A little help Needed

[hndakd]

I have been having issues with my aquarium, mostly algea and a brown water thing. About a month ago the tank crashed so I took it all apart and put it back together. It has been up and running for awhile and today the brown water is back. here is what the tests look like.

Specific Gravity 1.023 ---> needs to go up, im doing it with top off
DKH 8 ppm KH 143.2
Nitrate 0
calcium 350 and 250 --> i took some water to LFS and they got 250
MG 1280
PH 7.8
Ammonia 0 and 25 --> LFS got 25-30

I dont know if the tank is still in cycle mode. I had everything in a different tank for a couple of weeks while the sand and everything settled. ( I put new sand in) I dont know what to do. A water change to help up the calcium and lower ammonia? wait? Im at a loss here.

Tank Specs just incase
90 gallon All glass display with 2" Sand bed
30 gallon fuge and equipment tank with 7" DSB
~140 lbs of live rock
cheato
aqua euro recirculating 250 skimmer
2 korallia 3
2 maxi jet 900 with sure flow mod
mag 7 return
filter sock cleaned daily
Tank tear down and rebuild

[macronut]

This is a shot in the dark....I know you stated you put new sand in the tank, but didn't say anything about adding a new 7" sandbed in the fuge equipment tank. Why so deep? If this was used prior it could be leaching something from the sand bed. Especially if it was disrupted during the break down of the old system.

Is your skimmer set accurately, are you pulling out alot of gunk? If your water is turning brown sounds like to me you have some sort of organics leaching in.

As I said it is a shot in the dark. Thought I would suggest something.

[hndakd]

I didnt have the sand bed in there before. I say 7" but its probably more 5-6 its not level in all the places because i threw all the extra rock from my scaping in there and there were some pretty big pieces.

The skimmer is set fine, Im pulling stuff out I really dont have that much of a bio load. Purple tang, maroon clown, and dragon goby. Thats it aside from about 5 total snails and 2 hermits that survived the crash. My significant other just reminded me too that the other day one of the powerheads went nuts and blew some sand around. I would think that would make it cloudy but not brown like it is.


I appreciate the reply I have this posted in a couple of forums and you are the only one that has replied. Thanks. I really just dont know what to do at this point. I have had this tank for awhile and with all the trouble, time, and money....... well whatever I just want to make this thing look right again.

[seanb1]

brown water sounds kind of weird. maybe your rock is leaching something, maybe a big microrganism dyeoff causing a bacterial bloom from the rock and sand.

i would not run my lights for a couple days.

run carbon on it and replace it every few days and see if it clears up.

you are really going to have to keep the ammonia in check with your fish in there, dont feed them alot of food, just a little bit once a day to sustain them. they will live on a small amount of food just fine.

water changes only hurt your wallet.

[sherm71tank]

You should get in contact with your local club so someone can help you out. It's probably something simple you have just overlooked.

[macronut]

i've been scratching my head thinking of what this could be....I'm wondering if you have a small hairline crack in your skimmer collection cup that might be releasing skimmate back into the tank. ????

something is definately fouling in my opinion. Any corals that could have been placed under the sand inadvertantly when setting it back up, zooanthids? Sponge on the inside of frresh raw rock can be a problem. Any new rock could have some fouling sponge. Does your rock smell rotten or like the fresh salty ocean? Did you add any mud type products in your fuge?

have you added any new additive that you haven't used prior to this problem?

I agree to run some good carbon and some chemipure.

Your tank could be cycling since it is recently reset up....new sand, but 140lbs of rock in a 90 gal tank from an existing tank I wouldn't think would have much cycle unless it was out of water for sometime in my opinion.

If you can get some good healthy live sand from your lfs you might try adding this to help your existing sand bed reestablish itself, but I'm skeptical for you to do to many changes at once.

If your fish become stressed I might suggest contacting a fellow reefer in your area or the best lfs and see if they will hold your fish for you until the problem is straightened out.

I know it is frustrating when you really want something to go well and then something terrible happens, especially when this hobby isn't the cheapest in the world!

I hope we can find the problem. I'll keep thinking about this and checking back on the post.

[hndakd]

the skimmer is recirculating and not in the sump definitely doesnt have a crack because i would smell it and get a huge yell from the old lady.

When the tank crashed there was very little corals in there maybe 3, that i can think of all of them were located and placed in the holding tank.

no new rock was added to the tank and no additives have been added at all since i put it back up. None of the rock stunk like anything but ocean.

One thing that i can think of that happened recently was a powerhead blew a bunch of sand around, to the point where it was bare glass in the display. I fixed it, but this started to occur right after that did so... i dont know.

Nothing has been changed yet because I dont want to do to much and have a bunch of other stuff go on. Im going to do a large water change to knock down the ammonia and hopefully raise the calcium and ph a little bit.

heres a link to the discussion in chemistry forum

seanndenise1 --> how can i keep the ammonia in check without doing a water change or adding a ammonia lock?linky poo

[seanb1]

well you would need to do water changes, and not small ones.

and in an emergency yeas i would keep a bottle of ammo lock or prime handy.
in my opinion prime is superior to any other ammonia detoxifier out there.

im betting you are getting a bacterial bloom going on.

all you can do is run carbon and do water changes.

the only time ive seen water look like that is when adding peat to fresh water or having a peice of driftwood in a tank leaching tannins.

im sure the answer is carbon and waterchanges, obviously your fish arent dead so its nothing poisonous, your getting alot of dyeoff and its staining the water or contributing waste that is feeding bacteria.

waterchange, waterchange waterchange, carbon carbon carbon.

keep us up to date how everything turns out.

[seanb1]

heck after looking at that picture again it kinda looks like that might be algae suspended in the water.

have you tried running a mechanical filter on it?

i would keep the lights off for a few days also.

lots of water movement.

[hndakd]

update did large water change and began running carbon along with a dark out of the tank. In this pic it has been dark for two days. looks a little better

water from tank

after change


what it started out like just so there all here