Trouble shooters/ advice needed

[marinecurious]

<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">:shout:Ok... Last week I was on spring break, but went (20 min drive) into the school each day to check on the tank. Fish seemed fine. Corals doing the same, which was why I started this thread originally. I finally got a good plan of action thanks to y'all helping me think through the logistics. My main goal is to now increase salinity, and in the very near future to increase flow and temp. I did not go back to the school over the weekend.</span></span></span>
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<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">TODAY… Found one of my chromis had died!!! They all seemed fine when I saw them on Friday. I didn’t notice any issues. This morning, he was floating at the top covered in a white slime. I am FREAKED OUT! I am not sure if this is ich. I have been watching the others like crazy today. They ate well, but I think I see some issue with at least one other chromis. His scales don't look as iridescent and have a slightly pink patch. I don’t have a QT. (I am the case study on what NOT to do when starting a reef tank). I am hoping to get a small tank this weekend.</span></span></span>
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<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">To top it all off (other than school is an hour longer for the next 12 days due to the snow week), I couldn’t produce RO water today. My unit is new (March). I only made about 10 gallons today. It should be making about 3 gallons an hour. I wanted to make 15 gallons of salt water so that I could do a water change tomorrow. I want to increase salinity, but that won’t happen if I can’t even make salt water!!! After reading up on my unit this evening, I am going to try to flush the system tomorrow. I have learned that this whole process is humbling. I have never felt like such an idiot! Just when I feel like I am starting to have a handle on this hobby, something else happens to show how clueless I am. The worst part is that my poor animals could be suffering because of it. </span></span></span>
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<span style="color: black"><span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: 13px">I have the urge to foster out my remaining fish, corals, and cleanup crew (if they aren’t taken by DFACS- department of fish and coral services, first:blush and start over!!! I am a science teacher!! I value and am amazed by LIFE. Mainly this is just a rant of frustration. Please let me know what you think I should do about the possible fish illness. If my precious, fat lawnmower blenny gets sick, that will push me over the edge!! The picture isn’t great.</span></span></span>
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[cr500_af]

I haven't owned chromis, and certainly am no authority on them, but several friends who keep them have had the occasional individual die for no obvious reason. If something about your water killed that one, the others would be in bad shape.

As for your RO unit, have you verified that you have enough pressure on the inlet side? Low water pressure can drastically reduce your output. Barring that, I'd email Air Water & Ice and ask for assistance, as they have great CS.

 

[marinecurious]

cr500_af;635093 wrote: As for your RO unit, have you verified that you have enough pressure on the inlet side? Low water pressure can drastically reduce your output. Barring that, I'd email Air Water & Ice and ask for assistance, as they have great CS.

At the risk of making myself look even more clueless... how would I go about verifying my pressure. I had really good output up until today. Of course, I didn't use it much at all last week. Could pressure be a problem if my output was optimal previously? I will definitely get in touch with AWI if the flush doesn't work.

Thanks for the advice.

Edit:

blakejohn;635096 wrote: The slime on the fish is probly just the normal slime that anything in the tank that dies gets after a couple of days. Chromis are usually caught with cyanide. It may not kill them right away but later on it may. So the chromis death is probly not your fault.

I hope it was normal (not disease) and not because of my ignorance. Thanks for trying to make me feel better.

 

[cr500_af]

marinecurious;635097 wrote: At the risk of making myself look even more clueless... how would I go about verifying my pressure. I had really good output up until today. Of course, I didn't use it much at all last week. Could pressure be a problem if my output was optimal previously? I will definitely get in touch with AWI if the flush doesn't work.

Thanks for the advice.

Some RO units have a gauge built in, but the Typhoon and Typhoon III don't IIRC.

Pressure could have changed, theoretically, through some sort of plumbing issue in the school, but it's doubtful. When output drops, I'd first suspect dirty prefilters, but your unit is only a couple of months old so I doubt that very seriously.

 

[oil_fan]

I'm just going to speak on your chromis dieing. When I started my first tank over 3 years ago, I had 7 green chromis and 2 months later was down to 1. Everything was stable in the tank at the time but they just don't seem to survive that long for some reason.

Heck even that last chromis just disappeared on me a couple of months ago for no reason.

 

[gabbagabbawill]

Chromis - they will often pick on each other until they kill a few off, and usually can only be kept in odd numbers for some unknown reason. This is based on many folks observation with keeping chromis... I started with five about 8 months ago, They killed two off within the first week, and I still have three. These three are very healthy. It helps if you have a large population of pods in the tank, but they should readily take frozen foods... they LOVE frozen cyclopeeze, which is very nutritious for them and close to what they eat naturally.

RO unit - you want to get a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter to check the functionality. You can check the pressure at the input, but since there is little you can do about that, just get a TDS meter to make sure you have 0 TDS at the output of the RO membrane. You may want to get a dual inline TDS meter so that you can see what the TDS is before and after the membrane to help you decide when is good to change filters.

Algae - after making sure your RO water is ZERO TDS, you want to test your water in your tank. Your Nitrates need to be as close to 0 as possible, but a few PPM above this is ok if you are not going to keep SPS corals. With SPS corals, anything above 5 PPM is not good. With LPS, softies, FO, and FOLWER systems, you can go a little higher, but it's still not recommended for the health of your tank. Algae feed on Nitrates, so the lower the better.

Lastly, you want to make sure your phosphates are in check. This is an expensive test kit, but worth it if you are having algae problems and aren't sure of the source. Most foods you feed your tank are loaded with phosphates. If you don't have a good means of nutrient export (refugium/ macro algae, water changes, carbon, GFO, fully functioning skimmer, etc) then your phosphates will build up and begin to feed the algae in your tank, much like nitrates will. Get these down along with nitrates, and you will begin to starve out your algae's means of production.

Once you manually remove it, or something in your tank eats it, it will have no nutrients to fuel it growing back.

Once you have done all of the things above, I suggest you look up solid carbon dosing as a means of nutrient export. You will need a very good skimmer, so if you already have one, using something like the warner marine Eco-Bak pellets becomes a very cheap and easy means of nutrient export.

Edit: Also, you're on the right track... you definitely should consider increasing flow... Also, adding a heater will be a must 72 degrees is way too low for most of the animals that come from most of the world's tropical reefs, where the water is typically 78-84 degrees.

 

[jennm]

How long had you had the chromis?

That frequently happens with newly arrived chromis. I can't quite recall the spelling of the condition (urenemia? not enough coffee yet this morning). Comes mainly from the manner in which they are shipped from overseas - many in one bag. Water fouls, they eliminate in it and they get ammonia burns and then infection. Around here we call it 'the herpes' (it's NOT herpes...we're just smarty-pants sometimes and that's what we've dubbed it).

Typically it shows up within a few days of the fishes' arrival at the LFS.

Jenn

 

[gabbagabbawill]

Hi Jenn,

Do you have any suggestions for recognizing symptoms early and looking out for this sort of thing in chromis? Or do you think it's luck of the draw since they are likely all shipped in this same manner?

When I purchased mine, they all seemed very alert and showed no signs of stress.

 

[jennm]

Typically the small chromis (and other damsels) out of Indo and PI are shipped in a similar manner - many in a single bag. The fish are cheap, the shipping isn't, so for economy, they are sent in this way.

Other, more expensive fish, are typically shipped one per bag - less likely to foul the bag water to the same degree.

Personally I avoid buying those fish for the shop. The larger (but more expensive) chromis out of Fiji, don't typically go through this. I can't say for sure if they are shipped differently, but it's likely since they're bigger. At the very least there would be fewer per bag. We don't usually see this in the ones from Fiji.

IME sometimes they (the "herpes" ones) look just fine on arrival, it takes a few days for the symptoms to become apparent. Then they start dropping like flies if they aren't treated.

Another good argument for quarantine, being picky about the source of fish, and (LFS) holding fish for a period of time before offering them for sale.

Jenn

 

[rjrgroup]

The fish came from a friend/customer of Fish Scales for 3 years...he QTed them for a few weeks before I acclimated them to her tank.

 

[marinecurious]

rjrgroup;635232 wrote: The fish came from a friend/customer of Fish Scales for 3 years...he QTed them for a few weeks before I acclimated them to her tank.

Thanks Randy! I knew that these weren't "fresh" from shipment, but I didn't know the exact timeline. They seemed to be perfectly happy. I've had them for over a month. I hadn't seen any issues. They have been eating and swimming around. All three hide as soon as anyone comes to the tank, but they swim around all day. I am worried that something I am doing is hurting them. What is the life span of a chromis? Today, I definitely think that one of them has an issue with his scales (rough and pinkish patch behind the gills). It is hard to detect in any picture that I take. I don't notice them picking on each other or rubbing on the rocks. As far as I can tell, the other chromis and lawnmower blenny look fine. I am getting a little paranoid though!!

 

[jennm]

If that's the case, then watch for aggression amongst the chromis and/or by other fish.

If they are long-time captive dwellers it's not the problem I described - that ship would have long since sailed.

Jenn

 

[marinecurious]

As I am researching about my RO production issue, I came across this from http://www.airwaterice.com/category/z.7/">http://www.airwaterice.com/category/z.7/</a>
Fast Flush - When to use:


<ul>
<li>The flushing process needs to be used whenever you first get a RO unit, let the unit sit inactive for more than 1 day or when you replace the filters. When you first get a RO unit, it's good to flush it off for at least 30 minutes. You have to flush off the unit for 1 minute per day of inactivity (i.e. - If your unit sits inactive for 5 days, flush it off for 5 minutes). When you change the filters, a good flush of about 15 minutes is a good idea.</li>
</ul>I definitely haven't been doing this. I am not using my RO at all on the weekends. Last week, I was gone the entire week and only used it minimally. Ooops!

The TDS meter reads 2 ppm.

 

[dawgface]

If you haven't already purchased or recieved a heater from anyone my system is up and running. Like I thought I have an extra one with your name on it if you still want it. =)

 

[marinecurious]

DawgFace;637791 wrote: If you haven't already purchased or recieved a heater from anyone my system is up and running. Like I thought I have an extra one with your name on it if you still want it. =)

THANKS! I'll take it. :yay: Where and when is convenient for you?

 

[dawgface]

Whenever you want to stop by this weekend. If you can't make it this weekend, I can drop it off for you at say Pure Reef. I'm sure they will hold it for me/you to pick up. PM'ing my contact info.

 

[rbredding]

marinecurious;635281 wrote: As I am researching about my RO production issue, I came across this from http://www.airwaterice.com/category/z.7/">http://www.airwaterice.com/category/z.7/</a>
Fast Flush - When to use:


<ul>
<li>The flushing process needs to be used whenever you first get a RO unit, let the unit sit inactive for more than 1 day or when you replace the filters. When you first get a RO unit, it's good to flush it off for at least 30 minutes. You have to flush off the unit for 1 minute per day of inactivity (i.e. - If your unit sits inactive for 5 days, flush it off for 5 minutes). When you change the filters, a good flush of about 15 minutes is a good idea.</li>
</ul>
I definitely haven't been doing this. I am not using my RO at all on the weekends. Last week, I was gone the entire week and only used it minimally. Ooops!

The TDS meter reads 2 ppm.[/QUOTE]

I dont flush my filter either... (been using ir over a year with the current filter/resin..)

 

[cr500_af]

I never flushed mine either, but on the other had I just had to replace EVERYTHING (filters, resin, membrane). One day all is normal, a couple of days later I had 45 TDS out.
The membrane life was pretty short considering how much water I use, so I suspect it could be related.