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barclayrl
07/01/2009, 01:35 PM
Posted in the Water Chemistry forum as well:

I have had ongoing issues with water quality in my system for a long time, I mostly have SPS and Had the system running really well for about a year and then poof, everything started going downhill.... All my parameters seem fine... (System is 3 years old.)

Nitrate <10
Amm. 0
Calcium 400
MG 1200-1300
PH 8.0
Alk 8-9 (little low)

My systems consists of a 120 upstairs and a 100G sump downstars… The display recently had the DSB removed (Drained most of the display water into storage bins, cleaned the tank all out, and put the water back in so the mixed up sand never touched the system water, topped off with new saltwater) Been trying to do 40G water changes for a few weeks now with no luck..

Someone suggested my system may have low Oxygen, could that be it? The skimmer is sucking in basement air.. and it is stale air.. I have always thought that could play a part..

I have had some serious pump failures with calcium buildup lately as well.... (the mag 18, deltec skimmer eihem 1260, an both tunze 6100 powerheads...

Most of my fish have died and most corals as well, some are holding on by a thread.. trying to save them but not having any luck, I have tried to use some Kalk to bring up the PH and that is when the pumps started freezing....

I have a kalk reactor and geo calcium reactor setup but the kalk is off now... only the calcium reactor is on, dripping slowly.

I still have some algae in the system, (Nitrates may actually be higher than 10.)

Any help would be great, thanks for reading!!
Sorry about the jumbled post…

barclayrl
07/01/2009, 04:31 PM
bump

evsalty
07/01/2009, 04:43 PM
When you say cleaned the tank all out what exactly did you do? Did you rinse the tank out and dry it up?

barclayrl
07/01/2009, 04:45 PM
just rinsed it out and refilled it, lighly wiped out the overflows..

Just tried to get a clean slate...

Shane Hoffman
07/01/2009, 04:51 PM
what do you mean by "water quality issues"???

Are you losing love stock?

What are your symptoms?

Your description says you removed sand bed and parameters are now good...

What is everything negative thats happened?

Do you have a designated fish room in basement?

Whats stored near sump?

Anyone have access to sump other than you? ie...kids/pets/kids friends?

I need more info...

Shane Hoffman
07/01/2009, 04:53 PM
Just saw lost livestock portion. My apoligies. Not sure how I missed that. My eyes skipped a whole paragraph. Could you answer the other questions?

sry for mix up.

Shane Hoffman
07/01/2009, 04:59 PM
Even with a pump failure I find it hard to believe you would have issues with oxygen. Unless they all failed at once and you were away for a long time. The turbulence of the water falling from aquarium on first floor to basement should create enough oxygen exchange on its own. Do you dose vodka. If you were dosing vodka that would exacerbate any oxygen loss issues many time over. Especially if your skimmer pump went shortly after a vodka dosing. If you do dose vodka have you recently raised your dose???

evsalty
07/01/2009, 05:02 PM
How long since the "POOF" happened? Did everything die at once or was it one the a few weeks later another and so on and so on?

luther1200
07/01/2009, 06:38 PM
Did this all occur after you removed the sand. If so it is most likely do to you removing all of that bio-filter. That was a massive part of your tanks natural filtration and to be removed in 1 shot like that can do some serious damage. Ammonia spikes and Nitrite spikes most likely happened. If I were you I would hook up a remote deep sand bed in a bucket as soon as you can. And I would use as much live sand as you can.


I posted this in the chemistry forum also. Just so you know if you wanted to continue in that room also. There are some very knowledgeable people in there. You just don't get as quick a response in there sometimes.

barclayrl
07/01/2009, 08:17 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15289394#post15289394 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Shane Hoffman
what do you mean by "water quality issues"???

Are you losing love stock?

What are your symptoms?

Your description says you removed sand bed and parameters are now good...

What is everything negative thats happened?

Do you have a designated fish room in basement?

Whats stored near sump?

Anyone have access to sump other than you? ie...kids/pets/kids friends?

I need more info...

Are you losing love stock? = Yes

What are your symptoms? = Bleaching corals, fishs died, snails died coraline gone...

Your description says you removed sand bed and parameters are now good... = They were ok before but i removed my sand bed when it basically turned to very large chunks of sand. kind of like mixing concrete...

What is everything negative thats happened? = Posted above sand bed turned to stone, coral problems, fish died, snails died, plenty of algae

Do you have a designated fish room in basement? Yes dedicated room

Whats stored near sump? = reef equipment mostly, furnace 10ft away (shot down for summer), water heater 10ft away, oil tank for furnace 5ft away.

Anyone have access to sump other than you? ie...kids/pets/kids friends? kids dont touch it, just me...

barclayrl
07/01/2009, 08:21 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15289434#post15289434 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Shane Hoffman
Even with a pump failure I find it hard to believe you would have issues with oxygen. Unless they all failed at once and you were away for a long time. The turbulence of the water falling from aquarium on first floor to basement should create enough oxygen exchange on its own. Do you dose vodka. If you were dosing vodka that would exacerbate any oxygen loss issues many time over. Especially if your skimmer pump went shortly after a vodka dosing. If you do dose vodka have you recently raised your dose???

Never dosed vodka.. THought about doing that, but never did..

Pumps did not fail at once..

barclayrl
07/01/2009, 08:23 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15289453#post15289453 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by evsalty
How long since the "POOF" happened? Did everything die at once or was it one the a few weeks later another and so on and so on?

Happened over a 1 month span, before the sandbed was removed..

Shane Hoffman
07/01/2009, 08:27 PM
Ther is definately some credence to what luther said. However I would assume you were monitoring your nitrates and amonia after sand bed removal. If not, I would feel very certain thats the case. No matter how hard the sand bed was it was still porus. That was probably atleast 50 to 60 percent of your biological filtration (nitrite/amonia remover)......if you did monitor your perameters constantly and they were ok.......after that major change we have some more thinking to do. If you didnt monitor your perameters afterwards luther is spot on with installing a remote sand bed ASAP.......

luther1200
07/01/2009, 08:28 PM
What was the first "symptom" that you can remember?

barclayrl
07/01/2009, 08:35 PM
corals (SPS) started to bleach, sanbed bloomed with tons of algae, brown + cyano, roskwork was covered even started covering the sps..

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 06:28 AM
bump.

TomRep
07/02/2009, 08:36 AM
Didnt see it above but have have missed it, what test kits are you using?
tom

evsalty
07/02/2009, 08:39 AM
Ok so the sandbed was removed AFTER the start of the problems in an effort to possibly fix the issues is that correct?

When did you start loosing fish? Before or after SB removal?

Do you run any phosban or something of the sort? Do you test for phosphates?

High Phosphates and/or Nitrates most likely caused the initial problems, well one of them had to have caused the algae outbreak.

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 08:51 AM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15292748#post15292748 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TomRep
Didnt see it above but have have missed it, what test kits are you using?
tom

Salifert, Lamonte, and some API as backups..

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 08:55 AM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15292773#post15292773 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by evsalty
Ok so the sandbed was removed AFTER the start of the problems in an effort to possibly fix the issues is that correct?

When did you start loosing fish? Before or after SB removal?

Do you run any phosban or something of the sort? Do you test for phosphates?

High Phosphates and/or Nitrates most likely caused the initial problems, well one of them had to have caused the algae outbreak.

Sandbed removed to fix problems

Lost fish before sandbed removal - Still have a maroon clown alive and a green chromis.

Running GFO for a few years, seemed to do nothing, quit using it a week ago, (tired of wasting money on it with no results)tested for phosphates, nothing registers (Selifert) - Also quit using carbon a few weeks ago (will resume if needed to clear water etc)

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 08:56 AM
just to clarify, i quit using carbon and GFO after the crash, not before...... They were not the cause.

evsalty
07/02/2009, 09:05 AM
Looks like we can rule out the sandbed removal as the cause.

Something did though cause you to have the algae issues.

Did you ever test for phosphates?

How old are the bulbs?

Was your nitrate reading of <10 taken while you had the nussaince algae all over the tank? I ask this because large amounts of nussaince and good macro algae will usually give you a 0 reading even though the algae itself is holding high amounts of nitrate.

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 09:15 AM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15292921#post15292921 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by evsalty
Looks like we can rule out the sandbed removal as the cause.

Something did though cause you to have the algae issues.

Did you ever test for phosphates?

How old are the bulbs?

Was your nitrate reading of <10 taken while you had the nussaince algae all over the tank? I ask this because large amounts of nussaince and good macro algae will usually give you a 0 reading even though the algae itself is holding high amounts of nitrate.

Bulbs are like 6 months old, T5's..

Tested for phosphates, but nothing registered. tested for nitrates and they were low but one of these items is definatly present, and i dont think it is phosphate.. i ran GFO for a long time and nothing changed, as a matter of fact, i think the tank got worse when the GFO was added.... (About a week after i saw the corals getting lighter)

evsalty
07/02/2009, 09:39 AM
I have never used GFO so I did a little research on it as you said your corals started loosing color (bleaching) upon the introduction of the GFO.


http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.php

This is a quote off of the link.



Quite a large proportion of aquarists using GFO in reef aquaria have reported undesirable effects on corals. These reported effects include tissue recession and bleaching. Many advanced aquarists have associated these effects with the first addition, or with a later change, of the GFO.

But you also say that you used it for years so hmmm. How often did you change it? Did you just change it right before all this started? How long had it been since the last change?

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 09:47 AM
I did just change it before it started, it was about 6 months old before it was changed, used bulk reef supply's product. Going to see if anything recovers soon, going to do a water change today and move my corals back to the display now the the live rock has been moved back upstairs.

I have heard that GFO can cause coral problems but never put 2+2 together. Also i think in the past i was using much less GFO than my tank needed, this time i used the correct amount...

Maybe all my problems are GFO? what abou the fish dying? something unrelated? I know i have a sand star disapear. Maybe he fouled the tank for a while?

cabrego
07/02/2009, 09:58 AM
I think everything has been covered excpet for your actually water source,

I assume you are using RO/DI,

When was the last time you checked TDS?

have you tested for copper?

wrott
07/02/2009, 09:58 AM
It's odd that the fish died before you removed the sand.
This would suggest something very out of wack, like sand bed crashed or some other contamination.
Did the sand look black anywhere, hydrogen sulfide?
And the huge algae, diatom bloom also suggests a large amount of nutrients were added somehow.
So you have only 2 fish remaining now, it is baffling. I hope the problem can be answered, as it is a devastating event that I know you want to avoid in the future.

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 03:43 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15293245#post15293245 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cabrego
I think everything has been covered excpet for your actually water source,

I assume you are using RO/DI,

When was the last time you checked TDS?

have you tested for copper?

TDS is 0 = tested with 3 different TDS meters..

Never checked for copper...

How could that get into my system?? If i have a TDS of 0.. Is it worth buying the test?

barclayrl
07/02/2009, 03:44 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15293246#post15293246 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wrott
It's odd that the fish died before you removed the sand.
This would suggest something very out of wack, like sand bed crashed or some other contamination.
Did the sand look black anywhere, hydrogen sulfide?
And the huge algae, diatom bloom also suggests a large amount of nutrients were added somehow.
So you have only 2 fish remaining now, it is baffling. I hope the problem can be answered, as it is a devastating event that I know you want to avoid in the future.

Honestly i think the sanbed did crash, there was several black spots on the top... stunk like sulfer when i removed it.. rotten egg smell.. weird it was less than a year old.....

Shablin
07/02/2009, 11:32 PM
DSB's are anaerobic and anaerobes smell rotten thats to be expected. Some people think that the sulfuric acid that can be generated can be an issue; I haven't had a problem with mine (i even used a plenum before without trouble - it did STINK when I broke it down).

I got a little lost on how you used GFO; I do know that if you use a lot initially and drop phos levels fast you can injure the inhabitants and cause bleaching; the organisms need to adjust. There must have been some phos in your tank if you had an algal bloom. Might want to check your test kit...