My inverts are inverted.....

[jwar]

To make a long story short, I am a noob with a big mystery problem. I think that I may know the answer, but I want to tell you all a story.

My parameters prior to a 20g water change:

temp:80
SG: 1.025
Ph: 8.2
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm

My parameters after a 20g water change:
temp:80
SG: 1.026~1.027
Ph: 8.2
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm

So I have a 125G new marine tank that has just completed 6 weeks of maturing, didn't have a really big cycle, did notice a couple of days of .25ppm ammonia, but no other levels ever raised above 0. I have 110lbs of live rock in there, and about 1-2" live sand on the bottom to start with.

Over the few weeks I have been stocking it with clean up crew, three peppermint shrimp, 20 hermits, maybe 15 assorted snails, and a couple of emerald crabs.

I also have introduced some livestock,
week 1 - two kupang damsels
week 3 - one lawnmower blenny
week 5 - two ocelarris clowns and a green bubble tip anemone

So I performed my water change about a week after adding the clowns and gbta everything looked good.

My water I used for the change read at:
temp: 80
SG: 1.025~1.026

The following day, the GBTA was shriveled, but everything else was happy. So I added 5g of top off water, prepped with kalk, (I make all my top off water in a 35G Rubbermaid in my garage, using 1c of kalk for 30g of treated water) then I went to bed.

My guess is that my Christmas lights caused a fuse to blow, and my pumps and heaters stopped. When I found the tank in the morning, didn't seem to bad, I just threw the breaker back on, and everything fired up, only issue was that the temp dropped from 80 to 76. The lights weren't scheduled to come on yet, so I wasn't worried that they didn't come on.

I came down by the tank at lunch time and noticed the lights hadn't come on yet. I looked at the timers, and they weren't running during the power outage, so I spun them to the proper time and had light.

I then could see that all of my snails laying on the substrate, and a couple of my shrimp were laying on the substrate as well. The GBTA, was looking rough, and had moved from his perch on a piece of rock, over to another rock, a couple feet from were he was before. I hope he pulls through, but it is looking grim.

I think that what happened was that I increased the salinity rapidly during my water change. (MY BAD - It was my first time...no excuse for being stupid though) Then I compounded it by spiking my Ph the next day with the top off water. Everything looked good, but inverts were likely stressed out. Then when the power went out, the Ph dropped (maybe) and temp dropped by four degrees.

All of my fish are looking great, the hermits and emerald crabs are loving all the extra food laying on the substrate. But the snails and GBTA are nearly gone.

Current parameters:
temp:80
SG: 1.026~1.027
Ph: 8.4
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm
dKh: 8
Calcium: 360ppm
Phosphate: 0ppm


I think that the worst part was the increase of salinity, coupled with compounding stress factors.

Does anyone here have any experience with making that kind of mistake?

[firsthesitation]

Funny you posted this, this happened to me wednesday, cept it was on when I went to work at 8 and when I got home at 5 everything in my apartment was off. My tank went from 80-72...heated it back up as fast as I could without creating too much shock but everything seems ok for me luckily. Did take my fish and stuff the better part of 2 day to get back to normal. Can say though luckily in my case my BTA and my snails were unharmed.

Sorry to hear bout your losses though. Hopefully things will start looking up.

[jenglish]

Ok, anemones need an established tank to survive. You want to wait at least 6 if not 12 months after the initial nitrogen cycle to add a nem.

WHat did you add to start your cycle? You should add enough nutrients so that at the end of you initial cycle there is substantial nitrate. You hafta feed the bacteria to grow them. maybe you were telling the params after the cycle and some w/c to lower nitrates.

Adding things too quickly probably has more to do w/ system instability than the power, though that was significant. THe salinity shift didn't help but seems relatively small.:)

[IslandCrow]

So I added 5g of top off water, prepped with kalk

Out of all the mistakes, if I understand you correctly, this may have been the worse. Are you saying you added 5g of limewater to the tank all at once? I'm not sure how long it was after that until you checked your PH again, but depending on how saturated it was, that much limewater would cause a huge PH spike. Such a rapid change in PH could certainly spell disaster for your inverts or even your vertebrates.

[jwar]

Yeah, I understand that anemone's should be in an established tank. I thought that what was the most important component was that water parameters where correct. It is my mistake for being too eager to add the nem. I thought that the 6-12m maturing process was more for the owner of the tank than the tank itself.

My cycle however is interesting. I started the tank with a good deal of cured live rock as well as live sand. I also have an ASM G4 skimmer taking about 4 cups of dark skimmate out of the water every week. I think that the levels are zero because the tank is already cycled. I test my levels every other day. I am watching closely for chemical signs of a cycle.

[jwar]

Thanks for the replies.

I have a really small pump I use to move the 5G of limewater, and I add it to my 55g sump. Total, I have a 155G watercolumn, so I didn't thing that would cause too much of a jump. I can see however that it raises my Ph significantly. I usually top off and then test.

How do you recommend adding the top off water that is treated with kalk?