Tank crashed

[BlakeK.]

I started a thread in the emergency threads the other day. I just transferred all of the content/livestock from a friend's tank to my tank last week. All was well, but ammonia started to skyrocket. Well, pretty much everything is dead now. Deaths included the CUC, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 Skunk shrimp, 2 clowns, bristle star, dottyback, 3 damselfish, and decorator crab. I tried everything to stop the ammonia. I added prime, dormant bacteria, water change after water change but the ammonia levels just kept rising (and continue to rise). I have no idea what caused it. My question is, what do I do from here. Do I start over and let the tank cycle? Do I have to go through the whole tank and find all the little dead CUC members? I took out all the larger animals, but there are plenty of small ones in there. And most important of all, how do I find out what caused the initial spike? The live rock and livestock were in my friend's tank for over 8 months. I would think it should have been stable. I don't really know what to do from here.

P.S. I don't know if it's worth mentioning that I also have some small hammer and frogspawn frags in the tank. They're still alive which I am very surprised about.

Tank Info:

50 gallon (36x18x18) display
20 gallon sump
Reef Octopus xp 1000 sss protein skimmer
750 GPH return
45 pounds live rock (transferred form previous tank)
40 pounds live sand (new)

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

What was the condition of the live rock you took in from your friend? How long was it exposed out of the water/what was the condition of his tank? A first guess is that you may have experienced a massive die off from the rock itself which forced the tank into a cycle.

Anything dead that you can remove from the tank would help reduce the load. Also - if you have a QT to transfer your hammer and frogspawn to it would be wise until the DT is back under control.

 

[Ludders]

I was thinking something similar

 

[BlakeK.]

What was the condition of the live rock you took in from your friend? How long was it exposed out of the water/what was the condition of his tank? A first guess is that you may have experienced a massive die off from the rock itself which forced the tank into a cycle.

Anything dead you can remove from the tank would help reduce the load.

The rock was transferred in a tub with water from the tank. It was completely submerged, but the transfer included about a 3-hour drive. It was very cold, however. Maybe the drop in temperature could have killed off the bacteria? The original tank seemed healthy there was nothing wrong with it other than some hair algae. I'm just not getting any nitrite or nitrate readings so is it possible that ALL the bacteria died off?

 

[Ludders]

Along with all the pods in the LR that died and were rotting in your tank, I suspect that's what went wrong.

I feel for you man

 

[Pinback]

Interesting situation. What kind of ammonia levels in what time frame?

 

[BlakeK.]

Interesting situation. What kind of ammonia levels in what time frame?

I transferred everything on Friday. Ammonia levels were 0. The next day they were close to zero still, but by Sunday they were close to .25 ppm. They have been rising almost exponentially it seems like. Today ammonia is close to 2.0 ppm, maybe even more.

 

[brandon429]

The death cycle will not harm your current bac levels, if anything it will boost them above steady state until things even out. all you have to do is make sure your sandbed is clean not cloudy, rocks are clean and not packed with detritus, and run your fallow 76 day setup then add fish. the cycle w not be undone by current issues, those w hasten it. you have a fallow period for a reason on many levels, its the perfect approach for your redo.

once you have no death in the tank, all cleaned out and made new, good water change (most of it) then you can assess your cycle in the normal way, which is simple addition of ammonium chloride up to 1ppm then re measure in 24 hours w salifert kit

whichever kit you might be using that isn't salifert, don't

also, consider using no test cycling its a massive headache saver. There's large threads on that approach.

If you have live rock, it never got unlive it just might have been overwhelmed in a death loss cascade.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

Something doesn't quite add up in this story. Most tanks with normal biological filtration can handle a bit of die-off without the tank crashing. After a certain amount of ammonia accumulates, the tank can enter a sort of positive feedback loop. The high ammonia causes animals to die, the dead animals decay and release more ammonia, which causes more animals to die, which releases more ammonia. But if your tank and his tank were both well-established, it doesn't make sense that there wasn't enough biological filtration present to handle the ammonia before things got out of control.

What died first? Could a fish have died without you noticing? I suppose it's possible a large decaying organism like a fish could cause this ammonia death spiral.

 

[BlakeK.]

Something doesn't quite add up in this story. Most tanks with normal biological filtration can handle a bit of die-off without the tank crashing. After a certain amount of ammonia accumulates, the tank can enter a sort of positive feedback loop. The high ammonia causes animals to die, the dead animals decay and release more ammonia, which causes more animals to die, which releases more ammonia. But if your tank and his tank were both well-established, it doesn't make sense that there wasn't enough biological filtration present to handle the ammonia before things got out of control.

What died first? Could a fish have died without you noticing? I suppose it's possible a large decaying organism like a fish could cause this ammonia death spiral.

My tank was not established. I simply transferred the contents of his tank to a new tank I had set up with live sand (which I was told would be better than adding the old sand because that would just stir up all the old stuff and cause a small cycle). However, I wouldn't think that would make much of a difference since glass and plastics do house any of the bacteria, right? The dying started with the turbo snails. They started falling off the rocks, but I took them out as they hit the sand. The first fish to go was one of the damsels. I took them out the second I saw them bite the dust. I was very observant. They would start with the cloudy eyes, heavy breathing and awkward swimming until they died. I actually still have one clown still hangin on. I feel for the it, but don't know what to do. The only other thing I could think of is my RODI unit. I'm wondering if one of the filters on it wasn't actually working and I just added a bunch of chlorine or something that caused die off?

 

[BlakeK.]

The death cycle will not harm your current bac levels, if anything it will boost them above steady state until things even out. all you have to do is make sure your sandbed is clean not cloudy, rocks are clean and not packed with detritus, and run your fallow 76 day setup then add fish. the cycle w not be undone by current issues, those w hasten it. you have a fallow period for a reason on many levels, its the perfect approach for your redo.

once you have no death in the tank, all cleaned out and made new, good water change (most of it) then you can assess your cycle in the normal way, which is simple addition of ammonium chloride up to 1ppm then re measure in 24 hours w salifert kit

whichever kit you might be using that isn't salifert, don't

also, consider using no test cycling its a massive headache saver. There's large threads on that approach.

If you have live rock, it never got unlive it just might have been overwhelmed in a death loss cascade.

76 days? Wow, I would have expected it to be a bit shorter just because I already bacteria. Is that just to kill off any diseases that it might have been?

 

[EmdeReef]

What were the other params like? Temp? pH? Salinity? Did you have the skimmer running all the time? Did you add anything else to the tank but prime and bacteria?

any black or very dark patches on your rocks? How old was your friend's tank and rocks? With that much cycled rocks you should've been fine pretty much instantly...

 

[brandon429]

I had assumed you used all live rock at least, post pics of the setup chipmunk mentioned some clues/ the 76 was only for ich and disease prevention, the cycle runs based on how long your substrates have been underwater. post pics if you can

 

[BlakeK.]

What were the other params like? Temp? pH? Salinity? Did you have the skimmer running all the time? Did you add anything else to the tank but prime and bacteria?

any black or very dark patches on your rocks? How old was your friend's tank and rocks? With that much cycled rocks you should be fine pretty much instantly...

I added a few more turbo snails to take out the hair algae and a peppermint shrimp to pick up any other things left around the tank but I read that that shouldn't really add to the bioload.
Rocks were 8 months old in running tank

temp: 76 degrees
salinity: 1.025 sg
pH: 8.0

There actually were darker spots on the rock... I didn't think anything of it though..

 

[BlakeK.]

I had assumed you used all live rock at least, post pics of the setup chipmunk mentioned some clues/ the 76 was only for ich and disease prevention, the cycle runs based on how long your substrates have been underwater. post pics if you can

Here's a picture when it was first set up.

 

[Ludders]

What a shame

 

[EmdeReef]

Here's a picture when it was first set up.

Sorry for your loss. I may not be able to see well, but that doesn't look like cycled rocks.

 

[EmdeReef]

If you're going to restart, I'd treat it as starting from scratch and wait for the tank to cycle, measure ammonia and nitrites daily. You have "jumpstarted" the cycle with the dieoff, but may need to throw in some food or dose ammonia every day. You should also try to do a few water changes. I wouldn't add anything alive for at least a week or two depending on your tests. Can try adding bacteria or just wait it out. Good luck!

 

[BlakeK.]

Sorry for your loss. I may not be able to see well, but that doesn't look like cycled rocks.

Yeah it definitely doesn't like it from afar but one of the rocks had coraline algae growing on it. The other rocks have a lot of green hair algae on them which you can't see in the picture. I don't know if that's a sign that they've been there for a while though. I mean, I hope I wasn't lied to. It seemed like it was all cycled rock and the girl told me it had been in there for 8 months.

 

[EmdeReef]

Yeah it definitely doesn't like it from afar but one of the rocks had coraline algae growing on it. The other rocks have a lot of green hair algae on them which you can't see in the picture. I don't know if that's a sign that they've been there for a while though. I mean, I hope I wasn't lied to. It seemed like it was all cycled rock and the girl told me it had been in there for 8 months.

The 2 rocks on the top look somewhat cycled. You'd expect a darker color of the rocks that have been in the tank for 8 months. Coralline "skeleton" can remain even on dry rocks sometimes. GHA grows fast so doesn't have to mean it's been 8 months, some get it within weeks. You may also want to test your PO4 which will be a good indicator of how cycled your rocks are. I've never seen cycled rocks that looked that clean...well not since pictures of my dad's tank from a long time ago when they used to think that bleaching rocks was the way to keep the tank nice and clean