tank crashing help..

[bobssecrtsn]

attached is my ICP for january, I've been battling some weird stuff thats been haunting me since christmas. And I'm at the point of shutting the entire tank down. but before I do that I just want to make sure I exhausted all options..


The tank is 650 peninsula that has been running for a year now. there are coraline algae all over the rocks and its been maturing for 2+ years now. in a brute container before the tank has been up.

I've checked all magetics. RODI filters, etc.

Whats been happening is that all my SPS has TN, my anemone has been splitting 3 times since christmas and has yet to come out for light. and I've been losing 1 fish per 1-2 weeks now. Ive lost a total of 4 fishes now.

I've done massive water changes. checked for rust, did an ICP test. and all came back negative for heavy metals.

I've been running fresh carbon since this disaster started.

I have no checked for stray current, but I did have my hands in the tank. I didnt feel any stray current.. Will be checking that later today. any help is greatly appreciated, all questions will be answered to the best of my knowledge.

 

[brandon429]

post a pic of the tank

what is the last thing you added to the tank, that came wet from a pet store/anything/what was it

*what is your fish disease prevention/biosecurity protocol

your first move is always to lower your light intensity, stressed corals die faster under your normal production level PAR

lower reef lighting first

post a full tank pic in white light not blue so we see tank aging details if any

we can discern things about your tank status off the positioning of remaining fish, post a video of your fish up close, a cell phone video, so we can see how they're breathing.

 

[Jekyl]

Right off bat I see your salinity is low. Did you ever correct this?

 

[bobssecrtsn]

from my apex I never had any alk swings. But the TN starts at the base then the tips.
I just did a stray voltage test and came back with .16 V from my return pump. Does anyone know if this is enough to mess with the inhabitants?

 

[bobssecrtsn]

Right off bat I see your salinity is low. Did you ever correct this?

I have did not. I was just going off of reef moonshiners that 33 ppt is enough for sps and fish. I’m not sure if this will contribute to my fish dying.

 

[Jekyl]

I have did not. I was just going off of reef moonshiners that 33 ppt is enough for sps and fish. I’m not sure if this will contribute to my fish dying.

Has nothing to do with fish dying but could definitely impact your coral. Slowly bring it up to 35. As for fish it's most likely disease. Do you QT? Are the fish eating up until death?

 

[bobssecrtsn]

I just replaced the vectra m2 pump with a new spare one. Voltage is now reading .09 V when on.

 

[bushdoc]

Well, your water parameters don't look bad. Slow decrease of salinity to 33ppt will not kill corals, but that's too close to their lower level of tolerance, so I would increase it slowly. I agree with Jekyll that fish demise might be due to disease. Other possible cause could be bullying by some "rouge", aggressive fish. I see you have some anthias, they are difficult to keep as they need multiple feeds per day.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

post a pic of the tank

what is the last thing you added to the tank, that came wet from a pet store/anything/what was it

*what is your fish disease prevention/biosecurity protocol

your first move is always to lower your light intensity, stressed corals die faster under your normal production level PAR

lower reef lighting first

post a full tank pic in white light not blue so we see tank aging details if any

we can discern things about your tank status off the positioning of remaining fish, post a video of your fish up close, a cell phone video, so we can see how they're breathing.

the last thing I added to the tank was algaeFix, and i under dosed it. every 3 days. total dose i did was 2 times after christmas. after that i did 2 20% WC over the course of two weeks.

the last fish i added was the end of noveember, it was a wrasse that i did a hybrid QT for 3 weeks.

my lighting setup is 8bulb t5 with 4 units of radion gen4s. after i saw the first signs of TN i shut off 6 bulbs only allowing 2 bulbs to turn on and my radions are only set to max blues. I never use any other LED colors on the radions.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

Well, your water parameters don't look bad. Slow decrease of salinity to 33ppt will not kill corals, but that's too close to their lower level of tolerance, so I would increase it slowly. I agree with Jekyll that fish demise might be due to disease. Other possible cause could be bullying by some "rouge", aggressive fish. I see you have some anthias, they are difficult to keep as they need multiple feeds per day.

I also had my salinity since start up of the tank, at 33ppt, from all my previous ICP it has not changed since then.


I do have an automatic frozen feeder that goes on 4x a day. 5ml each with mysis.

The only thing That is worrysome is my anemone that has split 3 times over the entire course, and is declining.

 

[brandon429]

see those open torches in the pics

mine canaries

chemistry issues strong enough to crash a tank don't lend open corals and normally positioned fish and super clean water/normal reef tank pics

see the algae in the picture/it's not bad, reefs have algae. it tells you of plant uptake going on, your system isn't sterilized or anything by some wide-swath killer param and I don't see evidence of coral losses either, I see light tank eutrophication and a high potential for fish disease vectoring. for sure reducing your lighting down in intensity is ideal until you solve matters, that wouldn't even harm a reef not in distress/it's why I like that as #1 CRP move in a tank crash arrest.

I'm now linking this thread to my tank crash arrest thread for tracking, thanks for posting.

 

[Jekyl]

Best to take things step by step and one by one... For coral I'd start with increasing salinity to 35 while reducing light a little as Brandon mentioned. Give it a week or 2 before changing anything else and note changes. For the fish we need additional information.

This is a good place to start for answers, and also may be a more appropriate forum.

Some Helpful Hints When Posting or Responding to Threads in the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Section

Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

you are very lucky to have a bare bottom tank here for this issue, that's ten times better than a bacteria-laden mud bed we usually see. much better for your tank

get a uv sterilizer off amazon and hook it up if that's a bacterial bloom making your water cloudy

if its just a result of detritus kickup from your assertive water changes, that's fine, but I would have thought carbon would remove it by now too. if its a bacteria bloom, zap it with a cheap $150 cheap jebao uv sterilizer off amazon for a quick clear up.

all you do to bring corals back is focus on spot feeding them high quality feed and sustain that + your water change step-up for two months, drive coral mass back by active feed and water change exercise vs letting the reef sit idly.

if you added any of those prone fish without preps, your reef needs fallowed.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

Best to take things step by step and one by one... For coral I'd start with increasing salinity to 35 while reducing light a little as Brandon mentioned. Give it a week or 2 before changing anything else and note changes. For the fish we need additional information.

This is a good place to start for answers, and also may be a more appropriate forum.

Some Helpful Hints When Posting or Responding to Threads in the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Section

Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

www.reef2reef.com

I just added a cup of salt in my sump to let it slowly dissolve, will try raising it that way, Thank you for the thread as well.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

you are very lucky to have a bare bottom tank here for this issue, that's ten times better than a bacteria-laden mud bed we usually see. much better for your tank

get a uv sterilizer off amazon and hook it up if that's a bacterial bloom making your water cloudy

if its just a result of detritus kickup from your assertive water changes, that's fine, but I would have thought carbon would remove it by now too. if its a bacteria bloom, zap it with a cheap $150 cheap jebao uv sterilizer off amazon for a quick clear up.

all you do to bring corals back is focus on spot feeding them high quality feed and sustain that + your water change step-up for two months, drive coral mass back by active feed and water change exercise vs letting the reef sit idly.

if you added any of those prone fish without preps, your reef needs fallowed.

I acutally do have a AquaUV plumbed into my tank, flow set on low for killing any bacteria. When I took that photo, I did remove all my bio blocks, that i recently added to the tank in december. i thought it was leeching some aluminum but the ICP says otherwise. so I just removed it.

 

[brandon429]

no I would never add salt to a running reef, you would bring up a side container of water to high salinity, mixed in slowly, and bring up your tank or you just stop topping off for a while.

slow, it was not killing your fish at the prior salinity, corals don't open at bad salinity/go off your tank pics not off sampling posts from this thread. this now adds a bit of chemical burn + quick salinity shift to a tank where pics specifically showed not a crash in progress, likely fish disease in progress

adding salt can't ever undo fish disease vectoring.


**must cease making any changes by sampling posts here, you need to give your system over to one poster via private message and stop doing any other guess moves on the tank.

select a single, sole source for the entire job and work no other means. must not guess at best practices, one person remotely runs your reef...that's how you fix it.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

I will add, that i was dosing algaefix to remove Chrysophyte. I do see the decrease in chryso. i am wondering if this type of algae releases any toxins..

 

[bobssecrtsn]

no I would never add salt to a running reef, you would bring up a side container of water to high salinity, mixed in slowly, and bring up your tank or you just stop topping off for a while.

slow, it was not killing your fish at the prior salinity, corals don't open at bad salinity/go off your tank pics not off sampling posts from this thread. this now adds a bit of chemical burn + quick salinity shift to a tank where pics specifically showed not a crash in progress, likely fish disease in progress

adding salt can't ever undo fish disease vectoring.


**must cease making any changes by sampling posts here, you need to give your system over to one poster via private message and stop doing any other guess moves on the tank.

select a single, sole source for the entire job and work no other means. must not guess at best practices, one person remotely runs your reef...that's how you fix it.

Yes you are 100% correct. after seeing all my previous ICP tests they were all 33ppt, and my tank thrived in that salinity. I have not added salt in a cup.

 

[brandon429]

ok nice

before we take any action we should review fish disease stuff, just for planning

how well would you consider your tank insulated against disease in the context of this article:

Biosecurity

A short introduction to aquarium biosecurity

www.reef2reef.com

my own reef hasn't been stocked with a wet item from a pet store in years, so it's darn biosecure were I to add a fish. that shows an extreme example of biosecurity in a nano reef. my last stock addition was years ago, no new imports whatsoever. 0% risk of importing fish disease is the extreme end of biosecurity

having setup the entire system without any fallow at all + recent items from a pet store last month is the more common presentation, we need to factor that in your causative options

 

[Uncle99]

I can’t find any data on your parameters or trend.
I can’t find any lighting information.
Two of the number 1 causes of problems with corals.
See a big window, does sunlight hit that D
Seeing some green on the BB, maybe phosphate too high?
Some more detailed history might spark a solution.
I would not pack that tank in.