Uh oh tank paramamters swinging

[JimD]

Cut way back on feeding, push your skimmer wet, do frequent small water changes, prune your fuge if you have one, if not, get one. Whats happening is your adding more than whats being removed, thus the build up of nutrients. That fish can and will survive on much less food. Acros in general, Efflo or whatever dont do well in a nutrient rich environment, you should probably move it to a temporary location until you get your perams in better condition. Hey, just a little friendly advice learned from experience.

[GaryP]

For the rest of you the corals are fine.

With those kind of levels I wouldn't be surprised if you have problems with the corals and alage in the near future. Be ready for it when it happens. Most corals aren't going to like the nitrates that high either. I missed them on the first go around. Nitrites can be toxic as well, especially to things like snails. What is the first thing most people usually do when they have an algae bloom.

[BIGBIRD123]

What I said in the original post WAS a joke until you blew-up, then I ran with it. You need to pay attention to the rantings and ravings of most of us on here. There is an abundance of us on this forum that make comments like that to each other all the time and noone blows-up about it. Ask "Thong Boy".

All that I was saying was that it showed irresponsability by putting a RARE coral of that magnitude in a tank that was not stable and the problems that you were stating were not stable. I will even offer my tank to hold any coral that you feel is in jeopardy.

This was not meant to be a flaming and I apologize if you think that's what it was for. I believe in responsable reefing and the saving of our reefs. I just felt that you should have waited till your tank was stable. I just hope that the Efflo makes it. It sometimes takes weeks to see the distress, then it's too late.

You are more than welcome to come and look at my tank and I will give you all the DO and DON'TS that I have been thru. I hope you have a few hours. I have made ALOT of mistakes and bought stuff I should have waited on but you live and learn. I only wished I would have asked more questions BEFORE spending the $$$. I learned the expensive way.

Again, If you feel that this was a personal attack, then I apologize. I hope you don't loose anything and I hope you get this tank stable before it's too late. If I can be of any help, LMK.

Steve

[caferacermike]

BigBird what I had said was that my tank was stable for a year. I checked the params on Wednesday of last week, bought the coral earlier this week and checked them again last night. I was totally thrown off and that's why I came straight to maast to seek advice to see if I had overlooked something. You seemed to miss that part as well. You also seemed to miss the one time I offered you to fess up to your joke and you neglected. Then it was time for me to respond after you ignored my question of whether you were being serious.

I feel pretty sure that by disturbing the 20 lbs of rock work that I kept in my fuge and sump, giving it to Euclid to help him out, may have knocked my tank a bit. I will plan to cut back from one silverside a day to 1 every other day for the grouper. Honestly though the grouper has reached the size that I had planned to trade him off at. He grew from 1/2" to 6" in one year most of it being in the last 2 months. I had always planned to trade him off when he got this large. I will also be moving my frog fishes from the fuge and into their new 24 nano that was setup just for them. That will help to cut down on some of the food.

I have done 2 15g water changes. Already set my skimmer wetter. Phosphates have come down one ppm and my nitrites have zeroed. I was able to get my alk back up to 7 as well. Let's hope they saty that way and only continue to get better. I'm planning to continue doing 10-15g water changes daily for the next 2 weeks to export nutrients and hopefully stabilize everything again and not just get them right overnight only to have them crash because I overlooked something.

I really think I created a mini cycle by removing my excess rock work. I also removed about a pound of caulerpa while I was in the sump. That week was also the same week I really cranked up my lighting. So hopefully by doing daily water changes I can keep my water quality up while everything catches back up. Honestly until I upped my lighting none of my SPS really ever polyped. Now they are all adding tissue, getting bulkier at the bases, and I cannot get over how fuzzy each one is. I hear you guys saying they do not like the excess nitrates, and I do belive you, but what's got me is everything looks better than ever. The efflo has a greenish hue along with the purple and white polyps. A few other frags that I got that had browned in the previous tank have all done a 180 and colored right up.

Let's hope it was just a mistake on my part to remove the rock, disturb the fuge and add new lighting all in the same week. Silly me I was just trying to make things better and had just made plans to buy an even larger lighting fixture.

[cpreefguy]

Glad to hear everything is doing better

[BIGBIRD123]

[quote=" You also seemed to miss the one time I offered you to fess up to your joke and you neglected. Then it was time for me to respond after you ignored my question of whether you were being serious. [/quote]

I'm sick like that...I believe in letting people steam for a little while...

Again, I offer my apology and help if you need it.

Steve
254-458-4791

[thedude]

Personally, I don't think the removal of 20 lbs of rock would ever cause your levels to rise that much or that quickly. I think that your addition of light has caused all of these "problems". I say problems in quotations because I believe that time, water changes, and keeping your ER rocking out the skimmate will quickly balance your tank.

The thing we DO need to worry about is your calcium and alk levels. I'd cut all supplements and keep up with frequent water changes until they come down to a normal level (speaking about calcium).

[caferacermike]

I've heard about bad alk and CA tests for so long that's why I included my doubts along with my readings. I have a really nice Professional series Doc Wellfish kit that comes in the plastic tackle box. I also bought additional phos and CA tests to add to it. I did not trust the tests after reading what Gary had told other members about CA dropping out around 600ppm, that was months back. So I started thinking about getting another test and heard stories that even Salifert tests were not that accurate. So what to do? Spend big money on Salifert test kits to find out I got a bad one? Buy the super pricey but super nice Seachem kit? I really didn't know what to try after reading so many threads about inaccurate test kits that I decided to keep using mine but only as a reference point. Knowing it was taking 32 drops on average to change the color I was keeping tabs to see if it ever rose or declined. That way I at least knew if something was changing.

John I was having the same feeling that my increased lighting had changed the demands in the tank and may have just been making things a little awry until everything settles back in place. Thanks for at least giving a nod to it as well. I'll just keep up with daily water changes and testing.

[GaryP]

I suggested in an earlier post to borrow another kit to verify the results of your current kit before spending money on another one. Salifert kits are generally considered reliable. I think there was some problems with an alkalinity kit. Personally I like the Seachem calcium kit. Basically the same as Salifert, but you got a lot more kits for the $ and they are easier to find and don't go on back order the way that Salifert does.

[Enigma13]

I know I am supposed to come your way sometime as I have promised over and over, but the two little ones have been keeping a tight rein on me. If you have time to come my way sometime with a water sample we could check you calcium with my test kit. I recently learned the truth about bad test kits when I had a pH test kit go bad. Not so bad as to know the kit was bad, but enough to start wondering. (It always read 7.9 no matter how recently I had added some buffer). Got a new kit and it read 8.3. I am glad that I use the SeaChem reef buffer that will not let me shoot above 8.3 or I probably would have been through the roof. Glad to hear that despite the elevated levels things have not started dying off. Hopefully, everything will come back in line without casualties. Let me know if I can help.