My tank crashed today, Help

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Husker12181

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2010
Messages
142
Location
Everett Wa.
My aquarium has pretty much been on cruise control for the last 2 years. Everything was growing like crazy and my clown fish have spawned 4 times in the last 2 months. I actually was in the process of adding a 20 gal frag tank to deal with the overgrown coral "problem".

Today I came home and the worst thing I can think of happened, my acropora corals are white, my other sps's look terrible and will probably also turn white, all of my softies (leather, button polyps, ricordia, and Xenia) have completely closed in on themselves, and my torch coral/frogspawn are completely withdrawn. My hermits and snails seem ok but I don't know. My fish still bite me when I put my hand in the tank so I know they are fine.

My parameters are
90g with a 30g sump
KH - 5 This was at 8 four weeks ago and I started dosing with Bulk reef supply 2 part six weeks ago.
Calcium - 400
No3 - 1.5
Salinity - 1.024
Temp 77.5
Metal halides are 6months old and my Actinics are 6months old (time for a change but I don't think the whole tank would crash over night because of actnics)
I put a huge bag of carbon in the tank and as soon as my water warms up I will be doing a 20 gallon water change.

I replaced my protein skimmer pump a week ago and its putting out some crazy chunks of disgusting smelling stuff.

The only thing else that I have done recently is cut a hole in my wooden stand and a couple small pieces of particle board fell into the tank.

So now that I have written everything about my tank I can possibly think of I am now trying figure out what my next step is.

Thanks,
Steve
 
A 50% WC is next. Then another one tomorrow. Despite their looks, your fish are probably not fine. White corals means a lot of chemicals in the water that can be harmful to them. The huge WC's will also help to save any corals that are hanging on.
 
+1 above.....Big Bummer i stopped reefing in 2000 came back 1 1/2 yr ago these full tank crashes are new to me?
Carbon, skimming, water changes.
 
Did you test your water weekly after you started your dosing six weeks ago? How did you determine how much you needed to dose??
What is your Mag reading?
What is your PH?
Should do a FULL set of water tests before you change any water.
This may give you or others an idea of what is going on.

BTW particalboard has some nasty glue in it.
 
I tested the water for a couple weeks before I started dosing, I am sure that I am actually not putting enough KH=PH in because I didn't want my lvls to get too high.
My Mag is at 1000 which is a little low but not by much.
I tried to make sure I didn't get any board in my tank but I noticed a few pieces. I probably should have done a water change then and there. I am beginning to think the board is what started it and as things died off the toxins went up.

I also can't seem to find my cucumber, the last time I saw him was yesterday afternoon. I do know that once those guys die they can release toxins also.
 
I did notice an in tank pump that kept sputtering yesterday I kept checking it and adjusting it I didn't think about it possibly shorting out since I just got it a couple months ago. I have now pulled that pump out.
 
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Particle board has nasty glue in it. Big WC, run lots if carbon and keep your skimmer going. 1000 for mag is kind of low, what with 1350 being the norm.
 
how about your ph. you say kh is 5 and you are using brs 2-part....are you using the soda ash, or bicarbonate.

how much are you dosing and how often? kh of 5 is pretty low and if you were adding too much alk at one time you could get some pretty big ph shifts. just tying to figure what may have set off this cycle of death. sry btw! sucks!
 
I had the same issue not to long ago. I had a 100g tank that I added on to my system. The tank was a DIY project of someone else that I picked up at the LFS for a good deal. It was glass inside of a wooden case. I set it up and added the water to it. everything checked out. so I tied it in to the main line. the next morning I went to check on it and the bottom glass had came unsealed and was leeching on tho the particle board. so i checked on everything tied in to the system. clowns were resting on the sand. long story short. I did a 30% water change. added a bag of chemo-pure to the drip tray of my sump. underneath that i also added a filter fiber pad. After about an hr i restocked my tank form the buckets i had placed everything in. about 10 min later everything picked up almost where they left off. my long tentacles unfortunately did not make it though.

sorry for the bad spelling.
 
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With you tank size and load, I see no reason to dose. Basic water changes are all you need. Everytime we start adding chemicals to our tanks, it always makes it harder to figure out what has gone wrong. I would stop the dosing and just do regular water changes and let things settle down. As far as the particle board, alot depends on how old it is, how long it was in the water and if any of the saw dust entered the tank.
 
Steve, any word on the tank this morning ??? I'm here in South Everett Silver Lake area if there is anything I can help you with let me know give me a call

Todd 425-7six0-6zero13
 
The only reason I decided to dose the Alk (soda Ash)in the first place was because my ph was always low. Even with normal water changes. I didn't want to add to much to the system so that my PH would shoot the other direction and get too high. Obviously that didn't work like I had planned. And after further inspection I haven't put nearly what is recommended in to provide a stable ph level.

The tank looks the same as yesterday which might actually be good since the remaining SPS look the same and aren't completely white like most of the tank. I did turn the protein skimmer up a tick and am cleaning it out every couple of hours to hopefully remove more of what ever is in there. I ran out of water last night so I ran my RO/DI filter all night and am about to do another 20g change.

While I was cleaning I noticed a couple of small slivers of particle board in the sump area of the tank which tells me that even though I thought I was doing a job of making sure the board wasn't getting in some did in fact get in. The tank stand is at least 15 years old I have only changed the aquarium not the stand.

Thanks all for the advice and concern I will keep you all informed as to the status of the tank.
The only thing I am really bummed out by, is that I was about to frag some coral so that I could give it to a few people to have back-ups in case my tank crashed.
 
Husker12181 said:
The only reason I decided to dose the Alk (soda Ash)in the first place was because my ph was always low. I didn't want to add to much to the system so that my PH would shoot the other direction and get too high.
Click to expand...
From my experience, Magnesium needs to be fixed before you can really stabilize Alk and pH.
Once Magnesium gets out of balance, lots of peripheral things in the chemistry can get screwed up.
 
Holygral said:
With you tank size and load, I see no reason to dose. Basic water changes are all you need. Everytime we start adding chemicals to our tanks, it always makes it harder to figure out what has gone wrong. I would stop the dosing and just do regular water changes and let things settle down. As far as the particle board, alot depends on how old it is, how long it was in the water and if any of the saw dust entered the tank.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. he has sps and over 100g of water. dosing at least daily is more in order.
 
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