mini cycle omg

[Swanwillow]

I rearranged my rockwork last night, pulled things out, did a nice big waterchange. And this morning I must have pissed off the tank gods, as I have ammonia (.25) but no nitrates... yeah, as in 0. My nitrite test is MIA so I don't know how bad off I am.

 

Some things look... BAD. Chalices are po'd, think I lost most of the SPS in the tank. also think I may have lost my 6" fungia. It still has flesh down inside, so I AM holding out hope... but I got an undata frag the other day that I think I fried too.

 

any suggestions other than a massive water change?

[skimlessinseattle]

Perhaps ammonia neutralizer, but unless you have fish, I don't think its a real big deal.

 

This seems like a pretty extreme reaction to just moving around rock. Did you stir up massive amounts of detritus or seriously disturb the sandbed?

[Swanwillow]

yes, yes I did (to both. Stirring up detrius AND moving sandbed) I'm worried about the corals, not the fish. lol, its a 25 gallon mixed reef with gobies. Low bioload, but high amount of corals. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm off to go get myself a bunch of carbon ATM

[skimlessinseattle]

Get some filter floss to try and remove some of the suspended detritus while you are at it

 

Good luck.

[brandon429]

I believe the test is not right. simply relocating detritus in the tank won't produce ammonia, it was already in the tank. it was not hidden under the live rock away from the water column, circulation takes place there too even though its restricted.

 

need another test kit to validate the first one, on about 50 occasions Ive seen an online report of .25 be actually zero on another test kit, say from a peer or pet store. Detritus doesn't just produce ammonia when you stir it up, something doesn't add up in the description

 

need a pic. all diagnostic threads should have them, we can gauge the overall bioloading and waste pocketing in the tank from pics which will help tremendously

 

imgaine taking a few slivers of copper and placing them under your live rock and letting it sit there. The fact it will kill all the inverts in the tank shows how circulation is still there, if the detritus was leaking ammonia it would have been reading ammonia the whole time.

 

Mass dieoff can cause a spike, maybe something else killed several animals and thats causing the reading? a large coral degrading could possibly cause that reading if its right

[Swanwillow]

well, that IS true. I do have dieoff at the moment. BUT things seem to be snapping out of it. I did a 5 gallon water change. I think what may have started this was my war coral thwapping two corals at once. I accidentally set it ontop of them without looking. One rather large favia is gone, and another is fighting dieoff.

My fungia is... bad. But it still has a mouth, so I still have hope. Not a lot-but some. I have lost my female yasha hase goby, which really really hurts. (she was getting fat with eggs) yet other creatures aren't reacting at all. So now its a waiting game to see what pulls out and what doesn't. (Lost as in-I cannot find her, she's not coming out of hiding, may have jumped shipped and got eaten by a little cat or dog)

 

Thanks for the omg what do I do moment of terror this morning. I'll make it, as will the majority of whats in my tank.

[Swanwillow]

well, by the end of the day, past my freaking out and now just 'oh gosh' stage.

 

Some things look BAD. But they'll pull through. Some things are gone. Most things I have hope though. So far this is my totals:

 

Alive and fine:

both yasha goby

purple firefish

the 2 Trimma's

maxima clam

gorgonians (2)

all my zoanthids (around 15 colonies)

grandis palys

ricordeas (4 polyps total)

xenia

green stars

lightning clove polyps

pagoda coral

war coral

cyphastrea

green spongodus (I can't spell it.. sorry)

encrusting rainbow monti

large feather duster (although its retracted now, may be suffering)

 

looking bad, but alive:

duncan colony (15+ polyps-just shrunken in. Should be okay by morning)

green brain (thwaped by war coral)

2 different colonies of chalices

2 different acans

undata frag (can't really tell if it lived or died.. this may go to 'gone' soon)

Candycane colony. (has flesh, but lost a lot of flesh)

 

Gone:

6+"fungia (still has some flesh, but I have little hope-look for babies in a year >.<)

cats paw (might still have polyps)

red plate monti (polyps are starting to come out, but its flesh is gone)

favia (war coral ate it-but there IS flesh inside))

staghorn

catspaw

and a chalice

 

I think what went wrong. Last night I freaked out over the cloudy water, and things just not looking right, and decided to do a water change with too cold water. It wasn't WAY out of wack... but it was low enough that it killed the fungia and the high corals. I'll admit I rushed, when I should NOT HAVE.

 

Nothing comes fast. Its MY FAULT as to what happened. within a week or two, I'll know if things are coming back or not.

[brandon429]

I have done the same, in fact a little worse. this nov i forgot to plug back in the heater after water change work, two days at 70, thats violent.

 

Couldn't figure out why the corals were all closed up for a sec was second guessing a live rock sponge dieoff or something till I saw the temp

 

upon corretion everything opened up, rather quickly so if your water was less that 70 thatd be a concern but if not really still im suprised it got that many corals

 

you are describing really quite a stocked tank, thats no shabby list. can we get some pics to run an overall assessment>? dont feel bad about a rough looking shot Ill post one with ya of my fav pico reef w bleached corals after a heat spike

 

the large water change was a smart call, unless one can be certain of the events that caused coral loss to take specific action its the best safety play. Since large water changes never hurt any of our corals no matter how frequent (with matching params) at least if it was a poison or a contaminant of some kind this would have removed it. when in doubt, do a large water change in my opinion its basic pico reef CPR protocol #1 its the cardinal reaction to tank stress if you want to save it.

 

for the times it turns out to be a simple solution in the very least your tank got a fresh breath of air so to speak

[Swanwillow]

heh, my camera's been down for a bit. There's a thread detailing it all. Really, the 'bioload' is small, most of those are corals that are quite efficient at dealing with waste. I dropped the temp 5 degrees. (from 80 to 75) with that one waterchange. NOT a slow move-and that's what threw me over.

 

Do realize that the inhabitants amount to tons of corals, a clam, and 5 fish that are tiiiny. I planned this tank out so I can have lots of tiny fish. well, not lots. I sorta want to get rid of the fire fish and get 2 more of the trimma gobies.

 

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=262427

 

The only things added that aren't logged in there were the clam, one of the firefish was taken out, peppermint shrimp gone (sucker ate an acan!!!!-this happened a few weeks ago, unrelated) hmmmmm and a pair of acan frags that were added. I think that's all. no more fish at all added. My camera broke after the last pics, so while I wouldn't shy away from taking pics, well... there's none avaliable.

 

wait. Got rid of the big gorg, got two smaller ones instead. added some small sps frags. WOW I didn't keep that thread up at all, did I?

[brandon429]

Hey that is a nice setup.

 

I can tell from the pics you are keeping it clean. The lines in between the sand and the glass, and the sand and the live rock interface are free of brown crud and accumulations, the detritus effect will be very low on this tank if it still looks like those pics.

 

How are the small bryopsis/algae growths going. They were insignificant in the pics and we've all had them, but one patch looked on the up and coming and those are silly easy to kill within one day if you want them totally wiped out. In other words, if your tank isn't already totally free of them, it can be by roughly Saturday this week.

[Swanwillow]

Oh, the sand is dirty as hell. Those ARE old pics, from what-april? My cameras been down for a while. TRIED to get it back working, but no luck.

 

The bryopsis battle was won! but cyano was my life for a few weeks. Not bad, just a dusting on the sand. Now they're gone..... But its a bit late.

 

yeah, everything was kept up, I've tried so hard to do right. Hopefully this is a warning to people. To make SURE things are going slow... even an emergency water change can make things go from bad to very, very worse.

 

edit to add"

 

I ordered a cleanup crew before this happened, and it got here today. So in went a mix of nass snails and dwarf ceriths. They're crawling around and alive (but they sent.. so... many... dwarfs.... oh geeze) so the sandbed should be cleaner, if the nass do what nass are supposed to do