May have crashed my tank

EMeyer · Oct 25, 2020

Biglew11 said:
Spray accelerator itself is awesome for uses outside the reef tank. I used it alot for bulding rc airplanes, and other things that I want a fast setup on. I just don't like the idea of it in my reef tank.

Yeah, its always frustrating when I try to superglue something dry, and it doesnt set as fast as in my reef tank. I usually end up just putting a few drops of water on it in those cases too. I can see the use of a spray accelerator product for things like model building, for sure.

DanConnor · Oct 25, 2020

The accelerator is ok to use on frags being mounted to plugs separate from the tank- I wouldn't spray it on live rock though. At any rate, whatever the diagnosis, water changes are probably the answer, so do that.

Velcro · Oct 25, 2020

SMSREEF said:
Obviously if this happens twice a day Every day, the bacteria and organisms that live there can survive there. It’s not applicable to life that is not accustomed to being out of water.

Bingo.

IKD · Oct 25, 2020

I just want to ask, but adding 30 corals into a 32g Biocube wouldn’t be a factor on the water dynamics either and cause stress to whatever corals were already there?

Garf · Oct 25, 2020

Miamialum620 said:
So a few weeks ago after the WWC live sale (Thanks Mailly @WWC by the way for walking me through placement of frags in my tank) I finally decided to commit and glue down the 30 frags I have in my tank. I took maybe 75% or more of the water out in order to put the frags on the rocks. The first few days after I was proud of my work but I noticed my Duncan not opening up and that is usually a sign of bad things but I chalked it up to the water change. In the past week I've noticed the Duncan still hasn't opened, 2 lost chromis, and corals not looking great. I did a test on yesterday and saw nitrates at about 20ppm and ammonia at 2ppm. I rushed to my LFS to get some water, do a massive water change, and tested it today to find the numbers have been cut in half.

Should I just keep doing water changes until I get the levels down or is there something I should add to help with the nitrate and ammonia levels? Did taking out so much water initially, ruin everything?

Please any help would be great. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't freaking out a bit.

Have you checked the salinity?

NatureHold · Oct 25, 2020

IKD said:
I just want to ask, but adding 30 corals into a 32g Biocube wouldn’t be a factor on the water dynamics either and cause stress to whatever corals were already there?

If anything it would suck the main 3 (alk, Cal, Mag) faster. But it shouldn't cause a spike in nutrients.

I'm starting to wonder if there was some new coral warfare going on in there and it stressed the whole system because it's a fairly small tank.

Ashish Patel · Oct 25, 2020

HI. Not sure if anyone addressed this but how long where corals exposed to air before you filled the tank back up? Did you replenish the 70% with freshly mixed saltwater? I would not leave frags uncovered for more than 3-5 minutes, but this is only if I was glueing them to a new frag plug or rock. I get it that its difficult to glue frags underwater but its actually not that difficult with reefroids new glue - which sets only when underwater. For harder to reach areas a small ball of expoxy surrounded by glue does the trick.

Remember - nothing good happens fast in a reef tank, only bad things happen fast! Whatever is done is done, What I would do is turn of the lights for a 1-2 days or reduce photoperiod by 50% for a week, Test your ALK daily and make sure this is stable. I find corals tend to bounce back when they have a break from photosynthesis - Perhaps it gives the zoothellene (sybiotic algae) a chance to heal while the actual coral can gain more food and rest up.

Velcro · Oct 25, 2020

Ashish Patel said:
HI. Not sure if anyone addressed this but how long where corals exposed to air before you filled the tank back up? Did you replenish the 70% with freshly mixed saltwater? I would not leave frags uncovered for more than 3-5 minutes, but this is only if I was glueing them to a new frag plug or rock. I get it that its difficult to glue frags underwater but its actually not that difficult with reefroids new glue - which sets only when underwater. For harder to reach areas a small ball of expoxy surrounded by glue does the trick.

Remember - nothing good happens fast in a reef tank, only bad things happen fast! Whatever is done is done, What I would do is turn of the lights for a 1-2 days or reduce photoperiod by 50% for a week, Test your ALK daily and make sure this is stable. I find corals tend to bounce back when they have a break from photosynthesis - Perhaps it gives the zoothellene (sybiotic algae) a chance to heal while the actual coral can gain more food and rest up.

3-5 min? Where do you get that number? Seems like it's pulled from thin air to be honest

Kris 2020 · Oct 25, 2020

Velcro said:
Plenty of people, including me, have used the bsi insta set. It's fine. CA glue is all the same except for the different viscosity additives that are added for different thicknesses.

I’ve used insta set a number of times, the same stuff she used, with no harmful effects.

Rjukan · Oct 25, 2020

It's a shame that WWC helped you with the placement of the corals but didn't follow through with the actual process of setting them. It could have been so much easier than what you ended up doing.

Leaving the 1st 10 corals out while you glued the next 20 was probably the beginning of the end here. I know it takes me a while to choose the perfect spot for each frag, now imagine doing that when 10-15 have been sitting out for a while already. I'm sorry you went through this OP, hopefully most of your frags pull through.

Ashish Patel · Oct 25, 2020

Velcro said:
3-5 min? Where do you get that number? Seems like it's pulled from thin air to be honest

This only applies when I am pruning my tank so I would make 10 pieces of frags and glue them to their frag plug outside of water. It may take me 3-5 minutes before I put the entire rack back in water. This 3-5 range is from my experience alone not something taken out of air.

Velcro · Oct 26, 2020

Ashish Patel said:
This only applies when I am pruning my tank so I would make 10 pieces of frags and glue them to their frag plug outside of water. It may take me 3-5 minutes before I put the entire rack back in water. This 3-5 range is from my experience alone not something taken out of air.

I misunderstood what you wrote. I thought you were saying that you CANNOT expose them for more than 3-5min.