Why is my tank crashing?

[SheroMedic]

I think I may be experiencing my first official "crash"... My 90 gallon reef was thriving week ago until the last few days. It seems all of my inverts are dying. Hermits gone. Shrimp gone. Now my leather, xenia, mushrooms, zoos, are all shriveled and slowly dissolving. Notably my tank has a distinct chemical smell almost like weak turpentine.

I just placed a tigertail cucumber in the tank which is the likely culprit. However it seems to be doing fine and there is no evidence of "cuke nuke". I did a major water change to no avail.

My water params are as follows;

temp-79
ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate- 0-5
KH-9
Alk-3
Calcium-480
Salinity-1.025

Any help/suggestion would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Sharif

BTW, Filtration is a pre-filter sock, Carbon, and G-2 ASM skimmer. Total flow rate 2300gph

[Kevin McG]

ALK = 3

Is this dhk? if so that is way low! not sure if that would cause a crash. Check your temp with another device maybe the one you are using is faulty?

[wwest]

im confused about the KH. mine is around 115. i have never heard of 9kh

also do you test for phosphates?
Welcome to TR SheroMedic..

[gwen_o_lyn]

Welcome to TR Sharif! Sorry to hear about your tank. So the cucumber is still alive and doing good? Can you take it back to the store or have them hold it for you until you can pinpoint this problem, since this could be it?



ALK = 3

Is this dhk? if so that is way low!

I'm gonna guess he is measuring in meq/L which means 3 is fine. I'd say 3.5 is perfect, but anywhere between 3-4 is good.

[fat walrus]

im confused about the KH. mine is around 115. i have never heard of 9kh

also do you test for phosphates?
Welcome to TR SheroMedic..
9 degrees kh is german scale.

[pham411]

hmm can you give us a little more insight on how you maintane your tank, did you do nething out of the ordinary. maybe some1 sprayed something near your tank and it got in the water. there could b 100z of senarios. we just gotta narrow it down.

[SheroMedic]

Well, my maintenance schedule is pretty standard. 20% WC every 10 days or so, Feeding every other day.

Like I said, the cucumber was the only new addition. I topped off with about a gallon of R/O water. Do you think that a gallon of R/O water added directly into the sump on a 90gal could do this?

TIA

[wwest]

oh ok i didnt think about that...

[fat walrus]

. I topped off with about a gallon of R/O water. Do you think that a gallon of R/O water added directly into the sump on a 90gal could do this?

TIA
i have added at least as much on numerous occasions and had no such problem. have you considered outside contamination from outside the aquarium?

[Raggamuffin]

I'm sorry to say but there really could be hundreds of things that can cause it from somebody getting over vealous with furniture polish on the other side of the room to something falling in one of your buckets, could even be a chain reaction of having a couple snails or hermits dying at once but that would leave some sort of trace (Ammonia).

[V]

i dont know about this one....tigatail is prob one of the few cucumbers that when they start to die doesn't release toxins to kill all your livestock! but u say he's doing ok! could be a higher tollerance of just cause he;s new!
115 or 9 dkh, thats still abit low, your last posting shows the Ca is 480, but more importantly alk is the dirrect indication for the buffering effect against ph swings. if its low its bound to happen!
are these values taken dirrectly after the water change>?
cause this will not give correct results!
but with a 9 dkh rating surely it shouldn't cause this crash all of a sudden! its got to be another factor!

how long do u run the carbon for?
major evaporation can cause sudden crashes, but the s/g level u posted was fine!
just wondering about the volume question> u have a 90gal, how big was this water change> just trying to assess if the water change could have brought the s/g level up to normal.

there are so many before & after viables thats its difficult to narrow.

u havn't treated the tank with any medications? no flatworm exits or anything of the sort?

the next logical question would be heavy metal poisoning, what trace do u dose?
or have u change salt mixes lately?


or has there been a resent addition of LR. where im coming from is copper poisioning now, leaching from the rock. u say u added the cucumber as the most resent addition, but im not sure if copper can be injected in the aqua enviromnent through a living creature. others have to help me out on this theory!

richard harker once did an article on freshly mixed seawater being aged via placing marine stones or seaweed/macro plant in the outgoing path into the tank in an effort to rule out the synthetic sea water being the dirrect result of tank crashes. but honestly i dont think this appies here!

what about ducted heating or cooling, do u have any vents open close by,& your tank is an open top?

personally i think it was a ph slide that dissolved a portion of the sand and the metals adsorbed on/or within the calcium carbonate that might have released a lethal spike of ironic metals. compounded by a high organic load which the metals bonded to!

at the end of the day all u can do if salvage from the damage! take the hit in a bad way & slowly rebuild! im just sorry it happened to u. i do hope u can salvage more that a cucumber

[CarmieJo]

Hi Sharif,

:welcome: to TR. I don't think the gallon top off is an issue. I have a 54 gallon tank and routinely top off 1/3 to 1/2 gallon of RO/DI directly into my sump with no problems.

[V]

is there any progress on this? any new developments