Need help/ advise

[leslie]

I am at a loss on what is going on with my aquarium. My tank crashed back in July, lost everything except fish. I finally ( 5 months later)got snails, and crabs that are still alive. My problem is I cannot get any corals to live. I did several/ big water changes after the crash and have pulled out all rock and scrubbed it. I do not know what caused the crash, but when my anenome melted, I am assumeing that caued a chain reaction and all my corals died.
I have a 100 gal tank, 30 gal sump, lil beckett skimmer.
lighting = outer orbit, 570 total watts
parameters are as follows.
amonia=0, trates=0, trites=20, po4= .5
cal= 450, ph=8.4, alk=6.0meq
I do not know what else to do or look for.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

[urban79]

it can be chemical thing. For that you just need to run carbon. And when you take your rocks out and srub them your taking the good things off and well the bad stuff too. pLUS anenomes are real picky where they live.

[erikharrison]

^^bump on Jeremy's theory

[MattK]

My question is what kind of corals are you trying to keep?

[moneytank]

amonia=0, trates=0, trites=20, po4= .5


nitrites are at 20 and your nitrates are 0 ??? possibly still to early?

[leslie]

1. What do you mean by chemical.
2. I have tried leather, zenia, frogspawn, zoo's. etc. right now I have three mushrooms that are still alive, but not well, a small gsp that seems to be ok, and 2 feather dusters.
3. did not undertand bump to Jeromy
4. sorry I meant trites=0 and trates=20

[Darth-Tater]

3. did not undertand bump to Jeromy


usually means he agrees and keep the thread going.

DT

but I could be wrong it's about time I was wrong again 2nd time this century :lol

[urban79]

3. did not undertand bump to Jeromy


usually means he agrees and keep the thread going.

DT

but I could be wrong it's about time I was wrong again 2nd time this century :lol


<_<

chemicals= if somethen like sps lps and leather big time will release toxin in the water that will kill other corals. Just like in the ocean fight for more room to go in. and anemones will really do it if there about to die. hope this help out a little.

[leslie]

Thank you for your responses. I am sure the anenome caused the chemical change in the tank, but this happened back in July - 8 months ago). How long does it take to get all the toxins out? I do regular water changes, in fact did massive ones after the crash happened. Shoul I take all my pumps and powerheads out and clean them? could there still possible be someting in them that is causing this? Could something have gotten in the live rock and it is still leaching out?
I have had people out to my house (lfs owner) and have talked to several other lfs owners, and no one can figure out what is going on. Is there something else I should try to test for that I am not catching with my test kits? We once had a beautiful tank full of corals and it is very hard to come home every evening to see this empty tank.
Leslie

[caferacermike]

I was going to ask where your water c omes from that you add to the tank. At first I was concerned that you have been tainted with CU, copper, but it seems that your inverts are still alive. I believe you said you've tried to add more corals and they continue to whither? I'd think whatever organic reaction you might have had would be over by now.

[Richard]

alk=6.0meq, that translates to 21 DKH. Not good. Try bringing it down to 3 meq/l and see if they do better.

Are you using tap water or dosing stuff to jack up your alk that high? Either can cause problems.

[leslie]

I use tap water. I also have a seahorse tank that I transfered my zoo's to when they all closed up in my 100 gal, and now they are open. I do not believe it is my water since the sehorse tank is thriving.
Richard, I do not dose with anything. What do you suggest I use to bring down the alk?
Leslie

[Richard]

Alkalinty being to high is the biggest problem with using tapwater in this area. Use ro/di water and a salt that is lower in alk (IO is perfect) and just do water changes to bring it down. NSW is around 2.5 meq/l but most of us like to keep it a little higher 3 - 3.5 meq/l. If you want to keep using tapwater test it for nitrate, phosphate, and alk. Then if it is not real high in phosphate or nitrate you can use a mixture of tap/ro to keep the alk from going too high. My well water is pretty good except alk is thru the roof so I sometimes use 50% tap & 50% ro/di for water changes. I always use ro/di for topoff though because my tank evaporates alot of water and it will push my alk too high if I use tapwater for that.

[Richard]

You could slowly burn up some of the alk using an acid (like vinegar) but you'd have to be real careful not to do too much and kill your ph. Water changes is easier & safer IMO.

[leslie]

thank you for your help. I will check the ALK level next time I do a water change. Could this be what is causing my corals to struggle and die?
If not what else do I check for or do?
Leslie

[Richard]

Most likely. With alk that high they usually don't just die outright but linger and slowly fade away. Sounds like that is what's happening to you.

Nitrates at 20 are not ideal but most corals will tolerate it if everything else is good.

Start with fixing the alk and go from there. All the tanks that have given me the biggest headaches it is usually just a combination of fairly simple things that makes it seem hard to figure out. So it just comes down to a process of elimination.

[JimD]

Make darn sure youre actualy reading in meq and not Dkh!

[caferacermike]

Jim that's what I figure had happened when I first read the parameters. Would ALK be able to get that high without heavy dosing?

[leslie]

That is what is happening. they slowly die off.
the 6.0 was meq, and I do not dose my tank with anything.
I was using fiji gold when I had corals, but since I have none now I do not use it.
Thanks again for your responses, and I will go to walmart and buy some 5 gal jugs and top off with ro/di to see if that helps the Alk. level.
Leslie

[erikharrison]

RUN CARBONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NN

[leslie]

OOOKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!! :) :) :) :)

[Richard]

Would ALK be able to get that high without heavy dosing?


Leslie's might be different but my well water is around 7 meq/l (not dKH) coming out of the faucet.