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Coral Vue Hydros

Almost giving up


RozZy

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Definitely wouldn't have done that... With all the rapid changes going on with the tank and the recent deaths buying another fish was not a great idea.

Too late/hard to return to LFS?

Too late, this place dont take back fish. another 50 bucks burned. (Most LFS in Los Angeles don't)

 

It's been a very costly week, but now I got everything I need to fix this, 200 gallons worth of salt, reef test kits and so on and forth.

 

I will keep updating the thread here. You guys are helping me tremendously.

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Tested PH again.. Still at 0.25.

 

I gave in and started running Chemiclean in the tank, under dosed it of course.

To my knowledge its gonna take 48 hours for it to work, its been 24 hours and the red slime is still the same. Patience is the key!

 

I'm planning to do 20 gallon water changes every day from tomorrow after the chemiclean is done until the problem goes away.

 

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I gave in and started running Chemiclean in the tank, under dosed it of course.

To my knowledge its gonna take 48 hours for it to work, its been 24 hours and the red slime is still the same. Patience is the key!

 

I'm planning to do 20 gallon water changes every day from tomorrow after the chemiclean is done until the problem goes away.

 

What do you mean under-dose? It's a bit late, but I wouldn't recommend under dosing chemiclean. It's an antibiotic, and underdosing antibiotics can lead to antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria/cyano.

 

EDIT:

 

I've actually been pondering your problem for a while now. Do you have access to a voltmeter? If so, a quick and simple test would be to check if your tank has a stray current issue. Could be causing your die off and indirectly your cyano issues. With the fish deaths & coral deaths, my initial thought was a toxin. While that may still be a possibility, you've done a ton of ~50% water changes yet things are still dying off.

 

Here's a guide to look for stray currents: http://www.reefaddicts.com/content.php/45-How-to-Test-for-Stray-Electricity

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You have both biopellets and GFO running, if you are successful in bringing Nitrates and PO4 to 0 then everything will die, especially if there is something else in the tank, like algae or cyano, to help absorb any excess. Way way too clean.

 

High phosphates don't kill corals, GFO kills corals. GFO can be very effective if used correctly but I could never r manage so instead I removed GFO, stuck with biopellets, and dose Nitrates (CaNO3 pellets) to help the pellets reduce PO4 as well. This has the added benefit of keeping nitrates elevated and many of the corals color up a lot better with some nitrates in the water.

 

Dosing Nitrates worked so well I started dosing in my 29 (now 40) gallon as well with no pellets, just a skimmer, and the colors exploded ... as well as the algae. :) Works much better when you have tangs to clean up the algae.

 

So, IMO, you starved the tank to death.

what do you use to dose nitrates?

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PH is now at 0.1, and the red slime is still there, even after the chemiclean...

I'm totally clueless.

Picture?

 

I haven't read all of this.. But if it's typical red cyano there are 3 main issues to correct I believe.

 

Chemiclean has worked for my within days on any tank I ever tried it on (I think 4 now?). Did you do the right dosage? The second dose?

 

1. Too high nutrients

2. Too low flow

3. Contaminated RODI

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Picture?

 

I haven't read all of this.. But if it's typical red cyano there are 3 main issues to correct I believe.

 

Chemiclean has worked for my within days on any tank I ever tried it on (I think 4 now?). Did you do the right dosage? The second dose?

 

1. Too high nutrients

2. Too low flow

3. Contaminated RODI

 

 

 

Hi Harry!

 

OK I'm hoping you can help me out.

I have insane amount of flow in my aquarium

I have 3x 1200 GPH and a RIO 382GPH thats blasting where the red slime is, and it still comes back with a vengeance.

 

On top of this my corals are VERY unhappy.

I've been consistently doing water changes now for the past 2 weeks every second day. and the past three days i've been doing 40% water changes every day, but that darn slime bastard keeps popping up every time like santa clause on christmas.

 

I'm dosing Seachem Reef Fusion 1 and 2. But I'm switching to Kalkwasser today (gonna mix with ATO water), hoping it can be a solution.

I'm getting desperate.

 

My phosphates were 0.5 ppm at start, but after my daily water changes the phosphates are now at 0.1 (Salifert test kit)

 

Nitrates are at 10.0ppm API test kit strips and drops give same results.

 

PH Varies between 8.0-8.2 (never below any of those numbers)

 

RO/DI water reads at 0 ppm, I had changed the filters 1 month ago hoping that would fix it.

 

Salinity at 1.026

 

I'm totally clueless, by the book, my corals should be happy.

 

 

IMG_2376.jpg

IMG_2382.jpg

IMG_2383.jpg

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I'm dosing Seachem Reef Fusion 1 and 2. But I'm switching to Kalkwasser today (gonna mix with ATO water), hoping it can be a solution.

I'm getting desperate.

 

My phosphates were 0.5 ppm at start, but after my daily water changes the phosphates are now at 0.1 (Salifert test kit)

 

Nitrates are at 10.0ppm API test kit strips and drops give same results.

 

PH Varies between 8.0-8.2 (never below any of those numbers)

 

RO/DI water reads at 0 ppm, I had changed the filters 1 month ago hoping that would fix it.

 

Salinity at 1.026

 

I'm totally clueless, by the book, my corals should be happy.

 

 

Have you measured KH recently?

 

PO4 of .1 via salifert is high and probably why you still have cyano. Don't sweat it that much, just get the PO4 a little lower and let the tank settle down.

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Have you measured KH recently?

 

PO4 of .1 via salifert is high and probably why you still have cyano. Don't sweat it that much, just get the PO4 a little lower and let the tank settle down.

 

I have not, I'm still waiting for my Salifert KH and Carbonate test kits, (Carbonate arrives today).

 

I'll do another water change today, that should do it. Hopefully I wont get stung by the urchin again like i did yesterday :)

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I have not, I'm still waiting for my Salifert KH and Carbonate test kits, (Carbonate arrives today).

 

I'll do another water change today, that should do it. Hopefully I wont get stung by the urchin again like i did yesterday :)

 

Stop all dosing until you can test, just do water changes.

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Alright.

 

took one day break from water changes and ran the Po4 test.

 

It's hard to distinguish the color, but its near zero am i right?

The red slime still keeps coming back.

 

IMG_2457.jpg

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That looks a lot like my PO4 test ;)

 

Almost all 'fixes' in a reef tank need to be done carefully to avoid stressing the organisms. Anyone who has had tanks for a long time has dealt with cyano (and if they are still reefing, probably beaten it).

 

A long, long time ago I let a tank go nearly unattended for years and ended up with the same issue. Long story short, simply remove the cyano layer any way you can (scooping just the topmost layer works well with this stuff) and keep doing it until it puts it's little filaments up and says "You win" and goes 'poof'. The stuff can only exist as a bloom if it has enough of the type of nutrients that it requires and by constantly removing the cyano you are also remove those substances from the system at the same time.

 

While you are doing this, stop the huge water changes and develop a good maintenance routine that the tank/organisms can tolerate and get used to. I use a 5%/2x week along with at least weekly detritus removal from the exposed sand bed and the filter chambers. Every few months I also target a base rock for cleaning underneath. Don't try to hurry and vacuum the whole tank all at once...just start with a small section at a time (much later, after the system is cleaned up, vacuuming the sand bed all at once is fine). Detritus removal has dual benefits as it removes nutrients and it allows water flow (containing gases, carbon, nutrients) to get to the bacteria we need to complete the cycles necessary to sustain life.

 

And try to keep params relatively stable within their respective ranges to minimize stress to the organisms.

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I think I might have found the source of my problems, but I'm not sure.

 

Just got my new digital thermometer today, and guess what it reads?

 

86F.

 

My central AC is blasting at 73F, and I'm becoming certain its my UV Sterilizer's pump has started to go bad and now the thing raises the temperature in my entire tank.

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I think I might have found the source of my problems, but I'm not sure.

 

Just got my new digital thermometer today, and guess what it reads?

 

86F.

 

My central AC is blasting at 73F, and I'm becoming certain its my UV Sterilizer's pump has started to go bad and now the thing raises the temperature in my entire tank.

 

Thats not good!

 

(Well good you found out!)

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Thats not good!

 

(Well good you found out!)

 

Yeah thats insanely high. I unplugged the UV sterilizer to see how well it works.

Otherwise, I'll have to start planning and saving for an aquarium chiller.. and theyre not cheap..

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Yeah thats insanely high. I unplugged the UV sterilizer to see how well it works.

Otherwise, I'll have to start planning and saving for an aquarium chiller.. and theyre not cheap..

 

Yeah it would be a pain to run a chiller. Maybe something is stuck in one of your pumps? I had a snail get into a small powerhead and that brought the temperature to around that

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Yeah it would be a pain to run a chiller. Maybe something is stuck in one of your pumps? I had a snail get into a small powerhead and that brought the temperature to around that

 

Funny enough, seemed like the pump attached to the UV sterilizer was running a little hot.

 

I unplugged all of it. Let's see if this brings it down

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WOW!

 

 

Just after 10 minutes, the temperature has dropped from 86 to 85...

I'm going to work, I'm excited to see how much further it will have gone by the time I get back.

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Alright checked it quickly again, the temperature is stuck on 84.5 and won't go down.

 

There must be another pump somewhere

 

Id wait till tomorrow, and then take out all the pumps for a good cleaning.

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