That's a good idea... I'll do that when I get home.

Roll the bucket.... uh... yeah.... won't make that mistake again! Trust me on that one.

Well.... I overestimated how much water I'd have when I got home today, and it didn't work out for a full water change. By the time that I wake up this afternoon, I'll have a full WC tank with the IO salt and I can test the Ca between both test kits. For now though, things have definetly settled down from super catastrophic seath mode. There are 4 more pieces that I'm worried about, but we'll see what they're doing when I wake up. I've got a Rainbow Stylo, 2 Loripes, and 1 of 2 nubs on my Oregon Tort that are in STN mode. If they're worse when I get up, I'll dip the 2 that I can in H2O2 mix, and hope for the best. I should be able to frag 3 of 4, and the forth (oregon tort) still has another nub on the frag plug that is not attached and looking good.

In retrospect... I should have put this whole escapade in my tank journal. Is there any way that I can transfer it over? Probably not, eh?

just copy and paste :biggrin: I think I have an oregon tort too, or maybe its a california tort, its some sort of tort, very blue :)

Yeah... I thought of that.... pain in the butt though. Oh well.

As for the Ca test experiment... well, just my luck, I didn't really learn anything. The Elos came in at 250-300ppm, and the Hanna came in at 436ppm. Damnit! Oh well, I guess I'll just have to test usieng both and then average them out... lol.

Omg....stupid kits!! Looks like the right number is the average...don't like that!

This is of course assuming that the IO bucket actually falls at ~380ppm. Can't win. lol

And the plot thickens!! Unbelievable. I got my BRS order in, and in it was a Mg test kit to replace the one that I ran out of. I go and test the display for Mg, and it shows up at a heart stopping 2500!!!!! WTF?!?! Fortunately, at the time, I had a fresh batch of water ready to be put into the system, so I tested that. IO salt... it came in at 2400. Holy crap. Did I get a bad kit... or am I challenged in the test kit area of this hobby? I've never had troubles before... I don't think at least.

Anyways, crash seems to be over. I'm still losing 2 loripes, and I've got a Rainbow Stylo that's not doing all too good, but everything else has stabilized, so that's good. Last test for kH came in at 10.5. Ca is a little low... depending on which kit I'm going to trust... we'll call it 350.

And here are a couple before and after pics. Unfortunately, this won't show the whole extent of the damage as I had added a bunch of stuff after the latest 'before' pic, but here goes anyways.

Before:
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...7/DSC01458.jpg
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...7/DSC01457.jpg

After:
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...DSC01492-1.jpg
http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...7/DSC01493.jpg


Try to ignore the hair algae everywhere... it's getting better now that I'm running the right amount of GFO. I'm surprised... the after pics don't look that bad in comparison to the befores. I pulled a lot of stuff out of there... more in the frag tank which was almost full before this went down, but quite a few in the display as well.

You had issues before the crash...you can see it coming with the before picture. How long before is that?

Why don't you put a 50 mL sample of water in a small glass jar and send it to me? I will test it for you. Prob cost you $15 to send it Express and I would have it on Tuesday I think.

Myka... Hmmmm..... I might just do that. Thanks for the offer. I'll PM you.


On another note, I just counted the death toll... (shudder)

11 colonies base ball sized or bigger
Probably 20-30 frags
4 fire shrimp
2 cleaner shrimp
2 emerald crabs
I'm missing one of my dracula gobies which really ticks me off. Come to think of it, the whole freakin' thing ticks me off.



OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you see in that picture that I don't? Everything was super happy before the crash. Are you talking about the hair algae? That wouldn't crash a tank would it? Phosphates were a little high (0.2 for a short while), nitrates have always been low (I just checked with my elos kit... clear as can be). At the time of the crash, the phosphates were at about 0.10. The before picture of the display was probably 2 months ago or so... things got WAY better after that, and then BOOM!!

What do you have on the back glass? is that hair algae?

I had a little hair algae before and found out the problem with testing for phostphate/nitrates with a tank full of hair algae is that they would absorb it all and then your tests would be all skewed. I had tests showing 0 ph and 0 nitrates but having hair algae in the tank would mean that the tests are giving a false negative. Having that much hair algae in your tank and having the tests still showing phosphates would mean that there is too much even for the hair algae to feed on. I was over feeding my tank and probably still am but I have added gfo and algae grazers to prevent another outbreak in my new tank.

That's so weird, my Hanna tester has been fairly accurate thus far, I use salifert, redsea, and elos. Usually all within 20 ppm difference. Which mag test kit did you get from brs? I only have salifert and red sea to test mag but never does it hit that kind of numbers... See what ever is cheaper, either send a water sample to myka or if it's cheaper and faster you can send it to me in bc and I'll test it for you too. My wife does a lot of the testing for me which I found to be better, she is a lot more careful and accurate than me. :redface: are you still dosing probiotic by chance? How long ago did you start that system, was it prior to the crash, maybe the answer to your current issues is related to probiotic system. Did you test the freshly made salt water and see what kind of results it gives you and maybe use it to reference the results from your tank water. Keep in there bud. It will work itself out.

Doch, Have you tried carbon dosing? I think it would get rid of your nutrient issue.

+1 & make sure to inoculate with a bacteria source. Also maybe get the biggest mixing reservoir you can find in relation to your total display volume & try a huge water change by adding a bit cooler water closer to the bottom while siphoning the warmer water from close to the surface.

If you have algae growing in the tank - especially copious amounts - it will suck all the phosphate and nitrate out of the water so your kit can't detect it. If there is algae there is phosphate, can't argue that. Plus, when you added that frag tank on the algae bloomed in there like no tomorrow pointing to nutrient issues. Phosphate is a coral killer. Algae can help in a way by sucking the nutrients out o the water, but many algae also release toxins used as an offense tactic to help themselves spread.

The rocks are poorly designed for flow, and look like they collect a lot of detritus. I also notice that many of the rocks are from dry base rock, which I really don't like. I've seen algae blooms like this when using base rock so many times. Many base rocks will leech phosphate because they were alive at one point. Other base rocks are too dense to colonize anaerobic bacteria so have no ability to process nitrate.

It does not appear to be a safe place for SPS corals. I would suggest you at least use a siphon to suck out algae as you scrape it off the back glass (and anywhere else). If you're not using a filter sock, I would suggest you put one on the tank at least while you are getting the algae under control.

I have not tried Carbon Dosing. I think that I will. I do have some questions about it though. I recently added GFO, and more importantly added the right amount as per the BRS reef calculator. My PO4 went from 0.20 on the hanna, down to 0.10 with too little GFO, and down to 0.00 with the right amount. At each step, I could see a distinct decrease in the growth of the hair algae. I still have issues with blooms, but all levels are undetectable, adn the growth has slowed significantly. Would I be OK to start Vodka dosing right now? Would I be smarter to take the hit on sleep, and properly set up my Zeo system? Can you dose vodka and run zeo at the same time? What about N/P pellets? I have them, and a reactor, but for some reason it takes a lot of work for me to get proper tumbling out of them... they make me ANGRY!! lol.

I don't notice much in the way of detritus at all actually. I did for a while because I was waiting for a VERY long time for my 6105's to show up, and then had a power supply issue with my wavebox, but now that the proper flow is in there, I see no detritus. You may be on to something with the dry base rock... I can't confirm or deny. That is however one of the few things that changed from the old tank to this one.

What does this mean? Would dosing zeo bak suffice?

I'll be posting all new entries in regards to this under my tank journal. Should you like to follow, feel free.

I have seen carbon dosing absolutely annihilate algae issue in a short time. i have always used vinagar/kalk so i cant talk about vodka but there are lots of threads explain how to dose it. It is a very cheap option, so i say go for it. it shouldn’t interfere with anything else you are running.

Yes I use zeo bak & once a month add a supplement called bacter boost, I think it's from wiess organics, I also have just recently added biomate to help address a mulm(a residual build up of bacterial smeg) build up in 1 of the dark areas of the tank. It also apparently helps with an alternative bacteria source that consumes low level Po4... Testing with an elos for N03 I get 0, & using a hanna checker for Po4 I get 0 as well, but there is a bit of cyano & a very small bit of algae, so I know that there are traces of both due to heavy feeding of fish & corals. Also the skimmer on my system is a POS it pulls out a fair jag, but it's just the stock skimmer for an RSM 250 which is beginning to be seriously not enough for the bioload in the tank. Just be careful with the vodka. I can't find the link to the site I used as a guide right now, but I'm happy with the method.

Months ago there was one single piece of live rock that I had that used to get HA and when I first put in rowaPhos the algae got annihilated in about 3 days with nothing else changing. Haven't seen a peep in nearly a year now.

As for the apocalypse in your tank doch, I'm glad that it's turning around now. That being said I'd be leery to go so quickly into different filtration/media/filter methods all in one go, often the huge shifts in parameters will cause more problems than they solve and I'd personally wait for any big dosing or polymer methods so that you can get the tank just running happily and stable before stressing the animals with chemical shifts. The funny test results will make it more difficult for you to judge if there is even any true intervention required.

Yeah, I threw 1mL of vodka in this morning, along with a whole bunch of other maintenance. Full Zeo will be starting in 36 hours. Properly this time... now that I researched it rather than following the instructions on the bottle. Apparently it makes too much sense for the bottle to have the right instructions on it. GRRRRRR!

I don't think I would run Zeolites and the rest of the Zeo system along with vodka dosing. I'd probably ditch the Zeo if you're going to try vodka.