ReefTron5000
09/03/2013, 11:19 AM
The gist of this post is that I have a 120 gallon reef and something is seriously wrong after I did a 15 gallon water change. I kind of fumbled my carbon change and now I'm trying to figure out why all of my corals are suffering and I will lay out the details below. This should be enough info if you have any quick suggestions and don't want to read all of the detail.
I have a 120 gallon reef with a 40 gallon sump. I run a pretty simply setup with a big skimmer and just a carbon reactor. Things have been going fine in the tank except a mild to medium hair algae problem I've been battling. Normally I do 10 gallon water changes about once a week but I decided to up it to 15 gallons yesterday. Most parameters are in check except nitrates are a tad high for my tastes at 5-10 ppm.
I thought I had matched the salinity okay at 1.026. While I was doing the water change, I switched out the carbon in my BRS reactor which had been in there 30 days. I normally use ROX but I've been using the AquaMaxx equivalent since I ran out. I kind of fumbled with the carbon change in that usually I switch the canister out with the new carbon, then "wash" the carbon by pumping out aquarium water as part of my water change. This time, I forgot to switch out the carbon until after the water change had already been done and I didn't realize it until the new carbon was already in the canister. Stupidly, I tried to run tap water through the canister hoping it would clean it out but obviously it was a very slow trickle and just accumulated a bunch of black carbon dust water at the bottom of the canister. I said screw it and decided to put the reactor back together and thought I'd just flush the reactor out with tank water, holding the out tube into a bucket. I was just annoyed I was pumping out freshly changed water. Anyhow, this process went fine and the water in the bucket ran black for like 10 seconds then clear. I gave it another 20 seconds or so and put the carbon reactors return back in the tank thinking while the process was messy, that it went okay.
At this point I figured I was done. Queue to an hour later when I notice that my various birdsnest which are usually pretty happy with polys extended are SUPER closed up. Then zoanthids start closing up and so does the hammer coral. By later in the evening, everything looks pretty crappy from my little neon green brain and zoas to all of the hard corals including my plating monti.
I checked my salinity and somehow ended up raising the salinity to 1.027. In my efforts to bring it back down, I got it to 1.025. This was within the course of a few hours.
So basically I majorly screwed up this water change. I'm currently running my RO/DI while I'm at work to make a bunch of new water (TDS shows 0). I don't know why but I'm leaning towards the carbon change being the issue. My skimmer normally pulls the standard greenish gunk and I had cleaned it out during the change. This morning, I notice that the color of the gunk in the skimmer since the water change is more of a reddish, copper color. I feel like this is a big clue but I don't know in which direction.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated but the only thing I can figure to do is another 15 gallon water change. I've already shut off the carbon reactor and the skimmer is running.
I have a 120 gallon reef with a 40 gallon sump. I run a pretty simply setup with a big skimmer and just a carbon reactor. Things have been going fine in the tank except a mild to medium hair algae problem I've been battling. Normally I do 10 gallon water changes about once a week but I decided to up it to 15 gallons yesterday. Most parameters are in check except nitrates are a tad high for my tastes at 5-10 ppm.
I thought I had matched the salinity okay at 1.026. While I was doing the water change, I switched out the carbon in my BRS reactor which had been in there 30 days. I normally use ROX but I've been using the AquaMaxx equivalent since I ran out. I kind of fumbled with the carbon change in that usually I switch the canister out with the new carbon, then "wash" the carbon by pumping out aquarium water as part of my water change. This time, I forgot to switch out the carbon until after the water change had already been done and I didn't realize it until the new carbon was already in the canister. Stupidly, I tried to run tap water through the canister hoping it would clean it out but obviously it was a very slow trickle and just accumulated a bunch of black carbon dust water at the bottom of the canister. I said screw it and decided to put the reactor back together and thought I'd just flush the reactor out with tank water, holding the out tube into a bucket. I was just annoyed I was pumping out freshly changed water. Anyhow, this process went fine and the water in the bucket ran black for like 10 seconds then clear. I gave it another 20 seconds or so and put the carbon reactors return back in the tank thinking while the process was messy, that it went okay.
At this point I figured I was done. Queue to an hour later when I notice that my various birdsnest which are usually pretty happy with polys extended are SUPER closed up. Then zoanthids start closing up and so does the hammer coral. By later in the evening, everything looks pretty crappy from my little neon green brain and zoas to all of the hard corals including my plating monti.
I checked my salinity and somehow ended up raising the salinity to 1.027. In my efforts to bring it back down, I got it to 1.025. This was within the course of a few hours.
So basically I majorly screwed up this water change. I'm currently running my RO/DI while I'm at work to make a bunch of new water (TDS shows 0). I don't know why but I'm leaning towards the carbon change being the issue. My skimmer normally pulls the standard greenish gunk and I had cleaned it out during the change. This morning, I notice that the color of the gunk in the skimmer since the water change is more of a reddish, copper color. I feel like this is a big clue but I don't know in which direction.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated but the only thing I can figure to do is another 15 gallon water change. I've already shut off the carbon reactor and the skimmer is running.