Tank crashing

[abcha0s]

Originally Posted by apexifd

no rock, sand or live stock. only equipment down was skimmer because I was redoing the plumbing in order to fist a bigger one. also efflux line on the ca reactor was clog for sometime but, don't think that will cause much of cycling issue.

thanks

Did you smell anything like rotten eggs - even a faint smell?

If you weren't moving water through your ca reactor, the water in the ca reactor was sitting without oxegyn and would have become anaerobic. This can lead to the production of hydrogen sulfide. If you have water sitting in pipes, you should always flush it so that it doesn't end up in the tank. With a ca reactor, the water moves through it slowly and it's possible you might not have noticed the smell.

Aside from hydrogen sulfide, there are other problems that can arise from anaerobic conditions, but you would have to do some research to see whether the symptoms relate to your experience.

There are some recommended solutions for this and some good documents on the web that can help you through it. I only remember a couple of things such as leaving your lights on, maximizing aeration by pointing powerheads at the surface, putting in new carbon and water changes.

Hope things take a turn for the better. Good luck.

[apexifd]

Originally Posted by abcha0s

Did you smell anything like rotten eggs - even a faint smell?

that I have no idea, I only spotted it using iphone facetime(video call) while wife was feeding the fish. She doesn't know how long ago the line was clogged.

on the interesting side note. it appears that I have more death during the day than night.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by apexifd

on the interesting side note. it appears that I have more death during the day than night.

Hmmmm... Bacterial bloom maybe. I had an issue once (and still time to time) where I get big bacteria blooms that leave films on the glass and kind of stringt, bubble things coming off the rocks (not dinos), and they seem to flourish during daylight hours. When this happens really bad I find everything looks unhappy. My theory is that the blooms drop the O2 levels in the tank (this has been scientifically proven for many bacterial blooms) and everything suffers. I think this is ultimately what caused my cantaloupe sized birdsnest to crash. Took me forever to figure it our but once I got the bloom under control everything bounced back and stopped dying.

[Renegade]

I had a similar tank crash last summer. The route cause ended up being my calcium reactor that had gone offline. It caused all my parameters to go crazy to the point were i didn't understand how they were related but in truth, it was simply a chain reaction of evens caused by system adapting to the lack of balance in the calc. and alk.

I ended up losing almost everything of importance. Only lost 1 or 2 fish though which kept me going.

All in all, i would suggest patience, try not to over react as hard as that is. Toss some Rowaphos, Some Carbon and and just 10gal water changes ever other day.

And ride it out.

[apexifd]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

Hmmmm... Bacterial bloom maybe.

the birds nest and green monti cap I got from you before are gone. it's actually the monti cap went first, then I was slowly losing acro and such. then last week, I started to suffer heavy loses. Looks like my elegance is on it's way out as well.

Originally Posted by Renegade

The route cause ended up being my calcium reactor that had gone offline. how they were related but in truth, it was simply a chain reaction of evens caused by system adapting to the lack of balance in the calc. and alk.

I ended up losing almost everything of importance. Only lost 1 or 2 fish though which kept me going.

that's what might trigger the heavy loses, that I had in the last 2 weeks. with my effulux line clog up and not knowing how long it was clog up. when it opened up again, it probably cause major alk swing.

luckily I haven't lose any fish yet.


Hopefully by the time everything stabilize, I will have some corals left even though I already lost way more than half of them.

[Renegade]

i would also suggest, if you sense something else going, move it to a quarantine or cut your loses. Corals dieing can't be good for the ones around them....

[abcha0s]

What's your salinty at? When's the last time you calibrated your refractometer?

Take a water sample to a LFS and get them to read the salinity. Refractometers can drift and your salinity might not be what you think it is?

What abou stray voltages? Is a powerhead on in the day and off at night?