Water Paras through the roof Help Please

[Pinkfish]

Today is sunday and as per my usual routine I tested my tank. What I found shocked me !!!

Based on my water test last week my results have simply sky rockected.

Now the only thing that changed was me upgrading my lighting from T5 to 2 x250w halides on monday gone.

Thus I have had to embark on a large water change. 4x 19Litres to be exact or 20 Gallons.

Test Results

Last Week ======== This Week

PH - 8.3 ======== 8.3
Nitrite - No Trace ======== 0.3
Nitrate - No Trace ========= 20
Phos - 0.5 ========= 2.5
CA - 400 ========= 400
Salt - Normal ========= Normal

What else can I do to get my levels back down to normal.
Would the use of Activated Carbon help at all ... I have some but have never used it.

Any advice is very welcome thanks guys

Mike

[MR Teee]

Mike, can you put up you tank size, amount of live rock, stock list, any recent changes other than the lights, loss of livestock, do you actively remove phosphate, make any additions.

Carbon will not help with the nitite or nitrate. A presence of nitrite indicates that there has been a major event within the last week and is not a good thing.

[Pinkfish]

Tank Size is 5ft long 2ft Deep and 18inch wide. + Sump 4ft long 18inch deep and 14inch wide.

Live rock ... only 40KG

Circa 120 Gallons in total

Stock List here goes -
1x Yellow Tang,
4x Blue Green Chromis,
1x Strawberry Gramma,
1x Salfin Tang
1x Regal Tang
2x Yellowhead Jawfish
2X Clownfish
2X Pyjama Cardinals
1x Scooter Blenny
1X Firefish

Various Crabs and snails and 2 Cleaner shrimps

I also upgraded my flow in my system on Monday when I added the Halides.
Sump return is now a Aquamedic 3500 pump and also added a Seio 1500 powerhead. My other pump in my sump an Enmien 1060 (I think 2500ltr model) is just being used as a sump powerhead.

No fishes have died for ages now and nothing else has happened that I know of. Tank is fairly new only set it up in Sept

Mike

[MR Teee]

Tank Size is 5ft long 2ft Deep and 18inch wide. + Sump 4ft long 18inch deep and 14inch wide.

Live rock ... only 40KG


Mike, I think this is the root of the problem, there is simply not enough biological filtration for a tank that size with that many fish.


Sump return is now a Aquamedic 3500 pump and also added a Seio 1500 powerhead. My other pump in my sump an Enmien 1060 (I think 2500ltr model) is just being used as a sump powerhead.

Flow in the tank is borderline IMO. Why have you got another pump in the sump? I would get the other pump in the sump rigged up to provide flow in the main aqaurium. You need to ensure that the live rock is doing the best possible job it can by having as much flow through it and round it as possible.


No fishes have died for ages now and nothing else has happened that I know of. Tank is fairly new only set it up in Sept

I hate to be the bringer of bad news Mike but if you cannot get the Nitrite reading to zero quickly then you will start to loose stock. As I said at the top of the post unless you have a monster of a skimmer then there is not enough bacteria in your system to filter out all the the detritus from the stock.

This detritus is decomposing in your tank giving you (most probably) an Ammonia reading followed by the nitrite reading reading followed by an ever increasing amount of nitrate.

The only way you are going to get out of this is to get some more live rock in that tank. I would think double what you have in there at the moment. You need to be festidious with the amount of cleaning you are doing on that tank. You need to be syphoning out the detritus before it has chance to decompose.

Reduced feeding may be a very short term option, but you are putting the health of your stock at even greater chance.

I appreciate the mistakes you have made and voiced in other threads about the stocking rate of your tank, and the misinformation you have been given.

I hate to be so negative, but such a nitrite increase in a week is really bad news. I hope you can turn it around and save your tank.

[fishface]

l think mr teee is right too many fish not enough live rock if you lose any snails or shrimps then get fish to another tank as they
will be next! shrimps are more susceptible to nitrite and nitrate hope all goes well alan

[fishface]

mike been looking at your problem again you have about 26 inches OF fish

in your tank which you only set up in sept. you have done what most people do to a new tank and that is rush, every fish is precious so rushing is putting them in added danger your motto should be SLO--W SLO--W SLOWSLOWSLOW!

[Macca]

Agreed with above


Nitrite - No Trace ======== 0.3
Nitrate - No Trace ========= 20
Phos - 0.5 ========= 2.5

Nitrite is on the borderline of being dangerous, 0.1 is too high!

Nitrate is a funny one. It is not too high but find it hard to believe you had zero the week before with such a bio load.

Phosphates are so high your corals will soon start to turn to yuk if you dont get them down quickly.

Action to take, a steady - at least 25% water change, cut down on the feeding temporaly(sp) and run some phosphate remover. Keeping testing each day and try and work out what has caused this spike. Maybe excess feeding??

Agree with needing more live rock and less fish but what has made this suddenly spike in less than a week?

Somethging is failing, ie filtration or excess feeding or something decaying.

Hope this helps

James

[Tangman]

Hi Mike I am sorry to hear that you have these problems m8, as said by others is the way to go and i hope you manage to control it, keep us all posted as to how you get on. Best of luck. Eric

[Pinkfish]

Agreed with above



Nitrite is on the borderline of being dangerous, 0.1 is too high!

What is the easiest way to reduce this ??



Nitrate is a funny one. It is not too high but find it hard to believe you had zero the week before with such a bio load.

I test water every week and it has been showing no trace for last 3 tests (weeks) - the fish I have are all pritty small largest is the yellow tang 4inches
both clowns are only 1inch, fire fish, jawfish, scooter blenny only 1 and a half inches, regal tang is about 2 inches.



Phosphates are so high your corals will soon start to turn to yuk if you dont get them down quickly.

Hmmm I went and bought some Kent Marine Phosphate sponge as I read in this months copy of MF its the quickest way of reducing phosphate.



Action to take, a steady - at least 25% water change, cut down on the feeding temporaly(sp) and run some phosphate remover. Keeping testing each day and try and work out what has caused this spike. Maybe excess feeding??


I have been feeding the same anount everyday for the last few months.
and all tests were ok.



Agree with needing more live rock and less fish but what has made this suddenly spike in less than a week?

Somethging is failing, ie filtration or excess feeding or something decaying.

Hope this helps

James

I believe the problem to lay with the lighting upgrade. The tank is ALOT brighter, millions of air bubbles on the rocks and algae .... More oxygen is being produced.

It seems to me that the tank has decided to go through new tank syndrome all over again. With all the extra photosynthisis tanking place. The live rock looks like is playing catch up.

My ACTION PLAN -
1- Raise halides further by another 5 inches.
2- Wait 2 days and then do another 20 Gallon water change.
3- Place phosphate remover in straight away.

Mike

[MR Teee]

Any change in the parameters Mike?

[Pinkfish]

Just done another set of water tests.

Salt - Spot on,
Temp - 26 ....... has always been this constant temp.
PH - 8.2
Phos - 0.25 down from 2.5
Nitrate - 20 Still ... this is bizzare as I have done a 30 Gallon Water Change since Sun.
Nitrit - 0.3 No change since sunday.
Ca - 400 No change.

Am running a sump which is lit 24hrs with a T8 light with Cheato and another Algae growing in it.

Changes to life in tank -
My Ricordia Yuma looks like its taken streoids grown a bit in a week.
Whislt my bush coral has shrunken alot and my 3 lumps of xenia eleganta have also shrunken and seem.
Plus some of my Zoas dont seem to be openning ---- I have checked for Zoa spiders.

Any ideas on what to do next ???

I was thinking of adding a pre filter. Just some filter wool at the base of my tank return in the sump. Maybe this will help.

Mike

[Chris, Reef Ranch]

Phosphate can be rid from the system using Kent phosphate sponge. It will remove it over night. Nitrite can be oxidised to nitrate by using a very small ozoniser until it has gone. Find out what has caused this- death and rot down?; added / contaminated the aquarium with a bad product? ; anemone gone through powerhead?

Chris