Update: hitting all time lows

[Chris4Reef]

Mentally i am hitting all time lows. IT isnt that bad but to me it is.

Unfort my biocube 14 crashed since i brought it home from college. Completely my fault and i lost alot of live stock. My personal life took a hit with the move. My fish career sucks.

I take my aquariums very seriously and it almost seems as if he was right. That my tank would crash and that i am a joke, It might be bad timing but seriously hitting lows at this point of my career.

My tank crashed. Lost alot of livestock and my tank is pretty messed up. I dont have any supplies on hand because i still waiting for everything to be moved. Which is delayed even more.

What do you do when your tank crashes. What direction do you possibly go. Man this sucks.

[bikeguy33]

Chris....that sucks, but i guarentee you arent the first one to crash a tank. it sux you lost the livestock, but learn from it and carry on. my thoughts are with ya and good luck on the restart...

[bikeguy33]

btw.....was there live rock and corrals as well as fish in that one

[kagome]

Man, that does totally suck. It seems like with bad luck when it rains it pours at times. I'm really sorry to hear about losing the fish and other stock, that is never easy. On the bright side, the day that it doesn't bother you that you have lost fish is the day you need to give up the hobby/career altogether. So the very fact that it's stinging you means that you have the proper intentions. I think almost everyone here has had a major catastrophe with a tank at one point or another. Like Bill said, move on and do your best to learn from what happened.

[Carl]

Sorry to read this BC.

As others have alreay noted, crashes happen to us all at some time or another (in my case more than once, or i have simply done stupid things like bleaching a decoration thinking I removed all fish only to find out later I killed a fish).



Good luck;
Carl

[goldenpuon]

Don't feel bad about the tank, it has happened to all of use before. For me for example, several years ago when goldfish suddenly started dying for no known reason and probably at least once since then. Don't take it too hard, I'm sure things will look up.

[Chris4Reef]

Thanks for all of the kind words. Basically i took some time off and the tank is starting to come around. I believe the error has to be with the water. So i will check it and adjust accordingly.

Actually this comedian actual wrote this song/play and it cheered me up.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWpdcR63ms&feature=channel_page

For the hundreds one helps, it is those 1 or 2 that make you question why you do it. i guess.

Question for people, in a marine tank, what causes increased brown algae? high phosphates? Also my LPS corals are still bleaching alittle, but my soft corals are doing great and growing? what causes this.

[Carl]

May 19, 2009 12:30:57 GMT -5 Chris4Reef said:

Thanks for all of the kind words. Basically i took some time off and the tank is starting to come around. I believe the error has to be with the water. So i will check it and adjust accordingly.

Actually this comedian actual wrote this song/play and it cheered me up.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpWpdcR63ms&feature=channel_page

For the hundreds one helps, it is those 1 or 2 that make you question why you do it. i guess.

Question for people, in a marine tank, what causes increased brown algae? high phosphates? Also my LPS corals are still bleaching alittle, but my soft corals are doing great and growing? what causes this.

The video was great!

As to your algae problems, generally speaking brown diatom algae in marine tanks points to too much silicates and possibly incorrect lighting.
See: Aquarium Answers; Algae

The bleaching of LPS corals may indicate incorrect lighting as well. This can also be caused by poor placement in the aquarium, too high of temperatures (I would not let temps exceed 82 F), too much CO2 as compared to O2 (CO2 should be under 20 ppm IMO).

Carl

[Chris4Reef]

i just moved to a new house and the water here isnt the best from what i heard. We are using water softener salt that is the common thing to do here. IDK what it does, but i feel it is changing the water chemistry of the tap water.

The placement and lighting would check out. They are in the same spot as they were in tampa and they were excelling over there.

The aquarium lighting i actually upgraded from 48 watt power compacts to a 80 watt power compacts. So technically the lighting is slighting better than before. so im alittle stumped.

But let me know carl.

[Carl]

I do not recommend using water that has been softened using water softener salt for either marine of freshwater tanks.

If at all possible use RO or DI to mix your marine salt with and for topping off for evaporation.

It is possible that this softer water is allowing an excess of sodium and silicates which may be allowing for the growth of your brown diatom algae. My understanding is that during the softening process important cations are removed, although silicates generally require special resins to remove and therefore remain at a higher concentration. Either way this is also not healthy for life in your aquarium and is why I do not recommend the use of such water for even Discus and other Amazon River fish, yet alone marine tanks.

As to lighting, what is the kelvin output of these lights?

Carl

[Chris4Reef]

Idk why we use this, but it is suppose to make the water safer to drink. I agree that this is def not good. Well it is proven with my results. It doesnt seem to be affecting any fish but the coral and the zooanthellae are def not happy.

I think i will end up switching to RO/DI water that my LPS sells. I promised myself i wouldnt but at this point i dont have any choice.

The bulb is 10K and 6500K, the actinic are 430 and 460

[techreef]

I would do a water change as large as 90% ASAP. Use RODI water let the water mix for 24 hours. Make sure to match PH salinity and Temp exactly when doing a water change this large.



Always check the results from the advice being offered.

[Chris4Reef]

I am leaving out of town for the next week to week and a half back to NY to get my fish tanks, fish and supplies. I can not do anything until i get my supplies. I have been in contact with my Local reefers and they are willing to lend a helping hand so i will take advantage of their resoruces and we will keep moving foward in both at home and the office 210.

[techreef]

Fish keeping actually is a science. Yes there are different ways, but using tap water is almost never a good idea. There are very few places where tap water is clean enough to use for a reef. You unfortunately found one of them.

[Carl]

I would have to agree that fish keeping is a science. This includes new technologies, new scientific findings, etc.

I do not see anything wrong as stating one's position as well, as I know from experience how much others will disregard advice, even advice backed by experience or sound research.

I will admit that I have kept many different tank systems (FW, Marine), many of these are not always "traditional set ups", and know that their is certainly more than one way to keep a healthy aquarium. That said, from a scientific perspective, there are certainly parameters that need to be met, as well there are also filter systems/methods that are generally not a good way to way to go for long term success.


I certainly hope things turn around with your aquarium BC, as well hopefully we can all learn more from others here.

Carl

[Chris4Reef]

I checked with my Local reefers in Windermere and they have said that the water is poor here. We use water softener salt which apparently changes the water chemistry. I am buying two RO/DI units for the house, apparently the kents are the best money can buy. Not sure about that one though. I certainly dont believe that RODI is the only way to go, which is why im not going to change my stance on my web as i have ran sucessful tanks with tap water back in NY. However in my house now i believe that this is the right option to make my water more pure.

[goldenpuon]

A question popped up in my head when I was reading Techreef's most when they said, "There are very few places where tap water is clean enough to use for a reef." When you say, there aren't many places tapwater is clean enough for a reed, does that mean it isn't clean enough for freshwater fish like guppies, goldfish, and bettas?

I've strictly use tapwater for 5 years fro my freshwater fish (guppies, goldfish, bettas) and I've never had a problem as far as I know. But with their best interest in mind, I am would like to know if there is any issues with using regular tapwater for these less sensitive fish. I use dechlorinator of course (sometime Prime) with every water change.

[techreef]

There typically is not an issue with using tap water for most fresh water, but it really depends on your water source quality. If you have had years of success then it is not an issue. Most of the fresh water fish available are tank raised, in most cases in tap water.
Reef fish are not as forgiving for a few reasons. One there are not many tank bred salt water fish. secondly the water they are native to is pretty stable without increases in heavy metals or pollutants. Things like phosphates and nitrates are high enough in most tap water sources to kill most marine fish, while fresh water fish have much much higher tolerances for these pollutants. Even if not tank bred, fresh water fish would live in water with higher levels of these things than marine fish.

[Carl]

I would add to tech reefs response in that part of the problem as I understand that BC had was the use of tap water that was produced via a sodium chloride water softener system, which should not be used for freshwater either as important miner cations are removed and the water chemistry is way out of balance (even tap water is generally vastly more balanced than softened water).

Another point as to Marine, is even with reasonable good tap water, the problem as I have observed/tested is that most aquarists can only change X amount of water per month, and if the tap water starts out at 5 ppm nitrates for instance and you are using this for topping off for evaporation and to mix your salt; each water change and top off can allow for increased nitrates. With freshwater this is rarely a problem as most freshwater fish can tolerate much higher nitrates; as well most water changes are much larger.

For example if the tap water was 10 ppm nitrates and the marine tank water was 10 ppm, the water change would make little difference.
However if this were a freshwater tank and the nitrates were 40 ppm before water change, and typical of most freshwater changes, the water changes are larger, you could reduce nitrates considerably.


Carl

[goldenpuon]

Thanks for clarifying Techreef and Carl. I'm glad my everything is ok as far as tapwater is concerned.
I raise guppy fry and they are much more fragile a babies than as adults. Would be able to tolerate the tapwater as well? As far as nitrates go in my tapwater, I'm pretty sure the nitrates levels in my tapwater are 5ppm or less. I have not tested it directly in a while but if I have a tank with say 20ppm nitrates, if I do say a big 60% water change, the nitrates would drop under 10ppm, maybe 7 or 8ppm.

Sorry for the follow-up question on this and if I am getting this thread off topic. If I am disrupting this thread too much with the change in topic, feel free to ask me to make a new thread about this as I will if needed.

Renee