Added dry live rock.....WHAT HAPPENED??

DJ_in_WV · Nov 3, 2011

low O2 will definitely cause a ph drop that why ph drops at night when the lights are off and is combated with a reverse cycle fug. I agree cloudiness was probably a bacteria bloom from the new rock and your possible paly/zoa getting covered. Small tanks are so unforgiving on parameters you probably could have got by with what you did on a bigger system. If you are having ph problems after you get this sorted out the best this to do is build a small CO2 scrubber for the air intake on your skimmer the mod is usually good for between a raise of .1 to .3 in ph for now best thing is surface agitation. +1 leave the skeletons for awhile you might get lucky

cdness · Nov 3, 2011

I have added dry rock to my 75 with no issues at all. No die off, algae growth, ammonia, nothing... This is right out of the bag from BRS. I didn't even rinse some of it. The difference is I only added a piece or two equalling maybe 5% of the total weight of the wet rock in my system per week. This allowed it to quickly cycle in the tank with no noticeable issues. It looks like you added lots of dry rock for a small tank all at once, but I may be mistaken as I can just see the pictures. This can and typically will cause a cycle as there are organics in the dry rock, even if they are at low quantities typically.

As a precaution before adding dry rock, give it a vinegar bath, then bleack, then dechlorinator. The vinegar is a low grade acid which will bubble away some of the organics. The bleach will turn it nice and white and neutralize any vinegar left over. The dechlorinator soak will remove the bleach. Let it dry in the sun for a few days and thouroughly dry. This works really well for rock that has been reoved and dried from a previous tank. I don't do this for BRS rock, but you can as a precaution.

dbartkow · Nov 3, 2011

What type of BRS rock did you add? They have many different types of dry rock (Reef-Saver, Pukani, Fiji, etc). The Pukani and Fiji were recently live and all the organic matter is just dead on it. As a result, there is a lot of ammonia produced when introduced. The reef-saver rock is mined and has been dead for a long time. So there shouldn't be much dead organic matter.

CSJIII · Nov 3, 2011

cdness said:
I have added dry rock to my 75 with no issues at all. No die off, algae growth, ammonia, nothing... This is right out of the bag from BRS. I didn't even rinse some of it. The difference is I only added a piece or two equalling maybe 5% of the total weight of the wet rock in my system per week. This allowed it to quickly cycle in the tank with no noticeable issues. It looks like you added lots of dry rock for a small tank all at once, but I may be mistaken as I can just see the pictures. This can and typically will cause a cycle as there are organics in the dry rock, even if they are at low quantities typically.

It is a 28 gal system, but I only added 3 lbs of rock. I know that it would equate to more if it was wet live rock, but it was 3 pieces, at a pound each.

CSJIII · Nov 3, 2011

What can I do to tonight as far as my o2 falling with lights off? Can I keep the light running to keep my ph and o2 up? Any ideas?

subielover · Nov 3, 2011

I wouldn't leave the lights on 24 hours as that will just cause more stress. How about an air stone or two?

CSJIII · Nov 3, 2011

I can do that. I'm currently running carbon and purigen. Anything else I could put in to filter? The dry rock is out

Reef Keeper 18 · Nov 3, 2011

Sorry to momentarily jack your thread but for someone like me i shouldnt do this method i should soak in saltwater for a month and then slowly introduce to tank?

natesreef · Nov 3, 2011

sorry for your loss, i have no experience with anything like this but my instinct would be to run carbon

CSJIII · Nov 3, 2011

natesreef said:
sorry for your loss, i have no experience with anything like this but my instinct would be to run carbon

That was my thinking to. I did put a fresh bag of carbon and hope that the impurities and or toxins get out.

CJO · Nov 4, 2011

CSJIII said:
What can I do to tonight as far as my o2 falling with lights off? Can I keep the light running to keep my ph and o2 up? Any ideas?

I wouldn't worry about the pH falling to 8.0 (or even a little lower) at night. Your skimmer should keep plenty of oxygen in the water. Just keep on with the water changes.

CJ

KrautBurner · Nov 4, 2011

****,

that is scary

I've been thinking about adding some dry base rock to my system
may have to load it up into one of my spare 29G tanks with a powerhead and a heater,
use the old water from water changes in my display tank for the new rock.

el_oscuro · Apr 19, 2015

I had a similar situation, except it was a new tank with some LR from a previous tank and live sand. I installed about 15 lbs of dry rock from BRS and almost immediately the water turned brown. that was several weeks ago. I performed several partial water changes and always the water turned brown again. No ammonia, nitrates, or phospates. Other parameters I couldn't easily test for so I sent my water Aqua Medic Water Testing for a more complete test. They are expensive at $40 a test, but if you have a water problem you don't understand it can be worth every penny. My test results:

04-15-2015	Ammonia (NH3-4)	Good	0	0.000 - 0.050 mg/L
04-15-2015	Nitrite (NO2)	Good	0.005	0.000 - 0.100 mg/L
04-15-2015	Phosphate (PO4)	Good	0.02	0.000 - 0.250 mg/L
04-15-2015	Nitrate (NO3)	Good	1	0.000 - 25.000 mg/L
04-15-2015	Silica (Sio2-3)	High	1.4	0.000 - 0.500 mg/L
04-15-2015	Potassium (K)	Low	202	350.000 - 450.000 mg/L
04-15-2015	Ionic Calcium (Ca)	Good	150	100.000 - 300.000 mg/L
04-15-2015	Boron (B)	NA	NA	3.000 - 6.000 mg/L
04-15-2015	Molybdenum (Mo)	High	0.8	0.000 - 0.300 mg/L
04-15-2015	Strontium (Sr)	Good	7.89	5.000 - 12.000 mg/L
04-15-2015	Magnesium (Mg)	Good	1200	1100.000 - 1400.000 mg/L
04-15-2015	Iodine (I)	High	0.18	0.030 - 0.090 mg/L
04-15-2015	Copper (Cu)	Good	0.09	0.000 - 0.100 mg/L
04-15-2015	Alkalinity (meq/L)	Low	2.2	2.500 - 5.000 meq/L
04-15-2015	Total Calcium (Ca)	Good	350	350.000 - 450.000 mg/L
04-15-2015	Iron (Fe)	NA	NA	0.000 - 0.010 mg/L

So the problem is obvious, the silicates are high, which confirms what I read about brown cloudy water in other forums. Since I didn't have a silicates test, I don't know where it is coming from. It could be my RO/DI water, the dry rock. So I ordered one from Salifert and tested my RO/DI water, which was clean. At this point, I think it is the dry rock, so I'll do some more water changes. I now have a silicates test so I should be able to monitor the effectiveness of water changes.

WetWorks · Apr 19, 2015

my apologies for the crash in your tank but i wanted to tell you to scrap the API test kits and invest in a high quality kit such as salifert or red sea. i my self use a combination of hanna meters and red sea kits and have found them to be very accurate and consistent. any problem with aquariums reverts back to the nitrogen cycle as we all know so if don't use quality test kits we are just going to prolong the issues.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Apr 19, 2015

el_oscuro said:
I had a similar situation, except it was a new tank with some LR from a previous tank and live sand. I installed about 15 lbs of dry rock from BRS and almost immediately the water turned brown. that was several weeks ago. I performed several partial water changes and always the water turned brown again. No ammonia, nitrates, or phospates. Other parameters I couldn't easily test for so I sent my water Aqua Medic Water Testing for a more complete test. They are expensive at $40 a test, but if you have a water problem you don't understand it can be worth every penny. My test results:

04-15-2015 Ammonia (NH3-4) Good 0 0.000 - 0.050 mg/L
04-15-2015 Nitrite (NO2) Good 0.005 0.000 - 0.100 mg/L
04-15-2015 Phosphate (PO4) Good 0.02 0.000 - 0.250 mg/L
04-15-2015 Nitrate (NO3) Good 1 0.000 - 25.000 mg/L
04-15-2015 Silica (Sio2-3) High 1.4 0.000 - 0.500 mg/L
04-15-2015 Potassium (K) Low 202 350.000 - 450.000 mg/L
04-15-2015 Ionic Calcium (Ca) Good 150 100.000 - 300.000 mg/L
04-15-2015 Boron (B) NA NA 3.000 - 6.000 mg/L
04-15-2015 Molybdenum (Mo) High 0.8 0.000 - 0.300 mg/L
04-15-2015 Strontium (Sr) Good 7.89 5.000 - 12.000 mg/L
04-15-2015 Magnesium (Mg) Good 1200 1100.000 - 1400.000 mg/L
04-15-2015 Iodine (I) High 0.18 0.030 - 0.090 mg/L
04-15-2015 Copper (Cu) Good 0.09 0.000 - 0.100 mg/L
04-15-2015 Alkalinity (meq/L) Low 2.2 2.500 - 5.000 meq/L
04-15-2015 Total Calcium (Ca) Good 350 350.000 - 450.000 mg/L
04-15-2015 Iron (Fe) NA NA 0.000 - 0.010 mg/L

So the problem is obvious, the silicates are high, which confirms what I read about brown cloudy water in other forums. Since I didn't have a silicates test, I don't know where it is coming from. It could be my RO/DI water, the dry rock. So I ordered one from Salifert and tested my RO/DI water, which was clean. At this point, I think it is the dry rock, so I'll do some more water changes. I now have a silicates test so I should be able to monitor the effectiveness of water changes.

FWIW, I don't consider 0.09 ppm copper to be good. That seems way too high to me.

I also dose silicate, but I agree that brown growth might be diatoms.

deerhunter06 · Apr 19, 2015

was is tonga rock?

nevermind looks like pukani.....I bought dry tonga shelf and branch from BRS for my new set up dropped it in and with in a day ammonia spiked and didnt add any other source of ammonia. This is all i used to cycle the tank. I guess no matter how long its out of water once it gets wet all the stuff that use to be alive still puts out a lot of ammonia. This is what happen to you IMO.

Z06-Hec · Apr 19, 2015

I added 100 lbs of dry base rock, before adding it i sprayed all the dust off, as much as i could, then had it running in RO water for a week with a power head.
After adding the rock nitrates sky rocketed to 100 and phosphates to about 25 or so.
I did 3 big water changes of 35 gals 2 days apart and they dropped significantly.
No ill effects in my tank.
150 gal tank