Tank crashed - how do deal with the damaged and dead?

[Soren]

RO water I’m still not sure what the DI bit means. 0tds from a big gas bottle looking tank that I attach to a hose

+1 to @Tim'sReef above:
RO means "Reverse Osmosis" which removes a significant portion of TDS "Total Dissolved Solids" from the water but does not always drop TDS to zero.
DI meands "De-Ionization" which is an additional step usually using resin beads to remove more TDS.

RO alone that puts out 0 TDS water has no need for the DI stage, but most people need RO/DI systems (both) in order for 0 TDS output water.

True 0 TDS water is practically pure H2O, so it does not matter for practical purposes how the water was purified as long as it was.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

not trying to be argumentative here... but I am not sure about the the statement that the GAC will strip trace elements. From what I have read and been told this is not correct. Maybe someone else may chime in.

not trying to be argumentative here... but I am not sure about the the statement that the GAC will strip trace elements. From what I have read and been told this is not correct. Maybe someone else may chime in.

GAC is made to remove minerals from water . If you over use your GAC you will absolutely strip trace elements from your water. Why do you think Red Sea sells dose trace elements that include things such as iron, and boron. Experiment for yourself. Over use carbon. Don’t do a Wc and send in a ICP test. Ive done the tests myself.

 

[vetteguy53081]

RO water I’m still not sure what the DI bit means. 0tds from a big gas bottle looking tank that I attach to a hose

Di = De-Ionized which is the highest level of purification often within a separate cartridge housing

 

[Dburr1014]

GAC is made to remove minerals from water . If you over use your GAC you will absolutely strip trace elements from your water. Why do you think Red Sea sells dose trace elements that include things such as iron, and boron. Experiment for yourself. Over use carbon. Don’t do a Wc and send in a ICP test. Ive done the tests myself.

Not in any useful means. You should not be scared of using it. In this case it's definatly viable.

The Role of Activated Carbon in the Reef Aquarium | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Of the three types of filtration used in the reef aquarium hobby today, biological, mechanical, and chemical, it is chemical filtration that is possibly the least understood. This post is all about…

reefbuilders.com

I think redsea sells that stuff to make money, nothing to do with use of GAC.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Not in any useful means. You should not be scared of using it. In this case it's definatly viable.

The Role of Activated Carbon in the Reef Aquarium | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Of the three types of filtration used in the reef aquarium hobby today, biological, mechanical, and chemical, it is chemical filtration that is possibly the least understood. This post is all about…

reefbuilders.com

I think redsea sells that stuff to make money, nothing to do with use of GAC.

Not in any useful means. You should not be scared of using it. In this case it's definatly viable.

The Role of Activated Carbon in the Reef Aquarium | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Of the three types of filtration used in the reef aquarium hobby today, biological, mechanical, and chemical, it is chemical filtration that is possibly the least understood. This post is all about…

reefbuilders.com

I think redsea sells that stuff to make money, nothing to do with use of GAC.

I never said not to use it. I said don’t over use it…

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Not in any useful means. You should not be scared of using it. In this case it's definatly viable.

The Role of Activated Carbon in the Reef Aquarium | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Of the three types of filtration used in the reef aquarium hobby today, biological, mechanical, and chemical, it is chemical filtration that is possibly the least understood. This post is all about…

reefbuilders.com

I think redsea sells that stuff to make money, nothing to do with use of GAC.

I suggested to do a 30% water change like reflux recommends and not keep adding supplements to a brand new tank and keep creating swings. I said if you use GAC don’t over use it as it can strip trace elements.

 

[Dburr1014]

I suggested to do a 30% water change like reflux recommends and not keep adding supplements to a brand new tank and keep creating swings. I said if you use GAC don’t over use it as it can strip trace elements.

I linked a site saying it won't strip elements. This is the first in hearing of it. Do you have a source to back up that statement? I'm really interested in reading it.

 

[Phoerut]

+1 to @Tim'sReef above:
RO means "Reverse Osmosis" which removes a significant portion of TDS "Total Dissolved Solids" from the water but does not always drop TDS to zero.
DI meands "De-Ionization" which is an additional step usually using resin beads to remove more TDS.

RO alone that puts out 0 TDS water has no need for the DI stage, but most people need RO/DI systems (both) in order for 0 TDS output water.

True 0 TDS water is practically pure H2O, so it does not matter for practical purposes how the water was purified as long as it was.

Then it is completely RODI Thankyou for clearing that up for me!

 

[brandon429]

It's correct if she prefers to siphon up the rotting plant cells and filter the water slowly and not clean the sand, its activated carbon she'd best use, trace mineral uptake has no bearing

There's no thread linked of reef tanks harmed by gac its a hobby staple.

One water change fixes that trace mineral subtraction

It's known to irritate fish _ see Jay's posts about it. The actual reef/ not harmed


the avoids work method recommended leaves this degree of waste still in the bed though, under the rock (from a job ran via chat right now, a fresh example matched to your tank as well)

After topical cleaning a dowel rod or stick can be put in the bed and used as a test to see the cloud that upwells

If the bed is clean when disturbed, no cloud, just do a simple tank clean water change and carbon run

But if that sandbed clouds up bigtime when disturbed, remove that waste

It's advanced mass waste aging for the nano because extra plant material and decay sinked into upper layers, that's what our thread studies=the impacts of leaving that in/ how to recover from and prevent tank crashes.

There's consequence to leaving that in within a couple months... a new invasion that requires us to try another doser.

How to get off the invasion/ crash wheel is still the only example set so far unless there are pictures I'm missing from prior pages

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

I linked a site saying it won't strip elements. This is the first in hearing of it. Do you have a source to back up that statement? I'm really interested in reading it.

So what elements might carbon removes from seawater that would be of interest to the marine hobbyist? These elements would be copper, iodine, iron and molybdenum which, by definition, are called minor elements.- dr Tim https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/aquarium-hobby/general-articles/activated-carbon/
I’ve done my own tests as well. There’s tons of others who had negative affects with it. However I am not recommending not using it. Again I suggested to not over use it….

 

[brandon429]

We need the mass removed, gac is second best at doing that compared to deep cleaning

Your link is out of context, it's a long term risk

She can do carbon then one water change partial to to reset minerals lost

The immediate need is removal of poisonous irritants

What's in context: links that directly show reef tanks getting worked so that advisors can show how they do repair jobs

Just one more, so we keep a pattern maintained:

Old tank syndrome is vanquished in reefing now

the cause of old tank syndrome is compounding whole waste particles that blanket the interstitial sand grain zones and plug up the channels in live rocks- in some cases it's sheer overgrowth allowed from various invasions that plugs up the surface area on live rock combined with a thin veneer of...

www.reef2reef.com

Gac is second best, second in safety order. What's #1 has been shown a few times now using reef tanks.

 

[Dburr1014]

So what elements might carbon removes from seawater that would be of interest to the marine hobbyist? These elements would be copper, iodine, iron and molybdenum which, by definition, are called minor elements.- dr Tim https://www.drtimsaquatics.com/aquarium-hobby/general-articles/activated-carbon/
I’ve done my own tests as well. There’s tons of others who had negative affects with it. However I am not recommending not using it. Again I suggested to not over use it….

Okay, solved.

 

[GatorGreg]

Thankyou! I’m just in a state of complete despair. It’s just so awful watching it die. My tank broke my heart on valentines

Exact reason I take everyday and enjoy my tank when it’s going good. Because overnight it could go horrible. Sorry about your tank and an upsetting VDay.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Okay, solved.

Okay, solved.

Have you done any tests? Look on reef2reef

Okay, solved.

Agree to disagree

 

[Dburr1014]

Have you done any tests? Look on reef2reef

Agree to disagree

No problem.

I only pulled that from your link.

Let's move on.

 

[brandon429]

@Phoerut

which method did you wind up using / what's the outcome so curious.

 

[Phoerut]

@Phoerut

which method did you wind up using / what's the outcome so curious.

Okay so I quietened down after things got heated. I didn’t want to offend anyone that had so kindly come to my rescue but I did keep reading. I’ve made up 100 litres of new seawater. That’s all the capacity I have to store it. Waiting for those to dissolve and heat up to test the salinity was HOURS. It’s cold here in the uk and I had to wait for each 25litre barrel to heat up, to test. One by one. All my spare heaters are very small as they were used in a 50litre tank.

I tested about 3 times a day. Ammonia stayed at 0 for 24 hours. Nitrates 1. Alk keeps dropping down to 6ish (I suck and making all the drops the same size). Magnesium was at 1400 but i stopped testing for it because my focus is making sure it’s safe right now not optimal, just safe. I realised I can’t take on all these problems at once, because I think I shocked my system trying to do this before.

salinity 0.25.

i started to notice in this time that my frogspawn had started to make a recovery, despite the clowns deciding to host it while it was dying. 2 of my mushrooms had also started to recover, along with my leathers. So I decided not to go with the full change as things were clearly improving and I didn’t want to shock them again. I wasn’t confident in my skills to do something like that effectively and I didn’t want to harm the fish. The fish are fine and they are my priority over corals to be honest. I have some sensitive species in there like a orange spot file fish and a mandarin who I’ve trained onto flake, pellet and frozen I really didn’t want to go back to square one with them. Especially the file fish, he was a pain in the butt to get to eat. When I first bought itit went on hunger strike for over a week.

My tank was ugly with bryopsis but everything was still healthy so I don’t even care about the bryopsis coming back right now, that’s something I will tackle naturally with macros or naturally in the future when the tank has stabilised. Any suggestions on ways to deal with this without chemicals would be greatly appreciated.

I am running carbon because those chemicals need out. Micronutrients is a risk I’m willing to take because I think chemicals are probably worse at this point. We can replace micronutrients but the chemicals are in there and they need to go.

I did a gentle 10% water change this morning. I agree this could have been more but I’m trying to avoid any shock here. I did this because the ammonia had creeped up to 0.8. I fed the fish last night so I’m assuming that’s why. Retested and it’s at 0.4 after the change. Not great, will probably do another in a few hours. Nitrate we’re at 2 before the change.

What I think has happened, again any input on this would be great, is I’ve killed my filter bacteria. Ammonia is high nitrates are low. I have filter bacteria in a bottle. Do I add some? If I do, do I turn my UV off so it can settle?

let me know what you guys think. Here’s a recovery pic

 

[Phoerut]

Just checked my phosphate the only test I haven’t run yet 35 ppb!! How has this happened I’ve got barely any nitrates? I use this phos guard rocks too?

 

[brandon429]

You did the best you could given the emotional pulls within your thread, nice work


deferred consequence is still coming though/ poisons and irritants left in the reef

 

[rmorris_14]

Just checked my phosphate the only test I haven’t run yet 35 ppb!! How has this happened I’ve got barely any nitrates? I use this phos guard rocks too?

I wouldn’t worry about that right now .1 is within range. Plus That shouldn’t hurt your fish which you said is now you main concern. It also shouldnt bother LPS. Personally I would focus on keeping ammonia low and avoiding major ALK swings for your corals.