Matt LeBaron January 14, 2015 January 14, 2015 So last week I noticed some corals retracting and some abnormal algae growth. I thought it was odd but did a water change figuring that maybe I had just been feeding to heavily recently or something. The problem continued into the weekend so I tested and found high levels of phosphate and nitrates. At this point I tossed in some extra GFO and carbon into my filter sock and replaced the same things in my reactor to get those levels back under control, which after testing on Sunday I did but the corals are still unhappy and algae growth is still occurring so there has to be some active source of nutrients that are in the water column until it passes through my sump and get absorbed. I have a pair of stientz gobies and a pistol shrimp in my tank. Today I noticed one of the gobies hanging out under a rock with my firefish, which is out of the ordinary. He kept that up for all of the evening so now I think the source of the extra nutrients in my tank may be a dead goby and/or pistol shrimp since I haven't seen the second goby or pistol shrimp since this began. That is not terribly out of the ordinary honestly since they hide out under the DSB for long periods of time but I've accounted for all of the rest of my live stock. Not sure what to do now since I can't really dig up my DSB without taking most of the tank apart at this point. I may try digging around where I can tomorrow and see if I get lucky but not optimistic about it.
Coral Hind January 14, 2015 January 14, 2015 How big is the system? Did you test ammonia or nitrites when you first noticed a problem? Did the skimmer act differently? Unless you have a small system one fish and shrimp decaying shouldn't cause an issue and the system should handle it with no problems.
Matt LeBaron January 14, 2015 Author January 14, 2015 90g DT with a 40g sump. Everything but the corals seem fine, my SPS are fairly unhappy right now, softies are just retracted a bit. Algae growth isn't horrible either but there's normally almost none. Real concern is that if this goes on for another week or more I'll likely lose some of my SPS.
zygote2k January 14, 2015 January 14, 2015 tiny fish or goby shouldn't even cause a blip on the water parameters being out of whack. something else is the culprit.
Crob5965 January 14, 2015 January 14, 2015 90g DT with a 40g sump. Everything but the corals seem fine, my SPS are fairly unhappy right now, softies are just retracted a bit. Algae growth isn't horrible either but there's normally almost none. Real concern is that if this goes on for another week or more I'll likely lose some of my SPS. I have to agree with Coral Hind, I dont see how 1 Fish with that much water volume could cause that many problems with easily over 100gal of water volume, I have a 90 Gal with a 29gal sump, I feed my system about 20-25 live ghost/feeder shrimp every month, some live for weeks others die within an hour or so, but I just leave them for my CuC, I never notice a spike in anything, even with dead and or decaying shrimp in my system.
Matt LeBaron January 14, 2015 Author January 14, 2015 (edited) Skimmer has also been going big time since this all started. If the issue isn't one of my gobies and maybe the shrimp decaying I'm not sure what else it could be. One thing to keep in mind is that since they're under the sand no CUC can get to them to assist with the clean up so I basically just likely have a rotting fish in my tank. I've accounted for my 4 pajama cardinals, 3 seahorses, 1 firefish, and the 1 goby, which is all of my vertebrate live stock. Only new piece of equipment is a new heater, but that was put in after this started as part of my yearly heater replacement. I'll test for iron and copper today just to check for the sake of completeness but I'm really at a loss. I'll test my replacement water too just in case something is wrong there. And don't get me wrong, my tank isn't all dying or anything but my softies have retracted and my smaller SPS frags are STNing a bit. Larger SPS are not happy, no polyp extension but are not dying at all as far as I can tell. algae growth is just the brownish gunk algae and it's not bad but normally beyond having to clean my front glass a few times a week I normally have no algae growth and that stuff is all over my rock work now. Edited January 14, 2015 by Matt LeBaron
Coral Hind January 14, 2015 January 14, 2015 Both carbon and GFO because of the fines they have will cause a skimmer to produce more than normal when they are first added. The same fines will also cause softies and anemones to retract. Even when rinsed well there are still fines that come off.
Matt LeBaron January 14, 2015 Author January 14, 2015 They were retracted before I added the extra GFO and they're in a 200 micro felt filter sock so I doubt much is getting through. Will test more tonight and hopefully have some idea of what is wrong but still really in the dark and just guessing.
Matt LeBaron January 15, 2015 Author January 15, 2015 So Ammonia: 0 Nitrate: 0 Nitrite: 38 ppb Magnesium: ~1485 Phosphate: 0.22 ppm Copper: 0 Not sure what the deal is still but no sign of the pistol shrimp or second goby. Algae growth has seemed to halt, after cleaning the front glass two days ago no new growth on it. Protein skimmer is still going nuts and making really dark skimmate. Soft corals like my zoa, clove polys, and pipe organ coral are retracted. Many of my acros are STNing and/or not showing any polyp extension. Might be over the worst of it now, I'm not sure and still don't really know for what happened... Just frustrating really.
Matt LeBaron January 15, 2015 Author January 15, 2015 Nope, used the Hanna Nitrite URL tester, forgot to convert the reading though. Should be 38 x 3.29 so 125 ppb or 0.125 ppm.
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