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Tank having issues.....a few Q`s

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by PotRoast, Dec 2, 2010.

  1. PotRoast

    PotRoast Well-Known ReefKeeper

    999
    Ratings:
    +24 / 0 / -0
    Last month my tank equipment started acting up.....1. Light timers failed. As a result I have been turning on and off the lights manually. So the on and off times have differed each day but generally speaking lights were on 10 hours day.2. T-5 ballasts acted up....I have not been running blue lights now for over a month3. RO DI replacement and my autotop off was down for awhile. I would just manually topoff.4. Temp. With recent cold spell the tank temp has droppped as low as 77 and has not gotten above 794. Various other little things that kinda threw my automation off, but didn't really affect my tank as a whole.
    So last weekend I went at it hard on my tank. I fixed and cleaned just about everything. I replaced about 20% of the water over the course of a few days. I removed a few live rocks from my sump....(I have a lot of LR in my tank still) I cleaned the hell out of my sump. I cleaned the skimmers. I tested the water for all parameters and nothing was out of whack besides a ca and alk inbalance. One day I left the light off on my tank for 24 hours.
    So for the last three days my water is getting increasingly cloudier. My coral is looking good, my fish all are healthy. I did lose two fish though. An anthias starved to death and decayed in my tank. Also, I believe my giant GBTA attacked a rather large kurdan cardinal fish and ate it.
    AND it appears I have a small outbreak of some sort of brown algae that I notice in my newly cleaned sump. It looks like the stuff that you get when you first throw live rock in a tank and the phos spike causes a bloom.
    So I can't figure out WTF is going on really.
    I want to say the two dead fish are causing the cloudy water but my water volume is 350 gallons. I also want to say a 20% water change could do this but that has not been my experience.
    I am going to do a 10% water change tonight. 
    The only other thing I can think of doing is sitting back and being patient....that usually works.
    HELP?
     
  2. Big D Well-Known ReefKeeper

    889
    Center Point
    Ratings:
    +3 / 0 / -0
    how long due you run your skimmer ?
     
  3. PotRoast

    PotRoast Well-Known ReefKeeper

    999
    Ratings:
    +24 / 0 / -0
    pretty much all the time. I have two of them actually.
     
  4. Gered

    Gered Experienced Reefkeeper

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    Are you running any carbon or GFO? I would say do a bunch of water changes and see if that helps clear things up. Sounds like you might want to check your parameters too.
     
  5. PotRoast

    PotRoast Well-Known ReefKeeper

    999
    Ratings:
    +24 / 0 / -0
    yeah, fresh carbon, fresh gfo, nitrate reactor just refreshed (so culture is not great yet)

    I am going to do the water change and test tonight (again) of course but until then I was just hoping for some ideas.
     
  6. AJ

    AJ Inactive User

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    +0 / 0 / -0
    I would agree with you that it's not the two fish that are killing your water parameters.

    Do you think the cloudiness could just be a bacterial bloom? All your bacteria before was focused in your sulphur denitrator and when you changed out the media, it all went away. Did you add some supplemental bacteria starter like ZEObak? Good luck getting things figured out Jim!

    --AJ
     
  7. Bela

    Bela Inactive User

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    What's in your nitrate reactor? I know I had crazy cloudiness for about 2 days after introducing biopellets...
     
  8. PotRoast

    PotRoast Well-Known ReefKeeper

    999
    Ratings:
    +24 / 0 / -0
    Parameters are all good. The water change never happened because I wanted to mix the salt longer. How long is long enough to mix saltwater?

    I think I may just wait this one out. It looks like it is some sort of bloom....there is brown algae in my sump dusting everything. My fish, coral, everything is looking and acting normal. Water looking cloudy and yellow.

    The nitrate reactor could be to blame I suppose. It is the glaring wildcard in my scenario I feel. However I have taken it off line and rinsed it in the past several times and this has never happened.

    Would you guys wait this out or take some sort of immediate action? I have ozone I have not used yet. I may try that today......just a little as I have never used it before. But not sure what I have so not sure if it will kill it.

    Otherwise I don't know what to do. I could do a water change everyday, but I am really not sure if that will help. Plus I would go through a box of salt every four days.....

    Any further ideas? If not, I understand. There is not much to go on here.

     
  9. mthomp

    mthomp Inactive User

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    personally, I would wait till i started seeing something odd with my livestock before changing anything else. I have found in my limited experience that pulling the trigger to fast often times leads to unwanted issues. i guess what I am saying is I wouldnt try the ozone thing until I had the current situation under control. You may run into something unexpected with the ozone and compound your current issue.
     
  10. phishcrazee Experienced Reefkeeper

    Riverside
    Ratings:
    +0 / 0 / -0
    I wouldn't add anything new right now......then you're just adding another variable, when you are already wondering which variable is causing the cloudiness. You say there was an imbalance in the alk and ca; what were the readings? It doesn't sound like the calcium is precipitating and I would think you'd know what that looks like. Odd that the water has a yellow tinge to it when you're running carbon; the carbon should take care of any funny colors /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif

    My default reaction is to always do a water change, lol, can't hurt, right? If all the inhabitants seem ok, I'd just try that, maybe change the carbon if it needs it and wait and see..........
     
  11. Andy The Reef Guy

    Andy The Reef Guy Inactive User

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    Are you able to test ORP with a calibrated probe or a reagent kit? I would also suspect the denitrator. Sounds like a bacterial bloom to me definitely. It would seem that you liberated a lot of bacteria in your cleaning, both aerobic and anaerobic, and the remaining bacteria are compensating/degrading dead cells/colonies. Although you may not see measurable levels of NH3 and NO2 they may be present as levels high enough to cause a bacterial bloom, which is fine, as long as your O2 levels remain high enough despite the increased demand from bacteria. I believe ORP can serve as an indirect measurement of both DO and Conductivity.

    You know what to do though, monitor levels closely, carbon=good, and aerate as you would normally, it would be difficult to aerate more vigorously than we already do in our systems, but tons of aeration should really help if it is the case that this is a bacterial bloom. Small water changes shouldn't hurt, but don't get carried away even if your not seeing results within the next 3-4 days, this could take some time to recoup.

    Keep us posted, you'll be alright!
     

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