Unknown Critters After Tank Crash

[Nevada Wiseguy]

Today is a sad day.. my 32 gallon tank crashed with ammonia after I made some changes to the live rock in my tank. At this point all my corals and bleached or falling apart. All the fish are dead minus 1 clown who is struggling. I did use Amguard, but it is what it is.

Anyway, when this crash started happening I noticed multiple of these things in the tanks. What are they? They bad? Harmless? Wanted?

 

[Auquanut]

Looks like chitons. Good guys. Could have come out because they're stressed. Were you able to get the ammonia under control?

 

[Nevada Wiseguy]

Looks like chitons. Good guys. Could have come out because they're stressed. Were you able to get the ammonia under control?

Looks like chitons. Good guys. Could have come out because they're stressed. Were you able to get the ammonia under control?

After two days of dosing Amguard, I got the ammonia down by about half... Was off the API test charts which goes up to 8.0. But still, wasn't enough to save the majority of the tank. One fish even jumped out to his death to get out of the water. Never had a jump once, but the Niger Trigger did so. The one larger clownfish that was alive, but struggling I euthanized. No sense in making him suffer to death over the next day or two. I am going to drain the tank today and collect my thoughts on next steps.

 

[Auquanut]

Sorry for you're loss.

 

[brandon429]

this isn't to start an issue or anything, its to help on future prevention: reefs control their ammonia just fine

ammonia events never, ever precede a fish loss or coral loss, it comes after if ever at all and it takes you leaving the fish in the system to rot to drive it out of control.

that being said, very harmful compounds exist in the sand that aren't ammonia, so, we should clean up your sandbed before round 2. rule out ammonia here, I'm aware your test kit said there was some, ammonia doesnt run zero in a reef is why it said there was some. If you had seneye, the ammonia would never be in factor, that's solely an issue for non digital testing.


you did not have an ammonia crash, 100% sure. there's no where its being stored up for a release in a reef tank. we used to think it was in the sand, its not, that's mixed bacterial compounds tbd and or simple fish disease wipeout triggered by skipping qt and fallow. I have other examples like your tank where sand disturbance killed the setup if it helps any in troubleshooting.

threads exist where 200+ reefs are taken apart and moved homes, all in one thread. the ultimate rock rearrangement. the only difference between those outcomes and yours was the clean sand part, we never moved around rocks over a dirty sandbed. if you are truly interested in preventing the issue, you'd do a rip clean and make sure there isn't any clouding in the sandbed, then fallow the system and qt your next round of fish. that brings you up to date 100% with today's top science, directly from prevention threads that study and prevent this issue 100%.

why did your ammonia seem to spike: common metabolites and derivatives not actual ammonia which spike non digital test kits + reading those kits as nh4 and not nh3, which is never zero in reefing. with seneye, ammonia would be instantly ruled out here (a digital nh3 meter)

 

[brandon429]

also, amguard causes false reads for ammonia as soon as its dosed

its helpful to know we have eliminated systemic crash potential in reefing if things are clean and not sinked up in a sandbed, that's so important to know for round 2 planning. there is no ammonia sneak attack possible, 100% consistent no crash comes from either being bare bottom / no sand or clean sand. Fish disease will have to be fully eliminated to remove that as a potential, it will take re fallow to do so if fallow and qt was not used this prior round. ammonia being permanently in control after a cycle is a chief tenet of updated cycling science, and it helps you know what to hone in on to prevent this again. clean reefs will not biologically crash if current and heating and non contamination are kept in play, re arranging rocks won't do it via ammonia. there is no storage zone for ammonia in a reef tank.

we would clean your reef in a certain way that seems ludicrous right where it sits if you want a solid solid re start. leaving things exactly as-is would be the worst option. cleaned + fallow is what you want.

 

[Nevada Wiseguy]

this isn't to start an issue or anything, its to help on future prevention: reefs control their ammonia just fine

ammonia events never, ever precede a fish loss or coral loss, it comes after if ever at all and it takes you leaving the fish in the system to rot to drive it out of control.

that being said, very harmful compounds exist in the sand that aren't ammonia, so, we should clean up your sandbed before round 2. rule out ammonia here, I'm aware your test kit said there was some, ammonia doesnt run zero in a reef is why it said there was some. If you had seneye, the ammonia would never be in factor, that's solely an issue for non digital testing.


you did not have an ammonia crash, 100% sure. there's no where its being stored up for a release in a reef tank. we used to think it was in the sand, its not, that's mixed bacterial compounds tbd and or simple fish disease wipeout triggered by skipping qt and fallow. I have other examples like your tank where sand disturbance killed the setup if it helps any in troubleshooting.

threads exist where 200+ reefs are taken apart and moved homes, all in one thread. the ultimate rock rearrangement. the only difference between those outcomes and yours was the clean sand part, we never moved around rocks over a dirty sandbed. if you are truly interested in preventing the issue, you'd do a rip clean and make sure there isn't any clouding in the sandbed, then fallow the system and qt your next round of fish. that brings you up to date 100% with today's top science, directly from prevention threads that study and prevent this issue 100%.

why did your ammonia seem to spike: common metabolites and derivatives not actual ammonia which spike non digital test kits + reading those kits as nh4 and not nh3, which is never zero in reefing. with seneye, ammonia would be instantly ruled out here (a digital nh3 meter)

Thanks for the feedback. I pulled my back and was unable to do any water changes for about a month & 1/2. Once I was able to, a week before this happened, I scrubbed out the tank well. Did a 30% water change since Nitrates were high (always have been) and vaccummed the sand super well. I also took out one of the live rocks and crushed it up to put into the back of the tank for a refugium. In the process I added a new live rock as well. Past that, added the normal chemicals over a day or two (I dont like to add all chemicals all at once). The corals and fish have always seemed very healthy up to this point. A few days later I noticed the corals starting to hide and my sand sifting starfish died.

I did a lot of work on the tank that day, just not sure which part triggered the crash. I agree, ammonia may be an after symptom, but just not sure. It was not a little bit of ammonia, it was off the charts above 8.0 via an API test. Even after using emergency levels of Amguard still very high.

I have emptied the dead livestock out of the tank and have removed the live rock. I wanted to replace the substrate anyways to a different color down the road, so this is the perfect, albeit sad, opportunity. I have black substrate and it's just so hard to see when its dirty or having issues.

 

[brandon429]

those moves above can be done but you'd need to go about it very oppositely. namely, not a partial cleaning but doing those moves in a rip cleaned tank. after your partial cleaning, I could still reach in there/grab a handful of sand, drop it, and a massive cloud results, that's your issue. After a rip clean, when you drop test it passes like a snow globe, zero poison cloud. Breaking live rock can release some rot compounds for sure, but its rare, and if you go test break another section and smell it I bet it smells normal, non stinky live rock cannot kill that way.

doing that mix of events above a partially cleaned tank is 100% the issue, we have collections of that being done above rip clean tanks out to fifty pages with no loss. that will help in future planning, we should clean this tank correctly like this:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

the reason your ammonia kit spiked wasnt due to actual ammonia, its related compounds upwelled in the waste cloud that trips the reading, and this doesnt occur on seneye. no reefs have storage zones for free ammonia, they only have storage zones for mixed bacterial compounds in some extreme cases, thats why rip cleaning always has a safe outcome / it eliminates the rare issues.

 

[Nevada Wiseguy]

Brandon,

Thanks for those details! I was actually looking up what a RIP clean was when you responded. I do plan on scrubbing the tank out and doing all the steps you mentioned. I have a couple of questions before I begin. Forgive me, this may be covered in that other post, but I figured the first question is more urgently needed and the second is just a quick one since you cover washing existing sand and I wish to replace mine.

1 - For my current live rock, should I just put it in a buck of my existing tank water for now or is it ok to dry them out? I understand I may need to scrub them regardless.

2 - I plan on replacing the sand all together with Caribsea Bimini Pink sand and get rid of the current Hawaiian Black. Do I need to do the full tap water no cloud rinse of that as well? In the past, I have put the live sand directly in the tank and used a clarifier to get rid of the extra cloudiness. Yes, I feel rinsing it in tap water is a sin, but we all sin when we need to lol, so if that's what I need to do, so be it.

Jeremy

 

[brandon429]

For sure rinse it. there's no benefit in waiting 1-? days for clearance and we model the ideal procedure here, top six rip cleans I know of below.

Keep live rock wet in tank water agree, detail scrape off algae if needed, these bacteria are what we use to make the skip cycle and the crazy rinsing of the sand does not matter one bit. All that matters is cloudless reassembly: we dont want any clouding because we use laser clear water in the final assembly to rule out cycle issues. if harmless but annoying sand silt is making a cloud, it masks the condition we watch out for to prevent a recycle. pre rinse all sand until its 1000% cloud free, final rinse in RO water, then that sand is perfect. You'd put it back in a scrubbed clean glass tank, fill with new mixed water matching temp and salinity to the old water, then put in rocks then put in animals = rip cleaned

Algae Identification

Any opinions on what type of algae this is growing on my rocks and sand bed?

www.reef2reef.com

the only risk in the whole process is installing a cloudy new setup, make sure not to, and it'll go perfect. document w pics here if possible so we can build up new examples for the next job