seriously can not figure it out!!!

[billaweed]

I have had my tank (50 gallons) now for about 5-6 months. Everything in my tank was kicking ass and growing like crazy up till about a month ago. I decided to wait 3 weeks before doing a water change and after i did the water change (10% = 5 gallons) I noticed everything starting to die. not more than 3 weeks and all my corals, snails, shrimp, and one fish died. Even after I started doing ragular water changes again.

Here are my system stats:

• 50 gal tank
• prizm 100 skimmer
• dual flow hang on skimmer
• 40 lbs of LR
• 40 lbs of sand and substrate
• Aquarium Pharmiceuticals ROI water purifier
• water temp at 76 - 78 degrees
• three small fish fed every 2 days, one pinch of flakes
• 3 powerheads Rio 90's
• 216 watt T-5 light set up ran for 7 hours a day

Part of my problem too is that I've been getting a powdery red algae build up all over my glass as well. I wipe it off and within hours its back again. All I know is I cant figure out my problem and I'm starting to want to give up on this hobby. Its irritating as heck..

please help..

thanks
Brandon

 

[MAGDRL Mom]

what are your pH, alk, trates, trites, calcium, et al?

 

[Krish]

Sounds like there are some excess nutrients in your system which will be the reason for the algae growth. I agree with MAGDRL Mom...Post up some parameters so we can see what may be the problem

 

[Scooterman]

Sounds like you need to step up your water changes & make sure you have some good flow in that tank. 5gals water changed is ok for a while but at times you need to change like 20 or more gallons at once. 5g isn't enough to really siphon out the tank & sump real well & remove detritus, do a big wc & see what happens, just make sure to adjust it to your tank parms. & do it right.

 

[barrierreefcf]

Since all the inverts died after the waterchange... what about the possibility that the Aq Pharm (I'm assuming Tap Water Purifier) Cartridge was spent and a lethal dose of copper from the tap water killed them off? The fish death could be coincidence or a result of the pollutants from the inverts dying. A copper test of the water coming out of the tap water filter might be in order.

 

[chris&barb]

AP tap filters are just DI resins. chlorine/ chloramines can get through them.

 

[billaweed]

what are your pH, alk, trates, trites, calcium, et al?

all my levels are great, I dont have an alk test.. but my pH=8.2, trates=0, trites=0, calcium= around 430-450 (I believe thats good?)

Should I do one huge water change of about 20 gallons with store bought purified water? Let me know because I really want my tank to be back to where it used to be, back when things lived and grew.

btw.. arent water changes based on a 1% of water per day ratio?

 

[Scooterman]

What test kits do you use? The store brought water should be better, would be nice to have a TDS meter to make sure though.
Never heard of a 1% per day ratio, that makes no sense at all, your bio-load, size tank equipment all together will help determine how much siphoning & wc's are required. Also If your slacking on wc's then you need to make up for it, large volume wc's all at once will replace a true percentage but frequent small changes actually replace part of the water that was previously changed, that isn't a true percentage of new to old water being replaced. I bet you will get better results making one big change, getting good test kits, & learning about making better quality water, these will make a big impact. Last, NSW has a calcium of around 420 ppm, not sure why people think higher is required unless you have a very high demand & your just trying to keep up with it, you can do well with as low of 380! just a little tab bit of info to help kick start your tank into health!

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php

 

[chris&barb]

Never heard of a 1% per day ratio, that makes no sense at all,

scooty read this http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

regular water changes are the best and if you've missed a few then one large one might be better but if you plan on doing water changes as a regular routine, smaller/more frequent is much more stable=better

 

[ecobalance]

Temp and salinity

Some people dont realize this but when you mix saltwater it should be of the same temp as the display or your sg reading will be way off.Another thing that can cause death is salt that has buffers that are of a different grain size than the salt,giveing you a really leathal dose as you get to the bottom of the bucket.

 

[fatjusto]

scooty read this http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

My read of this says that a larger water change is better just like scooter said because you are changing a percentage of the "new" water

 

[Scooterman]

scooty read this http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/rhf/index.php

regular water changes are the best and if you've missed a few then one large one might be better but if you plan on doing water changes as a regular routine, smaller/more frequent is much more stable=better

Read this, from your reefkeeping link!

Water changes are a good way to help control certain processes that serve to drive reef aquarium water away from its starting purity. Some things build up in certain situations (organics, certain metals, sodium, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate, etc.), and some things become depleted (calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, strontium, silica, etc.). Water changes can serve to help correct these imbalances, and in some cases may be the best way to deal with them. Water changes of 15-30% per month (whether carried out once a month, daily or continuously) have been shown in the graphs above to be useful in moderating the drift of these different seawater components from starting levels.

Now read this!

For most reef aquaria, I recommend such changes as good aquarium husbandry. In general, the more the better, if carried out appropriately, and if the new salt water is of appropriate quality.

Calcium and alkalinity, being rapidly depleted in most reef aquaria, are not well controlled, or even significantly impacted by such small water changes. In order to maintain them with no other supplements, changes on the order of 30-50% PER DAY would be required. Nevertheless, that option may still be a good choice for very small aquaria, especially if the changes are slow and automatic.
Happy Reefing!

 

[chris&barb]

from the link

Aquarists often think that many small changes are not as efficient as one big change since some of the water in all subsequent changes was already replaced by earlier changes. This is a correct assertion, but it is often overstressed. After changing 10% three times, only 10% of the first 10% change was changed the second time (1% of the total). So the difference is small. We can mathematically calculate the efficiency of such changes as follows. If we use our 30% example, then one 30% change removes 30% of the impurities, assuming an equal distribution of the impurity within the water. If we do six 5% changes, then the reduction in impurities = 1-(0.95)6 = 26.5%. So it is less efficient (six 5% changes exactly equal 26.5% changed in one batch), but it is not radically less efficient. Going smaller still, the difference is even smaller. Doing 30 one percent changes removes 1-(0.99)30 = 26.0% of the impurities.


if you read the article you will see that if you did 30% water changes once every month for a year or 1% every day for a year there is a 2% difference in nitrates removed after that year(in favor of the 30% per month change) but the stability of the water parameters is much better with daily water changes. doesnt everyone always harp on stability? then why would you want a big flux every month? for a 2% gain? that doesnt make any sense

 

[chris&barb]

reading the quotes you posted, who said anything about using water changes to maintain Ca/Alk and Mg?

 

[Scooterman]

He posted his ca levels, wc's do supplement these.

Never said anything was wrong with doing the smaller changes but this article takes for granted & assumes that your removing the same amount detritus with each change, I suggested that most probably in doing such a small change your not having a long enough time to remove as much detritus as you can in a tank of that size, somehow he needs to try & remove as much is put in & at times larger changes may be required. Also keep in mind, we're trying to help Brandon in his case.

 

[barrierreefcf]

I decided to wait 3 weeks before doing a water change and after i did the water change (10% = 5 gallons) I noticed everything starting to die. not more than 3 weeks and all my corals, snails, shrimp, and one fish died. Even after I started doing ragular water changes again.

No but seriously...Couldn't his DI cartridge be used up and now copper from his pipes/water source is killing his inverts? Even with increased water changes it would just be compounding the problem. I would check the copper levels of the water being produced by your tap water filtration system. Its kinda suspicous that you do a waterchange and all the inverts start dying.

 

[DonW]

No but seriously...Couldn't his DI cartridge be used up and now copper from his pipes/water source is killing his inverts? Even with increased water changes it would just be compounding the problem. I would check the copper levels of the water being produced by your tap water filtration system. Its kinda suspicous that you do a waterchange and all the inverts start dying.

I think its a possibility. Those little filters dont do to much for to long if tds levels are high. The water source be it city or well water would make a big difference.
I doubt the water change killed anything. I'm a fan of large water changes and have no problem at all draining 90% of my display for a waterchange. I did 100% per week for long time with no ill effects. Now than I'm sps free for awhile I only do one 80g per week on my 110.

Don

 

[chris&barb]

Even with increased water changes it would just be compounding the problem.

exactly, and remember these filters don't remove chlorine

 

[Scooterman]

He said he will use store brought purified water to do it, so his little filter is out of the picture at this point but agreed may be the original culprit.

 

[davidabrown66]

Another possibility is that something was on his hands when he went to do his wc, and that introduced a harmfull response.

Something I still have to remind myself to do is wash my hands before going in the tank. I've caught myself using windex on the windows and then sliding over to the tank to do some maintenance