i can see why people sell their reef tanks

[ReefMadman]

Sooooooo.....heres my story in a nutshell...

I have a biocube 29 runnin for a couple of months...32lbs of live rock and 20lbs of live sand...mixed reef lps,softies and sps. 3 fish(2 clowns and a chromis)....my water parameters have been perfect all this time...i had 2.5lbs of rubble, skimmer and 2 big sponges in the sump...but i was having a problem keeping a steady ph, so i decided to put a media rack to neaten my chemipure and phosban up and a fuge basket With a light for chaeto to help with the ph....in doing so i removed the rubble and 2 sponges which apparently had all the good bacteria and sent my tank into a downward spiral.

I did the change on a tuesday...the water got real cloudy on thursday, but it cleared up by friday...saturday night into sunday i lost 5 small acro frags....my remaining frags and colonies looked fine though....so i thought to myself that my tank probably wasnt ready for acros....i noticed on monday afternoon that my fish started acting funny and my gbt nem, lps and softies looked real bad. I ran all of my test and my ammonia, nitirites and nitrates where through the roof.

After doing some research i figured out the removal of all that stuff probably doomed my tank.

I lost my favorite clownfish today....he was such a friendly guy...i would hand feed him mysis shrimp...he was my first fish...i tried to do a massive water change to save him and the other fish...but i dont think i was in time. My other clown is swimming lop sided, and she looks like she wont make it....and my blue green chromis is practically dead as well...my nem looks shriveled....and i wont be surprised to find everything in the tank dead when i wake up.

It has me wanting to smash everything and throw it in the garbage...what a ******* waste...im so friggin aggravated.

[tetraodon]

im not convinced that all your bacteria is on the small rubble rock and sponge, your other rock and sand have bacteria anyways, it sounds like you might have accidentaly caused a spike in the nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia. in reefs sponges and rubble tend to hold on to detritus if not cleaned reguraly, by disturbing it you let everything stored, loose. youll find a lot of info about how bad rubble rock can be for your tank, i understand your struggle, we all have been there. best thing you can do at this point is do frequent small water changes, id say about 3-5 gallons a day or so. always make changes small, nothing good ever happens fast.

[Milkeeway]

I think we all go through this at some point. It can be a very challenging hobby sometimes. Whether the mistake is our own or just simple bad luck, it's one of the worst feelings. As crappy as the advice sounds now just try to take something away from it and remember you're part of without question the best community I've ever seen. I'm sure some local reefers wouldn't mind donating some small frags to get you going again. Heck I would ship you one myself but I don't have any coral yet.

 

 

I've taken some long breaks but I always come back! I regret selling off stuff because I end up spending so much to get it back.

Sorry again, and wish you the best!

[thedon986]

Seconding what tetraodon said. Keep those back chambers clean and limited in what filtration media you have back there. By that I mean two big sponges were probably holding on to a lot of detritus as well. I only run a small square of poly filter pad that is about a 1/4in thick and change it twice weekly sometime. Maybe once a month or every other month vacuum out the back chambers while you do your water change. You'll be surprised at what accumulates back there. Also, a couple months into a tank and to have 3 fish, SPS, LPS and and a BTA kind of looks like you moved too quickly. I waited three months before adding fish to my current set up.

 

32lb of rock and 20lb of sand hold plenty of the good bacteria. My first venture into saltwater with a Biocube I had too much rock and too much sand and didn't keep up on cleaning out the detritus and I paid with bryopsis and major hair algae. Now onto my second tank I've learned from my mistakes and after a year I am still 99% algae free (knock on wood).

 

This hobby takes a lot of time and effort to keep things stable. Hang in there and learn from your mistakes and your future efforts will be much more successful (and easier!).

[iggy097]

Ouch

[Marc.The.Shark]

My first observation for you is that is a huge bioload for a couple month old tank, and surely too early for acro's. At 2 -3 months, the tank is not mature/stable yet. The allure is to get all these new coral & fish & have it looking the way you want very quickly & it's never a good idea. At 2 months, i had 1 fish and a few (maybe 3 or 4) frags.

 

Second thing is chasing pH is a losing battle, it will stabilize as the tank matures. My pH was never over 7.8 or so until my tank was 5-6 months old. Sometimes would drop to 7.6. Finally just quit checking it & it fixed itself over time.

 

You very well may have been running a delicate balance with the high bioload that you had & removing that rock/sponges possibly sent it over the edge, best thing as stated above is keep doing water changes till you get the numbers down. Once you get back to a semi normal state, go easy on the biolad, meaning 1 fish a month or two until you get back up to 3. Coral don't add to bioload, but feeding does. If you're feeding a lot, and it goes uneaten, that will add ammonia from the rot if something isn't consuming it.

 

Good luck, post up any questions as you go along & don't get discouraged, we all learn valuable lessons by doing things we shouldn't, i know i have.

[Hammerstone]

I'm sorry for your loss. Good luck.

[braaap]

Cliff notes: Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.

[brandon429]

pH is so drastically unimportant to know in a nano reef that I have never bought or ran the test on my tank not once since 2001

 

 

 

I think a pH chasing started all this, and the bacteria never were affected. agreed too many changes too fast.

 

the specific remedy is do a 100% water change and remove all that stuff you added, put it back like it was and move forward. the full wc is not harmful and w rebalance that which was changed without cause.

 

not saying that no tanks require pH info, just saying its an option not a requirement for nanos simply because changing out the water to any decent degree changes the curr pH reading into what nsw reads, and that variance is ok as I use any name brand of salt on my nano that the pet store happens to be pre mixing.

[Elizabeth94]

Hello guys, new here.

 

ReefMadman, it is very unfortunate that you are going through a rough patch with your tank. DO NOT GIVE UP!

 

My biggest mistake in this hobby was giving up after an established tank suddenly goes down hill.. I must have dumped well over $2k in my 29gal a couple of years ago and had it set up for a bit over a year. I was taking everything slow and it was all going great. Suddenly I noticed some algae on the sand; bryposis. I fought a bit, adding more equipment to take care of my levels. It took over all of my corals. I gave up. Sold everything, ALL of my equipment including radions and a couple vortech pumps.

 

I regret it so much. NowI have to start all over without any equipment.

 

Just don't give up, even if you feel you are at an end clean the system out and start over. But never sell your equipment, you may need it a year or two later. Now I have to spend crazy money to get everything back up and running.

[Pinner Reef]

Yeah, this hobby can be a heart breaker. (See the sloow demise of the 40 in my sig). I knew right away that I'd be saving all of my equipment for the next build tho.

 

Learning something as complex as this hobby is always fraught with failure. Just gotta get back up, dust yourself off and learn from what happened.

 

You're already getting really good advice from others so I won't confuse the situation any more. I would ,however, suggest you start a thread and document as much as you can along the way. That way there is reference for yourself and we can all help in real-time during disasters.

[HarryPotter]

My first tank after three months crashed, losing almost everything, when an anemone let go of the rock and went into a powerhead.

 

Don't give up... It was a mistake that won't happen again. Your next reef could be the one that lasts over 8 years

[NanoReefNoobie86]

I agree with chasing PH. I did in the beginning too and lost a few frags. I only check ca, kh, and mg and dose as needed. 20% weekly water changes. So far so good. Good luck and dont get discouraged, you learn from your mistakes.

[Nano sapiens]

The vast majority (if not all) reef aquarists have done something simlilar, so you have a lot of company. There is a lot to be learned from the experience and in working to recover after a tank mishap, so don't give up.

[brandon429]

Elizabeth whats the one thing you'd do differently the first time bry pops up in the new tank on a frag long about march of 2016 *this action or nonaction is truly the sole decisive step in beating all bryopsis invasions, so its a fair question to pose.

[Elizabeth94]

Good question brandon,

 

The major mistake I made was when I first noticed it was in the tank. At the time it was a little piece that came on a beautiful zoa colony. I decided I would just pluck it while I did my weekly water change. I SHOULD have immediatly made a quarantine tank with my spare 10gal and threw the colony in there, but I didn't feel that the small piece would really spread if I plucked it.

 

Sure enough there must have been a little bit left between the zoas that I couldn't see, soon it got into my rock and started to get much worse. However, believe it or not, I started dosing Algeafix marine after a few other methods were not working. After about one week the algae was getting weaker and turning grey. I pulled it and did water changes every other day. This went on for a while though and then I started to get cyano in the other corner of the tank which I found weird. ALL of my coral at that point have already succumbed to the bryopsis.

 

 

Next time:

 

Quarantine whenever possible, get the nasties out of the main display. This was my first reef tank. In the first year I had NO coral losses, fish losses, or really any major pests. I did lots of research before I started the tank, once I loss everything within a three week time frame I was pissed. Couldn't believe how fast things could go downhill. I lost many expensive corals, and my red flower pot coral which was doing so well!

 

Now I have my ten gallon quarantine filling for my new Nuvo 10 build. Hoping to never see this algae again. Sorry for the long post. SO IMPORTANT not to give up hope. You have an investment in the tank, just stick it ALL the way out and restart if you need to. This hobby is so rewarding.

[brandon429]

well done, QT can prevent any invader we have in reefing except for cyano and some variations of green hair algae, as they can get in via aerosol and direct contamination routes independent of a qt tank.

 

bryopsis has the ability to be 100% totally removed from a tank where it can't get in (QT) and direct kill is the secret if so many like me are lazy and non QT which is a huge risk in reefing.

 

we must act first and select from a range of chemicals known to kill bryopsis without hesitation when addressed on the very first frag before a spread, some chemicals have a 100% penetrance on beating it when handled in this manner, and this is including simply diluting Kent tech M and applying it directly to the bryopsis with a q tip. peroxide also works

 

100% of tanks can avoid bryopsis either by full QT, or by direct initial kill on the first emergence of the beast.

[brandon429]

and by extension, this covers any invader other than cyano or some strains of GHA

 

 

so we just effectively stopped ReefMadMan's second trial before it has begun. if this occurs with GHA, you still kill it and ask questions, chase params later. kill is first action, not ID and NOT attack po4. that comes later, if even needed and many times its not. the ocean is growing tons of algae in pristine fijiian waters to feed grazers in spite of excellent nutrients, do not see algae as a nutrient issue, see it as an issue of do you want to kill it or put your tank on the line later by following rules of the estab (who has severe algae issues constantly it seems)

[Elizabeth94]

I agree,

 

I forgot to mention that I used Kent Tech M for a bit before I started using the algaefix. However, if I had just sucked it up and set up a quarantine (which I should have had all equipment to being with) I would not have loss all of my coral and hope for my system.

 

It also sucks that I deleted most of my pictures afterwards when I added the zoas. I am trying to think of other forums I was using to see if I still have pics saved there..

 

Another mistake I made

[brandon429]

all good statements indeed for a new keeper to read, head these things off at the pass/

the simplest inversions though are what get us massive success in giant algae threads, that Kent is better used as a direct dilution treatment vs a tankwide dose which lowers its efficacy on the target, its those little tricks that's missing from the bulk of algae work imo

QT QT QT is the backbone and something I for SURE would do if I had a big complex tank, heck id have a qt tank setup worth the same amount of money its that important. I don't QT much in nano reefing at all simply because ill kill anything I don't want in the tank

[mitchellc]

I'm guilty of it. As a matter of fact, my reef keeping time line is the various crashes I have had. The last one was the worst. Used some weed killer on some poison ivy. Didn't wash my hands good enough. At least that's the best I can come up with. 12 hours later everything was dead. Crabs, snails, fish, and every coral gone! I wanted to puke!! Probably a $3,000 loss. I still get heart palpitations just thinking about it. But it has not stoped me. So get up, dust yourself off. Learn as much as you can about your mistakes, and do what you love to do. You will make mistakes again. But as long as you are learning, it is not in vain. Good luck!

[brandon429]

that is hideous Mitchell and only made worse by the irony that using bug spray on delicate sps is fantastic and awesome (ergo bayer insect killer). my own fear of doom is nerf balls and errant tosses in the home, doesn't take much to xplode a 1 gallon reef.

 

when walking through home depot and perusing the various things you can add to your tank like driveway de icer, or some southdown sand for a dsb, you can select for bug killer too but you better move on past those weed poisons how crazy is the stuff we dose.

[ReefMadman]

Well...with all the rock and sand....there is about 15 gallons of water in the tank....i did a 10g water change, added some of that bottled bacteria and let it sit overnight, and ran all of my test again this afternoon...my ammonia was down to .25, nitrites were .25, nitrates 30....

My 2 torches and spaghetti leather look good again....the acans bounced back...and the fish look better....all of my corals are little frags anyway. I had read that rock rubble and sponges were ticking timebombs....thats why i changed them out, but when i moved them they probably exploded. I know the changes i made will benefit the tank in the long run, i was just upset at losin my fav fish...he was so cool and friendly. I will keep an eye on the numbers and see what happens...i will do a couple of small water changes if needed. Hopefully time will level everything off, i am donating the chromis to a friends tank...so i will only have the 1 clown...eventually i will get her a little buddy clown with hopes of them bonding. The nem looks fine as well.

Thanx for all the advice and pep talking guys.

[Elizabeth94]

Thats really good news ReefMadman I hope everything heals up nicely for you. Good idea on dropping a fish while the tank does a mini cycle.

 

It is good to hear people battle these things out, I wish I had.

[brandon429]

Do you find it amazing RMM that your ammonia level is zero it has none for sure, post full tank pics we can discuss why.

 

its not particularly impactful in the long term, we can dose, underdose, overdose or never dose extra bacteria to our tanks and nothing will matter of it other than the cost...but for science sake the ammonia is indeed zero and if its fun to discuss why that test kit is wrong post up a full tank shot

B