My tank is dying and I don’t know why!!! I’m frustrated and sad, please help!

[NJDragonet]

Why woild you do this when red slime removers work so well?

He has lots of coral some of the removers could wipe them all out

 

[Neoalchemist]

Chemiclean is pretty darn safe as long as you follow the instructions to the letter. Aeration of the tank is key. But yes it works well and doesnt kill coral.
Also red slime or cyano bacteria is not very toxic and isnt a tank destroyer unless its left to turn into a blanket.

 

[Aquarius20]

From what I've been reading and researching, seems like your phos is way to low. You want some phos in your tank for nutrients for the corals, or else they'll slowly melt away as you're describing. Also the algae you're describing sound like red cyano, and poss a dino, which would also indicate extremely low nutrients for the corals you have. Are you running any GFO, phosguard or anything like that?? May just be striping out to many nutrients for them to live, and it just took time for them to get that low. But i'm sure others with more exp will chime in. Just a thought!!

agree with that. You seemed to suffocate corals. Also, you have mentioned that you havent checked kh lately. If you had drastically dropped the alkanity level, that might triggered the whole process of loosing their tissue. I said it might, but other reasons could be more.
I feel sorry for your loss, I can only imagine how it feels.

 

[Neoalchemist]

Many times dinos and cyano prefer to live together and appear to be just cyano. Dinos also host well on the shorte brownish hair algea.

I would also point out that all of these algea/bacteria are in every tank waiting for the right conditions. If you push reset or start a temporary holding tank and the conditions are similar and the biome is not strong enough to fend them off they will come roaring back

 

[jda]

I had issues with black sand that went away as soon as I got it all out. The stuff that I had had a bit of magnetic particles in it and tiny pieces would stick to magnets. At the time, others were having problems too.

Low P will limit growth, but it does not deal death. Look elsewhere. If you are changing a lot of water, then your other parameters are probably fine too, so look for stray current or something.

Get back to the basics and make sure that your refractometer is calibrated and check your heater against something with mercury in it.

 

[Cassian]

Dinos appear very differant depending on which type. Many people never get the stringy bubbles. Especially if you have decent flow.

How deep is your sand bed. And what and how often do you do to maintain it?

My sand bed is about 3-4 inches. And I don’t do anything to it other than stir the top a little to remove the algae.

 

[Cassian]

That is red slime algae it was the devil for me it killed all my coral and invaded my tank so much that I had to destroy that tank. The brown algae is normal and it is harmless. I know some people might not have time for this it is called a tank redo your levels are fine what you need to do is take all the corals and fish out put them in buckets then take the water out remove all the sand and most of the rockwork and just clean the tank up then get new sand and a few new rocks and slowly reacliemate the corals and lifestock this takes at least a day of work I have done it at least 5 times.

Thank you, I will consider doing this if I can’t fix the problem

 

[Neoalchemist]

My sand bed is about 3-4 inches. And I don’t do anything to it other than stir the top a little to remove the algae.

I dont see a problem there. The sand would have to be over 4 inches and un disturbed for years to build up hydrogen sulfide

 

[Cassian]

I had issues with black sand that went away as soon as I got it all out. The stuff that I had had a bit of magnetic particles in it and tiny pieces would stick to magnets. At the time, others were having problems too.

Low P will limit growth, but it does not deal death. Look elsewhere. If you are changing a lot of water, then your other parameters are probably fine too, so look for stray current or something.

Get back to the basics and make sure that your refractometer is calibrated and check your heater against something with mercury in it.

Would testing my sand with a magnet tell me if it is ok to keep or not?

 

[Cassian]

agree with that. You seemed to suffocate corals. Also, you have mentioned that you havent checked kh lately. If you had drastically dropped the alkanity level, that might triggered the whole process of loosing their tissue. I said it might, but other reasons could be more.
I feel sorry for your loss, I can only imagine how it feels.

Thank you. I will be checking kh today and updating this thread

 

[Neoalchemist]

Regardless of what is growing in the tank. Manual removal is your best tool. Get that **** out of there as often as possible and give your bacteria a chance to get back in the food chain. If the cyano or dino or whatever is sucking up all the resources the healthy bacteria are dimminished

 

[jda]

Mine had heavy metals in it and would turn a PolyFilter pad bright colors fast.

Dana says it pretty well here...

Hawaiian Black Sand...Yes or No?

Thoughts about using Hawaiian Black Sand. Getting ready to upgrade my 75 to a 180 and was looking for something different. Are there any Pro's/Con's?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

''This bright red algae/bacteria has been covering my sand bed. I stir it up, but it comes back within a day or two. It also has air bubble underneath it.''

Textbook Dinos.

 

[jda]

I also second the call to get your dKh checked. It is probably OK if you are changing a lot of water, but the black sand is not aragonite and it will not buffer and keep the carbonate up if it falls too low.

 

[JCOLE]

Salinity is low and so are phosphates. How old is the system and how stable are your parameters? How often do you test your parameters for stability?

 

[Cassian]

Mine had heavy metals in it and would turn a PolyFilter pad bright colors fast.

Dana says it pretty well here...

Hawaiian Black Sand...Yes or No?

Thoughts about using Hawaiian Black Sand. Getting ready to upgrade my 75 to a 180 and was looking for something different. Are there any Pro's/Con's?

www.reef2reef.com

Thank you for the article. I’ll check it out

 

[Cassian]

Salinity is low and so are phosphates. How old is the system and how stable are your parameters? How often do you test your parameters for stability?

I check parameters about once a week. My system is about 6 months old, but it was a transfer from an older tank because I upgraded. I’ve never had a stability problem in this tank

 

[Paul B]

1.023 is a little low, but I don't see it causing any problems like tour seeing. Unless you refractor is off(you are using a refractor, right?)

My salinity is 1.022 and has been like that or much higher or lower for decades. Salinity is not your issue.

My sand bed is about 3-4 inches. And I don’t do anything to it other than stir the top a little to remove the algae.

The only thing I can think of is to remove all that 3-4" of black sand. I don't know how fine it is and cant tell from here.
If it compacts like fresh water sand can do, it will kill everything.
But I would put salt water sand or gravel in there as I think that will always be a problem, although I don't know if it is causing this problem.

After I removed the sand I would use a Poly Filter or carbon for a while, then take them out as I don't like those either long term.

I personally would also not use Red Slime Remover or Chemiclean. I have used both a few times and they do work, but that is a temporary fix and not going to tell you what is wrong.

 

[Cassian]

My salinity is 1.022 and has been like that or much higher or lower for decades. Salinity is not your issue.




The only thing I can think of is to remove all that 3-4" of black sand. I don't know how fine it is and cant tell from here.
If it compacts like fresh water sand can do, it will kill everything.
But I would put salt water sand or gravel in there as I think that will always be a problem, although I don't know if it is causing this problem.

After I removed the sand I would use a Poly Filter or carbon for a while, then take them out as I don't like those either long term.

I personally would also not use Red Slime Remover or Chemiclean. I have used both a few times and they do work, but that is a temporary fix and not going to tell you what is wrong.

Thank you for the advice. The sand is very porous and has a very large grain. It is very close to gravel.

 

[Cassian]

Just checked Kh. It is a little low at 6.7. But according to my test kit it is still in the safe range? This most likely is low because I recently switched to an RODI system. Our tap water has higher alk, but the RODI water tests lower in alk. I will start dosing alk today