New Skimmer Causing Bleaching?!?! Please Help!!
- Thread starter Xler8n
- Start date
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Ok.. Im at the point where im pulling my hair out. All my SPS is dying except my birdsnest.. WHY?!?!? I just had to frag the crap out of my purple bonsai. Im at the point where i will break my tank down if i lose all my SPS. My purple bonsai has been MY FAVORITE piece for years and to see it dye. I cant take it. I dont know wat to do except watch everything die. Im gonna do a huge water change tomm to see if that helps.
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Ok let's break things down here man Answer these questions for me!
What kind of salt do you use?
Size of tank:
Lighting:
Photo period
Calcium
Alk
Mag
Po4
Nitrate
Nitrite
What else have you changed other than the skimmer?
What do you dose? How often? how much?
Date of last water change?
How big was it? By percentage? How many gallons?
Do you run carbon? How much? What method? How much did you use this time compared to past
Do you run gfo? How much? How often? Did you up the amount this time compared to last time if so by how much?
Just things that I can think of right now trying to help man!
What kind of salt do you use?
Size of tank:
Lighting:
Photo period
Calcium
Alk
Mag
Po4
Nitrate
Nitrite
What else have you changed other than the skimmer?
What do you dose? How often? how much?
Date of last water change?
How big was it? By percentage? How many gallons?
Do you run carbon? How much? What method? How much did you use this time compared to past
Do you run gfo? How much? How often? Did you up the amount this time compared to last time if so by how much?
Just things that I can think of right now trying to help man!
Tank Size: 75 gallon w/ 30 gallon sump/refuge
Salt: Reef Crystals
Light: 48" Sunpod w/ (2) 150 watt DE Phoenix
Photoperiod: 5hrs (was 8hr before skimmer)
PH- 7.8
Nitrate- 0ppm
Nitrite- 0ppm
Ammonia- 0ppm
Calcium- 440ppm
Alkalinity- 7dkh
Mag- 1500
Salinity- 1.023
P04- UNKNOWN
- Changed the sump and Skimmer only
- Never needed to dose.
- 28 gallons changed 6/14/11
- Water changed every 2 weeks
No Carbon
No GFO
Salt: Reef Crystals
Light: 48" Sunpod w/ (2) 150 watt DE Phoenix
Photoperiod: 5hrs (was 8hr before skimmer)
PH- 7.8
Nitrate- 0ppm
Nitrite- 0ppm
Ammonia- 0ppm
Calcium- 440ppm
Alkalinity- 7dkh
Mag- 1500
Salinity- 1.023
P04- UNKNOWN
- Changed the sump and Skimmer only
- Never needed to dose.
- 28 gallons changed 6/14/11
- Water changed every 2 weeks
No Carbon
No GFO
Im not sure. I was reading that doing that can make water foul in the skimmer chamber. Ive read posts where many people believe it isnt possible to overskim. Im thinking it may be one or a combination of a 2 things. The first being my tank going through a mini cycle from scooping the sand from the old fuge to the new and LR exposure to air for 1.5 hrs(wouldnt tests show this?). Second, the corals where so used to the water quality using an underpowered skimmer having excess nutrients in the water that moving to an overpowered skimmer though better for the tank, has changed the quality of the water too quickly for some corals to adapt.. This is all i can come up with. I know im being a bit of a pester with this issue. Im not sure what else to do. Its sucks watching this.
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Ok from what I've read.. Possible mini cycle but unlikely if youre not picking I up on test results!!! So here is what I believe to of happened added sump had to make new water added to volume of Tank (actually more efficient at lowering nutrients than water change) then I'm confused did you do a water change on top of this?? If so you had a very rapid reduction of nutrients in term causing the steril tank effect basically stripping g your tank of the po4 and no3 that was there in term quickly starving your corals hence the bleaching and rtn/stn this will ride out and I do believe correct itself! ????
The sump i had before was about 7 gallons. The new one is about 17.7 gallons. I drained the water to do a 24 gallon water change then a little more that i had in buckets sitting so that i could move the tank. The water in the buckets was then put back into the tank then new water was added. 24 gallons plus an extra 10 for the new sump, so 34 gallons of new water added. Then after a few hours i noticed an ammonia spike. I then changed 28 gallons. Its been 2 weeks since the last water change. I was thinking of changing the water (24 gallons) today or tomm. Should i still do this? I was also thinking of shutting off the new skimmer and sump then draining it to let it sit. I would use my old sump and skimmer again but wouldnt this defeat the whole purpose of my tank getting used to a more powerful skimmer? The only other thing i can think of is it might be the silicone like "plastics" said.
I dont think so. I have a fuge on a reverse light cycle. My PH has always been that low except when i first started the reef using fresh Aragonite years ago.
A guy on RC said this, "how long did you let it cure before using? Because it says for plastics, my guess is that it is a neutral cure silicone. Neutral cure silicones require 1-2 weeks curing time prior to placing in service. During that time, the silicone will release ammonia and other chemicals. So my guess.. is that you are slowly dosing your system with ammonia and the sump should be taken off-line immediately to stop this from happening.
Heres some pics of the damage.
Was purple nana
Birdsnest right next to it.
Purple Bonsai after fraging
Rainbow Monti
2nd Purple Nana
A guy on RC said this, "how long did you let it cure before using? Because it says for plastics, my guess is that it is a neutral cure silicone. Neutral cure silicones require 1-2 weeks curing time prior to placing in service. During that time, the silicone will release ammonia and other chemicals. So my guess.. is that you are slowly dosing your system with ammonia and the sump should be taken off-line immediately to stop this from happening.
Heres some pics of the damage.
Was purple nana
Birdsnest right next to it.
Purple Bonsai after fraging
Rainbow Monti
2nd Purple Nana
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Ok.. It was a pain but i drained the sump and skimmer, removed all the sand and LR from the fuge (sand in a bucket with water), hooked up the old sump and put just the LR inside. My first question is what should i do with the sand? It sits in the fuge under all the LR rubble and ive never siphoned it so its kinda nasty but doesnt smell bad). How long should i let the sump sit out to dry before i put water back in? I hope the silicone is safe because i would HATE to redo the baffles. I would have to drain the tank so i could move it again to get the sump out. Thanks again everyone for helping me out.
Dowtish
5000 Club Member
interesting that this thread ended where it did...I hope he didnt lose everything. I am also about to add a new sump and uprade on my skimmer....this is supposed to be a good thing?...after reading this, it's kinda scary.
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