Tank Crashing

[user 2204]

I just reread and noticed that you're only using a single Koralia 1 on your tank. Not nearly enough flow.

I always try to get the ripple effect on all my tanks. This helps with oxygenating the water and helps with exporting the nutrients out of the tank.

I think what you should do is to boost up your filtration, carbon for sure. And strong, multidirectional water movement will go along way too. If you don't have one already, get or make a pre-skimmer box for the Bak-Pak skimmer.

Curious, are you using a refractometer for SG testing?

Cheers,
Alex

 

[nata]

I think may be the sea hare dying was setting this event off..then leathers releasing mucus..

 

[pblutang]

I just reread and noticed that you're only using a single Koralia 1 on your tank. Not nearly enough flow.

I always try to get the ripple effect on all my tanks. This helps with oxygenating the water and helps with exporting the nutrients out of the tank.

I think what you should do is to boost up your filtration, carbon for sure. And strong, multidirectional water movement will go along way too. If you don't have one already, get or make a pre-skimmer box for the Bak-Pak skimmer.

Curious, are you using a refractometer for SG testing?

Cheers,
Alex

Thanks Alex! I use a hydrometer for the sg test.

 

[user 2204]

I think may be the sea hare dying was setting this event off..then leathers releasing mucus..

+2 I think you got it spot on there.

 

[user 2204]

Thanks Alex! I use a hydrometer for the sg test.

If you can, have someone check it with a refractometer and try to aim for a SG of 30-32 ppt.

FWIW, I did a quick search with Google and found that the majority of people who had a sea hare die in there tank causing a full system crash.

http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=sea+hare+died

 

[pblutang]

The seahare was alive yesterday. It wasnt looking good so I moved it to my fowlr tank. The snails and slugs were literally falling off the rocks so I moved them to my fowlr tank.

 

[user 2204]

I'd recommend trading in or selling the sea hare. They need algae and if your tanks do not have enough algae, you'll need to supplement feed the sea hare with some sort of algae.

And everything I've read about sea hares is they are recommended for experts and tanks with heavy chemical filtration due to the fact that sea hares can emit a toxic dye from there bodies.

Just information for thought.

 

[pblutang]

I still don't know what the cause of the crash was yesterday.

Xenia and pompom - melted possible cause of cloudy water and smell. xenia smell was pretty strong
candy cane - melted
monti's bleached out
finger leather bleached
Duncans retracted still decent coloring but tentacles turning dark brown
frogspawn retracted (lots of mucous yesterday)
anthelias retracted
zoa's all retracted
acans cleaned off mucous layer with turkey baster and may make it color still good
toadstool retracted
ricordias and mushrooms still has good color just not expanded out
Paly's all retracted

Fish:
Yellow and blue tank, perc pair, flame angel - eating and swimming around. no labored breathing - Keeping close tabs on them.

I also have about 5 nausarius snails in the sand bed I have not seen their tubes out and didn't want to mess around too much with the sand bed. Also a 3" sandsifting cucumber that I have not located yet. All was sifting through sand the night before.

Does anyone know of any LFS that can test for copper close to federal way?

Thanks also for everyone's response!

 

[noworries]

I'm sure Indoor Reef could do that for you. They may even have a test kit for it. The copper test kits if I remember correctly are not too spendy. I pretty much live in Federal Way and have/had a copper test kit, I'll look tomorrow in the garage with all my supplies see if I still have it.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

From experience (I've had a penny dropped in my tank before) and I don't think a penny did this but the amonia is of concern. More water changes to keep the amonia down while the (hopefully) biological filter in the tank repairs itself.

I would suggest:
Take a water sample to a LFS that can test for copper.
Get carbon running asap.
Do more water changes to dilute whatever may affecting.

The "bad heater" may have caused it, more than just via temp. If something leached out.
The dieing animals could be causing it. How heavy is your skimmer working?

Most pennies are almost all zinc. Danno is correct, when a ststem crashes for no obvious reasons, I always look for toxins from equipment leaching out and starting an nitrification cycle which is what killes most of the livestock

 

[NC2WA]

spllbnd2,

thanks. I have used this company before several years ago. Was a good report.

 

[jrgilles]

Ammonia should be zero (0), not .25..the milky substance might be snails reproducing, but the main thing that I would be concerned with is ammonia...

yea, shouldn't have any ammonia. Did something die and not get removed from the tank? Something made the ammonia spike. Did you stir up the substrate or something and cause a cycle?