something is very wrong....

[Skeptic9962]

posted about this a week ago or so and tried to figure out what was going on with the tank it started out with just some very small amount of color loss in echino's then few days later few sps started to STN couple days after that one of my clams died in a matter of a day...that was last night and now woke up to 3 of my fish having ick.....trying to figure this out asap....

list of specs on tank

75 gal. Aga RR
20gal sump
25gal fuge
1/13hp chiller (small but keeps temp in line)
jbj ato with 10gal that i top off with kalk
tunze 9010 skimmer
(3) tunze 6025 nanostreams for flow (modded)
(2) 24" outer orbit current 250w DE halide w/4 24w t5s
phosban reactor for carbon

I have been dosing vodka for the past month or so....got up to 2.8ml a day and then things started losing color and such so i cut down to 1/2 for a bit but still seemed like things where pissed off so yesterday completely stopped dosing.....could this be the root to everything being unhealthy? only other thing ive changed recently was i put my fuge light on a reverse light cycle...since i had to toss a fish in there...had it on all the time before so not sure if that could make a difference in anything....

params are:
ph 8.2
alk 8
calc 425
mag. 1100
nitrate 0-5 or so
temp 77-78

feed the fish rods reef once a day and feed corals coral frenzy about 2 days a week,

do weekly 10-15gal water changes with IO made with RODI water.


anyone have any idea of any possibilities? going to test everything one more time tomorrow when i go to barrier to make sure test kits arent bad...but what really could cause an effect on everything in the tank?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

When in doubt, do a massive water change and run carbon.
Do NOT dose ANYTHING just for the heck of it, dose only if a reliable test kit proves that your corals are depleting a mineral faster than water changes can keep up with. I see more crashes from dosing and equipment errors than any single other cause.

 

[ajnweb]

I will volunteer to take the Vodka dosing while you figure out what is up with your tank! Good luck...tracking down tank problems is never easy, hope everything works out for you

I will second large water changes, just test your water change water to make sure you don't have a bad batch of salt??????

 

[Skeptic9962]

ya planning on doing a nice big one tomorrow just mixed up some water so gotta let it mix for a day or so...other then that i stoped the vodka which was for getting my nitrate down but i have a fuge with cheato in it so to be honest im just going to try running it that way for now just saw some great results from the vodka method...and had to try it lol...i dont dose anything other then kalk in my top off to keep the levels in line. may have to once the sps get larger but for now kalk works great.

When in doubt, do a massive water change and run carbon.
Do NOT dose ANYTHING just for the heck of it, dose only if a reliable test kit proves that your corals are depleting a mineral faster than water changes can keep up with. I see more crashes from dosing and equipment errors than any single other cause.

 

[Skeptic9962]

its just really wierd how alot of the sps are doing just fine...and all my mushrooms/rics/acans/micromus./brain/zoes/clams(other then the one that died) are looking great.....only real thing i can even think of would be vodka addition effected random things...maybe the weaker of the species that couldnt handle it....or a combo of things....heh like stn due to a drop in alk, clam/fish due to vodka....heh just trying to figure this out tank issues do suck lol very hard to pinpoint anything unless its real obvious

 

[treehugger]

how quick did you bump your vodka dose? Are you dosing the vodka once a day and everyday? Just curious...i've been dosing vodka for about 6 months now. I had a couple of corals get pissed when I upped the dose from time to time. Were you feeding heavy with your vodka dosing? If so what were you feeding?

 

[Skeptic9962]

went by the article that was written awhile ago in reefkeeping "vodka dosing distilled!" bumped it up every week like it said but this last bump seemed to have pissed off alot of stuff....if thats what it was...i bumped it from 2.2 -2.8 like it said....yes i was very consistent with it every day after i got off work. yes i was feeding pretty heavy once a day with rods reef but it seemed to have been all getting eaten.

how quick did you bump your vodka dose? Are you dosing the vodka once a day and everyday? Just curious...i've been dosing vodka for about 6 months now. I had a couple of corals get pissed when I upped the dose from time to time. Were you feeding heavy with your vodka dosing? If so what were you feeding?

 

[Skeptic9962]

lol i was thinking the same thing...

havnt tested everything yet but i tested out the IO mix that i just did for alk/salinity and at 1.025 the alk tests out at 11dkh is that normal for IO?

I will volunteer to take the Vodka dosing while you figure out what is up with your tank! Good luck...tracking down tank problems is never easy, hope everything works out for you

I will second large water changes, just test your water change water to make sure you don't have a bad batch of salt??????

 

[Skeptic9962]

guess IO does have high alk everywhere ive looked its at 12dkh for 35ppt and low calc/mag...350 calc and 1050 or so mag is what i tested out.....so should i buffer these levels up to where i want them never have done that...or was thinking maybe just go with RC which same alk but higher calc/mag to be honest i dont think thats the problem here but definatly have allways had a problem keeping mag in line

 

[gas4544]

What are you using to measure salinity?

What are you using to measure temperature?

These are two very basic readings, but inaccurate hydrometers and thermometers can contribute to big problems. I have been lied to before by a swing-arm hydrometer and a cheap digital thermometer.

g

 

[Skeptic9962]

salinity is by a refractometer that just got calibrated and the temp is by my chiller.

What are you using to measure salinity?

What are you using to measure temperature?

These are two very basic readings, but inaccurate hydrometers and thermometers can contribute to big problems. I have been lied to before by a swing-arm hydrometer and a cheap digital thermometer.

g

 

[gas4544]

Well, let's see...

Stray voltage?

Some kind of nasty pathogen got into your tank?

One of the grandchildren used your tank for a wishing well and dropped in a penny?

 

[Skeptic9962]

ya ive tested for voltage with my volt meter and get nothing so thats good, possible something got into the tank but running carbon is hopefully taking care of that and no grandchildren yet would be worried if i had them at 21 haha

Well, let's see...

Stray voltage?

Some kind of nasty pathogen got into your tank?

One of the grandchildren used your tank for a wishing well and dropped in a penny?

 

[Skeptic9962]

just did a 20gal water change so hopefully that will help out a bit we will see

 

[Herefishyfishy]

On a side note, pennies have been made out of Zinc for many years.
I would expect the water changes to help, if a major die off has started, the water changes will need to be fast and furious. If not, you are heading back to health.

 

[Skeptic9962]

noticed within a few hours my tang that had ick real bad has very little now so im hoping that the large change made the difference....

On a side note, pennies have been made out of Zinc for many years.
I would expect the water changes to help, if a major die off has started, the water changes will need to be fast and furious. If not, you are heading back to health.

 

[Skeptic9962]

on another side note...do you all turn off your powerheads before you feed?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

You are aware that regardless of what your water conditions, the ich will stay present in the tank untill irradicated. It showed it's ugly face when the fish got stressed due to tank water conditions deteriorating. I never turn off powerheads, but some others do.

 

[DonW]

Canadian pennies will kill your tank, just ask my grandson.
Once you get you vodka dose high you have to taper off or you will see die off issues.

Don

 

[scytale]

There was a bad batch of IO buckets floating around for a bit--and high ALK was the main problem with them (+12 and higher; usually IO is lower, on everything)

It doesn't account for any problems that you're seeing in the tank, but make-up water with high ALK and low CA/Mg probably won't make the situation any better....

I've had good luck supplementing my IO with Seachem's ReefAdvantage Calcium (dry)--it does of good job of keeping raising the CA and Mg at the same time.

If you've never buffered before, than this is a handy program to help calculate how much to dose with: http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

Travis.

guess IO does have high alk everywhere ive looked its at 12dkh for 35ppt and low calc/mag...350 calc and 1050 or so mag is what i tested out.....so should i buffer these levels up to where i want them never have done that...or was thinking maybe just go with RC which same alk but higher calc/mag to be honest i dont think thats the problem here but definatly have allways had a problem keeping mag in line