In the middle of a meltdown - What else should i do?

[brandon429]

this hobby needs formal reef tank CPR steps published, for just this reason- because we've missed step #1

the light lowering step, which prevents your corals that might make it from sunburning:

Reef Tank CPR - power outage biology, crash arrest, and recovery

Team Don‘t add bottled bacteria to the display during crash arrest as the cycle bacteria aren’t killed in still water. There are times where bottled bacteria can lower ammonia in fish holding containers especially if travel or transport is occurring, but by rinsing these displays out vs dosing...

www.reef2reef.com

every minute they run under full production lighting is a little more bleaching for the stressed ones. lowering light power cannot hurt any reef tank even if it's not in distress, so that's why its the #1 go-to action even before testing and water changes.

 

[JohnCol]

Actually same here. I recently added a couple of uncured lace rock. It inevitably caused a red slime mini outbreak for a few days. The first thing I did was lower the light level. Before doing water changes, cleaning slime off, testing water anything. First thing I did was turned on acclimating mode and set to 50% power.

 

[A;exr54]

this hobby needs formal reef tank CPR steps published, for just this reason- because we've missed step #1

the light lowering step, which prevents your corals that might make it from sunburning:

Reef Tank CPR - power outage biology, crash arrest, and recovery

Team Don‘t add bottled bacteria to the display during crash arrest as the cycle bacteria aren’t killed in still water. There are times where bottled bacteria can lower ammonia in fish holding containers especially if travel or transport is occurring, but by rinsing these displays out vs dosing...

www.reef2reef.com

every minute they run under full production lighting is a little more bleaching for the stressed ones. lowering light power cannot hurt any reef tank even if it's not in distress, so that's why its the #1 go-to action even before testing and water changes.

Very good point.
I did do this as a natural reaction.

I decided im also going to take out a good amount of the sand bed and replace it with new Caribsea special grade aragonite, during the next large water change. I would be gone with the sand bed completely if i didnt have a blue spotted jawfish that needs it.
The sandbed in there is 10 years old, the jawfish is a bit over 3 years in the tank now.
This meltdown did not affect any of the fish at all. YET

 

[JohnCol]

Don't know if you have a fuge and it's large enough. Display refugium for the jawfish.

 

[Solo McReefer]

That sandbed looks like crushed coral, if it's the one in your tank thread

And is 10 years

If so, that a serious contender as the culprit

You must be very attached to the jawfish

 

[brandon429]

You'll opaque out your display if u add that sand unrinsed, so be sure and pre rinse it to cloudless status

 

[A;exr54]

That sandbed looks like crushed coral, if it's the one in your tank thread

And is 10 years

If so, that a serious contender as the culprit

You must be very attached to the jawfish

Its not crushed coral. It's the same aragonite sand i would be replacing it with, but with over 10 years of buildup.
The BSJ is the most interesting fish in the tank, there is no question about that. And is my fav fish.
I would not get rid of the fish just to not have the sandbed.

I started getting red slime algae now. I suppose its due to some die off of snails.
phosphate is at .07, nitrate is at 15.
Alk is still way too high at around 16.

But even with the Alk so high, the surviving RBT's have started to look better. They are showing some bubbles now and are much more vibrant looking, then they were before the large water change.

 

[ReeferSamster]

Few anemones left do seem to look a bit better.
But i need to get it down more. So plan on doing another large water change like this in a few days.

Sorry to hear this. I remember neglecting my tank a few years ago for a few months and things went downhill real fast.

I would be on the side of large water changes as fast as possible to get all the toxins out from the die offs.
Yea, I know the other camp says to avoid large changes in chemistry or water, but in this case, you need to go back to baseline as fast as possible.

Yea, larger water changes. I would just make sure salinity, pH, alk and temp are the same when you do so.

Also, I dont believe in the theory of live sand suddenly becoming a tank crasher. I've had some of my sand for 20 years. As I upgraded tanks, I have added about 150 lbs of sand through the years. (I'm sure they slowly dissolve too.) And occasionally have stirred it up. Have gone through periods of neglect and I'm sure the sand had biochemicals loaded in it. But if you have had your sand for 10 years, I don't think it can crash a tank in 1 day.

 

[brandon429]

Sand Bed

I have a stable, successful (by my standards) tank for many years. I has a dsb which may or may not be relevant to that. Seems like all I read about DSB is anecdotal. So, I will add to it. I had to excavate a small section of my sand bed for a plumbing issue. With in 12 hours, both my tangs...

www.reef2reef.com

Cloudy water, Dead Fish

I Did a water change as well as cleaned the sand. i took the rock out and scrubbed the rock with a toothbrush to get all the hair algae off. Put everything back and did a water change. A few days later water is still cloudy and all fish are dead but one. Had 2 clown fish, 2 blue chromis and a bi...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

It's because other people's sand presents with variables to yours.

Rip cleaning the sand in all crashed tanks is move #2 since sandbeds are often problematic during tank crashes or direct causes of them

The reason we rip clean any sandbed is because it's waste isn't beneficial to retain for any tank, it's bioload tolerated within the system but to be free of that waste and bacterial loading/ waste loading is refreshing to all reef tanks

The clean condition sandbed plus lighting fixed allows us to step up the feed and run clean protein through a clean hungry system

We clean only to add protein, like a workout cycle. There isn't benefit in leaving the sandbed unripped for any reef tank, they all enjoy clean sand intervals if done right/ what we do in that thread.

 

[ReeferSamster]

It's because other people's sand presents with variables to yours.

Rip cleaning the sand in all crashed tanks is move #2 since sandbeds are often problematic during tank crashes or direct causes of them

The reason we rip clean any sandbed is because it's waste isn't beneficial to retain for any tank, it's bioload tolerated within the system but to be free of that waste and bacterial loading/ waste loading is refreshing to all reef tanks

The clean condition sandbed plus lighting fixed allows us to step up the feed and run clean protein through a clean hungry system

We clean only to add protein, like a workout cycle. There isn't benefit in leaving the sandbed unripped for any reef tank, they all enjoy clean sand intervals if done right/ what we do in that thread.

Just IMHO but completely ripping up a 10 year old sandbed in the middle of a crash and your just adding a whole bunch of sedentary biochemical stuff into the water column. I'd deal with the sandbed after everything is stable.

Unless a fish died and the body is buried in the sandbed itself, rapidly decaying or something equally disastrous happened in the sand bed, I wouldn't disturb it. It's been sedentary for years, its been sedentary during the crash, then its best left sedentary (and all the crap in it) until you do major water changes and restore any non biochemical imbalances. My main priority would be to remove any biochemical, toxins, metabolic byproducts in the water column from dying corals as fast as possible. Water changes! All the crap affecting and killing coral are predominantly in the water column, then that's the first thing to rectify. Water changes priority #1 in a tank crash. Thats all IMHO, IMHE

 

[brandon429]

I know it would seem that way



Try and find any other thread on crash arrest options or an article let's see the actual jobs worked or if the example is solely in other people's tanks. It's really hard to design methods that work across all reefs, sometimes core causative details omitted from the description of the crash

Ironically, bed ripping is what streamlines all reef tanks for moves, upgrades, lifespan increase etc



Here is sixty pages doing that which seems doubtful:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

Some of those are $20K sps reefs with very aged beds.

That's an undeniable outcome quality attained by ripping any sandbed on the site into compliance


I wouldn't rip clean a bed that isn't in distress though, so it's OK to leave it.

Curious what it looks like do u have a lot of waste in the bed, got pic update curious to see

 

[ReeferSamster]

Some of the sand is 20 years. Most of it is 10 because on one tank upgrade i spilled alot by accident.
The tank has gone through 4 upgrades. So it's about once every 5 years it gets a big overhaul but most of it is still the same sand. Yes, I know could have replaced all of it, but idk I just keep it when I change tanks and the water is cloudy for a week after a tank upgrade. lol

This is the sandbed after about 2-1.5 month of no water changes (usually i do 3-4 times a month). I've been neglecting the tank recently, as you can see here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/a...omplacency-neglect-the-tank-syndrome.1067759/

You can see a dead baby clam shell (been there for years) next to the maxima clam, and brown fuzzy bacteria growth where i let a goniopora get sun burned to death, but then again I also have gonios years old, that are tennis ball sized, which tells you I literally don't disturb the sandbed or most of my tank for that matter even if something dies out of neglect or accident. I just let things be, most of the time. Me and my tank are too old for any shenanigans. lol.

The sand bed is dirty, that's for sure, but I try to maintain as much old life as possible. My red mandarin goby and red scooter probably benefit, as I have not fed them in years. I don't get any type of algae on it, just occasional brown junk and detritus whenever i don't vacuum the surface during water changes. idk, I've had this little world so long, i no longer care about razored neat coralline algae edges at the corners or white sand anymore.

The sand bed is gross if i majorly stir it up. But I've left it alone and everything is happily growing. I have never had a "sand bed" crash or directly cause issues in any of my tanks, even during times of neglect during my 20ish year reefing life. Even when I accidentally stir up the bed a bit too much. Most of the discoloration is from shadows or angle of the photo btw: (but my tank is dirty as heck. I recently been going through the reefbumming tank neglect syndrome. heh.

 

[A;exr54]

I have sand sifters.
Nassarius snails sift sand too.
Not sure if you ever had a jawfish, but they move sand around like crazy and are always making intricate tunnels in it.
Im sure there are some portions of sand that has been stale.
I like the natural look with sand and ive been doing this long enough to feel confident about having a dsb.

I actually think when i originally put in the sand it was back when home depot sold the play sand that was ok for reef aquariums, and thats the bulk of the sand i used.

My crash had nothing to do with sand. It had to do with a mistake i made adding boric acid powder instead of salt.
Dumb i know. Crazy things happen.

 

[ReeferSamster]

I have sand sifters.
Nassarius snails sift sand too.
Not sure if you ever had a jawfish, but they move sand around like crazy and are always making intricate tunnels in it.
Im sure there are some portions of sand that has been stale.
I like the natural look with sand and ive been doing this long enough to feel confident about having a dsb.

Yes, maybe I'll add some large Nassarius snails. I miss the tiny ones from a long time ago. I had a blue spotted jaw fish, Bob- that I tried twice (Bobby) but for some reason they didn't last longer than a few months. Maybe because they needed cooler temperatures? They were eating just fine; fat and plump but after 4-5 months, the jawfishes just disappeared. I'm sure there are sections of the sand that might be devoid of heterotrophic life, the deepest layers maybe.

I was considering a sandsifting goby, but I'm kind of also nervous about increasing potential food competition in the realm of my Red Scooter and Red Mandarin Dragonet, as I rarely see them, but when I do, I feel a sigh of relief that they are feeding themselves, because they don't eat any of the blackworms or mysis shrimp that i feed the rest of the tank fish. The Red Scooter and Red Mandarin aren't skinny at all, but they don't look plump either. They've been there for over a year I think. The Red Scooter (Skippy) and Red Mandarin are newest and last fish I purchased for this new tank after my Yellow Tang, Wilbert died (it was a 5 year run, but unfortunately cut short by my fault.) and Madeline, Chromis (2 years) died. So I'm worried if I put any sand sifting gobies there, the food chain for them could be compromised.

 

[A;exr54]

The water changes helped a ton.
My levels are close to back to normal. Just need to raise Calcium some while lowering Alk a bit. Im dosing only Cal at this time, so should happen soon.
And after all i did not have much die off.
I think worms, snails, crabs, shrimp were affected the most. And now dealing with some red slime algae, which i have not had before this incident, for many years.

I ended up taking about half the sand out, and its going to stay out.
The BSJ seems perfectly fine with its existing burrows, which i didn't touch.