Tank help - crashing?

[sbandcb]

I have a nano tank that looked great this morning. When I got home this afternoon, the water was cloudy, my flaming prawn goby was dead and my clownfish was lying on the bottom struggling to breathe. When I touched him he did respond and start to swim around but he is lethargic.

It looks like a tank does when a nem dies after getting caught in a power head

I ran tests…the Numbers are the same as yesterday except my nitrate is registering low and my Alkalinity went up a little…could it be the dead fish?

Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - `1-2 (was 0)
Calcium - 420
Alkalinity - 11.5 (was about 10.5)
Phosphate - 0
Temp - 77
Salinity - 1.026
pH - 8.2

Corals are mixed…some are open, some are closed.
Inverts seem fine - crab, snails
Rock flower Nems Open

The only change I made yesterday were changing out the filter floss and replacing the Dr Tims waste away time release gel.

I am bringing water up to temp for a water change and was thinking about adding carbon
Also setting up a QT for my clown but he doesn’t look like he will survive.

I have no idea what might have happened or what more to check. Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[DanK.Reefer]

Start doing large water changes. 50% ASAP then 20% a day for the rest of the week.

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[sbandcb]

Start doing large water changes. 50% ASAP then 20% a day for the rest of the week.

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Thanks. Just did first water change.

 

[joseserrano]

You overdosed carbon with the gels and are having a bacteria bloom, and dropping oxygen levels. Add air pump and keep doing water change

 

[sbandcb]

You overdosed carbon with the gels and are having a bacteria bloom, and dropping oxygen levels. Add air pump and keep doing water change

Thats really helpful. I hadn’t thought of that but it makes sense. I will pull the gets out and add an air pump. Thank you

 

[Reeferkcp]

Agreed bacterial bloom from gel. Probably broke the time release and OD it . O2 depletion kill fish.

 

[DETANE]

Water change!!!

bacteria bloom causing oxygen deprivation, resulting in tank crash.

I would do an entire water change asap, and stop using the gel

 

[Jimbo327]

What others said. Water change. Most likely the gel if cloudy water (bacterial bloom), remove it ASAP. If you have skimmer, I would skim wet, and get as much of the bacteria out. Just make sure your salinity is good if you skim very wet.

 

[Discotu]

Not sure where you are but I have fresh SW if you need 5-10 gals. 91355

 

[sbandcb]

Agreed bacterial bloom from gel. Probably broke the time release and OD it . O2 depletion kill fish.

thanks. That theory makes the

Water change!!!

bacteria bloom causing oxygen deprivation, resulting in tank crash.

I would do an entire water change asap, and stop using the gel

Thanks, I removed the gel right away and wont be using it again. I did a water change tonight and was going to do another tomorrow but most of the reading Ive done on this say a water change wont help and may make things worse?

Do you mean 100% change? The fish are lost so it’s about what is best for inverts and corals at this point.

Not sure where you are but I have fresh SW if you need 5-10 gals. 91355

thank you. I am in San Gabriel Valley and think I have plenty on hand but I appreciate it.

 

[MattyJatz]

Good luck dude. Hopefully the Clown makes it.

 

[DETANE]

When I worked at the wholesaler and we experienced issues we did an entire water change. Most people fear shocking the coral and fish, but the real shock is leaving them in toxic conditions.

we drained the tanks while we filled them so there was a gradual increase in new salt water throughout the entire system. This allowed us to save a lot of fish and coral from bad shipments and from general outbreaks.

if it was really bad we simply transferred all livestock into a quarantine facility which is basically a tank with new salt water and UV, that underwent several water changes until the coral and fish were looking healthy again.

 

[bakbay]

I’ve done a 90% WC before without issues. In fact, things looked great after! As long as you don’t remove all the rocks / filters, you’re good.

 

[drexel]

Why are you using waste away in a nano with virtually no nutrients? To manage nutrients in a nano, just do weekly water changes.

 

[Reeferkcp]

Why are you using waste away in a nano with virtually no nutrients? To manage nutrients in a nano, just do weekly water changes.

Waste away is so difficult to control. If u are going to carbon / bacteria dose, should put it on a doser for more control. But for small tank, water change is so much easier and safer.

 

[sbandcb]

It was just a dumb mistake I have to own. I typically run a small nano pouch of Chemi-Pure Blue. I’ve been doing that with this tank for the whole time Ive had it set up with no problem. I was out of them when it was time to change and had one of the small gels from one of the shows. I asked about using it in my nano and was told it would be no problem but I didn’t know it was basically carbon dosing…thats on me. I made an assumption and paid for it.

Thanks for all the advice and help last night. Things were way more clear this morning and have been getting better through the day. Best I can tell, I didn’t lose any coral or inverts.

 

[drexel]

I’m not a huge fan of using chemical filtration long term other than activated carbon when needed. A good recipe for keeping nano tanks is weekly water changes with a quality salt, TM all for reef as your main ion replenishment, if needed and not over stocking with too many fish. CUC should primarily be a mix of snails with maybe one or two scarlet hermits or a few micro hermits depending on tank size. You don’t even need a skimmer, unless you have a lot of biomass that would deplete o2 levels. Have measurable levels of nutrients and enjoy the tank. I think people get it in their head that if you have elevated nutrients that you’ll have algae issues/problems and that simply isn’t the case. You can have zero nutrients, yet have major algae problems. Algae grows where herbivores can’t eat it, it’s really that simple. Algae isn’t a nutrient issue, it’s a herbivore issue. Algae is really good at life and it can use trace elements as a food source, so you can deplete nutrients all you want and you’ll still have algae growth.


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