I need help :(

[siege]

Ok, my tank seems to be messed up. Bad. I got pH right, but even after a lights out period, my algae growth is unmanageable, I've got cyano that just won't go away, and I just lost a coral to algae, and I think I'm about to lose the other two, and all my crabs keep dying, though my banded coral shrimp is thriving, as my anemone also seems to be doing. I've done everything I know and can afford to do, but I'm totally at a loss. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to get any pictures of the tank that would be good enough to give any clues to anyone online.

I'm hoping there is maybe someone near to me who might consider themselves expert enough to be willing to attempt to diagnose the tank, and maybe be willing to give some TLC to my corals for a while in the hopes that I can get the tank stable enough to bring them back home after they've recuperated. I can't really afford to pay anyone anything at the moment, except to maybe buy a six-pack or something and my effusive thanks and ever-lasting gratitude. I've worked really hard to save these corals through quite a lot, and I've put a lot of effort into this fishtank and would really rather not see it crash. My room-mate, however, seems to have decided that he doesn't want to put any more of his own money or effort into the tnak, and so I'm left with no choice but to beg of the ARC community's expertise and kindness for help in saving our (my?) poor fish tank.

Ours is a bachelors apt., and both of us smoke. If someone is coming over, I'll do my best to clean-up and air out the place, if it's a problem, I just wanted to be forthcoming in that regard.

I feel terrible even having to make the request, but I just don't know what else to do, and am at my wits end.

 

[showtime305]

How big are the corals and what kind of lights do you have them under? What apartment community are you in?

 

[wbholwell]

Siege, you say you've got cyano? Have you used chemi clean? If so, did that help? I ask b/c I thought I had cyano, so I used chemi clean but it got worse. I then found out I had dinoflagelates- not cyano.

 

[showtime305]

siege;38847 wrote: Ok, my tank seems to be messed up. Bad. I got pH right, but even after a lights out period, my algae growth is unmanageable, I've got cyano that just won't go away, and I just lost a coral to algae, and I think I'm about to lose the other two, and all my crabs keep dying, though my banded coral shrimp is thriving, as my anemone also seems to be doing. I've done everything I know and can afford to do, but I'm totally at a loss. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to get any pictures of the tank that would be good enough to give any clues to anyone online.

I'm hoping there is maybe someone near to me who might consider themselves expert enough to be willing to attempt to diagnose the tank, and maybe be willing to give some TLC to my corals for a while in the hopes that I can get the tank stable enough to bring them back home after they've recuperated. I can't really afford to pay anyone anything at the moment, except to maybe buy a six-pack or something and my effusive thanks and ever-lasting gratitude. I've worked really hard to save these corals through quite a lot, and I've put a lot of effort into this fishtank and would really rather not see it crash. My room-mate, however, seems to have decided that he doesn't want to put any more of his own money or effort into the tnak, and so I'm left with no choice but to beg of the ARC community's expertise and kindness for help in saving our (my?) poor fish tank.

Ours is a bachelors apt., and both of us smoke. If someone is coming over, I'll do my best to clean-up and air out the place, if it's a problem, I just wanted to be forthcoming in that regard.

I feel terrible even having to make the request, but I just don't know what else to do, and am at my wits end.

Have you lost snails also? What's your phosphate and nitrate level reading?

wbholwell;38854 wrote: Siege, you say you've got cyano? Have you used chemi clean? If so, did that help? I ask b/c I thought I had cyano, so I used chemi clean but it got worse. I then found out I had dinoflagelates- not cyano.

When he mentioned the crabs dying I though about dinoflagellates.

 

[siege]

I have coralife 2x96w PC's, one actinic, the other 10kK.

I am in Park Towers, the taller of the two towers, across 400 from the Concourse (King and Queen) buildings.

Bryan - I believe it is cyano... a light reddish-brown dusting on the glass. I have not, however, used chemi-clean at any point.

At this point, I think I'm going to have to get as many of the inverts and sensitive/delicate animals out of my tank and do a 100% water change. I think I must still be fighting problems from all the non-RO/DI water I started the tank with.

 

[siege]

I have lost some snails, I think, but not many. My queen conch seems to be fine, as is the anemone and the nudibranch (barring spending some time bobbing around in my overflow this morning... thank god for the polishing filter!). Nitrates, nitrites and phosphates all test at 0 according to both my kits and the tests performed at Marine Fish.

As for dino's, I just finally after a lot of slow effort got pH down from somewhere above 8.5 to right about on 8.2, and I understand dino's don't like a high pH, so I'd have figured they'd all be toast :/

 

[rhomer]

First things first. We need to know a lot about the system. What size is the tank and sump, basically how much is the total water volumn.
How many fish do you have in the tank?
How long has the tank been setup?
How old are your bulbs?

Second, I would not use chemi clean. This is a band aid and will not resolve the problem over time. This will also only work for the cyano but won't touch any hair algea that you have. I'm not just regurgitating this. I've had 2 very tough battles with cyano, both times it took an excess of 6 months of dilligent work to get rid of it, and yes I've used chemi clean.

Third, This problem will not go away quickly. It took a lot of time to load up the system with excessive nutrients and it will take time to eliminate them.

Along with chemi clean water changes are band aids. You need to work on removing the excessive nutrients in the system. The tests for phosphates only test for free floating phosphates, but most of the time the phosphates as well as nitrates are all tied up in the algea, as well as saturated in your sand bed and rocks. This will cause tests to read 0 for phosphates and nitrates.

Many people will recomend that cyano can be fixed with additional flow, but from what I have discovered this will only fix it if it is a very localized problem. If you have a full scale outbreak the fix is to remove the excessive nutrients in the system.

Rob

 

[siege]

rhomer;38867 wrote: First things first. We need to know a lot about the system. What size is the tank and sump, basically how much is the total water volumn.
How many fish do you have in the tank?
How long has the tank been setup?
How old are your bulbs?

50 gallon with approx. 8 gallon sump. there is a roughly 5"-6" deep sandbed and I would guess about 40lbs. of live rock; estimated water volume is about 35 to 40 gallons incl. the sump.

3 fish, a diamond watchman goby (about 3.5"), a rainford's goby (about 1") and a mandarin (about 2"), along with a medium-small banded coral shrimp, a medium-sized sebae anemone (about 4" across when fully open), a queen conch, a lettuce nudibranch, and a yellow sea-slug. I've tried introducing a serpent sea-star and emerald crabs into the tank, but all perished.

The tank is about 6 months old, give or take. The bulbs are the same age.

rhomer;38867 wrote: Second, I would not use chemi clean. This is a band aid and will not resolve the problem over time. This will also only work for the cyano but won't touch any hair algea that you have. I'm not just regurgitating this. I've had 2 very tough battles with cyano, both times it took an excess of 6 months of dilligent work to get rid of it, and yes I've used chemi clean.

Third, This problem will not go away quickly. It took a lot of time to load up the system with excessive nutrients and it will take time to eliminate them.

Along with chemi clean water changes are band aids. You need to work on removing the excessive nutrients in the system. The tests for phosphates only test for free floating phosphates, but most of the time the phosphates as well as nitrates are all tied up in the algea, as well as saturated in your sand bed and rocks. This will cause tests to read 0 for phosphates and nitrates.

Many people will recomend that cyano can be fixed with additional flow, but from what I have discovered this will only fix it if it is a very localized problem. If you have a full scale outbreak the fix is to remove the excessive nutrients in the system.

Rob

I have not used any chemi-clean, tho I have in recent times used some sulfuric acid-based pH down to fix high pH caused by what appears to be a bad bucket of salt (RO/DI water tests at 7.0, after salt tests in excess of 8.6). The tank was also started with treated tap water, as a friend who was breaking his tank down donated his live rock and corals to us when our tank was only a month or so old, before we had an RO/DI unit, which we only acquired about 2 months ago. The crabs, however, weren't living very long long before I started using any pH down or other chemicals, and even though I run a polyfilter and use a skimmer, I think I am still battling all the crud in the water from the old tap water. At this point, I am not worried about a quick cure so much as just trying to save the animals that aren't tolerating whatever the problem is...

I'd hate for these corals to die because of my inability to get the tank right, and if anybody has the ability to take them and keep them alive, well, if you want, you can keep them for your efforts, I guess, or get cuttings or frags or something at some point.

 

[rhomer]

The polyfilter is a good start. I would do small water changes every other day and run a heavy metal sponge (if this turns green at all you've nailed why some inverts are dying) as well as a phosphate sponge to see if you can eliminate anything that might have come in with the tap water.

I would start thinking about adding a refuge to your system as well. These can be easy to add if you already of a sump in place. They also can be very inexpensive as well. A T off your overflow into a refuge with a ball valve to control flow into a rubbermaid container holding some cheato / macro algea, followed by a gravity flow back into the sump would remove the excessive nutrients. The macro algeas will compete with the hair algea and cyano in the tank. If you put this on a reverse light cycle from your main tank this will help the ph to stabalized through out the day as well.

I was in this same place when I first started out and this is what I did to solve the problem. I wish I had added the fuge sooner though.

Rob

 

[george]

What's your water circulation in the tank? It almost sounds like you have an over-abundance of CO2 which the algae will love and the rest of the tank will die from.

 

[siege]

Rob - I have some macro-algaes in the main tank, and would like to get a fuge started, but there is no room under my tank for the sump and fuge both, and I haven't been able to come up with a good way to get one started - I am pretty broke at the moment, and just don't have sufficient funds to do anything excessively creative in this department. A friend has made an offer I might be able to take him up on in order to get SOMETHING going, but I won't be able to do anything about it immediately.

George - Circulation is variable. Our sump pump pushes about 650gph, and I have a pair of maxijets in the tank that i turn on and off on varying schedules.

 

[wbholwell]

Seige, this may be a dumb question, but do you know that your pH kit is testing accurately?

 

[FutureInterest]

I doubt its your tap water start that's the cause. Afterall, this is 6 months later. I started my tank with tap water and I know many people that have and have not had any problems. For whatever reason it sounds like you're just suffering from an algae bloom or an extended algae cycle. When we use the term cycle we're usually talking about the nitrogen cycle which can be over suprisingly quickly enabling the tank to support life. However, there are a number of algae cycles that your tank will suffer through before things get better. You're going to go through a diatom cycle, perhaps cyano, and perhaps hair algae. Those are the easy to deal with algae blooms, most just require patience and diligent maintainence. There are other evil incarante algae blooms that hopefully you won't encounter, but from the sound of things that's not the case.

From the red/brwn dusting on the glass description it sounds a lot more like diatoms than cyano... Cyano doesn't typically grow in that manner... it grows more in "sheets" not "dusting". If its diatoms don't worry bout it. I recently killed off at least 100+ pineapple sponges when installing a new skimmer and now have diatoms up the whazoo. It's not a big deal, it just looks like crap on the sand and it'll take 2 months or so before the sponges grow back entirely. As they grow they will slowly soak up the silicates and eventually my sand will look as pristine as it did before I tinkered with everything. The point being is to not throw in the towel just yet, I'm sure you can work it out with patience.

I live relatively close by, one of my good friends lives in your building in fact. As such, if you want I'll be happy to swing by and take a gander and give you my opinion. If you want I'll foster your corals in my fuge, its lit with T5s and has plenty of space while your tank recovers.

 

[siege]

PM sent FutureInterest

 

[siege]

wbholwell;38877 wrote: Seige, this may be a dumb question, but do you know that your pH kit is testing accurately?

I had some that were not, however, I verified the accuracy of my current test kit against the kits at Marine Reef and Fish (thanks again, Patrick!). Another friend said he will bring me a batch of various test kits tonight since he doesn't keep a tank any more (i have all of his rock in my tank).

 

[george]

siege;38876 wrote: George - Circulation is variable. Our sump pump pushes about 650gph, and I have a pair of maxijets in the tank that i turn on and off on varying schedules.

That's a kind of low level of circulation for a 50g tank. I notice that the animals that you say perished are bottom/rock dwellers.

I'm not saying it's definitely the problem, but you do have low circulation (IMO) and you're not reading nitrate, nitrite, and phosphate problems from testing at Marine Fish, yet your livestock is dying and algae is blooming.

Do heavy water changes and prune back the algae, but I think you need more gas exchange in the system from circulation pumps. I'd go get one (or preferably 2) of the Hydor Model 1's at Marine Fish. 2 will give you 800 gph circulation in your tank which is about 20x turnover plus the circulation pump. I'd back off the circulation pump a bit and give your skimmer more dwell time with only an 8 gallon sump (assuming the skimmer is in the sump). And I wouldn't put the pumps on a wavemaker/timer, unless you've got enough pumps to make a high turnover at any given time.

If you need emergency water changes, I have 20g made up at home which you're welcome to come get this evening. I only have two 5 gallon jugs suitable for transportation though.

 

[siege]

George - thanks for your offer - I make take you up on it sometime this weekend.

As for more flow, I'll sytart leaving the powerheads I have on at all times - I only cut them on and off from being an admittedly inexperienced reefer, and I'm uncertain as to exactly how much waterflow is good for what kind of corals and critters inside the tank.

I can't afford new pumps any time soon - I'm really really broke atm (I need a new job pretty badly; my boss is almost 2 months behind on my pay and I'm way underpaid anyway), so anything I have to do has to be on the cheap for a time, which is why I want to try and save my livestock, even if it means giving it away to someone else. If I have to take minimal measures, I'm willing to try and be patient and let the tank heal itself over the long-term.

I just found out my room-mate and I probably won't be living together after August (when our lease is up), and he'll most certainly take his tank with him (even though he seems unwilling to put the effort into keeping it up). Being an animal person, I'll do anything to save the critters we have in my care, but I'm not really willing to sacrifice my ability to eat well in order to spend money on a tank that I won't have access to in a few months, either. Argh. I suppose he may change his mind, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Oh, and I may well take you up on the offer of water, though it would have to be over the course of the weekend.

Thanks again to George, FutureInterest, Showtime, Rob, and Bryan for your advice and help; rep points added for all.

 

[george]

siege;38887 wrote: I just found out my room-mate and I probably won't be living together after August (when our lease is up), and he'll most certainly take his tank with him (even though he seems unwilling to put the effort into keeping it up).

Is just the tank his or is the whole setup minus the livestock your friend gave you his?

If you need hosting, I can take the smaller goby and banded coral shrimp (he'll live in my fuge for a while). I can take the mandarin if it's male, but I'm not sure if it has to species match my female green mandarin.

 

[siege]

Well, we got all of the rock and original corals (only one of 3 survives, and that one barely), but my room-mate paid for them all, and purchased much of the currently curving livestock. He's willing to let the corals go without argument just to save them, but I don't know what his intentions are for the tank once he moves. The actual fish in the tank all seem to be doing ok, and all effectively belong to my room-mate. As the time to move comes closer I guess I'll find out exactly what he intends to do with the tank and it's contents.

 

[xyzpdq0121]

siege;38859 wrote: I have coralife 2x96w PC's, one actinic, the other 10kK.

I am in Park Towers, the taller of the two towers, across 400 from the Concourse (King and Queen) buildings.

Bryan - I believe it is cyano... a light reddish-brown dusting on the glass. I have not, however, used chemi-clean at any point.

At this point, I think I'm going to have to get as many of the inverts and sensitive/delicate animals out of my tank and do a 100% water change. I think I must still be fighting problems from all the non-RO/DI water I started the tank with.

Dang, I was just by Park Towers doing an appraisal not an hour ago! I would have been more then happy to stop by..

Few questions as well for you, how long has your tank been set up? Ok one question because that is all the time I got right now.