I think i might be the dumbest reefer in the world

[shallowreef]

Well many of you may or maynot know that i have been having a lot of problems with my SPS and my Tank in General. Well i finally threw in the towel and hired my LFS to come out and look at my tank to see if he could find the source of my problem. I cannot believe how dumb i was. He first comes in ad surveys the tank. He helps me lower my lights and moves some of my SPS around to new locations. After that he heads to the sump. And thats when all hell broke loose. He opens up the cabinet doors and says your kidding me right? I asked him what. He points out that i have like a 1/4 inch of detritus sitting on the bottom of my sump. He then begins to pull out my skimmer and realizes that there is something wierd sticking out on the bottom of my skimmer he removes the skimmer and starts to laugh. I guess i put the skimmer in and didn't remove some sort of paper that was protecting the plastic on the bottom of the skimmer. It was suppose to be removed before using the skimmer. So that right there is two things that have to be reaping havoc on my tank.


Well after he left and told me what i should do in order to fix my tank i got to work. I shut off the main pump and the skimmer. I pulled everything out my sump and stuck a mag950 in it and turned it on. Within a second my sump was this awful brown color. I began to pump water out with a powerhead and filtered the dirty water with five 100 Micron filter socks(one placed inside of the other. I then would add the clean water back to the sump and repeated my first steps. I did this about twenty times before the water was crystal clear. My filter socks looked and smelled horrible. I removed what was left of the sticky paper on my skimmer and scrubbed the hell out of it until it was spotless. After about four hours of cleaning i returned everything and started up the tank.

Needless to say i saw an improvement that night. I saw polyp extension. Not alot but more than ive seen in weeks! Sorry the post was so long but i had to tell you guys all about it.

Anybody else have any other suggestions as to things i should check to make my SPS happy?

MLF guy tells me my flow is great and my lights need to be changed out but other than that it all looks good. He also said my Coraline Algae Growth is Amazing.

Thanks for reading now give me some input

 

[Beckmola24]

Glad to hear you found a problem and couldl fix it. At least you won't be driving yourself crazy wondering what's wrong. Test your Calcium and keep it relatively high for your sps. If you have good flow and good lighting, then I really don't know what else to tell you. The Calcium is important so if you aren't testing for that then you should start doing that.

What are your params?? Just curious.

 

[moortim]

That is just completely awsome. I can somewhat relate, I did a bunch of new plumbing in my sump and didn't take the little barcode stickers off the pvc fittings. By morning my tank was filled with little white floaties. Not bad enough to do damage but I was kicking myself.

Tim

 

[shallowreef]

I don't know my params right now but i'm going to be doing a water change tommorrow to try and get some new clean water in my tank and try and flush out some of the nasty crap that was in my tank and then i'll retest to see where i'm at.

 

[NaH2O]

Glad to hear you are getting some answers to what's going on! Woohoo!

I know you've been struggling with SPS, and I hope we've been encouraging to you. Hang in there, and try to keep that sump clean! Also, you aren't the dumbest reefer in the world, so stop that ! You have been working hard trying to figure out what is going on, so I give you alot of credit for sticking with it!

 

[Sk8r]

Keep a log with date, test readings, things added, including corals, fish, and additives, plus events like: scraped back walls.
Mine reads:
Alkalinity:
Salinity:
Calcium:
Magnesium:
Temperature:

 

[Krish]

Wow! No way!!! Atleast you found the problem

 

[Brenden]

Only progress from here.

 

[Little Luey]

I am glad you found the problem. There is a learning curve to everything. Don't feel bad, we all have done our share. I know I have.

 

[shallowreef]

Thanks Everybody. I'll try and keep you guys posted.

 

[bradreef]

every few days I would do 20% or so water changes so you can cycle through new water. that way you can get a new start chemically and lose any pollutants you could have had.

 

[My2heartboys]

Glad to hear you are getting some answers to what's going on! Woohoo!

I know you've been struggling with SPS, and I hope we've been encouraging to you. Hang in there, and try to keep that sump clean! Also, you aren't the dumbest reefer in the world, so stop that ! You have been working hard trying to figure out what is going on, so I give you alot of credit for sticking with it!

I agree with Nikki.

Glad to see things are starting back on the right track.

Anne

 

[skylsdale]

I'll take those mistakes ANY day. Last Tuesday I didn't secure the return on my non-drilled closed loop and it flopped out of the tank and emptied 50 gallons of water onto the floor in our spare basement room--I just finished ripping the last of the carpet up this morning.

Glad to hear your SPS are already responding favorably to the changes. As was suggested, I would get to testing your water and keep checking fairly regularly to make sure everything stays copasetic. Keep us posted!

 

[shallowreef]

That sucks about the closed loop. Hope all is well for ya

Anyways, On Saturday i bought some new halides for my fixture. I went with 10ks this time verses the 20s. Major major difference in the coral. Polyps came out big time that night. I was really busy this weekend so i didn't really get to see my tank during the daylight hours. But it looks like my tank tank is doing a complete turn around. Now i just gotta change my actinic bulbs and get a doser to start adding kalk again and i think i'll be all set.