Tank Crashing – need Experts Advise!

[Catspa]

I can’t keep my nitrates readings down, there changing fluxuating between 20-30, and inverts (snails and shrimp) are starting to die! I’ve been doing major water changes (2/3 of tank). I’ve done three major water changes, once every two-three days, but still can’t keep them down. Test kit is good, and water isn’t contaminated.

I think the cause of the problem is one of the following (or combination). Possible snail deaths due to something other then the nitrate. Had some snails that died, but I got them out of the tank before they fully died (as in still moving and still smelt good). Have been using some phosphate remover, to kill of some angle hair, and all my algae is suffering a bit because of it. Added six new dwarf hermit “shells” that hadn’t cyled.. as in they were clean.. originally I thought it might be the snails, but they’re all still alive…ie moving, just not doing well, starting to think I’m getting die off due to the phosphate remover…not sure though.

So any ideas on WHAT’S CAUSING the problem, and what I measures I can do to stop it. (I’m going to start doing major water change (2/3) every day, BUT I’m spending $10 a day in water + salt and I’m a student that’s completely broke, can’t maintain this type of expenditure long)

 

Any information, ideas..ect appreciated!

[sauer]

how old is the tank

[MiKeE]

time to purchase an insurance...

 

"a protein skimmer"...LOL

 

regardless what people here say.. "I" beleive that a skimmer is a must for any reef tank...

i know that it is not neccesary, because water change causes expotential dillution that brings nitrates down, if dectected..

that is why frequent water change is recommeded. specially if you are not skimming...

 

but with a skimmer, your tank waste is constantly being filtered and nitrates has little or no chance to develop

[OscarBeast]

Yes, I have my skimmer just for this reason. Not to avoid water changes or anything else. It increases gas exchange and might just save my butt if something would happen to kick off a crash. "Insurance" is nice, even if that is all it ever does.

 

So Catspa, tell us a little about your tank, inhabitants, substrate, LR, lighting, and filtration.

[Catspa]

Ok, its a 29g, (and yes i have a skimmer and its a BIG one). Its been up for over a year, 3.5"DSB, 50lbs LR, 2 fake clowns, B. Cardinal, Cherb Angle, (all fish small), Zebra and BlueLeg hermits, Tiger Pistole Shrimp (that killed one emerald, and a sally lightfoot - hence they aren't reef safe in my book) and turbo snails. Coral in this tank - just pulps, 4 different kinds of algea, pluss hair algea.

Somethings causing the production of MAJOR nitrates, origanlly when i noticed the prob, thought it was a bad snail or somethin, but no bad snails (ie still moving, though not looking good, they got that fat lip appearance that signifies probs). Any ideas.

[tinyreef]

could be the PO4 remover, indirectly. your tank may have been balanced to process the 'normal' supply of ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates with all your LS, LR, macroalgae and microalgae (hair). now that you're attacking the hair and algae in general with the PO4 remover they (and the total biological filter) may not be processing the nitrates fast enough. a little bit of a stretch imo tho.

 

another thought is that your dsb may have been disturbed by something in there and the anaerobic state has been fugged up a bit.

 

i know you say the snails and such are looking 'down' but have any actually died due to the tank conditions? (i.e. high nitrates) i've known inverts to tolerate 30 nitrates and fish much higher. the polyps are the canaries of the tank (assuming you're talking about zoanthids). they will react first to poor conditions out of the bunch of inhabitants you listed ime.

 

btw unless things are disintegrating and fish going belly up i wouldn't call sluggish snails a 'tank crash'. turbo snails aren't really turbo imo, more like elephants on parade.

[tgrupert]

I think your algae was consuming the trates. kill the algae and the trates have no where to go. do you have any macro like calerpa or somthing like that?

[Catspa]

I'm thinking it has to be the attach on the algea..i mean i'm starving the stuff, hence its disappears, it has to die.. hence the problem... i think can't think of anything else that could cause this much ammonia--> nitrate.. its something big, and i don't think its any of the snails, cause my Zebras would get to it really quick.

 

In regards to the snails looking "down" i've made a point of checking out there "mouth" under magnifing glass. When the snails doing well, you can see the rasping parts of the mouth makeing good contact with the glass. BUT as they get sick, the rasping action becomes messed up. they stop connecting with the glass.. as in fishoutof water type thing... don't think i'm explaining this properly, but there is a significant difference, and what they are doing now is pointless, just opening and clossing there mouth. also the fleshy area around there mouth is swollen...etc... on the other hand, some of the other snails don't look so bad.

 

 

na its not the algea inability to consume the nitrates, cause they are building way to fast between waterchanges... its something thats causing ammonia...ie decay/die off... at least i think.

 

any ideas, please:(

[ross76053]

...also the fleshy area around there mouth is swollen...etc... on the other hand, some of the other snails don't look so bad.

Was there ever a time when your salinity might have swung more than .001? For example, if your salinity swings from 1.024 to 1.026 in a 24-hour period, your snails will probably suffer. They're very intolerant of salinity swings (speaking from experience & from reading Dr. Ron).

[printerdown01]

Here is the most important question in my mind: How fast WERE (not are, but were when you had the hair algae) your other algae growing? I.e. Did you have cyano and diatoms as well as hair or just hair? If it was solely hair then your 'trates were probably not sky high to begin with...

 

Also here is my best guess at what is happening: I'm guessing you had a TON of hair algae (it would have had to have been a LOT for my hypothesis to be correct) -so if it wasn't let me know!! Ok, you put in a phosphate remover to take out the phosphates in your tank (which is the primary thing that will cause a hair algae out break). It is more than possible that your trates were even close to zero, before this. Your hair started dying, and dying rapidly. This caused an ammonia spike (CHECK your ammonia)! Ammonia is going to be your enemy here NOT nitrates!! Don't even worry about them!! OK? The TOXIC ammoina (which will kill snails, fish, and crustations) were converted to the MUCH safer nitrites and then nitrates. Do not keep up these massive water changes! A) they will be a major strain on your budget and more importantly they will me a major strain on your tank and its inhabitants. You may actually being doing a lot more harm than good. Water changes will cause salanity swings, temperature swings, disolved oxygen swings, and other chemical swings, which are all going to up your inhabitants under major stress -the most important inhabitant, bacteria, being the most susceptible to the swings. I say no more than this quantity over a week, given 3 different changes. I.e. 30% 2 times a week. Otherwise you will def cause your tank to recycle, if it has not begun to do so already (due to the major ammonia spike and die off). The concern is actually not your inverts that are dying (...believe it or not) it is actually your bacteria! If the bacteria goes though a major die-off, your tank will crash. If your ammonia is low, STOP water changes. Do not worry about 'trates, they will slowly level off as they are used up. They will however give you an algae boom. When this begins to die, it will then supply other algae with food. Slowly and surely all of the algae will go away. Nitrates are not going to kill the tank. Ammonia however will, so WATCH its level!

[Masoch]

The concern is actually not your inverts that are dying (...believe it or not) it is actually your bacteria! If the bacteria goes though a major die-off, your tank will crash.

 

Maybe I'm being nutty, but could Catspa borrow a bio-wheel (or any other w/d) filter from a different tank to kickstart ammonia breakdown? That might help prevent total meltdown if his bacteria start going south.

[printerdown01]

...Might work, if he can find someone with a used, bacteria filled, bio-wheel... It won't really replace the bacteria in his tank, but it might keep the ammonia down. Never seen it done, but it makes sense that it might help....

[Spencerx]

maybe its the DSB?? I have read that after a long time they will cause your tank to crash. Ill try and find where i read it (somewhere online). let me find it.....

[glazer]

I think the cause of the problem is one of the following (or combination). Possible snail deaths due to something other then the nitrate. Had some snails that died, but I got them out of the tank before they fully died (as in still moving and still smelt good). Have been using some phosphate remover, to kill of some angle hair, and all my algae is suffering a bit because of it.

What the hell does that mean? Reminds me of the scene in The Last Remake of Beau Geste . "How's father?"... *sigh* "Still dying" um in case you haven't seen the movie, Father has been in the process of dying for like the last 50 years...lol

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.... so you REALLY DIDN'T have any snails die on you, they just "don't look like they feel well"... Well, repeated massive water changes isn't helping anything! Along the lines of what printerdown is saying (although he still has this whacked take on exactly how the nitrogen cycle works).... if indeed you are killing off large amounts of algae as you stated.... this would explain a high nitrate reading. You don't neccessarily have to have some kind of wicked ammonia spike to end up with high nitrates.... you should actually have a really severe nitrite spike as well... and since nothing in your tank is dying I seriously doubt that. Algae binds up nitrates..... why do you think people use refugiums filled with macros. Start killing off all this algae and BOOM, nitrates back into the water. Are you culling/harvesting this algae while using the phosphate remover or just letting it "fade" away?

[Catspa]

Ya i had a TONE of Hair Algea. I was going away for Xmas, and had been overfeeding for a couple of weeks to fatten up all my inhabitants, as I would be gone for two weeks, and I'd only been able to arrange for someone to come in once to feed them. So basically had major phosphates that built up, and this caused my Major hiar.. I'd starting using phosphate remover..etc...

 

anyway, ammonia isn't the prob, its only at 0.5 - now its not zero, but its not a problem, so I think is fair to assume that my biological filtration is working.. its just that its working to well, because its beeing feed to much, and the end results are my high nitrate. (i relize the contradiction here, cause ammonia is the cause of all my current problems, its just not a problem if you get me) My hair algea as just been "fading" away. I don't believe this process will "release" any nitrates, but I do think this "fading" away may/is causing major ammonia, but i'm not reading those amounts because my filtration is handling it, its just the end result that i'm seeing - the High Nitrate. Now it goes to figure that the only way i can fix the problem is remove as much of the dieing hair algea as i can, and do water changes to keep the perameters in spec, ie the system just runs out of juice. I've stocked my filter up with denitrate, and carbon. I've removed as much hair algea as i can. I've put the snails in a separte containter with an air stone and am floating them in the tank. I've removed a couple of pieces of LR that had too much hair algea to get it all off - I've put them in a 5g that i just set up. Going to do another water change, 50% put i'm going to do it over a 48 hour period, through a slow drip - this should minimize any instabilities to an acceptable level. After that i'll play it by ear.. So hows that sound.

 

Ok - i've had verified snail deaths that i didn't remove, i just let the Zebras take care of them, but have since removed others that were on the verge of dieing..

 

 

 

p.s. if there dying, there dying - the results the same, so put them out of there missery.

[glazer]

printer,

I don't disagree at all with your diagram... actually it's a nice one. And NOW that you have EDITED your previous post I don't really disagree with that either. My reason for calling your take on the nitrogen cycle whacked is your intrepretation of it...which by the way conflicts with your diagram. You are of the opinion that ammonia is broken down into nitrates THEN nitrites.....from your bio-wheel posting.

The thing is wet-dry systems (like bio-wheels) create aerobic zones. Aerobic bacteria live in the zones and are EXTREAMLY good at converting ammonia into nitrates and then into nitrites -some argue too good (and this is where the controversy begins). I've heard bio-wheels, bio-balls, and wet-drys called many things, including live rock on crack (due to their ability to facilitate the nitrogen cycle) and nitrate factories. I think the latter is a fair and accurate description. However, I don't think this is problematic.

...and then in another paragraph.

 

Ammonia is toxic to fish (and ironically they are the biggest producers of it in a closed system). The bio-wheel will convert this ammonia to nitrate, which is then converted to nitrite. Nitrate is the fuel required to fuel alga growth.

 

You also seem to think that nitrite is not harmful except in FRESHWATER tanks... saltwater being completely different, oh hell I'm not going to throw up another quote.... you know what you posted. Alright... done with this. This isn't helping Catspa's problem, well directly anyway, indirectly perhaps.

[printerdown01]

Hey glazer,

Next time read your PMs LOL. I figured out why you were so damn mad. I have fixed the post... yer tackling a problem that has already been corrected. I tried to deal with this in PM, but I gess you would rather deal with these issues over the board. Ya' I accidentally called it the wrong thing... I also reffered to the same exact product as nitrates (correctly) repeatedly. I wrote that 2 or 3 page post quickly, it had some errors. They were fixed... And I thanked you for pointing it out, and never slammed you for flamming me over such a petty issue!! If you read the post it was confusing as HELL, because it kept jumping back and forth. This issue is over -as the mistakes were corrected!

[Catspa]

easy guys, is probable just a missconmunication/error with our posting...it's not like we proof reading them or anything.

 

Oh, the hair wasn't the only algea that was going crazy, all my diff types of algea was going nuts, (well at least the stuff that wasn't covered by the hair) and my corealine (sp?) was growing exponentialy.

 

Oh, in case i forgot to mention, my Nitrite is 0.

 

So are we all on the consensus that it was caused by the "fading" away of the hair algea? :|

 

If so its just a matter of getting rid of as much die off as possible, then giving it time for the algea (in general) to recover, there by stoping the ammonia creation, and adding to the nitrate consumption.. Any other ideas ???

 

Hey, should i start overfeeding a bit, to kick start some extra phosphate production?...(within reason)

 

ps. Linux Mandrake 9 - Rocks! even for people who don't know the first thing about Linux.

[Dave ESPI]

Catspa isnt listening .....so he decided to give himself advice on the board to make a fool out of his own post....

 

Your post is REEFDICULUS and you are posting to whine and hear yourself reef here or what? ......

 

Ya I had a TON of Hair Algea. I was going away for Xmas, and had been overfeeding for a couple of weeks to fatten up all my inhabitants, as I would be gone for two weeks, and I'd only been able to arrange for someone to come in once to feed them.   So basically had major phosphates that built up, and this caused my Major hiar.. I'd starting using phosphate remover..etc...

 

anyway, ammonia isn't the prob, its only at 0.5 - now its not zero, but its not a problem, so I think is fair to assume that my biological filtration is working.. its just that its working to well, because its beeing feed to much, and the end results are my high nitrate. (! realize the contradiction here, cause ammonia is the cause of all my current problems, its just not a problem if you get me)  

 

WHAT THE HELL ?   AT THIS POINT YOU ARE GOING TO BE CALLED A REEFTARD........... ???

My hair algea as just been "fading" away. I don't believe this process will "release" any nitrates,  

 

WHAT THE HELL !!!!! warning... impending brain'plosion...

 

but I do think this "fading" away may/is causing major ammonia, but i'm not reading those amounts because my filtration is handling it, its just the end result that i'm seeing - the High Nitrate.  

 

OBVIOUSLY IT IS NOT SINCE YOU HAVE AMMONIA>>>> DOPE !

 

AMMONIA KILLS SNAILS.

 

AMMONIA IS A RESULT OF DYING MATERIALS... BE IT PLANT OR ANIMAL.... END RESULT.... DAUHHHHHHHHHHHH Nitrates? PERHAPS?

 

Now it goes to figure that the only way i can fix the problem is remove as much of the dieing hair algea as i can, and do water changes to keep the perameters in spec,  ie the system just runs out of juice.  

 

DAUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH DAUUUHHHH "WAHT?" DAUUHHHHH

no kidding dip wad.....

 

I've stocked my filter up with denitrate, and carbon.  I've removed as much hair algea as i can.  I've put the snails in a separte containter with an air stone and am floating them in the tank.  I've removed a couple of pieces of LR that had too much hair algea to get it all off -

 

SCRUB THEM WITH A POTATO BRUSH.. $ 1.00 at WALMART.

 

I've put them in a 5g that i just set up.  Going to do another water change, 50% put i'm going to do it over a 48 hour period, through a slow drip - this should minimize any instabilities to an acceptable level.  After that i'll play it by ear.. So hows that sound.

 

Ok - i've had verified snail deaths that i didn't remove, i just let the Zebras take care of them,

 

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.....

you DIE now.....

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIIIEEEEEEE ~ !!!!

 

EDIT:

Just seen yer reply while I was working on this.....

"Hey, should i start overfeeding a bit, to kick start some extra phosphate production?...(within reason)"

 

I PRAY TO ALAH YOU ARE BEING SARCASTIC WITH THAT STATEMENT......

 

d00d, I like ya, but damn man.......... think....... X)

 

Re-read your post and you will see the idiocy and obvious denial in the issues that are there..... I don't want to cal ya stupid or nothing, but d00d !.... just d00der !.... Like waht gives here?

 

ADVICE: dousche the tank. chuck the dead snails, do a WC and use a GOOD salt and RODI. CLEAN the LR with a scrubber brush, leave the phos pad in, and hope your DSB is NOT releasing Hydrogen Sulfide gas.

HTH.

Reply awaited.

[glazer]

Printer,

Well I posted and then headed off to the kitchen (um when the wife isn't around kitchen table=workbench,hehe) to work on my float switch...*ramble ramble*

Anyway... I'm back and want you and everyone else to know I have read the PM and responded.... I wasn't mad I was frustrated, my apologies and I explained what was going on in my pm back..... sooooo, we square then? Buddies? Reefin' companions? Saltwater amigos? Can we all just get along?...hehe

 

:woot: Issue over, now I have some song from Sesame Street going through my head and I'm going to skip back out to the kitchen, aka workshop and solder me some more wires.....

 

And Dave... so's you know, I do understand that ANYTHING that dies produces ammonia... my response earlier was based on the fact that I have always thought that algae bound up nitrates and there death would pretty much release all of it back into the tank. What really convinced me of this is that quite some time ago my entire refugium full of 'lerp went sexual on me... it all just turned white and went to mush pretty much in the course of an hour, tank all clouded up...well I freaked! Any way... my tests kits showed 0 ammo and O 'trites at the time but my nitrates were off the scale! Tests only the day before were showing somewhere between 0 and 5 ppm. I did a couple of decent sized water changes over the next few days and although my testing never showed any ammo or nitrites it took a few more water changes to bring the nitrates back down to next to nothing.... sorry if I was off base on it or EEK! posted like a reeftard!

[Dave ESPI]

Glazer my reply was not to you... I quoted CATSPA.. LOL

so I don't know waht yer saying........

moot point no need to reply ttyl.

[shiverband]

i have had a few things kick once in a while

and the tank just seems to consume it with

no change in chemistry.

good luck..

give me an address and maybe we can send you some salt,my buddy owns a shop.

later chuck

cford@tconl.com

[Catspa]

Ok, Just finishing this post off with an update.

The major nitrates were being caused by the algea die off. Throught the whole thing, there never was more then .5 ammonia...... Took about 3 weeks to level off, and now everything is fine.. still have a bit of hair. Anyway thanks for all the postive, helpfull posts, as for the people ranting.. not sure where that stuff was going (i just stoped reading ), anyway thx.