Everything dying pls help

[brandon429]

Based on pic succession over the last few days here this is the offer:

mass on the birds nest seems a little less not more, we need to act by feeding it



you don’t have a lot of places extra feed can go



you will be mixing around clouding items, chemical mixed compounds in a state of degradation, all around if you do large wc currently


which is ironic, bc lack of large water change + light reduction is what’s harming the setup each day vs adding mass.


we‘ve got to unspot that sandbed, make it new, so it has no poison to emanate, slosh or cast

we want to drive your overall color palette for the tank under white lighting above into more crisp tones; white sand. Standout detail rocks, no graying accumulations. High organics is a yellow condition in reefing; low organics selects for blacks, purples, red pigments to grow and be evident, which is the pop reef you want.

bad ORP is that color reef, good ORP is a post rip cleaned reef. All the clouding in the sand and rocks is affecting ORP for this system.

by working without wait, you get the results posted from skip cycle fix reefs:

Algae Identification

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

www.reef2reef.com

Sand/tank RIP clean - During - After - Updates

I’m guessing that’s what this is. So some of you know I’ve posted some threads about diatoms in my established tank. I can’t rid them for the life of me with water changes and 2-5 ppm nitrate and .3 to .10 phosphate. My tank itself is stable and looks good except for this dang brown sand. so...

www.reef2reef.com

i recommend no customization just run a rip clean


and reduce lighting, to blue, way less power and shorter hours, ramp up to current levels only as flesh increases. Permit no stagnancy, your corals will peel off soon. Eutrophication shift is max accumulation stage for a nano, but it’s not hard to reverse thankfully


we surgically remove 100% of the waste, rocks and sand, all at once.


we put back a true cloudless system under weaker heavy blue lighting, ramped down. We then do feed and water change cpr Mon and Fri and by August you have some pop back. 1 or 2 gallons changed twice a week, spot feeding an hour before the change, over perfect sand, will fix your reef.

 

[SMSREEF]

My 2 cents... and by no means am I a microbiologist...

I had similar thing happen. Many of my corals were dying or didn’t look right.
Nutrients were low but I did more water changes to remove the little bit of slime growing in different places in my 10 gallon nano.

tank looked better, then got even worse.

I had no sandbed. I did not feed much to keep nutrients low. I thought I could kill it through starvation yet things only got worse for my corals.

I got a microscope and finally figured out I had Dino’s which I believe were irritating my corals. I did not have the kind that kills snails and other livestock though. So if you have Dino’s they probably are a different kind.

I started to increase nutrients by dosing nitrate and phosphate. It stopped the dyoff but things did not dramatically turn around. I dosed bottled bacteria and it did nothing to solve the issue.

I suggest getting a microscope to see what you are dealing with. Look at the Dino thread once you get a microscope to see if anything growing on the coral looks like a strain of Dino because different ones have different things that help fix. my Duncan was closing up during the day before and I was blaming it on my light...

After realizing what I had growing was Ostreopsis I got a UV sterilizer based on info in Dino threads. a day after the UV the Duncan was open during the day.

in no way am I saying you have Dino’s that can be killed by UV. I am just saying a microscope may help you figure out the answer.

 

[nacreef]

Based on pic succession over the last few days here this is the offer:

mass on the birds nest seems a little less not more, we need to act by feeding it



you don’t have a lot of places extra feed can go



you will be mixing around clouding items, chemical mixed compounds in a state of degradation, all around if you do large wc currently


which is ironic, bc lack of large water change + light reduction is what’s harming the setup each day vs adding mass.


we‘ve got to unspot that sandbed, make it new, so it has no poison to emanate, slosh or cast

we want to drive your overall color palette for the tank under white lighting above into more crisp tones; white sand. Standout detail rocks, no graying accumulations. High organics is a yellow condition in reefing; low organics selects for blacks, purples, red pigments to grow and be evident, which is the pop reef you want.

bad ORP is that color reef, good ORP is a post rip cleaned reef. All the clouding in the sand and rocks is affecting ORP for this system.

by working without wait, you get the results posted from skip cycle fix reefs:

Algae Identification

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

www.reef2reef.com

Sand/tank RIP clean - During - After - Updates

I’m guessing that’s what this is. So some of you know I’ve posted some threads about diatoms in my established tank. I can’t rid them for the life of me with water changes and 2-5 ppm nitrate and .3 to .10 phosphate. My tank itself is stable and looks good except for this dang brown sand. so...

www.reef2reef.com

i recommend no customization just run a rip clean


and reduce lighting, to blue, way less power and shorter hours, ramp up to current levels only as flesh increases. Permit no stagnancy, your corals will peel off soon. Eutrophication shift is max accumulation stage for a nano, but it’s not hard to reverse thankfully


we surgically remove 100% of the waste, rocks and sand, all at once.


we put back a true cloudless system under weaker heavy blue lighting, ramped down. We then do feed and water change cpr Mon and Fri and by August you have some pop back. 1 or 2 gallons changed twice a week, spot feeding an hour before the change, over perfect sand, will fix your reef.

I have a lot of extra sand from when I first set this up. Is there any reason to spend the time rinsing everything out of the sand when I could just replace it with fresh new sand?

 

[brandon429]

That's best agreed, but you still have to pre rinse the new sand to total cloudless


we dont want interference clouding from new sand which is harmless yet enduringly annoying and not required to mask true ammonia clouding after a rip clean. Cloudy is bad for what we do, for the markers we use


using new sand is less organics back in, still needs however long rinse it takes to be this clean, which is a 14 yr nano:




my corals are laying on the counter in the air. For your rocks and corals w treat w utmost care and complementary wetting of saltwater :)


That’s tap water, rinsed clear, then ro water then reassemble

is no more harmful than going to bare bottom systems which people do all the time. That’s a sandbed that functions like a bare bottom. Going bare bottom never gave someone dinos. Using Gfo gave someone dinos.

 

[brandon429]

for sure read their examples and try and predict ways new sand or old rocks prepped will make your tank cloud

then do opposite


envision all cloud clearing steps before working it. How you will disassemble without clouding touching any fish or corals...how to jet out the rocks in a bucket of saltwater so they cast out waste currently held in by organic pocketing.


since you are going for max sustain work time


clean these rocks to gem quality. WV did it above, gem quality. Not half cleared, hangers on...gem detailing.

be using buckets of clean saltwater to swish twist those rocks around in

use peroxide directly on rock for picking assist and tougher algae areas, burn them clean w peroxide and keep it off corals. scrape and detail with a knife tip not a brush, for specific reasons. An urchin has a knife mouth not a brush mouth, we are matching needs to your substrate.

param measure has literally nothing to do with your job, it’s all straight up tai bo on keto. Don’t customize any portion.

 

[nacreef]

That's best agreed, but you still have to pre rinse the new sand to total cloudless


we dont want interference clouding from new sand which is harmless yet enduringly annoying and not required to mask true ammonia clouding after a rip clean. Cloudy is bad for what we do, for the markers we use


using new sand is less organics back in, still needs however long rinse it takes to be this clean, which is a 14 yr nano:




my corals are laying on the counter in the air. For your rocks and corals w treat w utmost care and complementary wetting of saltwater :)


That’s tap water, rinsed clear, then ro water then reassemble

is no more harmful than going to bare bottom systems which people do all the time. That’s a sandbed that functions like a bare bottom. Going bare bottom never gave someone dinos. Using Gfo gave someone dinos.

In this case what is the purpose of the sandbed? Is the goal to allow some bacteria/microorganisms with no detritus? Would it make sense to consider going bare bottom in this case?

 

[brandon429]

it would not hurt but look how that reef looked with sand in shot one


i saw tanks of the month on nano reef.com for twenty years straight, that above is a hidden gem tank of the month. We should make it work in the prior condition, sand just looks great. This reef is so small I bet it w to a while before rip clean dux


it needs cleared breathing open pores, ready to take in feed


that sustained bi weekly feed and water change, has to be above steady states to be nitrogen positive exercise benefit mass/ rule for animals and us


if you look ahead to July ish under way less whites, blues so thick they look ugly, then by July you can head towards original balance picture totm.

the main issue was using vibrant for algae control. For nanos, it’s external dental work over the sink so that waste evacuates, not compounds. All people who study fish disease agree a compounded waste tank harbors more disease compared to active flow unclogged zones. We are saving your fish too, but it’s got to be cloudless work, rocks only contacted by saltwater, whatever you do to sand doesn’t matter including ditching it if you want.

in this video, drag through

it’s me invading my reef on purpose by stopping maintenance for months. To the brink, on purpose. Then it’s rip cleaned. And I didn’t give it any water, longer than any tank on the forum lol.

it still didn’t mini cycle, because I permitted no cloud. Only saltwater touched my rocks.

extremely long term nano reefs are able to be accessed to the bone at a moments notice, no hesitation.


12 hours later
rip clean results.


color palette is reds, purples, dark areas, pop, strong ORP low organics condition. Before shot was green gray haze. Fascinating tie of visual biology into chemistry.

 

[SMSREEF]

it would not hurt but look how that reef looked with sand in shot one


i saw tanks of the month on nano reef.com for twenty years straight, that above is a hidden gem tank of the month. We should make it work in the prior condition, sand just looks great. This reef is so small I bet it w to a while before rip clean dux


it needs cleared breathing open pores, ready to take in feed


that sustained bi weekly feed and water change, has to be above steady states to be nitrogen positive exercise benefit mass/ rule for animals and us


if you look ahead to July ish under way less whites, blues so thick they look ugly, then by July you can head towards original balance picture totm.

the main issue was using vibrant for algae control. For nanos, it’s external dental work over the sink so that waste evacuates, not compounds. All people who study fish disease agree a compounded waste tank harbors more disease compared to active flow unclogged zones. We are saving your fish too, but it’s got to be cloudless work, rocks only contacted by saltwater, whatever you do to sand doesn’t matter including ditching it if you want.

in this video, drag through

it’s me invading my reef on purpose by stopping maintenance for months. To the brink, on purpose. Then it’s rip cleaned. And I didn’t give it any water, longer than any tank on the forum lol.

it still didn’t mini cycle, because I permitted no cloud. Only saltwater touched my rocks.

extremely long term nano reefs are able to be accessed to the bone at a moments notice, no hesitation.

What do you think is causing the problem and why do you think a 100% water change and sand rinse can change the course?

I honestly can say I have no clue at this point... so I wonder how you are sure.

To me, this one is tricky... it does not seem to be an algae problem that rip clean solves. And believe me, I love a good Brandon rip clean!

 

[brandon429]

In my opinion he did hands off bell curving


if we added a zero to his total tank volume then its still peak looks due to dilution allowance, this tank maxed out on organics because we can demonstrate that relative to dilution

then eutrophic shift occurs at that organics max storage phase, corals hate eutrophic zones they’re acidic in nature and low turnover zones. What does like eutrophic zones: turtle grass. Plants, things that thrive in organic storage zones.

a crashing fringe reef is active, opposite, open pore, high feed high export mean sometimes reef zone.

if he reaches in and grabs a hand of sand and drops it, the final cycle will occur for any coral flesh. All that liability still leaks poison into the system.

same for rocks. If he swished a rock mid tank it would cloud dangerously, more water work can’t remove that we need a reef storm.


this is a mouth with plaque, rocks are decaying teeth but with underlying dentin, scrape back to life.


its arteries with choked out flow
it’s an organism experiencing kidney failure literally, we can arrest that.

 

[brandon429]

We should use vibrant only in tanks so big we can’t export them manually as easily. And if those tanks are high surface area storage zone displays, they will too become eutrophic pretty fast.

vibrant+big tank= cyano = will eventually seek out and enter the sand rinse thread, we always clean up after vibrant in some way.

 

[SMSREEF]

In my opinion he did hands off bell curving


if we added a zero to his total tank volume then its still peak looks due to dilution allowance, this tank maxed out on organics because we can demonstrate that relative to dilution

if he reaches in and grabs a hand of sand and drops it, the final cycle will occur for any coral flesh

Agreed solution to pollution is dilution.

just need to make sure what is left can outcompete what is causing the problem.

What do you think about rip clean with adding new live sand (not kind in a bag but that flown in from a reef in the keys or Hawaii). Or with added new live rock from similar location or another reef without current issues.

 

[brandon429]

Can do

in my opinion we are piecemealing anyway as we build tanks, might as well source with a planned diversity benefit

the dynamic part has to be us it can’t be a lucky grazer we found or a param balance for nitrate and phosphate we lucked upon. We should force the clean breathing restored condition first, then pack in biodiversity, my friend Daniel has already been dosing live pods and juvenile artemia and just a neat array of microbes we think will be anti Dino in nature in his dry rock tank


this rock here has an advantage, it’s got too much accumulation but inherently even after a rip clean + peroxide detailing it will have better dinos prevention diversity than Daniels dry start nanos. Hes having to ramp up, to get to where nacreef recently was, we need to only remove competing accumulation to restore nacreef’s tank.

his tank needed hand guiding, focused siphon removal even if topical alone, to prevent mass buildup where it becomes an insulating, housing feed acquiring mass.

done right, I could see this thread being edged to the very top reference in our restoration threads.

 

[Birddog61]

Well after going through 3 pages. What stands out is zero no3 and dinos from the op s first post including a mystery fish death and corals declining rapidly after that . then a rebound on water change only to get worse the next day.
My first concern would be o2. as minor dino blooms can strip levels over night especially in nanos as thay have limited gas exchange area compaired to larger systems.

 

[brandon429]

Add to that very much increased bioloading from non filtration bacteria, aerobes, that colonize extra accumulation / clogging and oxygen sure might be dipping and rising - adding to stress


large zoos and aquarium exhibits have to back flush the huge filtration systems to re expose pores, clean out waste

that’s what we do in deep cleaning but it’s to the display. Adjusting params to select for competition is ideal when fresh start is timed

add pods too, companies like algen sell great diversity packs, refugium charger kits. Regrowth preventers

 

[brandon429]

This reef has been fixed right?

lights dimmed for safety mode~

 

[brandon429]

This tank has the potential to be a flagship save example, we could use it to save thousands of dollars in lost animals for others by using a small reef to model actions for larger reefs. You’re sitting on science gold.

 

[brandon429]

Another plea

for the best potential turnaround thread I’ve seen in a year

can we

did ya

 

[nacreef]

Another plea

for the best potential turnaround thread I’ve seen in a year

can we
Get
did ya

Another plea

for the best potential turnaround thread I’ve seen in a year

can we

did ya

Hey Brandon,
I know it has been way too long and maybe no one will ever see this thread again but I wanted to maybe give you that turnaround you were looking for.

I will attach a picture of the tank from today, but to be clear, this is pretty much what it looked like around the start of summer, I just never got around to updating.

The major change I made was a kind of modified rip-clean I guess. I took out all the water, then removed all the sand permanently, then put in mostly new water. Made sure that the water level was below all the corals before I disturbed the sand bed. Sort of scrubbed down he rocks but did not remove them from the tank.

After this some improvement had started. Corals seemed happier, but some algae was still there. My big change was about a month later though, I felt comfortable adding some snails so I did and they got rid of the algae completely within days. There has been no algae/dinos/whatever since then, except of course the occasional film on the glass.

Have added some more things since then: some corals, pj cardinal, shark nose goby, coral banded shrimp, and tuxedo urchin—everything doing great, and again this has all happened over the course of like 7 months so I feel comfortable that things are turned around for good.

Water changes are now consistently 2.5 gallons every 2 weeks.

I know the picture still might not look quite as good as my first pic from the beginning of the thread looked, but I really feel like it is better than ever and in person it looks great.

Thanks for all the help, and I hope you or others see this update.

 

[brandon429]

Thanks tons for replying that looks sharp!! we do so many rips in reefing, so many vast rippages lol I now have to go re read from the start here real quick.

scanning from post 56 onward I've been desperate for this one lol refresher of my old brain coming up:

 

[Miller535]

Glad you got it resolved.