Problems in my 250

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ViperDoug

Member
So my tank was running perfectly fine for months now. About 3 weeks ago I noticed all of my corals closing up one day and something looked wrong. Tested the ammonia first and....ding ding ding...showed up for a minor amount. Did a rapid water change and installed carbon. Tank went back to normal within days and I only lost one coral. Well, last week we hit some hi temperatures. The tank went up to 82 degrees. Normally it has been around 79-80. It didn't seem to bother anything. Well, last night I lost a couple of heads on two of my hammer corals and realized that something was wrong again. I tested everything in the water and it all came back normal. The temp. is back down to 78 degrees this week. Is it possible the corals are struggling because of the swing in temp?

I have a lot of money into this tank (as do all of us) and at this point I am considering some expensive mods to try and protect what I consider art. Please advise if you think any of this stuff will make a big difference.

Chiller
Deltec skimmer
Metal Halide lighting

I have never felt the stock skimmer works very well and I know it is a huge topic. My drawback on the Deltec is that I don't want it sticking up out of the top of the tank. Can you install it so that it won't? The one coral I lost that never thrived was an acro. I would like to keep these but wonder if the stock lighting will support them. I read someone simply upgraded to a better brand of bulbs from the stock ones.

Any help is always appreciated!
Doug
 
Reefmack

Reefmack

NaClH2O Addicted
PREMIUM
Are you sure the thermometer is giving you an accurate reading, and that the tank isn't actually hotter?
 
BigAl07

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
I feel like keeping your temp fairly constant is key but as Glenn said those temps aren't "Critical". Here's how I handle my non-controlled tanks. I let the tank for for a week and find out what that average MAX temp for the day/night is. Then I set my heater a degree or so just under that temp. This way when the tank would be normally cooling off the heater will bump on to keep it close to where it would be at it's MAX.

I don't know if I'd even consider Metal Halide for this particular tank. Have you thought about LED?
 
N83259

N83259

Member
Doug:
I agree,a small temp rise shouldn't hurt anything. In nature, reef temps can vary during the day. I see you live in hot MD too - were you possibly away for a while and the AC or power weny off, heating the tank higher than you observed? Higher water temps means less Oxygen for the inhabitants. Did the power go out while you were away? If so, lack of circulation for even a few hours can be really bad for fish and corals.

Did anything else change? Did you have a pest control application in the house? Cleaning products near the tank? Change your salt? Any new additives, or older additives perhaps building up to undesireable levels? Are you feeding your corals? RO/DI unit still putting out 0 TDS water? Do you think your test kits are acurate? Do you check on or dose for Calc & alk? What about the other paramters? Are you running high quality carbon like CPE (low quality carbon can be a problem)?

Tom's link on the Deltek500 is an excellent thread. Two folks got it to work and keep the original lid closed with no cutting. I'm looking into it and the Euroreef product myself. I personally don't think MH lights will help your situation. But it sounds like your original T5 bulbs would be shot if you haven't changed them yet and that could be an issue IMO. Or perhaps the revers: do you have brand new lights? Just a few random ideas.....

It sounds like you did the correct things by doing a water change & running carbon. Good luck.
 
Mischko

Mischko

Member
You have to keep in mind your corals are squares, you wouldn't want them to be your neighbors in real life at all! Changing water levels/values, be it nutrition, temp., salinity and so on, are stress factors for most corals. Each time the corals have to adept to the new situation which costs energy therefor loss in coloration and growth up to degeneration of the corals. Some can cope with real extreme situations, just think of corals growing on top of a reef where they are exposed to fresh water during rain, cold temp. at night time and high temp. during day time. In over all you should try keeping all water values within the recommended values/levels as constant as possible. If you do have the need to change a value do it over weeks to give the corals a good time to adept to the new situation. This is more or less the reason why there are no quick and dirty solutions in marine aquaristics. And another reason why you need alot of patience and self dicipline. Hoping to fix a problem within 5 to 7 days is almost illusional in this hobby. Using e. g. hardcore filter medias to e. g. reduce Nitrate quickly will help solving the sympton but not the cause. For example, you have a Nitrate level of 55 though your corals are ok with it and you decide to reduce it to, let's say, 10 or 5, for what ever reaon ;-) (Never change a running system, I am a sys admin!). How are you going to do it? Put in 3 bags of Purigen and over night it droped to your desired value? I am pretty sure your tank won't reward you then! Keep in mind, your little biological system was used to 55 of Nitrate for quite some time and adopted to it. Kind of compare it to a smoker, take the ciggies away at once and the system will most likely collaps, take them away over time and most of the time it will be fine, roughly speaking.

And Doug, if you checked your ammonia level and it came up high, of course carbon and a water change will help, but then it shows you there is something wrong in the tank and you need to find the reason for it. I doubt it was the temp. in your tank at all. Is there anything you changed with your tank in the last time? Something you did within the last 1 or 2 weeks. What I get from your post your tank was running fine until recently.
 
V

ViperDoug

Member
Thank you all for the responses! I was never able to figure out exactly what caused that spike in ammonia. THe only thing I thought of a potential culprit was the acro that died. I think it was dead in there for a few days. I am not sure if a dying acro could cause that much of a spike in ammonia. The tank was actually running beautifully for about 6 months with no problems and thriving corals. Lately (last month) it has been tough. I have been testing the water regularly and racking my brain to think of anything that I have changed in the tank. The only change I can come up with is the temp. fluctuations with the summer heat. Like I said, we had a week when the temps actually got up to 107!!! My tank has been running since last December. I read to change the bulbs every 12 months, but maybe I should just go ahead and do it now. Can't hurt 9besides my wallet). I read a thread where someone used a better bulb. Does anyone recommend something better than the stock bulbs from Red Sea?

I checked the calcium (420) and the alkalinity was at 8. I was away for a week (first week of August) and I had someone coming to the house everyday to check the tank and feed the fish. She never reported a problem with loss of power, but she also wasn't around all day long. There is the chance we had a some storms and lost power for a few hours which could have caused a problem. At this point, I just want to make sure I have the tank setup properly with great equipment and I will keep being patient. I did change the thermometer and I got the same reading.

Thanks again for everyones help!
 
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