop during the 3 weeks. The old tank and the new tank side by side was too much weight on my upstairs floor boards so it was a swifter than I wanted operation. The ammonia never sky rocketed like it has this week though.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Okay so update.

the lights have just come on. I’ve put them all the way down to 5% so they don’t get shocked. Good idea or no?

a mushroom coral I presumed dead has started to eject its guts in response to the light. Shall I keep them in darkness?

just about to conduct a full set of tests and I’ll update on those too

I’m not sure why lights would matter. Normally in these types of situations we would do water changes to try and get our water back to where it was. Stability is key. You had a huge swing in nutrients from gha die off from the reef flux which caused an aminos spike. Then it seems you added another wing with fraction(not sure what that is) than added a bunch of r/o and lowere all your elements. If you do use more GAC don’t use too much and strip trace elements. I would do a 30% water change as I believe reef flux recommends a to do that after 14 days anyway. This will also bring your elements closer to where they were

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

This tank is only 2 months, I upgraded from a fluval nano 13.5. I did not transfer any sand or live rock because a bryopsis problem that still made its way over and an extreme bristle worm problem. Hermits moved moved over first, Corals were dipped and moved over after 3 weeks along with the fish. I washed out my sponges in the new tank. Ammonia did spike and then drop during the 3 weeks. The old tank and the new tank side by side was too much weight on my upstairs floor boards so it was a swifter than I wanted operation. The ammonia never sky rocketed like it has this week though.

Yes so you’re beneficial bacteria probably wasn’t enough to handle the die off nutrients from the GHA

 

[Phoerut]

Ph - 8.2
Ammonia - 0.1 (trace) not enough to be 0.2 but slightly positive for ammonia
Alk - 7

About to do mag, calc and nitrogen’s