Heeellllpppp>>>>

[follow3]

Hello,

I have a problem with my tank. First let me give you the pertinent info:

The tank is a 40 gal. breeder with a 20 gallon sump/fuge.
I have a canopy with 4- T-5 HO with individual reflectors.
2 Aquablue specials & 2 Blue +

I recently had a problem when I put in a filter bag with activated carbon that I must not have rinsed well enough. After a day or two I ended up with black residue on everything.

Well to solve this situation and also to move my tank onto a new stand, I did a tear down this weekend. I moved all of the frags to a rubbermaid with tank water, heater, powerhead and a light. I took out the frag racks and other equipment and cleaned and drained the tank. I put the tank on the new stand and set everything back up and got it running. I checked all water parameters and everything was perfect and matching the previous tank water.

It has been running good since Saturday when I put everything back in.
It had a little bit of cloudiness that I thought was normal for new water.
I did not change the water or anything in the fuge. I thought the cloudiness would go away. I went to check on the tank after work today and there is some sort of slime everywhere. I can't figure out what it is or where it is coming from. It looks like slime that some corals will produce when disturbed, but there is a lot of it. It is clinging to most of the frags, the frag racks...everywhere. I think it looks like coral slime, but the zoas and palys are in good shape. The other corals in the tanks are about a dozen different Monti frags. About 4 of those frags are looking very distressed. They are all Caps ands are starting to lose their color and slime.

Could all this slime be from those four Monti Caps?
What should I do about it?

Please help!!!
Sorry for the long thread!

Steve

 

[Randy]

Changing 40 gal of water in a 60g system will cause a bit of a cycle if you can see if you can move your livestock to a frends tank for a few weeks.I would do some water tests fast.

 

[follow3]

Hey Randy,

I thought about the cycling just about the time I finished putting the frags back in...DUH. Rookie mistake.

Unfortunately I don't have any friends local with SW tanks.

Do you think those 4 Caps could be the ones sliming the tank up?

I tested everything today. It is all perfect.
Temp = 80.4
Salinity = 1.025
PH = 8.2
Amonia= 0
Nitrites= 0
Nitrates= 0
Phosphates= 0
Calcium= 400
KH= 19
Magnesium =1385

thats all the tests I have.

Thanks for any advise you can give.

Steve

 

[Randy]

If you are going through a cycle your Amonia and Nitrites would be showing something.How old is your test kits?Also KH of 19 is way high natural sea water has a kh of 8.I would shoot for 8-13 kh.What salt are you using?As for the slime I would have to see this to make a guess.I have seen sps slime off during a water change but it goes away in a few hrs.Take a picture of this slime.

 

[follow3]

That was a typo Randy.

The KH is 11.

I have been working on the tank for a while now.
I put a filter sock on the end of the drain line and took a small powerhead and blew all of the slime off of everything to get it floating so it could go through the overflow and down to the filter.

So far it seems to be working. We will see in the morning.

Thanks for your help.

I found that I had 4 Monti caps going down and sliming as well as 2 Acros and an encrusting Monti. It looks like my Palys and Zoas made the transition well, but the SPS are stressed.

Steve

PS. Randy, you never let me know about the mold for the frag disks.
are you still interested? I am going to make 2 of them, one for the small one and one for the large. Send me a PM with your address and I will send them your way so you can see if they work.

 

[MarvinsReef]

I'm glad you're making progress... I wouldn't know about the SPS stuff coz I'm a rookie with them as well... I will move this thread though just so the SPS junkies can chime in.. hope that's alright with you...

 

[surfn]

yup, brand new saltwater will cause all that sliming and distress........hopefully things will work out and everything will pull through.

you can tell with sps are dying, as the surface will turn to a white porous skeleton.

not much you can do but monitor your amonia (NH3), nitrite (NO2), and nitrate (NO3) and watch for cycling. as long as those levels are mostly zero, you may want to even remove your skimmer and carbon for a couple days to let the water *dirty* up a bit faster.

 

[follow3]

Well after fighting it for 10 days or so, I finally tore the tank down and totaly re-did everything.

I was fighting the slime and cloudiness day after day. I lost about 40 frags, then finally the cloudiness started clearing, so I decided to do some cleaning. While cleaning the inside of the sump with a scrub pad, one of the baffles came lose from the silicone. That was the last straw!!!

I set up a large rubermaid with a heater, powerhead and light. Then I moved what was left of my frags in there and a few into another tank I have.
Next I tore the tank down and cleaned everything. Then I drained the sump/fuge and found that the silicone I had used was not working to hold the baffles in the fuge. I had used a silicone that was for acrylic. It seemed soft and slimey. I wonder if this stuff was the cause for my whole problem in the first place???

I took the baffles out and cleaned everything up and put it all back togethes with aquarium sealant. I let it dry for 2 days and put the sump/fuge back together and even made a few improvements.

Today I filled it up and got everything running again. I also installed a new ballast for my T-5's and new water proof end caps. I was using the cheap Taiwanese ballasts and plastic end caps. Now I changed over to a Fulham Workhorse 7. WOW what a difference that made. The ATI bulbs look awesome now.

Well I tested everything and all parameters are right on. I will monitor it closely and add a few frags here and there over the next couple of weeks until the tank is cycled and good to go.

Thanks for all of the help Y'all. I will post some pics in my tank thread.

Steve