Urgent help needed Softies dying and urcin looks dead

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Timone

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Hi,
Need urgent assistance/advise.
My tank has taken a nose dive in the last week. It started with my torch coral that died in one day and pulsing xenias not doing so well and they are shrinking. I have just seen my urchin looks like it died this morning. Left him just in case he was just resting will check tonight when I get home. All the fish are okay and looks healthy. The protein skimmer is just producing white foam. It is a TS2. It normally take about 5 days to but the last week I have had to empty it every second day now.
It gives off the usual green sludge but with white foam on it.
It is also full of Cyno
My tank is about 640 Lt including sump.
My water temp is a bit high at 27.5 c
Ammonia = 0.01
Nitrite = 0.00
Nitrate = 50 ppm
Phosphate = above 5ppm
Alk = 2.83
dHK = 8.7
PH = 8.5
salinity = 1.024
I have been dosing stability, seachem 8.4 , seachem alpha. I also have seachem phosguard pellets as well charcoal running in the tank.

Just can't figure out what went wrong and how to fix this. I have recently done a 200lt water change. that did nothing for the tank
 
hi, it looks like its your phosphates

what carbon are you using?
 
Well there are a couple things there that are high, but this depends if the readings are 100% correct - ammonia should be completely 0, nitrates of 50ppm is high for corals and could be causing issues alone, the po4 of 5ppm is really high and is also definately a concern.

What test kits are u using? can u verify that these readings are right?
 
LFS gave me the carbon to use. Will have to check at home again. made sure that the Carbon is phosphate free though. I have got some macro algae and put in the sump with lights to see if that will also bring the phosphates down. The sump lights are one when the main tank lights are off.
Forgot 2 parameters
cal = 450
mag = 1400
 
I have been using red sea test kits for the No3 and nutrafin test kit for po4 tests.
Suspect I will have to take samples to the LFS to get them checked by them.
What could i use to bring the No3 down. I am using alpha which is suppose to detoxify the NO3.
 
Last edited:
Is your Alk ppm or what measurement is it using? PH04 are way to high nitrates yea high but manageable. I agree take it somewhere to test accurately. I have a Hanna electronic tester fo phosphates and all which is dead accurate. There is a product from Brightwell called PhosphateR red bottle very good at removing phosphates quick but it's not to be used over a period of time. Can use it to treat the symptom fo now but you need to get to the cause of the phosphates. What's your feeding habbits and how do you feed frozen food? Do you strain in RO water?

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Timone said:
I have been using red sea test kits for the No3 and nutrafin test kit for po4 tests.
Suspect I will have to take samples to the LFS to get them checked by them.
What could i use to bring the No3 down. I am using alpha which is suppose to detoxify the NO3.
Click to expand...


Best thing for lowering Nitrates is a couple of water changes. You can use Purigen as well which is supposed to remove Nitrates from the system.

Long term to keep them and phosphates under control you can look at a DSB, Algae Scrubber, carbon dosing of some form, bio pellet reactors, zeo reactors...wont go into too much detail on them at this point though.
 
mytank said:
Is your Alk ppm or what measurement is it using? PH04 are way to high nitrates yea high but manageable. I agree take it somewhere to test accurately. I have a Hanna electronic tester fo phosphates and all which is dead accurate. There is a product from Brightwell called PhosphateR red bottle very good at removing phosphates quick but it's not to be used over a period of time. Can use it to treat the symptom fo now but you need to get to the cause of the phosphates. What's your feeding habbits and how do you feed frozen food? Do you strain in RO water?

Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express
Click to expand...

A better question with regard to RO water is are you using it to top up your tank, because if you are using normal tap water this could be a source of your phos and nirtrate problems.

Also what kind of flow do you have in your tank? a 600L tank requires quite a few flow pumps or at least one or 2 decent ones like Vortechs. Lack of flow in the tank would cause dead spots where detritus can build up and cause nitrates and phosphates to rise...this in turn can also lead to cyano outbreaks.
 
Running a dsb and recently put in macro algae however just a small piece though.
I feed twice a day. I fed less and then the hippo tang started eating my xenias. I only feed frozen food once a week. That consists on lancet fish for the nenny and either brine shrimp or mysis. My top up tank only has ro water in it and test for po4 on and the ro unit is leaving any po4 in the water. i also changed those filter.
My wife just let me know that the sea urchin is belly up. So he did not make it.:(
The fish are eating as if nothing is wrong. I will get the phosphate stuff from the lsf that you suggested. Would you suggest I do a 200lt once a week for now until the level drop in the tank.
The only other thing i changed is the power heads. I dropped from sun sun 202 (12000lt/hr) to sun sun 102 (6000 lt/hr) pumps.
the higher circulation was damaging some softies.
 
I would say your tank has a few minor problems, when taken individually they may not too serious (except for the Phos reading) but when all added together it will be a compounded problem. IMHO any amonia reading is bad as it is an indication that the filtration is not keeping up with the bio load causing stress, high nitrates and very high phosphates will cause more stress on inverts. Now into the mix we throw a slightly elevated temp so there is less oxygen available in the water colum so add even more stress.....you get the idea. I would just bring all parameters back into line and asses the system again.
 
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