Is my tank crashing?

[Roo&Lis]

So I broke my inlet pipe on HOB fuge/skimmer last friday and had to take it off line temporarily. The first day everything seemed fine then after that I noticed every closing up and my sps were starting bleach. We'll I did all the testing and besides my alk being a tad low, my ammonia spiked. Would bringing a HOB offline cause such a reaction. Could it be the lack of oxygenation the tank normally gets? I feed my fish every other day so I doubt over feeding is the problem. Seems a little coincidental.

[Bill S]

Might be from a lack of O2. What kit are you using to test ammonia? Some give small false positives. Get some surface movement going and see what happens. You can always do water changes too, but make sure you get plenty of O2 in the new water first.

[Sherita]

If you stirred up some grunge when you took the hob offline, it's possible that you triggered the spike. It could also be related to low 02, maybe. I would get an airstone in there like Bill said. Keep an eye on your ph. I would also get started on water changes and if you can, get some carbon on the tank. Dosing with Prime will at least keep the ammonia from killing livestock until you can get the issue sorted out, so I would do that asap. If you can get your skimmer back online, start skimming wet to pull out as much grot as possible. Sometimes all it takes is one coral crashing and burning to start a chain reaction that runs through the tank, so this might have nothing to do with the hob at all, OR taking the hob offline is what started it. All you can do now is treat for what you can see. Best of luck.


I triggered something similar to this last year when I accidentally stirred up the dsb in my fuge. It took a while to get it back under control, Prime is what saved my tail (and my livestock). That and a big carbon reactor and wet skimming.