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Oh the Humanity!!!


Richard L

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Thursday afternoon: Faint scent of low tide wafting thru my room. Everybody accounted for and looking ok. With my crummy API test kits NH3 was possibly higher than 0 but I couldn't tell. NO3 was about 20 ppm but I was already aware of nitrate building up over the last week.

Friday morning: All SPS showing signs of significant bleaching or RTN. Very strong fowl odor. NH3 spiked to clearly detectable levels. NO3 same. PO4 jumped to 20ppm. No evidence of anyone dead. Immediately performed about a 15% water change

Saturday morning: Most all of my SPS are gone!! A few montiporas and birdsnest are hanging on but look awful. LPS are retracted or appear stressed. Some zoas are closed up. Clams look the same. All fish acting normal.

Currently: NH3 appears to be coming down. NO3 has jumped to 40 ppm. Multiple searches still haven't found anything dead. Here's a list of my shooting from the hip with a shotgun actions:

  • Three 15% water changes. This is the maximum I can mix up with my mixing station
  • Adjusted skimmer to skim wet.
  • Started my sulfur denitrator back up. Will take a week to mature before it will have any significant impact.
  • Added 1/2 dose of Dr. Tims Waste Away and added large bubble wands to offset oxygen drop.
  • Changed 1/2 my GFO out.
  • Added recommended dose of Amquel. Heard mixed reviews on if this stuff really locks up NH3 but hey I'm a desperate man.
  • Shut off my lights on Saturday. I can't remember why I reasoned that I needed to do this but one of the results was I didn't get my typical rise in pH to 8.3. Instead my tank hovered around 8.0 all day and then dipped to 7.85 during the night. I then added a pH buffer Sunday morning and turned my lights back on. pH seems to corrected itself.
  • Got large mass of Chaeto from M. Woods and added it to my sump Saturday night. Probably more of a long term thing but I figure it can't hurt.
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i know aquadome sells saltwater at $1/gal. just so you know, the salinity is 1.022. but you can buy as must as you need to do a larger water change. eek 225g...i guess you'd need lots of buckets. at one point gary was talking about loaning buckets for people with a one time need, but i don't know what he ever decided to do with that. oh, but they are closed mondays....dang.

i'm guessing you check salinity and just didn't mention it...but i'm not sure if that would cause your issue. i'm too new for troubleshooting such things.

i have a 30gal tall tank that you are welcome to borrow to emergency quarantine anything you can. note - it's not clean. it's not horribly dirty, but it was drained (FW) and let to dry out with the gravel and all the poop in it.

good luck.

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River City Aquatics has two different reservoirs - ~60 gallon and ~ 130 gallon. They also sell ro water (roughly 50 tds), 5 gallons for $1 I believe.

I also think the Fish Gallery sells saltwater, I don't know if they have any large reservoirs you can borrow thou.

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Are there children in the house? Is it possible something got into the tank? A penny accidentally dropped into the tank can cause a ton of troubles, as can many skin lotions, soaps and disenfectants.

I would run polypad in the sump for sure, it's magic at pulling out nasty stuff. Other than that, massive water changes, carbon, more water changes. Test salinity for sure. Do you make your own rodi water, or do you buy it? If you make, how old are your filters? Has the city worked on water lines in your area recently (only applies if you make your own)

And, did you do anything to the tank before this started?

Also, check for stray voltage. That will cause all kinds of troubles too.

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WTF...

Has got to be something substantial that changed. Your tank is one of the more established and stable I've seen from any ARC member. I can't imagine it going down like that unless something went completely wrong. Takes more than a fish to go from 0 to 40ppm NO3 in that size tank.

I would almost have to lean towards copper or electrical or a chemical that somehow got in the tank.

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Holy ****. Anything we can do to help?

Nah, I really just posted to vent my sorrows and frustration. Because it has somewhat stabilized and the currently living inhabitants are doing ok, I think it may be best to sit tight for a while and continue with my water changes.

Thanks Sherita you reminded me of a few other things I did:

  • Tossed in 3 cups of carbon into my filter socks on Friday.
  • Added two 4x12 Poly Filter pads to my bubble trap

To answer some of your questions:

I make my own RODI water. DI is pretty fresh and TDS meter reads about 6 before DI and 0 after although I have never calibrated it. I recalibrate my refractometer each time I use it with RODI and it indicates 1.024. I have some calibration fluid on order since someone was telling me its actually at a 1.025 so calibrating is more accurate.

I also lost confidence in my Apex's temperature probes since I bought a cheapo digital thermometer last week which says my tank is 82 degrees, 4 degrees hotter that Apex says. I ordered a ASTM calibrated thermometer to gut check against my Apex's thermometers.

I added about 10 lbs of live rock to my sump about 7 days before this happened.

About three weeks ago I took out all of my frag racks and added a 1 inch sand bottom to my frag tank. It was about 120 lbs of aragonite sand.

Wait a minute, I did get a frag of purple Undata from Victoly two weeks ago - that's got to be what started it all smile.png

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Is the polypad showing any kind of color change?

And, have you checked for stray voltage? The last time I had a tank crash and burn I discovered 120v running through the tank due to a bad powerhead. It was shocking.

Rodi water- are you set up to deal with chloramines? Also, have they worked on city water lines in your area recently and did you make up water just after that? Sometimes they flush the lines with a disinfectant that will absolutely make it through your filtration, and the subsequently kill everything in your tank (please don't ask me how I know this, too painful to even talk about).

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Aw man! That's awful!

Sorry about the tank issues Richard. That's a collective reef club nightmare there, i'm sure.

If I had to guess of the source of your woes, I would guess the new rock and sand additions.

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Thanks everyone for your concern and kind offers to help. Ammonia and nitrate hasn't really moved but at least its not going up. Performed my 4th water change last night. Skimmer went into overdrive yesterday and pulled a record amount of junk out. This picture shows about 24 hours of skimming. Its an amazing amount of skimmate considering I haven't put any food in tank in 4 days. Whatever died is now liquid skimmate. devil.gif

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