Tank down the tubes in a few days. Cyano, dead inverts, coral closed. What did I do?

[Deepsixx]

Don't worry, we've all dealt with red slime before at some point, I have always dealt with it. Watch it, and do what you can to remove it. It is highly possible it will keep coming back. just be diligent about removing as much as you can. Also, be careful as it might grow on coral and or around it and either smother it or at least irritate it. Your parameters could be spot on and still get it. Its locking up something a miss so it might be undetectable. Just as the other members said, do what you can do to narrow it down the best you can. I've actually had red slime burn itself out after several weeks. Good tank hygiene. water changes, keeping the rock and sand clean, don't feed anymore that what the fish will eat in a very short period, good flow that will keep the food particulate and dissolved nutrients in the water column that can be skimmed off my the overflow and pulled out by your filter system (skimmer, carbon, gfo, algae in fuge, etc.)

 

[kecked]

Don’t use chemicals to kill or you risk Dino’s. Don’t starve tank either.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Cyano Update: Day 2

As a process of troubleshooting I pulled and cleaned my sponges. I’m pretty sure that the sponges were full of pure toilet water as they were disgusting and were likely a contributing factor to my issues. I also changed the carbon.

Your sponges are definitely causing a nutrient dump in your tank. You probably have high phosphates from food trapped in the sponges. Mechanical filtration only works if you clean the filters. The filters pull the junk out of the water, but then continue to hold it there and expose the clean water to the decaying junk. I would either remove the sponges all together, or start a regiment of rinsing them out twice a week to get rid of the accumulated debris.

 

[Danh Ngo]

Cyano is not a really big deal, but soft coral will never end up well with Unls, your reading of nitrate, phosphate is not an ideal condition for soft coral. They prefer some nutrient.
Raise your No3, PO4 up a bit, slowly. It will be fine

 

[laverda]

6) Dirtier water is not a healthy tank. You can have 0ppm of nitrates which is best, but you must feed. A high ppm of nitrates to me is 5ppm. 10ppm is danger zone for your fish. Remember it is still a toxic form of nitrogen. Just a less toxic form. With your tank being young. Your anaerobic bacteria is not established yet. So you have nothing but your filtration to save your tank from ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. All toxic forms of nitrogen.

I have never heard this before and do not believe it is true at all. Many people keep fish only system with nitrates to high to read with hobby kits. I personally have several fish I have had for over 20 years and they have never been in a tank any where near 5ppm until this last year. Most of their lives nitrates were in the 60-120 range. Many knowledgeable hobbyists have commented that I have the healthiest tangs they have ever seen.
I have been keeping SPS recently, so making an effort to get my nitrates and phosphates down. In doing so I dropped them to low .10 and my corals clearly were not happy and I lost 2. I cut the refugium &ATS lights from 24/7 to when the tank lights are off. It raised my nutrients back up more then I wanted(to 30ppm) and all my corals recovered and are doing great with good color.

From what I have read some nitrate and phosphate are required for coral growth. There are many other hobbyist that say their corals do much better with some measurable levels of each. The exact numbers is still up for debate. Personally my goal is to get my nitrates stable at around 10ppm and .08ppm Po4. I have increased my light duration and I am currently at 15ppm & .15ppm. Once I reach my goals I will maintain them for a while before deciding if I want to try reducing them to about half that or not. Considering how well everything is doing currently, I doubt I will try to lower them further.

 

[laverda]

Your sponges are definitely causing a nutrient dump in your tank. You probably have high phosphates from food trapped in the sponges. Mechanical filtration only works if you clean the filters. The filters pull the junk out of the water, but then continue to hold it there and expose the clean water to the decaying junk. I would either remove the sponges all together, or start a regiment of rinsing them out twice a week to get rid of the accumulated debris.

I agree 100%. Cleaning them twice a week should drop N&P. Once a week at the maximuin most cases. The same applies to filter socks and canister filters!
Like others have suggested,pick up a Po4 test kit, as you probably have elevated levels.

 

[kecked]

I'd think cleaning the filters would start a new cycle each time. IF you clean them don't do them all at once and use tank water to flush the debris out. That makes sense. I'm thinking of you taking them to the sink and rinsing them out. That would not be ideal. Do you have a filter sock? It should catch most of the stuff. That I do clean weekly for this exact reason.

 

[Surfandturf]

So I did not read all of the comments but I would suggest not dosing anything in your tank. Especially if you do not have the ability to test for it. For one, you dont have enough livestock for it. This means that you are just overdosing. Look up the percentage of saltwater that is made up of strontium and molybdenum. It's super low dude. You have such a low amount of coral that weekly water changes of 10% will do you just fine. Randy has some great info about water chemistry , I highly suggest you read it. I dosed exactly what you did, but had a lot more livestock and saw zero results. I put a question out about dosing that and randy gave me some great food for thought. I stopped dosing it and never looked back. Just my two cents from experience. Good luck !

 

[40B Knasty]

I have never heard this before and do not believe it is true at all. Many people keep fish only system with nitrates to high to read with hobby kits. I personally have several fish I have had for over 20 years and they have never been in a tank any where near 5ppm until this last year. Most of their lives nitrates were in the 60-120 range. Many knowledgeable hobbyists have commented that I have the healthiest tangs they have ever seen.
I have been keeping SPS recently, so making an effort to get my nitrates and phosphates down. In doing so I dropped them to low .10 and my corals clearly were not happy and I lost 2. I cut the refugium &ATS lights from 24/7 to when the tank lights are off. It raised my nutrients back up more then I wanted(to 30ppm) and all my corals recovered and are doing great with good color.

From what I have read some nitrate and phosphate are required for coral growth. There are many other hobbyist that say their corals do much better with some measurable levels of each. The exact numbers is still up for debate. Personally my goal is to get my nitrates stable at around 10ppm and .08ppm Po4. I have increased my light duration and I am currently at 15ppm & .15ppm. Once I reach my goals I will maintain them for a while before deciding if I want to try reducing them to about half that or not. Considering how well everything is doing currently, I doubt I will try to lower them further.

Everyone's tank is different. Especially cause of a person's life style or what they have been lead to believe. As stated,"but you must feed." Well that's what you need to do or you will have bad results. If you want to keep the lowest form of toxin in your tank at a stable level at 10ppm or 20ppm. That's on you. If someone wants to keep it at 0ppm-1pppm. To have a healthier tank for the fish. That's what I promote. We take care of water. The ocean isn't at 10ppm. Corals do just fine in there if not better. Keep the water clean and you can feed what you want.

 

[tablesalt]

Wondiferous news people. The tank is healed! I went out of town and left the wife in charge for a few weeks and I came back to this. No Cyano/Dinos, everybody happy and healthy. The only changes were no dosing of anything, and we added a second feeding to the tank per day (dry pellet in morning, one small cube of frozen in the evening). Unfortunately, my Flasher Wrasses disappeared (since replaced with a six line) but all is well. The other thing that happened is my light in my fuge has been slowly going out, so may have contributed to extra nutrients available in the tank.

It was a miserable experience, but everybody is happy now. Thanks for the advice team!

 

[Rakie]

Those stats are incorrect.

I have a 1k in my 50g cube and can't go past 60% or it throws water out of the tank. I have two in there but only use one at a time actually.

One 1k can handle a 50g 24*24 tank no problem. I agree 10% is low but 100% will be way too much

Gotta disagree personally -- I ran two Gyre 230's at 70%+ on my 45 cube and the flow was a joke. It may be the shape of my rock structure, or the fact that gyres tend to suck in 2' cubes -- but they barely did anything other than waste $500 of my money. And these were the 230's, not the snack size 1k.

I have 2 MP-10s and a PP-15 in a 50. More flow will solve a lot of problems I see on this forum.
The PP-15 is 3900 gal/hr and it doesn't throw water out of my tank.
In any case a 1000 gal per hour pump at 10 % will not handle a 40 gallon tank.

I agree, although I would say mp10's are extremely weak and absurdly overrated. I ran a pair in my 45 cube (even with a single gyre 230) an it wasn't good enough at all. I now run two Tunze 6095's and it's much better. I think the mp10 is too narrow, I don't think there's any situation I'd run an mp10 over an mp40. I wasn't pleased with the flow from an mp10 in my biocube.

For a 50/60 cube, I'd recommend at least two mp40s for wider flow and more available power (Even if you don't use them at 100%, the flow is much wider on the mp40, the mp10 IMHO isn't good enough for a biocube)

 

[rtparty]

Gotta disagree personally -- I ran two Gyre 230's at 70%+ on my 45 cube and the flow was a joke. It may be the shape of my rock structure, or the fact that gyres tend to suck in 2' cubes -- but they barely did anything other than waste $500 of my money. And these were the 230's, not the snack size 1k.

That's fine if you want to disagree. My 50 cube does great with 1 running around 70%. I now have both mine running again and have moved them around to find the best solution for a 2 foot cube. I do agree that the Gyres are kind of tough in a 2ft cube though. It took me some trial and error and removing a lot of sand (there was another reason for this but it helped with flow too.)

I will put the 1Ks on my new 120g and see how they like the 4 foot run. I know they won't be enough alone so I have a couple Tunze to hit dead spots with for now. The plan after that is either a couple MP40s or possibly some of the new Red Sea gyre pumps. We'll see what cost is on everything

 

[Rakie]

That's fine if you want to disagree. My 50 cube does great with 1 running around 70%. I now have both mine running again and have moved them around to find the best solution for a 2 foot cube. I do agree that the Gyres are kind of tough in a 2ft cube though. It took me some trial and error and removing a lot of sand (there was another reason for this but it helped with flow too.)

I will put the 1Ks on my new 120g and see how they like the 4 foot run. I know they won't be enough alone so I have a couple Tunze to hit dead spots with for now. The plan after that is either a couple MP40s or possibly some of the new Red Sea gyre pumps. We'll see what cost is on everything

Gyres tend to need more room for their flow pattern to develop than 2', that's what I think the real issue is with them and a standard cube. I try to stay away from blanket statements in this hobby in general, but after blowing way too much money on way too many pumps that failed, pumps are the only topic I don't mind having a strong opinion on.

Also fwiw, the guy that bought my 230's put them on a 48x24x16 frag tank and he absolutely hated them. if you see the people that love them they tend to run them wall to wall -- Meaning a 24" deep (front to back) tank will have 2 on each side, a 36" will have 2-3 on each side, etc etc. Rarely will one per side do the trick.

 

[rtparty]

Gyres tend to need more room for their flow pattern to develop than 2', that's what I think the real issue is with them and a standard cube. I try to stay away from blanket statements in this hobby in general, but after blowing way too much money on way too many pumps that failed, pumps are the only topic I don't mind having a strong opinion on.

Also fwiw, the guy that bought my 230's put them on a 48x24x16 frag tank and he absolutely hated them. if you see the people that love them they tend to run them wall to wall -- Meaning a 24" deep (front to back) tank will have 2 on each side, a 36" will have 2-3 on each side, etc etc. Rarely will one per side do the trick.

I am going to experiment with putting both on one side of the 120g and pushing all the water one way. Either side by side or one high and one lower pushing water up to meet the other stream if that makes sense. If I had known a 120g was going to basically fall into my lap, I would have gone a different route currently.

The 2 1K Gyre pumps are better than the 2 MP10s I had though as far as water movement. MP10s were way easier to service and clean. Different technologies though so that is expected.

 

[Rakie]

I am going to experiment with putting both on one side of the 120g and pushing all the water one way. Either side by side or one high and one lower pushing water up to meet the other stream if that makes sense. If I had known a 120g was going to basically fall into my lap, I would have gone a different route currently.

The 2 1K Gyre pumps are better than the 2 MP10s I had though as far as water movement. MP10s were way easier to service and clean. Different technologies though so that is expected.

That might work, although you still may be better off adding a couple pumps to the back, or other side. I'll agree, MP10's are the worst pumps I've ever used. I'm picky with flow, and I believe there's no such thing as too much. I'm throwing nearly 6k GPH in my 45 cube (24x24x18) and I don't think adding a third 6095 (2500gph) would hurt.. The list of pumps that failed me in order of how much they let me down is as follows;
- MP10's
- Gyre 230's
- Sicce Xstream 1800gph's
- Sicce Voyager 3's

That's over $1200 in mediocre pumps at retail price.

I also run 99% SPS. Which can be a factor.

 

[SuperTangs]

single pumps are better than the gyre in my opinion.

 

[KristiDave]

1) test to see if it is cyanobacteria or a spirulina bacteria. Take a cup. Put in about 4oz of tank water. 1oz of 3% of Hydrogen Peroxide. Pull the bacteria out and place in cup. Let it sit for 24hrs. If the water turns reddish tint and the bacteria turns green. You have a spirulina bacteria. If it stays the same. You have cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria is not a nuisance algae. It is a bacteria.
2) Keep up with the water changes ever 2-3 days.
3) Invest in BRS ROX.08. It is the best carbon on the market hands down. This will help with cleaning the water in about a day or 2. Where others take a lot longer. This will help with chemical warfare.
4) Is a few questions.
1 - What kind of salt are you using?
2 - If you are not mixing your own salt. Where are you getting it from and what salt do they use?
5) Corals do close up from cyanobacteria. I am currently having that issue.
6) Dirtier water is not a healthy tank. You can have 0ppm of nitrates which is best, but you must feed. A high ppm of nitrates to me is 5ppm. 10ppm is danger zone for your fish. Remember it is still a toxic form of nitrogen. Just a less toxic form. With your tank being young. Your anaerobic bacteria is not established yet. So you have nothing but your filtration to save your tank from ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. All toxic forms of nitrogen.
7) Your Struntium might be above 15ppm to begin with pending on the salt. Randy Holmes Farley tested his and it was above 15ppm because of the use of Instant Ocean salt that has elevated levels already in it.
Read this article. This will help you with any questions of levels, dosing, does, and don'ts. Which should get you back to stable conditions. Best of luck.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

This is a great article thank you for posting it

 

[maroun.c]

I'd start with an ICP test before u Corrwct anything as this might pinpoint what went wrong and u can have a more direct approach with less things to mess with. After ur ICP the usual few water changes, carbon and GFO replacement is well as checking it flow and equipment.
Go back to the basics ur salinity could have shifted with the dosing u did or with a badly calibrated refractometer. Check ur RODI TDS replace pre filters and if needed the membrane or the DI. Then follow what ur ICP indicates and fix things slow without going crazy on following each and every parameter.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

It sounds like just startup problems, its likely not the algae bothering the zoas/other corals, its whatever is causing the algae, you can most likely fix both those problems at once with better maintenance (I'm not saying you're not doing it right, its just everyone has a different tank, maybe yours requires more than you know).