novahobbies
Active Member
As some of you know, I've suffered a tank crash in the past couple months. Part pilot error (because no matter what, there's ALWAYS owner fault), part mystery toxin that's killing inverts, part Monti-eating nudis, and part phosphate leaching from my ATO reservoir, but the long and the short of it is that my tank went from this:
![994108_10203168992294084_447920341_n[1].jpg](https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/994108_10203168992294084_447920341_n-1-jpg.121270/ "994108_10203168992294084_447920341_n[1].jpg")
to this:
![1526915_10203164026449941_1873110124_n[1].jpg](https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/1526915_10203164026449941_1873110124_n-1-jpg.121271/ "1526915_10203164026449941_1873110124_n[1].jpg")
in a matter of months. Almost all of my SPS died, many of my LPS, and my zoas have been unhappy for a while now. I have been doing small (15g) water changes, regular gfo swaps and filter pad changes, but that's it. Until now. This thread will detail my journey back on track, and will chronicle how long it takes, the steps I take, what works and what doesn't. I want to use this both for my own records, and hopefully for someone who is having a similar problem in the future.
This system currently has large patches of bryopsis algae , mixed in with some regular HA, a few bits of caulerpa, and a few bubble algae spots cropping up. Last Monday I did a moderate 30 gallon water change manually, using my fingers and a siphon to get in there and remove a large amount of the algae. Bubble algae is easy to siphon out, just scrape along the base of the bubble with the siphon tube and the bubble zips away into the collection tub. I manually removed as much of the bryopsis and caulerpa as I could manage, and I think I made a pretty good overall dent on the algae present in the tank.
But that's barely the beginning of what I'm sure is going to be a somewhat long battle.
During the 30g WC, I also replaced my activated carbon and replaced/increased the GFO tumbling in the TLF reactor. I now have 1.5 cups of GFO tumbling (I was using 3/4 cup) and about 1 cup of carbon in a bag under the filter pads. Of course the standard cleaning included new filter pads (I do this weekly) and cleaning the skimmer cup in the sink. I also removed my ATO reservior when I realized it was leaching phosphates into the tank. My Phos coming out of the RODI unit was reading 0.03. The phos IN the ATO tank after ONE DAY was reading over 0.2!! I replaced this with a 7g Kent salt bucket that is stamped as HDPE-2 (Hi-density polyethylene, grade-2, food use). This shouldn't leach any phosphates.
The next step for me is a MASSIVE water change. As I said, I suspect I have some toxins present, possibly from a water-column dinoflagellate. I have been seeing invertebrates dying off (snails and sea hares) and that is a published very common fingerprint of dinoflagellate toxin. In order to remove as much toxin as quickly as possible, I am opting for a 70 gallon water change which is going to be done this coming Sunday. I have a delivery guy coming who will do a simple pumping out and in of 70-80 gallons of NSW. He won't do any weed-pulling, but that's why I did so much in my 30g WC on Monday.
On the advise of a few people here, I have also started a low carbon dosing regimen. I'm using Microbacter as my bacterial additive and Red Sea Nitrate & Phosphate reducer as my daily carbon dose. I'm starting out at 2 mL per day, and increasing to 4 mL in a week. 4 mL daily is the max I intend to use, because my nitrate isn't really out of whack. I officially started the carbon dosing tonight.
In order to get the bryopsis tamed, I'm going to use the Kent Magnesium trick. My Mag is at 1280 ppm now using the Red Sea test kit, and I have a gallon of Kent Mag being delivered tomorrow. My goal is to raise it to 1600 ppm to kill off the Bryopsis.
Here are my chemistry readings as of tonight:
pH: 8.2 (Tropic Marin kit)
Trates: Less than 5, more than 0 (API kit)
Calcium: 440 (API kit)
KH: 150ppm or 8.4 dKH (Nutrafin kit)
Mg: 1280ppm (Red Sea kit)
Phos: 0.08 (Hanna Checker)
Amm: 0 (API kit)
Salinity: 1.025 / 32
And for completion, here is the equipment list of the tank as of today:
110g reef-ready aquarium
29g sump with chaeto fuge
100 gallons TOTAL water volume
120 (+or-) lbs Live Rock
60lbs Black Tahitian sand
2 120-Watt Chinese LED fixtures, supplemented with RAPIDLED Greens, Reds, Warm Whites, and UV
Marineland Protein skimmer
TLF GFO reactor
TLF Kalk stirrer
7 gallon ATO reservoir tied into Kalk stirrer
18-watt UV system
And finally, here's what it looked like AFTER that 30g WC.
![1013224_10203181991219049_1847702003_n[1].jpg](https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/1013224_10203181991219049_1847702003_n-1-jpg.121287/ "1013224_10203181991219049_1847702003_n[1].jpg")
So come along for the ride! If you have any suggestions, post 'em. My goal is to get this back into fighting trim by the end of February, and hopefully start introducing new SPS corals by mid-March.
to this:
in a matter of months. Almost all of my SPS died, many of my LPS, and my zoas have been unhappy for a while now. I have been doing small (15g) water changes, regular gfo swaps and filter pad changes, but that's it. Until now. This thread will detail my journey back on track, and will chronicle how long it takes, the steps I take, what works and what doesn't. I want to use this both for my own records, and hopefully for someone who is having a similar problem in the future.
This system currently has large patches of bryopsis algae , mixed in with some regular HA, a few bits of caulerpa, and a few bubble algae spots cropping up. Last Monday I did a moderate 30 gallon water change manually, using my fingers and a siphon to get in there and remove a large amount of the algae. Bubble algae is easy to siphon out, just scrape along the base of the bubble with the siphon tube and the bubble zips away into the collection tub. I manually removed as much of the bryopsis and caulerpa as I could manage, and I think I made a pretty good overall dent on the algae present in the tank.
But that's barely the beginning of what I'm sure is going to be a somewhat long battle.
During the 30g WC, I also replaced my activated carbon and replaced/increased the GFO tumbling in the TLF reactor. I now have 1.5 cups of GFO tumbling (I was using 3/4 cup) and about 1 cup of carbon in a bag under the filter pads. Of course the standard cleaning included new filter pads (I do this weekly) and cleaning the skimmer cup in the sink. I also removed my ATO reservior when I realized it was leaching phosphates into the tank. My Phos coming out of the RODI unit was reading 0.03. The phos IN the ATO tank after ONE DAY was reading over 0.2!! I replaced this with a 7g Kent salt bucket that is stamped as HDPE-2 (Hi-density polyethylene, grade-2, food use). This shouldn't leach any phosphates.
The next step for me is a MASSIVE water change. As I said, I suspect I have some toxins present, possibly from a water-column dinoflagellate. I have been seeing invertebrates dying off (snails and sea hares) and that is a published very common fingerprint of dinoflagellate toxin. In order to remove as much toxin as quickly as possible, I am opting for a 70 gallon water change which is going to be done this coming Sunday. I have a delivery guy coming who will do a simple pumping out and in of 70-80 gallons of NSW. He won't do any weed-pulling, but that's why I did so much in my 30g WC on Monday.
On the advise of a few people here, I have also started a low carbon dosing regimen. I'm using Microbacter as my bacterial additive and Red Sea Nitrate & Phosphate reducer as my daily carbon dose. I'm starting out at 2 mL per day, and increasing to 4 mL in a week. 4 mL daily is the max I intend to use, because my nitrate isn't really out of whack. I officially started the carbon dosing tonight.
In order to get the bryopsis tamed, I'm going to use the Kent Magnesium trick. My Mag is at 1280 ppm now using the Red Sea test kit, and I have a gallon of Kent Mag being delivered tomorrow. My goal is to raise it to 1600 ppm to kill off the Bryopsis.
Here are my chemistry readings as of tonight:
pH: 8.2 (Tropic Marin kit)
Trates: Less than 5, more than 0 (API kit)
Calcium: 440 (API kit)
KH: 150ppm or 8.4 dKH (Nutrafin kit)
Mg: 1280ppm (Red Sea kit)
Phos: 0.08 (Hanna Checker)
Amm: 0 (API kit)
Salinity: 1.025 / 32
And for completion, here is the equipment list of the tank as of today:
110g reef-ready aquarium
29g sump with chaeto fuge
100 gallons TOTAL water volume
120 (+or-) lbs Live Rock
60lbs Black Tahitian sand
2 120-Watt Chinese LED fixtures, supplemented with RAPIDLED Greens, Reds, Warm Whites, and UV
Marineland Protein skimmer
TLF GFO reactor
TLF Kalk stirrer
7 gallon ATO reservoir tied into Kalk stirrer
18-watt UV system
And finally, here's what it looked like AFTER that 30g WC.
So come along for the ride! If you have any suggestions, post 'em. My goal is to get this back into fighting trim by the end of February, and hopefully start introducing new SPS corals by mid-March.
eace:
