Nano Crashed

[Whitten]

Yeah it is true, I had been eliciting help from several over what was going on with my newly added corals. I finally figured out that I had added Kalkwasser way to quickly to my 2.5 mini reef, and it caused a systematic shutdown of my entire aquarium. Well after moving my coral rock into another aquarium, I saw that alot of my problems could have been caused by my new corals to begin with. I had bought a small rock that had 6 different mushrooms that looked fairly healthy at the store. They were only 30 dollars so I said what the heck why not. Well after a few days the water got cloudy and after doing a 50% water change things didn't get any better. I knew that there was much more to my problems than just Kalkwasser addition after that. So I have copiled a list of several contributers to my tank woes.

 

1. Incorrect amount of Kalk imput....

 

2. Feeding shrimp pellets to my tank in hopes of feeding my emerald crab.

 

3. Adding corals that may have had some issues to begin with.

 

4. To deep of a sandbed for my 2.5 minibow.

 

 

I decided to start all over again and get rid of my substrate, and pull my corals out to go to a hospital tank. My sand bed had been too deep and was traping all kinds of gunk in it. It had also begun to have the rotten egg smell to it that I associated with anarobic bacteria in my fresh tanks. My corals have continued to look increasingly bad in the hospital tank by having all of the following symptoms. Droopy white bases, exuding their intestines, pushing their mouths up tword the light, and having small ragged edges within the the inside of it. Moral to this story....lesson learned. Anythoughts or help on helping out the corals other than just leaving them in the hospital tank where the water params are good would be of great help.

 

My trite was .4

My trate was .6

My amonia was .9

[seabass]

Your test results were horrible. Your poor creatures, you shouldn’t be able to measure your ammonia or nitrite levels.

 

Note: Ammonia is affected by pH. If the pH of a freshwater tank where below 7, a good portion of the ammonia will be ionized (reducing toxicity). However with the pH above 7, ammonia is in the unionized form (or toxic form). Since SW tanks have a pH of 8 or higher, ammonia is especially harmful to marine animals.

[unsped]

id be curious to know the ph.

 

*oops*

 

next time use a buffer, or a 2 part supplement like bionic. honestly unless you have some calcium demanding corals. if you keep your water changes up ... i wouldn't worry about dosing calc, especially in something that small.

 

also when adding new rocks/coral. give em a sniff test. if they smell bad, your going to have some dieoff probably.

 

make sure you preheat the water changes and topoffs on something that small.

[skeletor]

Originally posted by unsped

kalkwasser used without a buffer can really lower your ph

absolutly NOT true.

 

anyway, I'm really sorry to hear that about your tank Whitten, I was hoping it could be saved...

 

you might see if the LFS can take the corals back and hold them in one of their tanks until your tank is ready again. worth asking if they have the room.

 

-skeletor-

[Dingo]

Limewater will raise your PH, as it is a base, not an acid. For a 2.5, using a 2 part additive is probably easier and safer than using limewater.

 

Most likely, your tank was not properly cycled, and over fed. The depth of your sandbed would not cause a problem, but a tank with lots of rot would cause a smell.

[seabass]

I’m assuming that the test results were after the crash. What was the water like before the crash?

 

Small nanos like this are not forgiving; even a dead Mushroom Coral can start a crash. In a big tank, the system wouldn’t be bothered by such an event. Everything is magnified in a small nano: putting in 1lb of LR into your tank is like putting 8lbs of rock into a 20-gallon tank, having one coral die is like having 8 corals die...

 

I agree that you should move your inhabitants to an established tank if you can. Take your time and go slow, be extra careful, and good luck on your next go around.

[Whitten]

Indeed that is what I did. I moved my corals to my friends tank that has been running for 6 months. Every thing is looking alright over there at his tank except for those dang mushrooms. I will give the sniff test to my rocks from now on. My tank had been running for 4 months and was very stable. I had 0 Amonia in it as well as Nitrate and Nitrite. The guy at one of the lfs stores that I go to said that a sand bed of anyless than 4 inches won't work as a deepsand bed very well and will just trap detritus and debris and cause it to rot. So this time around a I put only about 1.5 inches of fine grained sand in it. My PH was at 7.0 and seemed to be declining very rapidly. My mistake layed within the fact that I had mixed kalk with my top off and forgot that I had done so until after I had putt it in. I had already stopped adding stuff to my tank due to the fact that I do .5 gallon water changes every week with water that is premixed from the store specificly for their coral tanks. Oh well....Newbies take my advise do things slowly, and don't add any of that stuff that guys with bigger coral tanks have to added. Keep it simple and just buy your water premixed with all of the chemicals already in it.

[onthefly]

Sorry to hear about the tank.....don't give up!

 

Kalkwasser with training wheels = Sealab #28 blocks

 

I agree with Dingo et al. that Kalk is not easy to do in a smaller tank. You have to drip it in or use a dilute stock for auto-topoff.

[unsped]

sorry for the misinformation, it was late and i was sleepy im just familiar with bionic and calc reactors.

 

also the back of the kalkwasser bottle says to use a buffer. so i assumed you wanted to use a buffer for the same reason you would on a calc reactor, not thinking its for an entirely different problem.

[Whitten]

hey no prob at all I am just glad that ya'll are willing to listen to my story of woe. Don't worry I never give up, not even when my corals begin to melt off of a rock. Ten minutes after breaking down my tank I set it back up. It is now running and I have nothing but premixed water to add to the tank. I am completely done with adding anything to that little of a tank. On a high note though my father and I are now finishing up my stand for my 30 cube and I am going to order my 96 Watt PC hood, and my Aqua C remora skimmer for it before I begin setting it up.