Trouble1375
Active Member
Bit of a long read...
We keep a close eye on our tank. Sunday night I notice that my NOPOX which is on an Autodoser seemed to be dripping too fast into the sump so I cut it off and looked at the dosing container - hmm that looks awful low compared to a couple of hours ago when I was checking to see if anything needed top off. Dosing pump wasn't running but something was amiss. Ran test on tank - 0 Nitrates, 0 Phosphates (they were at 18 & .08 respectively a week ago), pH 7.8 (always steady at 8.2). Did a quick 15 gallon water change, dropped a Polyfilter in the sump and set-up my RO/DI to run all night, added to the pump, heater and salt - so I'd have another 25 gallons of saltwater to change Monday before work started. Monday 4am - added more salt to the water that was brewing in the basement because the salinity was not quite up the 1.026 we keep the tank at. Monday 6am - ready to change water before work. Woke up hubby so he could grab a shower while I started pulling water out and then he could haul the water from the basement upstairs. Hmmm what did the dog get into - odd piece of something on the floor between the living room and the kitchen - kicked on lights - Diamond Goby on the floor a good 6' from the aquarium. Noticed now that our 8" sailfin tang is laying on her side not breathing very well and the tank is milky white. 25 gallon change not going to be enough. Both called into work to fix the tank. Glad the hospital tank (only a 5 gallon tank) is up and running. Caught most of the fish as they were sleeping still or stunned by the water condition. 8" Sailfin, 4" Foxface, 4" Japanese angel, 2 clowns, a starry blenny, black sailfin blenny, firefish, boxfish all into hospital tank. Corals and rocks into 5 gallon buckets and 15 gallon barrels. Never saw any of the 3 wrasses, the clown goby, Royal Gramma, Dottyback - all now presumed to be hiding ether in the sand-bed or in/under rocks we couldn't move. Took out all but about 6" of water from the system and whatever was in the sumps. Come on RO/DI - wish this process was faster. New filter socks put in, started putting rocks back in the tank - might just as well redo our aquascape while we wait.
Jumping ahead - 50 gallons of fresh saltwater added to the system. Started adding corals back in and reintroduced the fish who were happy to be out of the crowded hospital tank. Wait - why does our 6-line wrasse look so big or is that the melanurus and he looks odd color because of the stress. Wait - we still have 4 wrasses - we thought the female melanurus had died months ago because we never see her. She has come back out so now we have 4 wrasses again instead of 3. Let's hope the male doesn't chase her to permanent hiding again. Only fish we haven't seen now is the clown goby - he's a tiny guy so easy for him to hide.
Midnight - finally have enough water to actually get the entire system running again. It's had heat and wavemakers the whole time but no circulation from sumps to display except when we would add new water to the sumps and kick on system long enough to push the water from the sumps into the display.
We love the look of the new aquascape and the only casualty was a diamond goby - time will tell with the corals but the SPS all had nice polyp extension once the water got back over them. We kept pouring cups of water over them every 15 minutes so they didn't get too dried out.
Major takeaways - 1st off - moved the dosing containers and dosing pump so they are now lower than the sump level where they dose at. 2nd - keep saltwater at the ready - even if it's only 50 gallons in our mixing container - we could've knocked a good number of hours off this project had we been ready with more than just 10 gallons of RO/DI which is always ready for the ATO. 3rd - glad we keep the hospital tank up and running at all times. It's only a 5 gallon AIO system but it was great for our emergency.
Waiting for lights to kick on today to see how everything looks now that the system has been up and running fully for almost 12 hours. Should be clearer and I should be able to get a nice picture of the new aquascape. The 1st picture here is what the tank looked like before. The rest are in process pics from yesterday and the last 2 are the best pics I could get last night after we were able to kick on the return pumps permanently.
We keep a close eye on our tank. Sunday night I notice that my NOPOX which is on an Autodoser seemed to be dripping too fast into the sump so I cut it off and looked at the dosing container - hmm that looks awful low compared to a couple of hours ago when I was checking to see if anything needed top off. Dosing pump wasn't running but something was amiss. Ran test on tank - 0 Nitrates, 0 Phosphates (they were at 18 & .08 respectively a week ago), pH 7.8 (always steady at 8.2). Did a quick 15 gallon water change, dropped a Polyfilter in the sump and set-up my RO/DI to run all night, added to the pump, heater and salt - so I'd have another 25 gallons of saltwater to change Monday before work started. Monday 4am - added more salt to the water that was brewing in the basement because the salinity was not quite up the 1.026 we keep the tank at. Monday 6am - ready to change water before work. Woke up hubby so he could grab a shower while I started pulling water out and then he could haul the water from the basement upstairs. Hmmm what did the dog get into - odd piece of something on the floor between the living room and the kitchen - kicked on lights - Diamond Goby on the floor a good 6' from the aquarium. Noticed now that our 8" sailfin tang is laying on her side not breathing very well and the tank is milky white. 25 gallon change not going to be enough. Both called into work to fix the tank. Glad the hospital tank (only a 5 gallon tank) is up and running. Caught most of the fish as they were sleeping still or stunned by the water condition. 8" Sailfin, 4" Foxface, 4" Japanese angel, 2 clowns, a starry blenny, black sailfin blenny, firefish, boxfish all into hospital tank. Corals and rocks into 5 gallon buckets and 15 gallon barrels. Never saw any of the 3 wrasses, the clown goby, Royal Gramma, Dottyback - all now presumed to be hiding ether in the sand-bed or in/under rocks we couldn't move. Took out all but about 6" of water from the system and whatever was in the sumps. Come on RO/DI - wish this process was faster. New filter socks put in, started putting rocks back in the tank - might just as well redo our aquascape while we wait.
Jumping ahead - 50 gallons of fresh saltwater added to the system. Started adding corals back in and reintroduced the fish who were happy to be out of the crowded hospital tank. Wait - why does our 6-line wrasse look so big or is that the melanurus and he looks odd color because of the stress. Wait - we still have 4 wrasses - we thought the female melanurus had died months ago because we never see her. She has come back out so now we have 4 wrasses again instead of 3. Let's hope the male doesn't chase her to permanent hiding again. Only fish we haven't seen now is the clown goby - he's a tiny guy so easy for him to hide.
Midnight - finally have enough water to actually get the entire system running again. It's had heat and wavemakers the whole time but no circulation from sumps to display except when we would add new water to the sumps and kick on system long enough to push the water from the sumps into the display.
We love the look of the new aquascape and the only casualty was a diamond goby - time will tell with the corals but the SPS all had nice polyp extension once the water got back over them. We kept pouring cups of water over them every 15 minutes so they didn't get too dried out.
Major takeaways - 1st off - moved the dosing containers and dosing pump so they are now lower than the sump level where they dose at. 2nd - keep saltwater at the ready - even if it's only 50 gallons in our mixing container - we could've knocked a good number of hours off this project had we been ready with more than just 10 gallons of RO/DI which is always ready for the ATO. 3rd - glad we keep the hospital tank up and running at all times. It's only a 5 gallon AIO system but it was great for our emergency.
Waiting for lights to kick on today to see how everything looks now that the system has been up and running fully for almost 12 hours. Should be clearer and I should be able to get a nice picture of the new aquascape. The 1st picture here is what the tank looked like before. The rest are in process pics from yesterday and the last 2 are the best pics I could get last night after we were able to kick on the return pumps permanently.
