What is happening!!! :( :( :(

[reefle]

1week ago, I changed my GFO, carbon, and did a water change just for maintenance purposes. The only new thing I did was add a bio-pellet reactor. 3 days later, an acro frag I had completely bleached. 1 day later, my long tentacle anemone moved from the place its been for 2 months. 1 day later another acro frag I've had for 4 months bleached. today my anem is sitting in the middle of the tank, looks unattached to anything, and completely shriveled with a bunch of tips looking like they were being burnt off. one of my leather corals has also been completely retracted

Most of my other corals seem ok though...

What is going on....I dont want my beautiful anem to die and I'd feel even worse if my single clown lost his best bud.

I'm going to do a 30% water change in the next 12 hours....

I've heard bio-pellet reactors crashing tanks, but I havent even given it time to mature. plus my nitrates are still high, so its obviously not doing anything yet?!

 

[Newjack]

with your messed up ballast do you have any lights going? Could be not enough light.

 

[reefle]

with your messed up ballast do you have any lights going? Could be not enough light.

I don't have a ballast. I'm running a reef radiance LED and its been working fine. maybe you have me mixed up with someone else

 

[reefer gladness]

Turn off the BP reactor and give us test results. I'm suspecting alkalinity is too high to be using pellets and is causing STN or RTN with the acros.

BTW, this is a good example of why nems shouldn't be added until the tank is stable. The nem will probably pull through okay but you really want to be over the hump on the learning curve before adding one to your tank.

Go ahead with the water changes to reduce nitrates.

 

[Newjack]

I don't have a ballast. I'm running a reef radiance LED and its been working fine. maybe you have me mixed up with someone else

oops sorry wrong forum. lol Someone was asking my help to diagnose a bad ballast. But even if you have LEDs you still have a ballast or power supply. Just saying.

 

[reefle]

Turn off the BP reactor and give us test results. I'm suspecting alkalinity is too high to be using pellets and is causing STN or RTN with the acros.

BTW, this is a good example of why nems shouldn't be added until the tank is stable. The nem will probably pull through okay but you really want to be over the hump on the learning curve before adding one to your tank.

Go ahead with the water changes to reduce nitrates.

can you please explain what RTN and STN are?

my anem has actually been huge and open for over 3 months and it just started doing this after the reactor was introduced

EDIT

OMG MY ALK IS AT LIKE 4-5kH....WHAT

I used an API and ReD Sea test kit. I thought it BP were supposed to raise Alk....

Also why is pH still hovering around 7.9-8.0 like it always has been...

 

[reefer gladness]

RTN = rapid tissue necrosis
STN = slow tissue necrosis

Try Googling bio pellets and RTN or STN and see what you get.

Don't worry about pH, it will go back up when you correct alk. Remember alkalinity needs to be increased slowly - no more than 1dKH per day. I would maintain between 8-9 dKH if dosing carbon and using pellets. There's a good scientific explanation for all this but I don't understand it all well enough to explain.

Edit: just noticed you said pH is stable. There are elemenets they can add to salt mixes, etc that lock in pH even when alk moves. Probably what's going on here.

 

[reefle]

RTN = rapid tissue necrosis
STN = slow tissue necrosis

Try Googling bio pellets and RTN or STN and see what you get.

Don't worry about pH, it will go back up when you correct alk. Remember alkalinity needs to be increased slowly - no more than 1dKH per day. I would maintain between 8-9 dKH if dosing carbon and using pellets. There's a good scientific explanation for all this but I don't understand it all well enough to explain.

Edit: just noticed you said pH is stable. There are elemenets they can add to salt mixes, etc that lock in pH even when alk moves. Probably what's going on here.

crap....Ok i'll take off the reactor for a couple days and monitor the parameters everyday and then I'll restart it and see where it is for 48 hours or so

 

[reefer gladness]

Edit: try running alk around 7-8 dKH (vice 8-9 dKH) when dosing carbon.

Don't stress too hard, it happens and I'm sure everything will bounce back. Alk has run dangerously low in my tank a few times, it caused some damage to my acropora's and I lost a wellsophyllia but everything else bounced back eventually.

 

[reefle]

Edit: try running alk around 7-8 dKH (vice 8-9 dKH) when dosing carbon.

Don't stress too hard, it happens and I'm sure everything will bounce back. Alk has run dangerously low in my tank a few times, it caused some damage to my acropora's and I lost a wellsophyllia but everything else bounced back eventually.

Thank you for your help! I'll be following your advice!!

 

[LSUFireGal]

Don't stop the biopellets and then restart them unless you discard those and start over. How much biopellets are in the reactor? You need to start slowly and build up to the recommended amount of biopellets.
I ran a biopellet reactor and my understanding was that basically biopellets allow a place for more nitrifying bacteria to grow. My Nitrates were almost immesurable. It was awesome.


Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

 

[reefle]

Don't stop the biopellets and then restart them unless you discard those and start over. How much biopellets are in the reactor? You need to start slowly and build up to the recommended amount of biopellets.
I ran a biopellet reactor and my understanding was that basically biopellets allow a place for more nitrifying bacteria to grow. My Nitrates were almost immesurable. It was awesome.



Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2

I started with 1/3 of the recommended dosage. but I guess it still was too much for my tank -_-

 

[Mike Johnson]

When I read your post a couple days ago stating you were starting bio pellets I said to myself, "Oh, Oh." Big changes are NEVER good.

LSUFireGal said it right. Right now you need to monitor your parameters and adjust them slowly back to the desired levels.

An example would be - you can have a tank running for years at the same not desirable parameters and everything will be fine, but make a sudden change and WHAMY.

 

[reefle]

When I read your post a couple days ago stating you were starting bio pellets I said to myself, "Oh, Oh." Big changes are NEVER good.

LSUFireGal said it right. Right now you need to monitor your parameters and adjust them slowly back to the desired levels.

An example would be - you can have a tank running for years at the same not desirable parameters and everything will be fine, but make a sudden change and WHAMY.

Yeah, I was hoping it wasnt a huge change, because I'm running very low amounts of pellets. I'm actually gonna dump half of them and only run 1/2 while monitoring every day.

 

[max6297]

1week ago, I changed my GFO, carbon, and did a water change just for maintenance purposes. The only new thing I did was add a bio-pellet reactor. 3 days later, an acro frag I had completely bleached. 1 day later, my long tentacle anemone moved from the place its been for 2 months. 1 day later another acro frag I've had for 4 months bleached. today my anem is sitting in the middle of the tank, looks unattached to anything, and completely shriveled with a bunch of tips looking like they were being burnt off. one of my leather corals has also been completely retracted

Most of my other corals seem ok though...

What is going on....I dont want my beautiful anem to die and I'd feel even worse if my single clown lost his best bud.

I'm going to do a 30% water change in the next 12 hours....

I've heard bio-pellet reactors crashing tanks, but I havent even given it time to mature. plus my nitrates are still high, so its obviously not doing anything yet?!

 

[max6297]

Good Morning,

My reef tank was running fine and all corals looking great and I was running gfo/carbon reactor. I had a little HA and decided to change my gfo more frequently and add a little more. The HA disappeared but my sps started bleaching. It did not effect my lps too much.

I did not realize that the gfo was the cause and tried water changes and lighting changes with no success. This went on for several months. I thought I may have gotten something into my water by mistake. I could not figure it out. I talk to a chemistry friend of mine who is also a reefer. He said that I was stripping the water of all the nutrients. I have removed the gfo entirely and my sps has really come back. I had a bonsai and stary night coral that had not polyps extended and had bleached areas. Both of these corals are looking great and have started to repair themselves. My friend suggested to check for phosphates and only run the gfo to remove them when needed. This info has really saved me. Hope it will help. I also have been dosing Nualgi weekly.

 

[BigAl07]

Good information Max6297. To further back up what you've mentioned I'll add... one of the nicest tanks I have ever seen had a similar problem. He took his GFO offline and the tank did a 180 turn around (in the positive way) and his SPS are looking better than ever.

His name is Dennis and his screen name is d2mini but he's on another forum which I will not link to. I don't remember how far back in his chronicle it took place but it's been in the last several months for sure. You can find his thread by googling
d2mini's new 200g Reeftastic Build

 

[reefle]

Thanks guys!!!

I'll reduce the amount of GFO I'm using. and check that too.

quick question though. Right now I'm running my GFO and carbon with the recommended dosage but only like every other day (for the GFO) and every night for 6 hours for the carbon. Is this ok or is better just to run a smaller dosage of each for 24/7?

 

[reefle]

quick update as well. did a 12 gallon WC in the past day. I have another 6 gallons getting mixed right now.

My nitrates went from over 25 to around 10-15. dkh went from 4-5 to about 7.

I'm going home, doing another WC and testing all the parameters I can.

 

[max6297]

Good Morning,

My reef tank was running fine and all corals looking great and I was running gfo/carbon reactor. I had a little HA and decided to change my gfo more frequently and add a little more. The HA disappeared but my sps started bleaching. It did not effect my lps too much.

I did not realize that the gfo was the cause and tried water changes and lighting changes with no success. This went on for several months. I thought I may have gotten something into my water by mistake. I could not figure it out. I talk to a chemistry friend of mine who is also a reefer. He said that I was stripping the water of all the nutrients. I have removed the gfo entirely and my sps has really come back. I had a bonsai and stary night coral that had not polyps extended and had bleached areas. Both of these corals are looking great and have started to repair themselves. My friend suggested to check for phosphates and only run the gfo to remove them when needed. This info has really saved me. Hope it will help. I also have been dosing Nualgi weekly.