emilypres
12/19/2012, 06:04 AM
Hi all,
Well i made a bonehead noob mistake 2 days ago. I was setting up my new eheim automatic fish feeder because I am going out of town for about 3 days and wanted the fish to get something in the way of food while i am gone. Like a dummy, instead of testing it out, I set it up, placed it on the tank, forgot I had the food slot halfway open and hit the manual feed button. Needless to say it dumped quit a bit of food pellets in my 90 gallon tank. I was able to scoop up some but the damage was already done. I knew this would prove to be quit costly and was going to be something that would really throw my tank equilibrium out of wax.
I have been testing the following parameters pretty much every day and had no issues up until now (ph, nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, calcium, alkalinity, salinity, temp). I also had ordered a phosphate kit and was waiting for that to arrive. Meanwhile my tank got real cloudy the next day. I have 2 phosban reactors and some carbon i had been waiting to add. I immediately set this up and started pulling from my refugium for the carbon filled phosban reactor. I tested ammonia, nitrate, nitrites and still nothing. The next day, I began to see brown stuff growing on everything, which up until now had not happened, this tank is around 4 months old. Oh and I also do daily water changes (approx. 1 gallon per day, sometimes 2 gal/day) - and these equate to almost 30-40 % each month.
The next day (day 2 after overfeeding) I finally saw some traces of ammonia, nitrates. Testing showed nitrate = 10ppm, nitrite = .25ppm, ammonia = .25 ppm, alkalinity = 7. Water still very cloudy. That night i tested and my ammonia had dropped to .20ppm and my nitrates and nitrite had gone to 0. I thought ok that wasn't so bad (the overfeeding i mean). I thought i was thru the worse.
Day 3 after overfeeding - Woke up and tested as usual; nitrate = 5ppm, nitrite = 0, ammonia = .25ppm, phosphate = .5ppm (this had finally arrived). Salinity remained 1.023 throughout this whole thing. I then decided to add Amquel Plus to help out with removing the phosphates, nitrates, ammonia, etc...
I guess my question is should i just keep doing what i am doing? Does anyone think i need to order some GFO for my other phosban reactor? I feel like I am on the right track, I have some chaeto in my fuge, I have my protein skimmer set up, I am running some carbon next to my skimmer. My tests all seem to be going down with the exception of phosphates, however, i am not really sure what levels they were at. I can say this though they weren't high enough to cause any problems with diatoms (brown stuff on sand?) building up before. I really think I have an assignable cause here and as long as i am patient I feel like the phosphates will go back down.
What do you guys think? Any suggestions.
Well i made a bonehead noob mistake 2 days ago. I was setting up my new eheim automatic fish feeder because I am going out of town for about 3 days and wanted the fish to get something in the way of food while i am gone. Like a dummy, instead of testing it out, I set it up, placed it on the tank, forgot I had the food slot halfway open and hit the manual feed button. Needless to say it dumped quit a bit of food pellets in my 90 gallon tank. I was able to scoop up some but the damage was already done. I knew this would prove to be quit costly and was going to be something that would really throw my tank equilibrium out of wax.
I have been testing the following parameters pretty much every day and had no issues up until now (ph, nitrite, nitrate, ammonia, calcium, alkalinity, salinity, temp). I also had ordered a phosphate kit and was waiting for that to arrive. Meanwhile my tank got real cloudy the next day. I have 2 phosban reactors and some carbon i had been waiting to add. I immediately set this up and started pulling from my refugium for the carbon filled phosban reactor. I tested ammonia, nitrate, nitrites and still nothing. The next day, I began to see brown stuff growing on everything, which up until now had not happened, this tank is around 4 months old. Oh and I also do daily water changes (approx. 1 gallon per day, sometimes 2 gal/day) - and these equate to almost 30-40 % each month.
The next day (day 2 after overfeeding) I finally saw some traces of ammonia, nitrates. Testing showed nitrate = 10ppm, nitrite = .25ppm, ammonia = .25 ppm, alkalinity = 7. Water still very cloudy. That night i tested and my ammonia had dropped to .20ppm and my nitrates and nitrite had gone to 0. I thought ok that wasn't so bad (the overfeeding i mean). I thought i was thru the worse.
Day 3 after overfeeding - Woke up and tested as usual; nitrate = 5ppm, nitrite = 0, ammonia = .25ppm, phosphate = .5ppm (this had finally arrived). Salinity remained 1.023 throughout this whole thing. I then decided to add Amquel Plus to help out with removing the phosphates, nitrates, ammonia, etc...
I guess my question is should i just keep doing what i am doing? Does anyone think i need to order some GFO for my other phosban reactor? I feel like I am on the right track, I have some chaeto in my fuge, I have my protein skimmer set up, I am running some carbon next to my skimmer. My tests all seem to be going down with the exception of phosphates, however, i am not really sure what levels they were at. I can say this though they weren't high enough to cause any problems with diatoms (brown stuff on sand?) building up before. I really think I have an assignable cause here and as long as i am patient I feel like the phosphates will go back down.
What do you guys think? Any suggestions.