Problems after dosing Dr. Tim's Re Fresh

[slojmn]

Hi All, My little Red Sea 170, 36g nano tank had a bad bryopsis and hair algae problem at the one year mark. I decided to try Reef Flux anti fungal medicine to get rid of it. It worked well but led to a diatom outbreak. Brown powder coating everything, my sps started to be affected and the tank seemed unhealthy. I rode it out for about 3 weeks, multiple water changes and the addition of a small fuge with a ball of chaeto added, and saw no changes, alk spiked a bit due to SPS growth stopping. The alk spike didn't help the SPS and they continue to decline.

Fast forward to Sunday, I did a lot of research and decided to try Dr. Tim's Re-Fresh. I put in enough for 25g of water, I underestimated my water volume to be on the safe side. I turned off my skimmer per instructions. Bad idea. I lost my beloved candy basslet and helfrichi firefish. I suspect from oxygen levels dropping. I was devastated. Two clownfish seemed fine once I turned skimmer back on. After 48 hours the tank looks just as bad, maybe more diatoms and there was a terrible smell in the house when I got home from work...like dead tank. I didn't expect any change to the tank for a few weeks, but the smell?? Everything looks okay, fish still swimming, most of the corals look about the same, no better no worse, but the smell is awful. I have chaeto running in a small fuge and it looks fine. I am stumped as to what is causing the horrible smell. It can't be good. Do I dose Re-Fresh again (turning skimmer on after an hour or two), or just do a 25%-30% water change?? I'm torn. I feel like water change may be needed but I also want to give the Re-Fresh a chance. Could the Re-Fresh be the problem, dead and not helping?? Super unsure. I've been around a long time and this one has me perplexed.

 

[Lninwa]

Hi All, My little Red Sea 170, 36g nano tank had a bad bryopsis and hair algae problem at the one year mark. I decided to try Reef Flux anti fungal medicine to get rid of it. It worked well but led to a diatom outbreak. Brown powder coating everything, my sps started to be affected and the tank seemed unhealthy. I rode it out for about 3 weeks, multiple water changes and the addition of a small fuge with a ball of chaeto added, and saw no changes, alk spiked a bit due to SPS growth stopping. The alk spike didn't help the SPS and they continue to decline.

Fast forward to Sunday, I did a lot of research and decided to try Dr. Tim's Re-Fresh. I put in enough for 25g of water, I underestimated my water volume to be on the safe side. I turned off my skimmer per instructions. Bad idea. I lost my beloved candy basslet and helfrichi firefish. I suspect from oxygen levels dropping. I was devastated. Two clownfish seemed fine once I turned skimmer back on. After 48 hours the tank looks just as bad, maybe more diatoms and there was a terrible smell in the house when I got home from work...like dead tank. I didn't expect any change to the tank for a few weeks, but the smell?? Everything looks okay, fish still swimming, most of the corals look about the same, no better no worse, but the smell is awful. I have chaeto running in a small fuge and it looks fine. I am stumped as to what is causing the horrible smell. It can't be good. Do I dose Re-Fresh again (turning skimmer on after an hour or two), or just do a 25%-30% water change?? I'm torn. I feel like water change may be needed but I also want to give the Re-Fresh a chance. Could the Re-Fresh be the problem, dead and not helping?? Super unsure. I've been around a long time and this one has me perplexed.

Have you tried to call dr Tim? He would be the best person to advise you

 

[brandon429]

We want your tank restoration business, since you have a nano, your issue is solved and we don’t even need to see pics or know about parameters at all. But it’s handy to see them...post a pic / custom fix like we did below. It’s fun to fix up nanos

What you dosed are oxygen consuming sludge digesting bacteria, exactly what we dump in a septic system to keep it digested (since nobody with an excavator is helping us actually export the waste from the tank, this stuff digests it further then the earth slowly uptakes it)

They consume oxygen bigtime, but to take apart your entire nano and export all the waste, invasion fuel, is polar opposite. That’s a flushing and oxygenation event. It's removing the detritus that the bacteria take time to digest and never actually remove. Detritus is digested further down and kicked into suspension for machinery or water changes to remove, and then some is actually digested by that extra bac load. We have a faster and better and more sustained and free option, a rip clean

My nano-going on 13 yrs. I cannot count the number of rip cleans, hundreds. Some done unnecessarily to show how refreshing they are.

We are waste excavators and we do it without a single collateral loss always. Big read coming

My first post isn’t edited yet I’m making it into a reflective article on all these tanks. Study what others did here, every page, your nano solved in 24 hours. Well at least the detritus part

After a rip clean, you are waste free. Take your rocks out and complete the detritus assessment I’ve listed on the final pages. This is your $ and my last four year’s time, study these surgeries really good and you are set.

Sludge digestion bacteria are not bad, there is just a better, no loss way to fix every nano.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445


If those tenets are applied: all your tank nutrient and waste stores are fixed, and the only thing you need to be sure of is that your topoff water is true ro di

Your tank will have no waste that needs slow, consumptive digestion after that run. Your rocks won’t be housing bits of invader about to come back, because outside the tank we link how you can detail clean them, flush out clogging waste, and then direct kill any invaders

Sludge digesters are for toilets and large tanks sorry Dr. Tim no slight. I would consider using some of your stuff in a giant koi pond that was eutrophic, though, as I don’t have time to physically restore multi thou volume system.