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Big Mistake


Jbrock183

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I've lost 12 of 13 fish to velvet at the start of the year as I made the school boy error of adding a tang that was described by the guy I bought it off as "not being it's self the last day or so".

He was closing down his tank, had sold most of his LR and had been in and out of the tank catching fish stressing out his other stock. I suspect the fish was developing it in his tank, but I wanted it and thought, "no it'll be fine".

Unfortunately it was not fine and velvet quickly took out everything. I was not amused.

 

Now from your first thread that didn't go so well I had put this, not sure if you saw it.

 

What I gather has happened is your salinity has slowly crept up over a period of time and caused the loss of some stock.

You can save this by slowly reducing the salinity over a week or so (how high is it?) to your normal levels and as it sounds like you mostly have softies i think you'll be surprised how much recovers and has survived.

As for your algae outbreak, that's probably due to excess nutrients released by the stock you have lost during this issue. The parameters are reading good as the algae is consuming all the nutrients masking the high levels from your tests. Once things stabilise and you remove any obviously dead things the algae will starve it's self out and slowly go away as happens during the first phases of a tank cycle.

As for your pest anemones, they will have come in on a frag or your rock when you first setup and now either become big enough to see or moved to somewhere you can see. This salinity issue has not made them appear. You will have to treat them as we all do with either aiptasia x or similar, I'm having success with lemon juice (I have a major infestation) or clean up crew such as peppermint shrimp if you can find some that will eat aiptasia.


Why would one 'dose' salt? Salinity should be in the 35-37ppt range. Corals usually don't tolerate too much outside that range.

 

I believe the OP was topping off with salt water thinking it was RO which is what he'd asked for at his LFS.

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jedimasterben

I bought premixed saltwater from LFS

Did you not check its salinity before adding it to your tank? Should be the first thing you do after getting it.

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Christopher Marks

I believe the OP was topping off with salt water thinking it was RO which is what he'd asked for at his LFS.

 

Indeed.

 

Jbrock, how high was the salinity in the tank before you noticed the problem? What does it currently read on your refractometer? You should consider slowly adding freshwater to correct the salinity, in small amounts each time to correct it over 24 hours.

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It stayed at 1.023-1.024.

It's too late.

I can get the salinity down.

Thank you for being nice

 

I'm confused, your salinity in your tank can not still be 1.024ish if you've been adding salt water instead of fresh water to top up. Salt doesn't evaporate, so you will have increased the salinity of the tank.

What did the tank salinity end up at?

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He is saying that when he tested, his hydrometer was "off the charts". The swinging arm was raised all the way. Not measurable, but extremely high.

 

Missed the use of a hydrometer, that alone could be the source of all woes. A few micro bubbles on the swing arm can throw out the readings massively.

 

We can only help with the information we have.

 

As Christopher asked. What are your other parameters. It could be the salinity is fine and you've just suffered a tank crash due to a bio load spike or something.

 

I think we've all been jumping to conclusions and making suggestions based on half the information. Until we have a full picture (current parameters, recent changes/additions, maintenance routine) we can't really be any help.

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As much as it pains me to do so - I'm going to be an adult .

 

First off, I have no idea why you chose to come at me like you did when I never spoke a single word to you, but it was totally uncalled for.

 

Second , You need to lighten up , and grow some thicker skin . The people on this site are very knowledgeable and more than willing to help if you just calm down and stop taking everything so dang serious. No one is here looking to attack you , but as soon as you start blasting people for no reason you have opened yourself up for a beating. Stop taking every word as someone trying to put you down - that's not the case.

 

Now for the tank , it can be much easier than you think.

 

If the entire tank basically crashed (died) as you have said above due to the extremely high salinity , why not just do a 100% water change and be done with it?

 

This would help in 2 ways :

 

1. It would 100% correct your salinity levels

 

2. It would help eliminate any nutrient spikes due to the die off

 

Once that is done - be sure you are always topping off with RODI instead of salt and life will be good again.

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^^^^^^^^^^

I agree with the previous post, water change and be done with it. ......and buy a refractometer, not a hydrometer. I would suggest H2Ocean's D-D Refractometer. It's the only one that measures seawater, not saltwater, but that's another topic into itself.

Just my two pennies.

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As much as it pains me to do so - I'm going to be an adult .

First off, I have no idea why you chose to come at me like you did when I never spoke a single word to you, but it was totally uncalled for.

Second , You need to lighten up , and grow some thicker skin . The people on this site are very knowledgeable and more than willing to help if you just calm down and stop taking everything so dang serious. No one is here looking to attack you , but as soon as you start blasting people for no reason you have opened yourself up for a beating. Stop taking every word as someone trying to put you down - that's not the case.

Now for the tank , it can be much easier than you think.

If the entire tank basically crashed (died) as you have said above due to the extremely high salinity , why not just do a 100% water change and be done with it?

This would help in 2 ways :

1. It would 100% correct your salinity levels

2. It would help eliminate any nutrient spikes due to the die off

Once that is done - be sure you are always topping off with RODI instead of salt and life will be good again.

Well said man, well said :)

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CatfishSoupFTW

I did this once with contaminated water. My hydrometer literally went to the top. I have a 22 cube, 10 gal sump. I lost a lot of corals, but my fish were 100 percent fine. lost my snails, crabs were alright. Also got a hair algae bloom but some emeralds and a cuc helped me back in 2 weeks. learned my lesson.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought premixed saltwater from LFS

 

Not being critical but if you learn anything from this it would be to not trust outside sources. Test the salinity and this would have been prevented, 30 seconds! Sorry!

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I usually dip my finger and do the taste test to ensure my top off water has no salt! lol

I have 4 salt buckets that have black sharpie spirals on top and 2 RO buckets that don't.

 

But I always do a taste test anyway :lol:

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