Contamination?

**NanoRyan89** · 05-15-2009, 12:27 AM

About 4 days ago, i did a 20 gallon water change. I used a mixed bucket of reef crystals, and some other marine salt. I used all RO water, and did my changes as normal. After my water change, my nitrates were still above 80ppm. That night, i did a standard dose of algaefix and purple up. Since then, my heater flooded, shocked the crap out of my tank and along with dropping the temp down to 70 without being noticed,my mushrooms have not opened, my baby sailfin died, my polyps and zoas are not opening fully, my two flame scallops have deteriorated, and my snails are about dead. That's all that i've noticed. My fish are still doing perfectly fine, but that's just from what i can see. I don't know how they are feeling. If i get more salt, i am gonna completely quarantine all my fish in a diff tank and water. Along with my mushrooms polyps, and whatever else i can find.

Can someone help me figure out what happened?
My parameters are as followed.
Nitrate - 80+ppm
nitrite - 0
ammonia - 0
PH - 8.0
salinity - .024
temp - 80

**sweetpea** · 05-15-2009, 12:46 AM

WellI have experienced that checking ur nitrate right after a water change wasn't the answer I was looking for. It seems that when u stir everything up ur nitrates will read higher. I also don't add extra chemicals to my tank just after a water change as well. My corals don't react to well to the algae fix. Maybe u dosed to much, or shouldnt have added the purple up or algaefix especially with ur nitarte so high. If I understand what I have read about nitrate is if it gets to high it can burn ur fish n corals. I think it was a bad combination of everything all at once. And the shocking part probably didn't help at all. I thought u ment shocked by temp drop, but if I reread it right it was an electrical shock as we'll as eveything else that dominoed and didn't help.

**sweetpea** · 05-15-2009, 12:49 AM

Ur tank os also a little warm.

**NanoRyan89** · 05-15-2009, 01:01 AM

Also, it has not effected my crabs at all. My 8 inch arrow crab is still walking around eating like a pig. It's also around the time my hairy mushroom decided to start splitting. I don't think im gonna QT my fish or anything. I am gonna do 10 gallon water changes every day until my nitrate problem comes down below 40.

Also, if an RO filter is bad. Will it cause bad reactions?

**CarmieJo** · 05-15-2009, 01:12 AM

I think that it is a combination of stresses too. A 10 degree swing is a lot and that would have stressed your fish even if everything else was OK. I keep my tank at 79 in the winter and 80 in the summer.

A bad RO filter would likely cause things like algae issues and could create nitrate issues if they are present in the raw water.

**NanoRyan89** · 05-15-2009, 01:26 AM

Its everything but my crabs and fish. Not even my aptasia is opening.

**sweetpea** · 05-15-2009, 10:32 AM

I agree that I have had some issues with bad RO water from my buddy, I think this was the cause of my algae blooms. I hope everything goes well.

**Iron E** · 05-15-2009, 11:56 AM

I think you've got too much bio-load, too soon. The electric shock just aggravated an already stressed system. If you don't reduce the livestock (a lot!) soon you're going to keep having problems and it will take forever (and many dead fish!) to get your tank balanced. You will constantly be swinging from high toxic levels to large water changes and dosing to compensate for what the water changes did not accomplish then back to toxic levels again. Save your self a lot of time, effort and expense (not to mention a lot of lives and more expense!) and slow down, move what fish you've got left to a healthy environment, let your tank stabilize and start over with a CUC. IMHO.

Tom

**NanoRyan89** · 05-15-2009, 01:53 PM

That's just the thing. I dont have another system i can put my fish in. half my LR is from pre-existing tanks with big bio-loads., and the rest was already in my tank. Not to mention everything had been set up for about 5 years before i got it. I just moved it a half mile into my bedroom.

**Iron E** · 05-15-2009, 02:51 PM

I didn't realize this was a transfer of an existing tank. Couldn't you get your LFS to "sit" your fish for you until the tank has stabilized?

Tom

**PhotoJohn** · 05-15-2009, 04:14 PM

I would stop dosing your tank. Purple up is a total waste of money, and algae fix is the same IMO. A good CUC, rodi water, and proper feeding/lighting will control algae. The algae at this point is your friend. You need it badly with your nitrates at 80. I am a little surprised anything is still alive, especially the corals.

The flame scallops will die regardless of what you do, they do not live in reef aquariums well, same with the sand sifting clams I read about earlier. I know they look cool but they are not going to live, dump them or take them back.

You need to clean out all your filters and throw out all your mechanical filtration media. Until you get rid of this stuff your nitrates will always be high and not "reef" acceptable. I learned this lesson with a nano cube. I did tons of water changes but the levels never went down. It was because my bio balls, ceramic rings, and filter cubes were 1 trapping detritus and 2 not giving a place for the proper bacteria for the last leg of the nitrate cycle to thrive. some options are to get a remote DSB, build a tube fuge, and grow macros...until you are able to get away from mechanical filtration and move over to biological filtration nitrates will always be a plague.

**NanoRyan89** · 05-15-2009, 06:54 PM

I just had a visit with my LFS guy. Im gonna test my RO units water tonight. He told me that it's most likely my RO units filters. I'm also gonna turn my sump into a fuge. For now its just gonna be passive and not have anything in it.