I think my tank now qualifies for radioactive status. The algae on the bottom of the tank, and on the sides has become neon in color....

I can now say I see some humor in the situation.

Sorry Catherine for your lost! Did you used some used water? at least 50% of your old water for the new tank?

A water change of 25-30% would help keeping the amoniac low.

Again, sorry for the disaster :(

I used about 75% old water and 25% new water when I set the system back up.

Thank you for your condolences.

Sheez, thats terrible Catherine. Sorry about the loss of your beautiful corals. Its a strange hobby sometimes.

Dear tank,

Please stop being such a death trap of disasters.


No love,

Me


This mornings drama:
- another clam dead
- the pump is making funny noises.
- it is retaining the radioactive green color everywhere.
- I can't do anything about the pump or the green color (I removed the clam corpse) until I finish my stupid term paper. URG!

So...if I had to...where in the city would I get a replacement Reeflo Snapper pump on such short notice?

Oi. No idea here....sorry I'm not much help :( Do you need anyone to keep anything else so nothing more dies?...until you get it all figured out?

I have a Little Giant 3-MDQX-SC inline pump sitting in my closet if you need something in a pinch.

I'm thinking I may want someone to take my remaining two clams now. They seem to be unaffected still, but I don't want to chance it any longer. They are big clams, ~6" each. Maybe my fish too?

I just don't know anymore. Thoughts?

Catherine, I'm not sure I would personally risk it. Obviously if a clam just died, then there's something still going on. What kinds of clams are these?

The remaining clams are a gigas, and a dersa. The one that died was a smaller dersa, about 3" in length.

I agree something is still going on. I'm thinking its a cycle like Tony originally suggested, and have been treating it as such. Ideas on what I should do? I've been doing daily 7g water changes, keeping all my media fresh (nitrate, phosphate, ammonia sponges, hypersorb, and carbon). This is so frustrating. What else could I be doing?

Between my paper and this tank drama, it is not a good day!

it costs $$ but you could convert to zeovit? I had amazing nitrate reduction within 3 days of starting the system. Now 2 weeks later it's undetectable nitrates in the new tank. U need a skimmer though. It costs about $160 to start up on a tank your size if you build your own reactor (which isn't too hard). $80 if you don't dose K+ (potassium).

Not guaranteed it'll help your situation as fast as you need it to though; it's quite the committment to a "new" style of aquarium keeping if it's only to take care of an immediate emergency...

Zeo isn't for me. I researched it back when I started planning out this tank, and the financial commitment is too much. My tank used to be self sufficient, paying for everything I needed through frag & equipment sales. Thanks for the suggestion though. I am eagerly watching your build though to see how it all plays out. Lets say I would go the zeo route and suck up the cost, how do you think it would help my current issue? I know you mentioned lower nitrates.I don't have any nitrates now, I just keep the sponge in there in case there really is a cycle going on. Anything else you think it would help with?

I definitely would consider putting out the cash for zeo provided that I know it will work. The downside is that I'm not sure if I want to be on a long term program like. I could always wean my tank off of it right?

Zeo (or equivalent) seems to be about "helping along" the bacteria that help stabilize a tank. Now the advertised benefit is a reduction of nitrate and phosphate, and although you may not have a nitrate buildup, it still is bacteria that reduces ammonia into nitrite and nitrite into nitrate, so maybe it's possible that these could be helped along too. (I'm just guessing, I don't really "know").

FWIW I bought into Reef-resh (which is like "Zeo light") for about $150. You don't need a reactor and there are dosing instructions for daily dosing, or a lazier approach for weekly dosing. It might be something to look into. I was pretty impressed with how fast I started seeing results.

I always thought, or understood Zeo, and similar products, to be about ensuring the right balance of beneficial bacteria, to keep the tank on that razor edge. I remember the benefits being lowered levels of pretty much everything as well, hence my earlier question.

Does it still sound and look like a cycle to you? Its been a LONG time since I've delt with a cycle first hand, so I'm not really sure about it.

Both Zeo and Reef-resh are available at Golds correct?

First, condolences. This is suckage extreme.

Second, I don't see how this could be a cycle. Immediate deaths at that scale says "toxin" to me. Did you use any new glues, cleaners, solvents,e tc. during the build? Did something get dropped in accidentally during the switchover?

I've never <knock on wood> had to deal with this kind of tragedy, so these are just guesses. I think I'd have broken the tank down and set up a QT tank by now.

yeah zeovit takes quite a committment and the costs do add up. I've never experienced a cycle so fast as the zeovit cycle happening in my aquarium now though. The initial buy-in and the potassium dosing is the pricey part. Potassium's so expensive :cry:. Zeovit and reef-fresh and the like have a lot of skepticism but at least it's not as strange as vodka dosing :lol:

I think one of the problems is the lack of test kits that have a range of 0.0 to 0.5 ppm nitrate. A few articles in advanced aquarist talked about testing that low. I had wierd algae stuff going on in my previous tank when introducing rock or pulling the rock out of the water and resubmersing it. Nitrates would test 0 on a salifert kit but I had this hunch there was enough in there for some algae types.

Nothing new, just the same usual products. 100% silicone, no anti-fungal. No solvents in the tank, other then freshwater for the initial leak tesk in August, and again in November.

Everything went from my 24g to salt buckets, then from closed salt buckets into the new system. If anything got in it must have been after the tank was set up. There was no RTN or signes until 2 days after the initial set up.

The strange thing though is that the only things that have died are SPS, and smaller clams (all under 4"). All my inverts and fish are fine, and that includes snails, and my cowry. Do you know of anything that only attacks SPS or clams? Any ideas on what the toxin may be if its not touching inverts or fish?

I guess my first plan is to find out what is causing the problems in my tank and go from there. Zeo sounds like its more of a long term "solution". If I understand it correct it would take 2 weeks or longer for me to start seeing results?

I guess my next step is to test my parameters again today, do my normal 5g water change and then what?

Thats sounds like an alkalinity jump. Not saying thats your problem but a spike in alkalinity would cause those exact symptoms. Was all the new water run through a DI. I had a simialr problem several years ago. Filled 1/2 my 170 with old water & half with new water. Although using an ro unit, my well water was high in alkalinity, unknown to me. That, along with the high alk. Instant Ocean had then, nuked my clams and all my sps.

I blamed it on everything else under the sun but later we figured out what the problem was.

Very interesting.

I did use a new salt to mix up some new water for a water change just before this all happened. I used Red Sea Coral Pro, then switched over to Ocean Pro Pure the night before the disaster started.

I use RO/DI to do all my water, and I even brought fresh RO/DI with me back from Edmonton to avoid a shock. I guess I will be testing both my water here, and once I mix up OPP. Thanks for chiming in. If it is this, then the mystery will be solved.

How did you eventually find out this is what it was, and did your tank do the same cycle thing as mine is? Did you just ride it out?

Yeah, sorry, I thought I mentioned this but I guess I didn't. I would think even a bacterial system will still take a least a week before producing any results, and you have a more immediate problem on hand.

I actually do still think this is a cycle. Whatever the cause, it's a cycle now, but I think it's even just a cycle that's self-escalating. (2-3 pages back you've got your parameters listed - and ammonia is present..) But the more I think of it, I think it's just that the move was enough to disrupt the processes, and a little cycle turned into a big cycle as things started letting go.

As for SPS and smaller clams in particular, these guys tend to be the most sensitive so, unfortunately, it makes sense to me that they are the first to let go.

I think at this point what you need to do is get whatever's left, that's still of a sensitive nature, out of there for a week or two. If you have any SPS left then those, and your remaining two clams, should probably be moved into an established tank. Softies might be able to weather this storm but I can't say for sure.

I think what your tank needs is basically just enough stability for the processes to re-establish themselves. It could take a few weeks but I'm sure it will settle out. It's just the "what do you do with the livestock" in the meantime.

PM me or call me if you want to use some of my tank space. I cannot guarantee survival but I'd do my best...

The only things still "alive" in the tank are the fish, clean-up crew, and the two clams. :(

You have PM.

Just my two cents, but in a tank that is smaller like that, no doubt when one acro goes it can trigger the others. The living inverts indicate its not heavy metals or the silicone as you've already ticked off on your list.

How was the temperature swing during the move? Did everything get a long acclimation? My experience shows that acros don't like big swings in temp (lost half a tank that way). Also clams don't like acro deaths in a big tank or the other way around as well (I've experienced both of those too).

If I were you I'd get those clams out of there to someone elses tank, preferably a tank with nothing else in it (I hear Tony has an empty tank:biggrin: ). Its better than nothing. Then run carbon in a canister filter/phosban reactor or something and change it out every 3-4 days or so and do lots of water changes.

Hope you get this licked, its bad enough having to move a tank but to have major losses as well, that just sucks :neutral:

I'm in the process of making arrangements for the clams. I think it would be the second to last straw if they went, last straw being my fish.

There wasn't a lot of a temperature swing. When I put everything in the display, the old rock, old water, etc. I had a reading of 74-75. I brought the tempterature back up to 78 over the course of I think 4-5ish hours (I went to bed at 2am).

I'll keep going as I am then, water changes, rotating media, etc.

Thank you everyone for your input!

I just cleaned my glass for the third time today...its time to reduce the photoperiod in my tank...and start wishing this thing ends quickly.

If you used a DI, then thats removes any high alkalinity, so it should not be the same problem, unless it was a bad salt mix.

I figured it out, much later, like almost a couple years, after having all kinds of problems with my tanks in that particular house. Partly from reading Instant Ocean threads. I also, stupidly thought my ro was removed any alkaline well water, plus it went through a sofener first. However it was not. I have a friend who had a similar problem and it was corrected by adding the di resin.

I dont believe my tank cycled again. It had a lot of rock and I was running my turf scrubber also. All my soft coral, fish & inverts were fine. I removed everything that never looked good. Man, did those large clams stink.

Of course its just my guess thats what my problem was, although we kind of proved it years later.

However, your DI should prevent that. Perhaps when you mix up a fresh batch of saltwater, see what the alk. is.

Other than that it could have just beed the move. Sps seem to get upset so easy and along with smaller clams are fairly sensitive to changes. Some of the sps tanks going down on RC would make you scratch your head. And most for no know reason.

I see some other post while I was typing this one said the same regarding sps & clams. I would not think a temp. change of that amount would start it. Most are colder than that when coming in to a lfs.

Clams do stink! That smell is just so nasty and unique, you defnitely know what happened the moment it reaches your nose. Just thinking about it spikes my gag reflex.

If you don't mind an out-of-the-blue opinion...

I didn't see in this thread how your move progressed, but I think that the only thing that could have prevented the terrible losses would have been the presence of MUCH more cured, mature live rock to help support all the corals and clams in your system.
I don't think that the amount of live rock and some old water alone had the capacity to support all that life.
If your old water was transported from Edmonton, how did the bacteria in it survive? It may have been dead already when you put it in the tank in Calgary.
I think Tony's right - it's cycling now.

Mitch

Mitch,

Can you explain further what you mean about more mature rock? The bulk of the existing rock is about 4 years old. There was approximately 45 pounds in the previous tank, and this tank is only 4g larger then my previous system.

The rock was all in water, and it was in a heated car for the whole trip. I don't think the bacteria would have died between Edmonton and Calgary by just the move.

I'm confused about your opinion, can you clarify it more please?

The remaining clams are in a new temporary home and I have opted to ride out the remainder of whatever this is.

Tonight there was another water change, to the tune of 10g instead of the usual 7g. The crazy neon green algae is still making frequent appearances. I had to clean my glass 5, yes 5 times, between when my MH came on this morning and when they shut of. Needless to say I have reduced my photoperiod.

Hi Catherine,

Looking at the size of your system, it looks like it is relatively small for the amount of life that you have in there.
When you think about it, by moving, you basically turn off the lights, heaters and restrict gas exchange for 7 hours, set it up again and hope that it recovers alright.
If your system was running at pretty much full capacity before the move, the support system (live rock, mature water, plus removal of a sand bed) wasn't able to both recover itself and help the corals and clams recover as well.


It would have been interesting to know what the water temperatures and ammonia readings were after the drive.

Something didn't make it - as evidenced by the cycle happening now. I think that more mature live rock - even with new salt water, may have helped the system recover better.

Moving a reef tank has got to be the most difficult task for a reefer to do.

Mitch

Its always possible. This is like my 8th tank move and this is the first time I've ever had anything negative happen in the least.

To answer your questions about the temperature and ammonia, it was 76, and 0. The temperature reading was taken about 10 minutes after I got to my new place, and the ammonia, probably 3 hours later (give or take).

Thank you though for clarifying your original post.

An update from yesterday:

Lights came on today and all my fish are still alive. My shrimp molted, and my urchin is still pretty fiesty.

Something very cool, yet sad at the same time, is that some of my frags and colonys still have polyps, but no flesh. I now wonder how many frags/colonies I removed that weren't 100% dead. I am also seeing zoas opening up (I didn't even know I had these), which is a good sign. My remaining clams have gone to stay elsewhere until everything is resolved. Thank you Tony for watching over them.

The neon green algae on the glass isn't so neony anymore, and so far I haven't yet had to clean my glass. This is a huge improvement of the multiple cleanings the tank required yesterday.

Parameters:
SG: 1.025
Ammonia: 0.75
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0.10?
pH: 8.1

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0004.jpg

The tank today

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0007.jpg

I need to deal with the micro bubbles asap!

Does anyone have, or have you tried, those little feeding rings that keep all the floating foods in one area? I can't turn my pump off to feed (design flaw), and want to try and minimize wasted food.

I also need to add to my skeleton crew, aka my clean up crew. I'm thinking a bunch of snails maybe?

The GHA is returning too...not cool at all.

A few more photos of survivors:

Candycane - it was just a skeleton with a slight overlay of flesh yesterday, and today its all puffed up and much happier looking.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0026-1.jpg

Some zoas I didn't even know that survived. I have 3 types of zoas and I was sure two of them had already gone to the big tank in the sky.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0023-2.jpg

Cactus coral, probably my oldest coral from before the disaster! It was bleached and I was sure it was dead last week. I didn't remove it and today the color is returning, no polyp extension yet.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0024.jpg

I think today I will clean out the remaining skeletons and just clean up the tank a bit more.

Things seem to be on the up and up lately, so I'm feeling much better about the future of my tank. With time I'm sure I will have a positive outcome from the disaster.

Good things!
- Canopy is here, and it is beautiful
- Toe kick is here, it just finishes out the system.
- Added more clean up crew members!
- Filter socks on their way to deal with microbubbles
- I have pocket money and it feels SO strange, but in a good way.

Not So Good things
- I don't see any pods in my system anymore
- I should have bought more snails, oh well!
- I have a lighting dilemma (see further down)
- The seal kit I ordred early December for my Snapper Pump has not arrived, I will be buying a new pump this week if its not here by Tuesday.

I have to say the customer service is disapointing when it comes to getting my pump repaired. I am now unsure if I should replace my exisiting pump with one of the same brand. :sad:

Lighting Dilemma!
I got my canopy and it is awesome, but I now I have an unexpected choice to make and would love some input please.

I have two options; 1 MH light on a luminarc reflector supplimented by actinic PCs, or 2MH lights on two batwing reflectors, again supplimented by actinic PCs.

As Drew (Der_Iron_Chef) was nice enough to point out 1MH consumes less energy and creates less heat! On the flip side I wonder if 1MH is going to be enough light overall.

Sorry, no photos right now.

Any FTS? I want to see this toe-kick thing.

Pods will come back... hang in there. They always do. And snails, well, you can always get more snails (as if you really needed a reason to keep visiting the LFS's and ordering stuff MO, right? :p )

As for your lighting .. I'm guessing this won't be for a 28g. :lol: I'm not sure what size you were thinking for the tank? That may influence your choice of reflector (or the "1 vs 2" argument). 1 may be less energy+heat than 2, but the flip side is you can probably get away with smaller wattages if you went with 2. Ie., instead of a single 400, you could go 2x250. Or even 2x175 if the tank was not very deep. Technially 2x250 > 400 but only by 100W, that's not that's terrible.

I dunno. There are so many choices when it comes to lighting it gets overwhelming to sift through it all sometimes.

One thought though: I'd probably consider T5's over PC's. The lamp replacement cost alone trumps that one. I've been wanting to switch to T5's for my FW tank for ages (my last PC holdout) because it's a question of $20 lamps versus $40 lamps. :neutral: Seems the cost to get into T5 initially is more but the long-term costs, I think, are less. Anyhow just a thought. Plus I'm not real sure about the PC actinics, a lot of them just seem like blue lights to me. I'm sure there are "real actinics" out there but .. definitely some that aren't.

Yeah your right, I probably don't need more excuses to visit more stores!

The lighting actually is for the 28g. I found I have more space then I thought and now I have the choice. I have 175w MH now with two actinics, but I find that the 175w is too far from the water surface to get all the areas I need with just the batwing reflector.

If I could do t5s I would, but I already have the PCs, and I don't really want to put out any $ for T5s at this very moment. I also have a PC size that is just perfect for my system 13", so I want to stick with them for as long as I can get bulbs!

What would you do? Go 2x 175w MH in batwing reflectors, one on each side of the tank, or o 1x 175w MH in a luminarc? With the luminarc the light hits the tank in all the right places, but I worry that it isn't bright enough on the sides.

LOL - what you need is two mini Lumenarcs over that tank. :p

I dunno, maybe two batwing reflectors? Seems to me two big lumenarcs would be overkill..

Maybe try the single lumenarc. Unless it looks horrid having the sides dimmer, it could just be a zone for things that like less light (brain corals, maybe some monti's, etc. - that sort of thing).

Here is the FTS, and some other photos.

I'll start with the lighting photos because I really want to sort this out before boxing day.

With the single batwing I have lots of shadows from the lockline, and if you put your hand in, its a PITA to see anything below your hand.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0007-1.jpg

Before today's clean up
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ka/DSC_4-1.jpg

After
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0002.jpg

Post Cleaning left side
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0003-1.jpg

Post Cleaning middle
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0004-1.jpg

Post cleaning right side
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0005-1.jpg

View from the left side:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0014-1.jpg

View from the right side:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0013.jpg

The good thing is that the microbubbles will be solved on Thursday, so I hope to have a nice clear tank by Friday.

Some final shots:

The detritus that I found under all the remaining skeletons. I siphoned some out, and I hope to take care of the rest later today or tomorrow.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...DSC_0015-2.jpg

Shrimp!
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0016.jpg

The last bucket of skeletons to be pulled out. A lot of them had GHA on them so everything just came out, and I am deciding how to deal with it.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0017.jpg

Caught in the act!

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...PICT0026-1.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...PICT0027-1.jpg

A week worth of skimmate;

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0001.jpg

The tank is chugging along. Things seemed to have plateaued at this point. No improvements in anything, water parameters included. Its a bit disheartening not to see any changes in what was supposed to be my dream nano system.

I'm still plagued by microbubbles, and while I was hoping to have the problem solved last week, plans changed. I now need to make another trip to the hardware store as I'm going to replumb my skimmer as well as using filter socks in the future.