Please help me save my reef ASAP!!!!

[aquarookie]

Hi all,

Well, I have had my reef tank since October (it was set up in the previos owner's house for months before then) and I have had no livestock losses, all my creatures were thriving and everything was great.

Last Sunday night I decided to weed my razor caulerpa out of the live rock (it had taken over the tank). I tore out as much as I could (enough to cover the bottom of a five gallon bucket with a one inch layer of caulerpa and the "fuzzy" green slimy algae).

I did a 20% water change as well, with same water as I have always used. Within minutes all my softies and mushrooms have shriveled up, and have stayed that way since. My previously thriving blue sponge is turning clear right before my eyes. The only "happy" creature is my red sea pom pom xenia, while the other xenia is shriveled up as well.

And my skimmer (Remora pro), which has been working perfectly, immediately started producing WAY too many bubbles which are flowing out of the top (under the lid) AND out of the outlet, trying to climb over the sides and top of the tank!!!

Did the algae release toxins to poison the water? If so, what should I do? More water changes?

What did I do wrong? Please help!

Thanks everyone

Julia

 

[dpaynter]

Breaking caulerpa can release lots of material into the tank. Softies and mushrooms often close up when the tank is disturbed, but I think they will be OK. I would keep running the skimmer and carbon if you can. More water changes won't hurt.

 

[wrightme43]

Yep Dpaynter has you covered. Run lots of carbon, and keep dumping the skimmer cup, and do some more water changes. Calupera can be a mess.

 

[FishinInTheDark]

You might need to consider removing your sponge. Dying sponges are quite nasty, releasing lots of stored toxins. I think you have a chain reaction going on, and you may want to get it out of there, just to stop any more toxins being released into the water. I agree that skimming and water changes are the way to go to get everything back to normal.

GL,

 

[wrightme43]

Good call Conni, I didnt even notice the sponge. Yeah thats a very very very good idea.

 

[aquarookie]

Thanks everyone for your input. I will have to babysit the skimmer (since the incident occured the skimmer spits out bubbles uncontrollably), so I will have to turn it off at night or when I go to work. Is there any way to save the sponge? It was SO healthy just 2 days ago! It had been growing and looking spectacular until I messed with the stupid algae. Any further advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again
Julia

 

[liveforphysics]

This would be the worst possible time to turn off the skimmer for the night...

When a skimmer is blasting out skimmate, thats when its most important to have it running.

 

[ethanriley]

I would reduce the size of your water changes, but continue to do them daily until the skim muck slows down. Sorry about your tank. Water changes should get you back on track pretty quick I hope.

 

[ethanriley]

With the sponge I agree with Conni if it isn't extended filtering get rid of it. I had one die once that quickly polluted my tank in hours.

 

[Electrokate]

You can always set up a nano for the sponge, using a desktop aquarium or even a bucket or beer cooler. Razor blade off the clear bits, they are dead and will interfere with the animal getting food and respiring-they need high flow... a powerhead will help. Many sponges can be broken down to tiny pieces and regrow so don't worry if you discard some live tissue, better safe than sorry. I did that when my red tree sponge melted down, and it did eventually recover and grow a bit into a smaller tree shape. Course now I am afraid to put it back in a tank!

If you have any gorgonians melting down those also are toxic and should be isolated if alive, discarded if not. Most dying sinularia are bad, but usually when they look bad it doesn't mean anything so don't panic on them shriveling up. Softies just do that, sometimes it means they are shedding and then they open up bigger than ever. Disturbing the tank or rearranging/relocating them is cause for a few days of shriveling and is normal.

As for the skimmer, any way to drill a hole near the top and install a set of tubing going to a 5 gallon bucket? This is what many people prefer, that way the extra skimmate (if there is any) doesn't dump on the floor or back in the tank and you can skip emptying the collection cup daily. An alarm or float valve connected to the skimmer's power supply can be installed for if the bucket is full.

Check the remora manual or call them for advice, maybe in situations of high bioload there is an adjustment to prevent periodic cycles of overflowing. My CPR superskimmer does that sometimes, modifying it helps prevent the boom-bust cycle.

To connect a drilled hole in a skimmer cup to airline you can get an airline connector made by lee's which is for joining 2 pieces of airhose, they sell them at Petno, or take an old airstone and smash the airstone part and clean all the bits off it to get the plastic connector. Take a drill and test a margarine container with various bits til you find the size hole that will take the connector tightly. Then use this bit to drill the collection cup. You can seal the edges with aquarium goo but I usually don't need to, they make a tight enough seal. Don't know if superglue would be better. Remora's manufacturer may have better advice.

Had a lot of experience with crashes lately myself. Had the caulerpa implosion deal a month ago. Pulled every shred of caulerpa I could get, did a 90% water change using water gathered from other established tanks. Next day not only was everything open in the meltdown tank but it looked better than ever. So large water changes might help. If you don't have the water maybe friends or an LFS can help.

Good luck! I know panic well. This is supposed to be a fun hobby...
Kate

 

[aquarookie]

Thanks again everyone. I will keep working on it. I will set up YET ANOTHER tank for the sponge (if my husband finds out he'll kick me out of the house). The bleeping skimmer is mostly pumping water into the cup, at a rate of full cup a minute (and it is adjusted all the way up, I can not get it any "drier").

If I take the cup all the way off (just for the fun of it) or if the cup gets full (literally every minute) it spits such a large volume of bubbles out of the "exhaust", that they crawl over the top of the tank (and will end up on the floor). I will contact the manufacturer and see if they have a suggestion. For now, I will just keep changing water. Oh, what fun!

 

[Electrokate]

I wonder if a piece of caulerpa is stuck in the skimmer? Sounds like a blockage... Try taking it apart and rinsing and cleaning it with plain water. I thought you meant the skimmer was spazzing out like my CPR supersucker... er superskimmer That much overflow is a different problem.
Kate

 

[plack]

Did you add carbon??? It can make an enormous difference in your situation !!

 

[Dieselbreath]

I had a similiar problem when I first set my tank up. I added a water conditioner, what a disaster. Water change after water change,was all i could do. Best of luck to you,

Jason

 

[aquarookie]

I just went out tonight and got some fresh carbon. All of the critters are still alive (thank goodness), but I have not had the chance to "service" the skimmer yet. I already worked on the reef tank until 11 PM tonight, and I arranged babysitting for tomorrow afternoon so I can spend some quality uninterrupted time cleaning, servicing, fixing, changing water, so on, so forth.

I am wondering (thanks to people's suggestions) if the water conditioner really did make the skimmer "flip out". It could be a combination of that and caulerpa blockage. Who knows, I hope I will find out tomorrow

 

[Electrokate]

Water conditioner... wasn't amquel was it? I hate that product though some swear by it. People I know who use it have good days and then really bad ones where everything dies in 24 hours. Scary. I have been told they changed to a more stable formula fairly recently. Did you add anything like that? I didn't notice it in your post...
Kate

 

[liveforphysics]

The skimmer is not flipping out. Skimmers dont have ways to make themselves super skimmers, if they did it would be awsome (for people who use them at least).

The skimmer works by causeing any material in the tank that increases surface tension (strength) of a bubble, to have the chance to leave the tank by spilling over in a bubble foam.

For example, if you had a skimmer set up in a bucket of fresh water, it would just let the bubbles pass through it with out spilling over any foam. Now, stick a capful of dishsoap in the bucket, and the skimmer is going to foam out of control like crazy. Does not mean the skimmer is having any malfuction, on the contrary, it means the skimmer is doing its job perfectly. Skimmers dont turn themselves into super skimmers, compounds in the water lend to increaseing the stregnth of bubbles so that they make the foam last longer (equaling increadible skimmer output).

I belive the compounds that the algea released are of a type that signifigantly increase surface tension on bubbles, just like soap would. If/because these compounds are toxic, I would make the provisions to the skimmer that ElectroKate mentioned, and keep that sucker skimming for all its got untill its output becomes normal again. If this means 2 5gal buckets of clear skimmate, so be it, its what you need. I personally wouldnt bother with water changes of less than 90% untill the skimmer returns to normal output. You want max skimming full bore right now, I will let you borrow another CPR skimmer to help remove the material faster if you want.

Once the skimmer returns to normal output, try for as large of water change as you have the means for. Doing it 5-15gal at time is totally useless. You can do 50 5gal water changes, and at the end you still havent got anywhere. The math just doesnt work out.

If you wana borrow my skimmer, i dont use it anymore and it can be hung on the side of a tank for easy instal. Both skimmers should help work the bad compounds out at twice the rate. PM me if you are interested.

-Luke

 

[Electrokate]

Superskimmer is actually a brand name. I wouldn't buy it again... In fact it's so bad I can't bring myself to sell it either, because it's a lemon and I'd only sell it to an enemy. Bad product, and I have learned a lot about skimmers from it.
Do a search here on RF or better yet on RC as the mods are there, you will see numerous posts on it's many maladies. As sold it does not perform as described, pretty sad. Such a simple piece of gear should not have such problems but it does. I have been told some of the problems have been fixed with newer releases, maybe I should again send mine back for a new one. Already did that once... new one leaks from 3 places instead of one.

So how is the tank doing? Any improvements? If you can't get the skimmer to settle down then you probably really do need a water change, and a water change is a safe bet anyways. Something in there is not agreeing with the inhabitants.

I hate razor caulerpa... so hard to remove.
Kate

 

[aquarookie]

You know, you guys make me laugh even when the happenings in my tank make me want to cry. Kate, if you ever want to get rid of the superskimmer, I will be happy to put it in my museum of poorly designed products, right next to my seaclone and a few other things. Hee hee hee.

The water conditioner I used was Aqua Safe (made by Tetra, I think). I usually don't use it, but I needed to dechlorinate a bunch of water, and there you go...

Luke, thank you for the offer on borrowing your skimmer. If you are around Friday or Saturday, I would love to pick it up. If you are not, I hope that water changes and my current skimmer (which has slightly reduced the foam output to a cup every few minutes!) as well as carbon and mechanical filtration will help clear the water of the yuck that is in it.

To answer your question, Kate, the tank critters are still alive but for the most part shriveled up. Only a part of the red sea xenia is acting happy as ever. Maybe it is confused... LOL

Gosh, it is hard to change a lot of water at once without using conditioner! I do not have a RO/DI unit or a distillery, how the heck can I dechlorinate water? Boil it? If so, for how long?

The algae in my tank have gone ballistic! What is up with them? I weed them, I change the water, I filter and skim the water and I do not feed my tank (to reduce nutrients), in fact I never overfeed my tank, and the bleeping algae covers the acrylic daily with a thick visible layer! I clean it off one day, and it is back the next. It is the green hairy stuff, the slimy stuff (what did Bob Fenner say it is? Blue-green or ...? I should have been taking notes, I guess I will have to look again on WWM).

Oh, and the caulerpa is happy as ever, regrowing so fast I can only cuss at it. I think I will just pull out one piece of liverock at a time, put it in a separate tank, and rid it of all signs of the razor caulerpa. If there is any of it left, I hope my tang, urchin, snails and crabs help me finish it off.

Oh, Kim, I would be happy to give you the stuff but I hope you changed your mind about it after reading this!

I just want to thank you all for the advices and the support. I really appreciate it!

 

[aquarookie]

Hey, I just thought of something! Maybe I can get some puget sound water to heat up and use in my tank. I know it has its drawbacks, but wouldn't it be better than caulerpa-poisoned water or the slimy conditioned stuff? I could filter it and UV sterilize it. Any opinions? (Yes, I am planning to invest in a RO/DI unit as soon as I get some money saved up).