[swansondan]

Hey Everyone...some of you may know me and my tank...but just in case...

I have a 90 gallon with a 20 gallon sump and a 18 gallon fuge

The sump has a asm1x protein skimmer and heater and phosphate reactor and a filter sock.

The refuigm has a miracle mud base, then 20 pounds of live sand and then a ton of chaeto and a little red kelp.

The tank itself has 110 pounds of live rock. 60 pounds of live sand. 3 600gph Koralia pumps circulating the water and the main pump is a 900gallon per hour pump.

Stock is
Firefish
African yellow belleyed blue tang
2 Clowns
Foxface
3 bangaii cardinals

Corals are various mushrooms, colt coral, candy cane coral, zoo's, finger leather, xenia, sponge. ALso have 2 clams.

Ok...now to the problem...everything has been going great for a long time...I have not added anything new since the bangaii cardinals which were about 1 and 1/2 months ago.
about a week and a half ago I cleaned the sump out and now it is sparkling clean...I also increased the amount of circulation through the refuigm.

About 5 days ago my colt coral was looking kinda sick...It has always done great, always kept reproducing. It was kinda close to my finger leather so I thought maybe the leather stung it....Last night I got home from being gone for 2 days and my colt corals were all really shriveled up..probally dead? Tested everything and everything is at 0 except the Nitrates were sky high...At least over 50 have not done the test to test over that yet...Also the finger leather is not looking very good either. Everything else in the tank looks good..

What could be the change....mixing up a 25 gallon batch of saltwater to do a water change as we speak...will change out tomorrow. Please help with any ideas

Thanks!!

Dan

[cidermaster]

What do you mean you cleaned the sump out???and is sparkly clean??

[jimw369]

Water changes, yes. A couple in the next few days should buy us enough time to figure things out. Stop feeding. I mean STOP. Couple days without food isnt going to hurt anything. Do you dose any food (planktons)

Skimmer. You have a good skimmer and this is your main tool for nutrient export. How is it skimming? Whats the skimmate look like? How much skimmate do you get in a few days? Do you ever shut your skimmer off?

Anything like sponges in the baffles in your sump, bioballs? Any algaes showing up especially cyano.

All fish accounted for? No known deaths in the tank recently? What do you have for cleaners?

Any dead spots in the tank as far as flow. You can circulate a lot of water and still not have good flow to all areas of your tank.

Return pump working? Just make sure. Mine has quit and if you dont pay close attention you think seems fine.

How is the fuge going? Good amount of Macro in it? Cheato or Caulerpa(might have spelled that wrong) are you running a reverse light cycle over it? How much water are you running thru your fuge? Sometimes less is better.

[swansondan]

Thanks for the reply..

I never shut my skimmer off...I did dose phyto plankton for the first time about a week ago...I used to use marine snow..... Skimmer is filling up the cup every 3 days or so...that is about normal..

I have pretty good flow everywhere...I have been having a issue with some brown algae on the glass a lot lately..really annoying...All fish are accounted for....I have a few turbo snails and about 10 or so nassiairus snails and about 10 hermits...also a sand sifting star...just saw him last night, so he is good. There is a ton of chaeto in the fuge..prettty much filling it up.

Just cleaned the sump out there was a little detrius in there..so everything seems hunky dory...

I am stumpped!!

Thanks
dan

[jimw369]

Im hearing Brown algae/Diatoms. Hmmm (Phosphates/Silicates) How much do you feed your fish and how much marine snow did you normally dose? What brand of salt and do you use tap water? Feed fish any flake food?

Whats the skimmate look like? Can you get a good pic of it? How is your sump set up?

We are going to get this!

[swansondan]

I feed my fish once a day and it is almost always flake food. I just use the recommended dose for the marine snow...Also I only dose plankton about once a week..need to start doing that more...I think anyway...but first I need to get this Nitrate taken care of. I have a RO/DI filter...I use instant ocean for salt the last water change I did I used reef crystals, I am swithching to reef crystals as soon as I run out of instant ocean...tank looks great today...except the colt coral...the leather even looks like it is making a comeback...tested the nitrates and it still looks above 50....23 gallons of water is mixing as we speak.

My skimmate is green...mostly liquid but a green slime along the sides of the cup....I would get a picture but I just cleaned it out yesterday and it is mostly clean...My sump is set up like this....My return has a t in it, most of the water goes to the sump and then some goes into the refuigm..the refuigm then empty's into the sump and it all goes back up into the tank...

[jimw369]

Where is the skimmer located in the sump. Just curious. Skimmer makin a ton of bubbles? With High nitrates I would imagine that thing would be workin overtime. ASM=good skimmer

What for substrate? DSB? If so do you or have you ever done anything to it?

[kenwildner]

Hey Dan,
Let's look at this from a different angle. You mentioned you tested after seeing a problem in the tank. When was the last time before that, that you tested for nitrates? What test kit are you using?
Nitrates will not build up in a tank in a few days. You would first see a spike in ammonia NH3, then Nitrite NO2, and then Nitrate NO3.
Let me know about the test kit and the previous last time tested, then we'll go from there. In the mean time 20% water change a week.

[swansondan]

jim- THe skimmer is right after the filter sock...it is making a ton of bubbles....I have about a 1 and 1/2 inch live sand bed. I have a sand sifting starfish...been in there for a long time. Also a bunch of nassarius snails to mix the sand bed up also got a diamond goby about 2 months ago that mixes up the substrate pretty well ...

I hate to admit but it has been about 3 weeks or so since I last tested for nitrates...then they were about 20 or so.. I just did the high volume nitrate test and it is between 50 and 100....It is a red sea test...I know crappy tester..almost empty, going to swith to salifert like the rest of my testing stuff when it runs out.

[swansondan]

Also is feeding flake a bad idea? That is pretty much all I feed now...I have frozen formula 1 and formula 2 but I have not used it in about 3 months due to me not thinking it was all getting eaten?

Thanks everyone
Dan

[swansondan]

I feed fomula 1 and 2 and prime reef and brine shrimp plus flakes..I rotate through all of them.

[kenwildner]

O.K. couple of things. I think the Red Sea kit uses liquid reagents [shelf life=1 year] and you don't know how long they were on the shelf before you got them. If it uses a dry reagent you are doing better. Check to see if it measures NO3 or more than likely NO3-N. If it is the latter like, SeaTest it is not measuring nitrate. Now everyone is freaking out. It is measuring Nitrate nitrogen which is only a portion of the nitrate ion. To get actual Nitrate multiply your reading by 4.4. Keep in mind, you're shooting for 0.3mg./l. or ppm of total nitrate.

Second, flake food has a shelf life of 2 months. After that mold is forming on the flakes from the humidity in the air. If you are going to feed flake, buy the smallest container and throw it out after 2 months.

But for now stop feeding it until your NO3 or NO3-N is much lower.

Ken

[swansondan]

All right you scared me for a second...it measures no3....Also I freeze my extra flakes to keep them from molding....

[jmscarl]

I would make sure my return flow into the tank is at its peak, the more water turn over the more your skimmer can grab the bad stuff..if you have built in over flows,check the bottom inlets to see if they arent pluged up with sand or algea..if they are they could slow your turnover down causing a backup..

[kenwildner]

Sounds good Dan,
I would just do waterchanges. Under normal conditions I will change 80%-100% of the water each month or 20%-25% a week. Nothing beats regular waterchanges.

[CoralGeeks]

If you're skimmer needs to be changed every 3 days, you have a high bioload, but from your fish list, you dont, or skimming really wet or you must be feeding. My guess is over feeding. Wether it be from the phyto or marine snow (which is more or less pointless considering the corals you have, MOST get all of their food from the light and nutrients in the water ie trace elements) or excess food.

You can do as many water changes as you want, but thats not FIXING the problem. Find the problem, correct it, and your nitrates will go away.

[swansondan]

Coralgeeks....Also add a diamond goby to that bioload and a mandarin I forgot to write in...I might feed just a tad heavy, but fixing that now. SO you think that with the corals I listed I don't need to dose with phyto?

--I will try and clean out the overflow box...never have done that actually.

[swansondan]

Also 3 days might be a little short, I just empty it every time it looks full...might be closer to 5 days?

[CoralGeeks]

Have you ever siphoned your sand? Im willing to bet if you did that, you nitrates will drop considerably.

EDIT: How often do you feed everything?

Look up the requirments for all of your corals. ALWAYS research everything before you buy it. Google is your friend, lol. Dont always take your LFS's word as gospel cause if you kill it, you will be repeat business.

[swansondan]

I do siphon the sand as best I can...it gets stirred up quite a bit by the diamond goby, sand for me is hard to siphon due to the fact that the sand gets sucked up as much as the detrius.

I feed my fish once a day.. And I dose phyto or marine snow about once a week.

Every now and again I feed chopped up shrimp instead of the flakes...

Dan

[Jay03GT]

how often do you change your filter sock?

[swansondan]

I dont know for sure, whenever the water comes out of the top instead of out of the middle. Usually once every two weeks or so?

[CoralGeeks]

I feed every 2-3 days. My nitrates are always zero.

[swansondan]

Ok...I am doing a 22 gallon water change today...and I will change the filter sock again and I will also cut my feeding back to every 2 days also..

[Jay03GT]

try changing the filter sock more frequently. I change mine every 3-4 days. Maybe you are getting a buildup inside the sock causing the nitrates similar to what a dirty bio-ball setup can do.