My 29G pre-Reef FOW(a bit of)LR Tank

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

In a bit of an interesting scenario.

 

For the whole life of the tank phosphates have been in the 0.15-0.20 range (generally), while nitrate has generally been either high or low.   I did not measure nitrate for several months because it was always between 1 and 5.  Then, this last summer, it went up to 20 and stayed there until my leak mentioned above, after an unintentional water change it went down persistently to around 5.  I last got that measurement on 1/20  

 

Two days ago (not long after I took a lot of rocks out and scrubbed off GHA that had been accumulating since the tank leak), I looked at the parameters, and found my nitrate went down to almost 1ppm, and PO4 ostensibly went to 0!!!  (Hanna 713)   [also, alk consumption was a bit more than anticipated, but this would be easily fixed by slightly increasing my dosing.  I hope!] The only thing I'd done in the past few weeks is take off the skimmer (tiny glass+airstone skimmer inadequate for the tank) and dose a bit of phyto each day.   I was concerned that something odd happened, so I started feeding the corals again, maybe a bit too much yesterday, but a modest amount today.   

 

Anyway, redid my numbers, and indeed nitrate is ostensibly up (darker than I recall, but in the 1-2.5 range on the salifert), AND PO4 is 0.25.  (thus I think the 0 is a fluke).  One of my acros is also possibly showing burnt tips (sorry thsee photos are the best I can do)

 

 

 

 

This does raise a few issues I'm thinking of:

1.  how to reduce PO4; I may swap out my GFO since it's like a month old now (if PO4 is shown to continually be at the 0.2+ level)

2.   since nitrate consumption is out of whack with PO4 consumption, some people online recommend dosing nitrate, ostensibly to get nitrate+PO4 consumption back on an equal basis.  I am pondering this, but even if the theory is true that does not mean that this will work because again PO4 has always been in the 0.15-20 range no matter what, with nitrate being low.  

 

Hmmmm..................

Edited February 12, 2020 by KingOfAll_Tyrants

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Odd, didn't mean to post those acro pics here.   Oh well.  

 

Anyway, I got PO4 nominally under control with Phosphate rx.   I heard about it and decided to give it a try vice constantly running GFO.   

 

 

 

 

But moving to the bigger picture, I've screwed up.   I did a big cleanout of algae Wednesday (5 days ago)- I let a lot of film algae accumulate for way too long, and I've done similar before 2-3 times before without issue.  I cleared it out, ran an external filter to clear out the resulting detritus until the water was pretty clear.  (and there was lots of gunk in the filters.  :D )

 

This time it led to massive bleaching in about half my corals, for reasons I don't quite understand to this point.  At first I thought they were just unhappy, let it ride out.   I also turned my MP40s way down compared to normal, hypothesizing that too much flow might be aggravating.   

 

But then i saw it was got worse and supposed it was either something released by the cleanout, something I may have inadvertently introduced (something silly like lotion residue I might have used 12 hours before that I didn't sufficiently wash out or something like that) and not only continued with my planned dose of Dr Tim's Waste Away bacteria (get rid of any accumulated detritus or rotting alage caused/stirred up by the cleanout) but also ran a good amount of carbon.

 

Anyway, by last night my clowns were acting a bit funny (hiding in their favorite corner, not eating), a brittle star out half-eaten but still alive, and my royal gramma and lawnmower blenny were not to be seen.  I noted this but was not terribly concerned (save for the brittle star), while of course looking at it now these should have been alarm bells.   (well, tehy were but I had no idea what they were saying)

 

The answer is out this am: the tank is cloudy and the clowns are dead on the MP40s, and a brief moving of the rockwork have shown the RG and LMB nowhere to be seen.   clearly, oxygen levels have gone way down, and I have an ammonia spike exacerbated by I assume the animal deaths yesterday.  

 

All i can do now is a big water change (planning near 100% today) and to let things stabilize.   

 

I may put my remaining corals on buy and sell once things stabilize after a week or two; that will probably going to put me out of the hobby for the foreseeable future.   :(

 

To be continued.......

Edited March 30, 2020 by KingOfAll_Tyrants

[YHSublime]

Bummer man. Sounds like you had a lot of waste somewhere in there (maybe in the filter had gunk in it as well before you ran it) and it got stirred up without the proper amount of bacteria to handle the workload? I don't have a sandbed, but every water change (1-2 a month) I usually drain about 7 gallons onto all the detritus in the sump, and it ends up blasting it all over the tank, but I never slow the flow down, it all settles out eventually, and next water change its in the DT and easier to capture out. The alternative is perhaps there wasn't enough oxygenation? 

 

I wouldn't look to lotions on your hands or anything like that, when you hear hoof beats, think horses, not unicorns. 

[KingOfAll_Tyrants]

Thanks, Isaac.  Yeah, the lotion is an exotic hypothesis, but one that's heard on the net.

 

Anyway, it's gotten worse while I was out at work and getting water.   What's left will be on the for sale forum.  :( :(