*Sob* tank is dead - Page 2

Pastey · 03/02/2015, 04:53 PM

Swing by louisianareeflclub.com or bayoureefkeeping.com
If someone is relatively close, they may be kind enough to come by and take a look to see what is wrong if you're still unable to figure it out. Plenty of good folks on both sites.

Hoopz87 · 03/02/2015, 10:39 PM

Powerheads you deff want, and one aimed at the surface for gas exchange. 3-5 weeks for top off is impossible, makes absolutely no sense, that's WAY too long for even water changes. 10% weekly or 20% bi weekly water changes is pretty much a must. I used tap water for a little bit in the beginning and eventually I realized how bad it was and it made a world of a difference when I changed over to RO/DI. Temperature was too high as well, keep it around 78. Salinity is ok, probably better at around 1.025. I really don't even know how your tank has lasted this long doing water changes every 2 and a half months on average. Do a lot of reading up on here.

nmotz · 03/02/2015, 11:01 PM

Maybe it's just me, but I'm kinda shocked at how long it took for someone to finally offer some condolences. Advice is great too of course, but I know a disaster like this would make me feel absolutely terrible.

To the OP I'll say that these kinds of things are unfortunately attached to this hobby and there's only so much that can be done about it. There are even many experts on this forum that have experienced mass die-offs leading to a breakdown and reboot of the tank. All that to say, don't feel too badly, and I am sorry for your losses.

Like others have mentioned, about $350-400 should get you a nice RO/DI and ATO system that will improve your situation immensely. I just got my RO/DI from BRS and it's super easy to use.

lilouisianagal · 03/03/2015, 09:22 AM

Thanks nmotz, the clownfish in that tank was our first fish ever 5 1/2 yrs ago, so it did hit hard. Plus coming out and seeing all the bristle worms and all the cleaning crew out and visible was so awful.

Mishri · 03/03/2015, 09:40 AM

There is some really odd advice in here considering your are keeping Fish Only no corals... Most of these guys aren't used to FOWLR it appears. Fish don't care about much except for PH, temp, salinity and ammonia. As someone else said. Keep it simple, don't dose anything for fish. Just regular water changes. In my opinion you go too long between top offs, however, fish adapt well to lower salinity changes (top-offs) than high salinity changes(evaporation is slow enough it doesn't harm them). For top-off water if you are worried about dropping the ph, get some PH up or other method of raising PH.. you'll eventually get the dosage down so you get perfect ph and don't even need to check it.

Your water changes considering how few fish you had were fine, 2 damsels and a clown. I'd aim for 25% every 6 weeks. Don't add anything extra, other than something to strip out chlorine/chloramine... You don't have to use RO/DI water - but, your algae was likely coming from the tap water, which likely has phosphates/nitrates. I'd try to atleast get a reverse osmosis system or buy RO water. You'll still get some phosphates though.

I believe your bacteria that you added caused the problem. It likely out competed the natural bacteria you had, possibly also lowered the oxygen level in the tank. and then died off...leaving nothing to take care of the ammonia. is the water cloudy?

1.023 is just fine for fish only, some people keep it even lower. nitrite/nitrate really doesn't hurt saltwater fish (Fresh water fish will die with either). I've used the test strips for my saltwater tanks for FOWLR, most of the parameters are fine if they are "close enough". As others have said, lower temps are better, aim for 78.

For future reference, best way to kill algae is to remove it's food (nitrate/phosphate). You can do that with an algae scrubber (algae builds in that instead) or using phosphate remover.

In my old 55g fowlr I had 4 power heads and fluval 304 filter. 2 of the power heads were pointed diagonally up towards the surface to provide surface movement, the rest were positioned to keep water flowing around the live rock. It may have been more than I needed but it seemed to work well.

d2mini · 03/03/2015, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mishri

There is some really odd advice in here considering your are keeping Fish Only no corals... Most of these guys aren't used to FOWLR it appears. Fish don't care about much except for PH, temp, salinity and ammonia.

It wasn't until post 9 that it was made clear this was a fowlr tank.

julie180 · 03/03/2015, 11:01 AM

Sorry for your loss. I was also thinking oxygen depletion. Do you have glass tops on the tank?

A sea K · 03/03/2015, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mishri

There is some really odd advice in here considering your are keeping Fish Only no corals... Most of these guys aren't used to FOWLR it appears. Fish don't care about much except for PH, temp, salinity and ammonia. As someone else said. Keep it simple, don't dose anything for fish. Just regular water changes. In my opinion you go too long between top offs, however, fish adapt well to lower salinity changes (top-offs) than high salinity changes(evaporation is slow enough it doesn't harm them). For top-off water if you are worried about dropping the ph, get some PH up or other method of raising PH.. you'll eventually get the dosage down so you get perfect ph and don't even need to check it.

Your water changes considering how few fish you had were fine, 2 damsels and a clown. I'd aim for 25% every 6 weeks. Don't add anything extra, other than something to strip out chlorine/chloramine... You don't have to use RO/DI water - but, your algae was likely coming from the tap water, which likely has phosphates/nitrates. I'd try to atleast get a reverse osmosis system or buy RO water. You'll still get some phosphates though.

1.023 is just fine for fish only, some people keep it even lower. nitrite/nitrate really doesn't hurt saltwater fish (Fresh water fish will die with either). I've used the test strips for my saltwater tanks for FOWLR, most of the parameters are fine if they are "close enough". As others have said, lower temps are better, aim for 78.

For future reference, best way to kill algae is to remove it's food (nitrate/phosphate). You can do that with an algae scrubber (algae builds in that instead) or using phosphate remover.

In my old 55g fowlr I had 4 power heads and fluval 304 filter. 2 of the power heads were pointed diagonally up towards the surface to provide surface movement, the rest were positioned to keep water flowing around the live rock. It may have been more than I needed but it seemed to work well.

Very good info!
Thank you for your much needed input. Like you I was reading this thinking there is a lot of misguided information(all very well meaning I'm sure).

wrott · 03/03/2015, 04:02 PM

Sorry for the loss.
W/ dKH at 240mg/mil the water is very hard and will hold lots of CO2, so even a slight decrease in O2 (like adding bacteria) could have suffocated the fish. As suggested, the best solution would be to buy an RO unit.
You probably don't need the DI part, but your tap adds inconsistant amounts of dKH to each WC/top off.
More frequent WCs will slowly decrease NO3 and algae.

lilouisianagal · 03/03/2015, 07:55 PM

Thanks y'all. I will look into the louisiana websites soon. Right now I just have the filter going and am letting it sit. I've seen the crabs moving around, so they are still alive. I've seen a couple of twitchy bristle worms but I think most of them died.

I did say in the original post that it was FOWLR. When I first started this tank I changed water much more frequently but, admittedly life just got busy (toddler, professional school, life!). That's part of the reason I don't do full reef tanks, just FOWLR.

Now I feel so stupid for having used the bacteria supplement. I didn't even use the full amount recommended, but I guess that plus the mineral levels, plus a sick fish just did it in. The tank was a little less clear than usual (more white).

So far I have:
Get a RO/DI, possibly get an ATO (what is a relatively inexpensive option?), get a water chem test (the toddler dumped my strips out, so I have to get something anyway *sigh*), get fresh salt mix and stir it once it is close to halfway down in case of settling, stop adding anything except the eight.four, possibly add some powerheads (recommendations?), possibly add an algae scrubber (recommendations?).

This is the tank this afternoon:

As you can see there is a lot of the short bristly algae. I figure I will try to get that under control while I get the tank back to fish-ready. Oddly my other tank (55 gal FOWLR) has only red algae if it gets anything.

Reel North · 03/03/2015, 08:40 PM

Chlorine is what prime etc neutralize in tap water. CHLORAMINES, which are added by water treatment plants on occasion IS NOT NEUTRALIZED. I think that explains a lot of these random tank kills using tap. You really can't test for it and you cant eliminate it without RODI.

Reel North · 03/03/2015, 08:42 PM

Your phosphates and nitrates must be off the scale with algae like that.

CStrickland · 03/03/2015, 09:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reel North

Chlorine is what prime etc neutralize in tap water. CHLORAMINES, which are added by water treatment plants on occasion IS NOT NEUTRALIZED. I think that explains a lot of these random tank kills using tap. You really can't test for it and you cant eliminate it without RODI.

Prime neutralizes chloramines. As I understand it by breaking it into chlorine and ammonia, and processing them.
Not saying prime treated water is the way to go, but it shouldn't have chloramines.

CStrickland · 03/03/2015, 09:57 PM

Sorry for your loss Louisiana. I find it simple to only mix up as much SW as I need for a change, I do it an hour before. My salt might be diff than yours, but it says not to mix it more than a few hours ahead, so I go by that.
If it were me, I'd yank out as much algae as I could (gloves are nice for the bristles), get a couple powerheads to move the stale water from the bottom of the tank up and across the surface so there is enough oxygen for your bacteria and fish to breathe, and work on keeping the rocks clean and let the algae wear itself out in the nutrients that have absorbed in. I guess you could cook your rocks, or get new ones, but it sounds like your pretty busy, and maybe like me it doesn't look all that bad to you? I don't mind a little green.
I like these powerheads, they're like $10 http://www.amazon.com/SunSun-Wavemak.../dp/B008E8K4G0 I prefer a couple small ones so you don't have dead areas.

Whichever way you get back on the horse I'm proud of you for not giving up

03/02/2015, 04:53 PM	#26
Pastey Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2013 Location: Baton Rouge, LA Posts: 835	Swing by louisianareeflclub.com or bayoureefkeeping.com If someone is relatively close, they may be kind enough to come by and take a look to see what is wrong if you're still unable to figure it out. Plenty of good folks on both sites. __________________ I got a fever, and the only prescription is more pictures.

03/02/2015, 11:01 PM	#28
nmotz Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: FL, USA Posts: 1,433	Maybe it's just me, but I'm kinda shocked at how long it took for someone to finally offer some condolences. Advice is great too of course, but I know a disaster like this would make me feel absolutely terrible. To the OP I'll say that these kinds of things are unfortunately attached to this hobby and there's only so much that can be done about it. There are even many experts on this forum that have experienced mass die-offs leading to a breakdown and reboot of the tank. All that to say, don't feel too badly, and I am sorry for your losses. Like others have mentioned, about $350-400 should get you a nice RO/DI and ATO system that will improve your situation immensely. I just got my RO/DI from BRS and it's super easy to use. __________________ Mantis shrimp are the best! Current Tank Info: 20L Peacock mantis shrimp tank

03/03/2015, 09:40 AM	#30
Mishri Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Great Falls, MT Posts: 1,404	There is some really odd advice in here considering your are keeping Fish Only no corals... Most of these guys aren't used to FOWLR it appears. Fish don't care about much except for PH, temp, salinity and ammonia. As someone else said. Keep it simple, don't dose anything for fish. Just regular water changes. In my opinion you go too long between top offs, however, fish adapt well to lower salinity changes (top-offs) than high salinity changes(evaporation is slow enough it doesn't harm them). For top-off water if you are worried about dropping the ph, get some PH up or other method of raising PH.. you'll eventually get the dosage down so you get perfect ph and don't even need to check it. Your water changes considering how few fish you had were fine, 2 damsels and a clown. I'd aim for 25% every 6 weeks. Don't add anything extra, other than something to strip out chlorine/chloramine... You don't have to use RO/DI water - but, your algae was likely coming from the tap water, which likely has phosphates/nitrates. I'd try to atleast get a reverse osmosis system or buy RO water. You'll still get some phosphates though. I believe your bacteria that you added caused the problem. It likely out competed the natural bacteria you had, possibly also lowered the oxygen level in the tank. and then died off...leaving nothing to take care of the ammonia. is the water cloudy? 1.023 is just fine for fish only, some people keep it even lower. nitrite/nitrate really doesn't hurt saltwater fish (Fresh water fish will die with either). I've used the test strips for my saltwater tanks for FOWLR, most of the parameters are fine if they are "close enough". As others have said, lower temps are better, aim for 78. For future reference, best way to kill algae is to remove it's food (nitrate/phosphate). You can do that with an algae scrubber (algae builds in that instead) or using phosphate remover. In my old 55g fowlr I had 4 power heads and fluval 304 filter. 2 of the power heads were pointed diagonally up towards the surface to provide surface movement, the rest were positioned to keep water flowing around the live rock. It may have been more than I needed but it seemed to work well. __________________ 300 gallon 8ft long, 2x xf250 gyre, reef octopus 250-int - work in progress Aquarist since 1986 Last edited by Mishri; 03/03/2015 at 09:56 AM.

03/03/2015, 04:02 PM	#34
wrott Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Alabama Posts: 2,912	Sorry for the loss. W/ dKH at 240mg/mil the water is very hard and will hold lots of CO2, so even a slight decrease in O2 (like adding bacteria) could have suffocated the fish. As suggested, the best solution would be to buy an RO unit. You probably don't need the DI part, but your tap adds inconsistant amounts of dKH to each WC/top off. More frequent WCs will slowly decrease NO3 and algae. __________________ OK, but where does the meat go! ------------------------------------------------ 120g SPS, 125g mix, 56g FOWLR, 20g qt

03/02/2015, 10:39 PM	#27
Hoopz87 Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2014 Posts: 414	Powerheads you deff want, and one aimed at the surface for gas exchange. 3-5 weeks for top off is impossible, makes absolutely no sense, that's WAY too long for even water changes. 10% weekly or 20% bi weekly water changes is pretty much a must. I used tap water for a little bit in the beginning and eventually I realized how bad it was and it made a world of a difference when I changed over to RO/DI. Temperature was too high as well, keep it around 78. Salinity is ok, probably better at around 1.025. I really don't even know how your tank has lasted this long doing water changes every 2 and a half months on average. Do a lot of reading up on here.

03/03/2015, 09:22 AM	#29
lilouisianagal Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Louisiana Posts: 45	Thanks nmotz, the clownfish in that tank was our first fish ever 5 1/2 yrs ago, so it did hit hard. Plus coming out and seeing all the bristle worms and all the cleaning crew out and visible was so awful.

03/03/2015, 11:01 AM	#32
julie180 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Raymore, MO Posts: 2,556	Sorry for your loss. I was also thinking oxygen depletion. Do you have glass tops on the tank?

03/03/2015, 07:55 PM	#35
lilouisianagal Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Louisiana Posts: 45	Thanks y'all. I will look into the louisiana websites soon. Right now I just have the filter going and am letting it sit. I've seen the crabs moving around, so they are still alive. I've seen a couple of twitchy bristle worms but I think most of them died. I did say in the original post that it was FOWLR. When I first started this tank I changed water much more frequently but, admittedly life just got busy (toddler, professional school, life!). That's part of the reason I don't do full reef tanks, just FOWLR. Now I feel so stupid for having used the bacteria supplement. I didn't even use the full amount recommended, but I guess that plus the mineral levels, plus a sick fish just did it in. The tank was a little less clear than usual (more white). So far I have: Get a RO/DI, possibly get an ATO (what is a relatively inexpensive option?), get a water chem test (the toddler dumped my strips out, so I have to get something anyway sigh), get fresh salt mix and stir it once it is close to halfway down in case of settling, stop adding anything except the eight.four, possibly add some powerheads (recommendations?), possibly add an algae scrubber (recommendations?). This is the tank this afternoon: As you can see there is a lot of the short bristly algae. I figure I will try to get that under control while I get the tank back to fish-ready. Oddly my other tank (55 gal FOWLR) has only red algae if it gets anything.

03/03/2015, 08:40 PM	#36
Reel North New King of Quarantine Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Hammertown, Canada eh Posts: 1,175	Chlorine is what prime etc neutralize in tap water. CHLORAMINES, which are added by water treatment plants on occasion IS NOT NEUTRALIZED. I think that explains a lot of these random tank kills using tap. You really can't test for it and you cant eliminate it without RODI.

03/03/2015, 08:42 PM	#37
Reel North New King of Quarantine Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Hammertown, Canada eh Posts: 1,175	Your phosphates and nitrates must be off the scale with algae like that.

03/03/2015, 09:57 PM	#39
CStrickland Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2015 Location: New England, U.S. Posts: 4,595	Sorry for your loss Louisiana. I find it simple to only mix up as much SW as I need for a change, I do it an hour before. My salt might be diff than yours, but it says not to mix it more than a few hours ahead, so I go by that. If it were me, I'd yank out as much algae as I could (gloves are nice for the bristles), get a couple powerheads to move the stale water from the bottom of the tank up and across the surface so there is enough oxygen for your bacteria and fish to breathe, and work on keeping the rocks clean and let the algae wear itself out in the nutrients that have absorbed in. I guess you could cook your rocks, or get new ones, but it sounds like your pretty busy, and maybe like me it doesn't look all that bad to you? I don't mind a little green. I like these powerheads, they're like $10 http://www.amazon.com/SunSun-Wavemak.../dp/B008E8K4G0 I prefer a couple small ones so you don't have dead areas. Whichever way you get back on the horse I'm proud of you for not giving up