Minor Crisis

[OldReefer]

I had a really nice 4" RBTA -- that I thought had settled in. Today I found a 1" piece of it stuck in one of my MP40Ws. The tank was noticably cloudy and ORP was down about 50 points. Livestock didn't look happy. I have dealt with these sort of things before but it has been a while so please remind me if I forgot anything.

 

I did a 20% water change and started making more water.

 

I put about a gallon (really) of carbon in a big media bag, and threw it in my sump. I keep a lot of carbon around for special occasions.

 

I gave a heavy dose of MB7 to help the tank metabolize the waste.

 

I set the skimmer to skim wet and fired the ozone generator up to max.

 

Let me know if I missed any tricks.

 

Thanks,

 

Bill

[OldReefer]

I see I wasn't clear in the earlier post. The 1" piece was all that was left of it. The rest was chewed up.

[Der ABT]

something i wish i had done when i had my battery incident was take out my sps and put them into some freshly made saltwater in a 5 gal bucket or whatever you have. it woulda taken forever but i think alot of things woulda been alive that are now just a dead reminder.

 

Good luck, i hope everything is ok

[Coral Hind]

Watch the pH, adding a lot of carbon can lower your pH.

 

Set the skimmer to skim extra wet.

[Coral Hind]

I have about 15g of saltwater that was mixed three days ago. I also have 15g of fresh RO if you need it. Let me know.

[OldReefer]

Thanks guys. I have a lot more SPS than I can fit in my buckets and I glued them down really nice, so I guess I will have to ride it out.

 

So far the pH is hanging around 8.12 which is only 0.04 below normal. I'll keep a close eye on it and pull the carbon out if I have to. The ORP is climbing back nicely. I have probably dodged the bullet. Glad I wasn't on the other side of world like I usually am when things go wrong.

[dmatt56]

Too bad to hear about your RBTA. If it makes you feel any better, my RBTA climbed into my overflow while I was at work today. It's foot is now attached to the bottom glass of my return. I tried to scoop it up, but he was attached. Let's see how long it takes to climb back up the sides.

 

Matt

[OldReefer]

They do move around a lot. Good luck digging it out of the overflow!

 

I think I may take a Nem-break for a while and then go with a LTA. At least they stay put in the sand pretty well.

 

My tank is rapidly returning to normal It figures I would have a crisis. I just broke down my Q-tank after running it empty for 3 months. Maybe I'll keep it running as a lifeboat.

[DaveS]

I moved a bunch of RBTAs once to a new tank. I came back the next morning to RBTA Puree. Lost about 7 of them!

[Chris-]

Man, sorry to hear about that. Glad it looks like you dodged the bullet.

[Origami]

Sounds like things have stabilized well and quickly. In the future, if you add something to rapidly boost the bacteria population to increase waste uptake, I'd keep an aerator (pump an airstone) handy as a protective measure against oxygen depletion.

[monkeydad]

Why 'wet' skimming?

 

I thought the most efficient way to run a protein skimmer is to run it so that it makes lots of bubbles with as little water as possible.

 

THanks!

[OldReefer]

You are right Tom. I will add the air pump to my bag of tricks. I could get in trouble with a bacteria bloom and low oxygen.

 

Regarding "Skimming wet". I took my water level up in my skimmer so I got a lot of light-colored watery skimmate instead of the usual black stuff. That wastes some water and requires lots of attention, but it removes a bit more pollution from the tank than skimming dry.

[Coral Hind]

Wet skimming will help to remove larger particles then when dry skimming.