- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
I have kept a thriving reef tank for about a year and a half and recently experienced my first crash, which unfortunately, wiped out much of the life in the tank.
I thought that I?d share my experiences, habits, and what I have learned the hard way in case others experience similar problems.
Below is an image of what my tank looked like about a month before the nitrate spike:
Below is a picture of my tank after the water conditions finally stabilized:
It is a 110g display with a 30g sump. The reason for this deterioration is due to my nitrates shooting up to 80+ PPM over an unknown period of time. This spike caught me by great surprise given the tank?s history and I have never encountered a serious problem with ammonia or nitrates, despite constant overfeeding.
The non-photosynthetic corals liked being fed three or more times a week. I used to provide them with heavy portions of food before the nitrate spike. I would turn off the pumps and use an eye dropper to feed the corals directly in the tank without worrying about filtering out the finer food particles since those were used as food by the chili coral and other life.
Often bits of food would fall into the rockwork but, with a high population of bristle worms, hermit crabs, shrimp, and other critters, I never thought much of it since it never caused problems before. In the end, overfeeding was likely a primary contributing factor to the nitrate spike.
After identifying high nitrates, I stopped feeding the tank altogether for about three days and later resumed feeding the tank just a little once daily. The life in the tank did not appear to show signs of stress from the decrease in available food.
Before the spike, I used to test once a week for ammonia and nitrates, skipping a week every now and then. At times I would just test for ammonia when I suspected something died.
Once in a while the test would show some trace of ammonia (likely due to heavy feeding or death of a snail) but, it would be converted within a day or so without any water changes. Not once did I have a positive reading for nitrates until the spike.
The first sign that something was wrong was the death of my two cleaner shrimp. Coincidently, both died on the same day. At this time the nitrate and ammonia readings were both 0 according to the API test kit. This really confused me and I couldn?t understand why both shrimp spontaneously died at the same time while nothing else was showing signs of stress. Two days later, I found that some corals were starting to look unhappy and within 24 hours, my orange ricordea completely melted away. It was one of the first pieces that I purchased loose for $5 at Pacific Aquarium and it grew from the size of a dime to 2-3? diameter with multiple mouths so it was sad to see it disintegrate so suddenly. I now suspected the sudden death was a combination of damage from a turbo snail grazing up against it and the poor water conditions. Upon testing the water after the death of the ricordea, nitrates tested at a whopping range of 80-100 PPM!
I was relieved knowing what the problem was but concerned with the crazy reading. At this point I figured that I would be able to contain the problem and prevent anymore loss, but that was not the case.
Immediately I started administering water changes as fast as the RO/DI kit would allow and purchased some Seachem Prime to help decrease the toxicity. I used bacteria starter since the water changes noticeably removed a lot of the beneficial bacteria. Within 4 to 5 days, 70-80% of the tank?s water was changed and I observed the following:
1) Some coral pieces were getting worse despite the improvement in water quality. It was simply too late for some of the corals, which began to pollute the water further. I believe that the Euphyllia species contributed the most ammonia to the water during this time as they began to decay quickly. If you happen to have another operating tank and encounter a problem of this sort, I strongly advise immediately moving, at the very least, sensitive pieces to another environment.
2) Ammonia was on the rise and fluctuating rapidly. This problem did not go away even after two weeks of daily water changes and constant removal of dying matter. The ammonia spike was due to the all of the decaying in the tank that I was not able to keep up with. The inability of the tank to convert ammonia as readily as it did before was in large part, due to the heavy water changes which removed some of the beneficial bacteria. At this point I began dosing with SeaChem Prime.
SeaChem prime had an immediate and dramatic effect on converting ammonia.
Below is an image of a reading taken about 5 minutes apart, before and after adding a triple dose of SeaChem Prime into the tank (the left being after SeaChem was added).
After adding Seachem Prime, I removed many of the dying corals and siphoned out any decaying matter. I continued using Seachem Prime but with the ammonia and nitrate levels still fluctuating daily, the corals continued to deteriorate. The corals more or less stabilized in two weeks and many water changes later. Although it has been a slow process, I am hopeful that the remaining bleached corals will make a full recovery.
The biggest upset was the volatility in results from the API nitrate test kit. I believe that the 0 reading I had for nitrates when the shrimp died was inaccurate. After the spike, I began testing the water twice and from different parts of the tank. Once in a while I found dramatic discrepancies in the readings which led me to believe that either the water in different parts of the tank could have drastically different readings or that there were issues with the kits.
I found that if you don?t follow the API test kit directions, you may get inaccurate results. Don?t forget to shake the appropriate bottle/tube if the instructions call for it.
I can?t help but feel that if I identified the issue earlier there would not be so much loss and difficulty. I also wonder how long the nitrates were accumulating to have 130g of water at 80ppm. No sudden changes were made to the tank the weeks that the shrimp died and it leads me to believe that the nitrates may have been building up over time and the life took some time to react to it.
My tank contained various nitrate exporters including red mangroves, cyanobacteria, hair algae, chaeto, and halimeda. Before I used RO/DI water, I used conditioned NYC tap water. Surprisingly the pieces in the tank at my time did ok, but exhibited much slower growth. Unfortunately because of the tap water there were high phosphates that contributed to lot of green hair algae. At times cyanobacteria or diatoms would become an issue as well. Needless to say, the corals did not like this but, I suspect that the algae did a great deal for keeping the nitrate in check.
When feeding heavily, I noticed that hair algae would grow much faster due to the extra nutrients. You can see in the before and after images that the Halimeda grew a lot during the period of the spike. Algae became manageable when phosphates decreased due to the RO/DI water.
Red Mangroves ? I?ve read when they are the right size that they are excellent exporters, but grow slowly. They were one of the first exporters that I purchased and unfortunately died within a month so I cannot speak about their ability to export.
Chaeto Algae - I have had poor results with chaeto algae, it simply does not grow well in my tank despite proper lighting and water-flow. I suspect this may have been due to the halimeda sucking up nitrates and phosphates before the chaeto could.
Halimeda Discoidea - I feel it gets a bad rep since it is a calcifying algae. Often I read that it is a slow grower, uses too many nutrients, and is sensitive to pruning. With the amount of halimeda I have in my tank, I find that it does not adversely affect the calcium levels. I suspect this is due to the limited amount of species that require calcium in the tank and because the halimeda releases calcium carbonate back into the water. I have even stopped dosing calcium hydroxide when I discovered that the calcium levels were always over 400 without it. I have not had any difficulty with pruning and believe that it grows fairly quickly under proper tank conditions.
Below are some observations of species resilience after the spike. I?m sure that these results may vary, but this is how things played out for me:
Very Sensitive:
Euphyllia Glabrescens. ? Receded within two days of the spike and began showing signs of decay on day three.
Euphyllia Divisia ? It also displayed stresses within a few days and started to visibly decay on day three.
Acropora ? Bleached on the first day and completely receded on the third.
Acan Lords ? Six acan lord colonies closed up very rapidly on the first day. They began melting on the third day, and within a week there was nothing left but the skeleton.
Blue Anthillia ? I initially thought this coral would be resilient given its similarities to green star polyps; instead they receded within 5 days with no recovery.
Mixed/Medium Sensitivity:
Palythoa- Mixed results depending on the type. Magician palys melted within 5 days. Other palys became bleached, and experienced periods where they closed up for days, but quickly reopened after water conditions stabilized.
Ricordea Yuma ? All but one of the ricordea yumas died. Their sizes appeared to play no role in their resilience. The rate at which they melted away, varied, with some taking as long as 1.5 weeks to melt away. There was no sign of recovery even after the water levels stabilized. The only ricordea I have left is the rainbow ricordea (which I am happy is alive). It appears to have fully recovered and is growing in size.
Blue Cespitularia ? Initially they receded slightly and showed signs of bleaching, they seemed strong throughout. The xenia that received the most flow appeared to bleach faster than the others. About 1.5 weeks after the spike the water stabilized, but they could not recover. Within 2 days they closed up very tightly, fell off the rocks, and melted away. They did appear more stressed during water changes and when I began dosing Seachem, but this could have been a coincidence.
Sun Coral ? It took about a week to see any ill indicators on the sun corals. A little bleaching was visible, turning the once very vivid peach color to a duller shade. I continued to feed the sun coral during the spike by placing it in a small bowl outside of the tank. At first, it did not appear to be stressed from the spike but, when removing it from the tank and attempting to feed it, I noticed that something was wrong. The polyps did not open as they would normally; they would open their mouths without extending their tentacles and did not accept food. In time these gaping mouths expanded and grew into the skeleton that remains in the tank.
Blastomussa Wellsi ? A small frag, about six heads. At a glance it appeared to be gone within a few days. Upon closer inspection, after water stabilization, I can now see that one or two of the heads may still have flesh on it despite the skeleton being visible. I doubt that they will be able recover from this point.
Sponges ? I have a number of strange filter sponges that hitchhiked into the tank. When the spike occurred they began showing signs of stress; however, they recovered quickly once water conditions returned to normal.
Low Sensitivity:
Green Implosion Polyps - These polyps exhibited no visible signs of stress and continued to grow throughout.
Zoanthids - Highly resilient corals from my experience. No Zoa colonies died as a result of the spike. Few receded for a day, but surprisingly all survived, some continued to form new polyps during the spike.
Actinodiscus Mushrooms? While the red ones (3 total) bleached completely and are now transparent, they are alive and will hopefully recover.
Chalice ? The chalice I have is about 5? in length and it has shrunk since the spike. I believe it is still alive, but I am unsure that it will survive. It has become more rigid and most of the mouths have disappeared. It expelled a great deal of waste one day during the spike and appears to respond to food so I?m hoping it will survive.
Chili Coral ? This piece is temperamental and it can go into hiding for weeks and then swell up beautifully in a matter of hours for weeks. I don?t know what triggers it. It appeared to open up during the spike normally and has no visible signs of stress at this time.
Acan Echinata ? This acan (about 8 ? 10 heads) bleached dramatically, becoming almost entirely transparent. Thankfully it is still alive and accepting food. Although it looks like it is in bad shape, I am hoping that it will recover.
Cloves ? The cloves closed up about 5 days after the spike, and it looked like they would not make it for some time, but they opened up. They quickly regained their color.
Green Star Polyps ? These resilient guys went into hiding for about a week and a half. They eventually came out little by little, but lost a lot of their fluorescent green color and stopped encrusting. I?m sure they will recover in time, half of them are open.
Duncans ? The duncans closed up almost entirely and are were almost entirely white. Amazingly they have survived and the smaller heads even grew a bit. They appear to be recovering but have become much more temperamental now, closing every now and then.
Plate Coral ? A small plate coral about the size of a dime has shown no signs of stress or bleaching.
Here are some observations I made from my experience.
- Uncharacteristic decrease of copepod population may indicate poor water quality. When it happened in my tank I didn?t think of the decrease as unusual since their populations are known to fluctuate, but now I believe that it was no coincidence. Sudden signs of starvation in the mandarin goby could have also been a sign. Mine didn?t make it through this despite being healthy for a year in the environment.
- High population of bristle worms may indicate overfeeding. Their population has since decreased.
- Corals should not be used as a leading indicator of poor water quality. By the time corals show signs of stress, it may be too late.
- Follow test kit directions well and if you suspect that the reading may be inaccurate, test it again.
- Administering large water changes can substantially decrease your tanks ability to remove ammonia and having a bottle of Seachem Prime for emergencies may help.
- If you have another tank to move corals to during a spike, it is better to do it sooner than later.
- Promptly remove decaying matter from corals.
- It is better to underfeed than to overfeed.
I hope this information will be useful to some. As for me, I will be posting up some of my unused equipment and pieces for sale/trade in the hopes of recovering some of the things I lost.
I thought that I?d share my experiences, habits, and what I have learned the hard way in case others experience similar problems.
Below is an image of what my tank looked like about a month before the nitrate spike:
Below is a picture of my tank after the water conditions finally stabilized:
It is a 110g display with a 30g sump. The reason for this deterioration is due to my nitrates shooting up to 80+ PPM over an unknown period of time. This spike caught me by great surprise given the tank?s history and I have never encountered a serious problem with ammonia or nitrates, despite constant overfeeding.
Overfeeding
The non-photosynthetic corals liked being fed three or more times a week. I used to provide them with heavy portions of food before the nitrate spike. I would turn off the pumps and use an eye dropper to feed the corals directly in the tank without worrying about filtering out the finer food particles since those were used as food by the chili coral and other life.
Often bits of food would fall into the rockwork but, with a high population of bristle worms, hermit crabs, shrimp, and other critters, I never thought much of it since it never caused problems before. In the end, overfeeding was likely a primary contributing factor to the nitrate spike.
After identifying high nitrates, I stopped feeding the tank altogether for about three days and later resumed feeding the tank just a little once daily. The life in the tank did not appear to show signs of stress from the decrease in available food.
Before the Spike
Before the spike, I used to test once a week for ammonia and nitrates, skipping a week every now and then. At times I would just test for ammonia when I suspected something died.
Once in a while the test would show some trace of ammonia (likely due to heavy feeding or death of a snail) but, it would be converted within a day or so without any water changes. Not once did I have a positive reading for nitrates until the spike.
First Signs:
The first sign that something was wrong was the death of my two cleaner shrimp. Coincidently, both died on the same day. At this time the nitrate and ammonia readings were both 0 according to the API test kit. This really confused me and I couldn?t understand why both shrimp spontaneously died at the same time while nothing else was showing signs of stress. Two days later, I found that some corals were starting to look unhappy and within 24 hours, my orange ricordea completely melted away. It was one of the first pieces that I purchased loose for $5 at Pacific Aquarium and it grew from the size of a dime to 2-3? diameter with multiple mouths so it was sad to see it disintegrate so suddenly. I now suspected the sudden death was a combination of damage from a turbo snail grazing up against it and the poor water conditions. Upon testing the water after the death of the ricordea, nitrates tested at a whopping range of 80-100 PPM!
I was relieved knowing what the problem was but concerned with the crazy reading. At this point I figured that I would be able to contain the problem and prevent anymore loss, but that was not the case.
Water Changes:
Immediately I started administering water changes as fast as the RO/DI kit would allow and purchased some Seachem Prime to help decrease the toxicity. I used bacteria starter since the water changes noticeably removed a lot of the beneficial bacteria. Within 4 to 5 days, 70-80% of the tank?s water was changed and I observed the following:
1) Some coral pieces were getting worse despite the improvement in water quality. It was simply too late for some of the corals, which began to pollute the water further. I believe that the Euphyllia species contributed the most ammonia to the water during this time as they began to decay quickly. If you happen to have another operating tank and encounter a problem of this sort, I strongly advise immediately moving, at the very least, sensitive pieces to another environment.
2) Ammonia was on the rise and fluctuating rapidly. This problem did not go away even after two weeks of daily water changes and constant removal of dying matter. The ammonia spike was due to the all of the decaying in the tank that I was not able to keep up with. The inability of the tank to convert ammonia as readily as it did before was in large part, due to the heavy water changes which removed some of the beneficial bacteria. At this point I began dosing with SeaChem Prime.
My Experience with SeaChem Prime
SeaChem prime had an immediate and dramatic effect on converting ammonia.
Below is an image of a reading taken about 5 minutes apart, before and after adding a triple dose of SeaChem Prime into the tank (the left being after SeaChem was added).
After adding Seachem Prime, I removed many of the dying corals and siphoned out any decaying matter. I continued using Seachem Prime but with the ammonia and nitrate levels still fluctuating daily, the corals continued to deteriorate. The corals more or less stabilized in two weeks and many water changes later. Although it has been a slow process, I am hopeful that the remaining bleached corals will make a full recovery.
API Nitrate Test Kit
The biggest upset was the volatility in results from the API nitrate test kit. I believe that the 0 reading I had for nitrates when the shrimp died was inaccurate. After the spike, I began testing the water twice and from different parts of the tank. Once in a while I found dramatic discrepancies in the readings which led me to believe that either the water in different parts of the tank could have drastically different readings or that there were issues with the kits.
I found that if you don?t follow the API test kit directions, you may get inaccurate results. Don?t forget to shake the appropriate bottle/tube if the instructions call for it.
I can?t help but feel that if I identified the issue earlier there would not be so much loss and difficulty. I also wonder how long the nitrates were accumulating to have 130g of water at 80ppm. No sudden changes were made to the tank the weeks that the shrimp died and it leads me to believe that the nitrates may have been building up over time and the life took some time to react to it.
My Experience with Nitrate Exporters
My tank contained various nitrate exporters including red mangroves, cyanobacteria, hair algae, chaeto, and halimeda. Before I used RO/DI water, I used conditioned NYC tap water. Surprisingly the pieces in the tank at my time did ok, but exhibited much slower growth. Unfortunately because of the tap water there were high phosphates that contributed to lot of green hair algae. At times cyanobacteria or diatoms would become an issue as well. Needless to say, the corals did not like this but, I suspect that the algae did a great deal for keeping the nitrate in check.
When feeding heavily, I noticed that hair algae would grow much faster due to the extra nutrients. You can see in the before and after images that the Halimeda grew a lot during the period of the spike. Algae became manageable when phosphates decreased due to the RO/DI water.
Red Mangroves ? I?ve read when they are the right size that they are excellent exporters, but grow slowly. They were one of the first exporters that I purchased and unfortunately died within a month so I cannot speak about their ability to export.
Chaeto Algae - I have had poor results with chaeto algae, it simply does not grow well in my tank despite proper lighting and water-flow. I suspect this may have been due to the halimeda sucking up nitrates and phosphates before the chaeto could.
Halimeda Discoidea - I feel it gets a bad rep since it is a calcifying algae. Often I read that it is a slow grower, uses too many nutrients, and is sensitive to pruning. With the amount of halimeda I have in my tank, I find that it does not adversely affect the calcium levels. I suspect this is due to the limited amount of species that require calcium in the tank and because the halimeda releases calcium carbonate back into the water. I have even stopped dosing calcium hydroxide when I discovered that the calcium levels were always over 400 without it. I have not had any difficulty with pruning and believe that it grows fairly quickly under proper tank conditions.
Resilience
Below are some observations of species resilience after the spike. I?m sure that these results may vary, but this is how things played out for me:
Very Sensitive:
Euphyllia Glabrescens. ? Receded within two days of the spike and began showing signs of decay on day three.
Euphyllia Divisia ? It also displayed stresses within a few days and started to visibly decay on day three.
Acropora ? Bleached on the first day and completely receded on the third.
Acan Lords ? Six acan lord colonies closed up very rapidly on the first day. They began melting on the third day, and within a week there was nothing left but the skeleton.
Blue Anthillia ? I initially thought this coral would be resilient given its similarities to green star polyps; instead they receded within 5 days with no recovery.
Mixed/Medium Sensitivity:
Palythoa- Mixed results depending on the type. Magician palys melted within 5 days. Other palys became bleached, and experienced periods where they closed up for days, but quickly reopened after water conditions stabilized.
Ricordea Yuma ? All but one of the ricordea yumas died. Their sizes appeared to play no role in their resilience. The rate at which they melted away, varied, with some taking as long as 1.5 weeks to melt away. There was no sign of recovery even after the water levels stabilized. The only ricordea I have left is the rainbow ricordea (which I am happy is alive). It appears to have fully recovered and is growing in size.
Blue Cespitularia ? Initially they receded slightly and showed signs of bleaching, they seemed strong throughout. The xenia that received the most flow appeared to bleach faster than the others. About 1.5 weeks after the spike the water stabilized, but they could not recover. Within 2 days they closed up very tightly, fell off the rocks, and melted away. They did appear more stressed during water changes and when I began dosing Seachem, but this could have been a coincidence.
Sun Coral ? It took about a week to see any ill indicators on the sun corals. A little bleaching was visible, turning the once very vivid peach color to a duller shade. I continued to feed the sun coral during the spike by placing it in a small bowl outside of the tank. At first, it did not appear to be stressed from the spike but, when removing it from the tank and attempting to feed it, I noticed that something was wrong. The polyps did not open as they would normally; they would open their mouths without extending their tentacles and did not accept food. In time these gaping mouths expanded and grew into the skeleton that remains in the tank.
Blastomussa Wellsi ? A small frag, about six heads. At a glance it appeared to be gone within a few days. Upon closer inspection, after water stabilization, I can now see that one or two of the heads may still have flesh on it despite the skeleton being visible. I doubt that they will be able recover from this point.
Sponges ? I have a number of strange filter sponges that hitchhiked into the tank. When the spike occurred they began showing signs of stress; however, they recovered quickly once water conditions returned to normal.
Low Sensitivity:
Green Implosion Polyps - These polyps exhibited no visible signs of stress and continued to grow throughout.
Zoanthids - Highly resilient corals from my experience. No Zoa colonies died as a result of the spike. Few receded for a day, but surprisingly all survived, some continued to form new polyps during the spike.
Actinodiscus Mushrooms? While the red ones (3 total) bleached completely and are now transparent, they are alive and will hopefully recover.
Chalice ? The chalice I have is about 5? in length and it has shrunk since the spike. I believe it is still alive, but I am unsure that it will survive. It has become more rigid and most of the mouths have disappeared. It expelled a great deal of waste one day during the spike and appears to respond to food so I?m hoping it will survive.
Chili Coral ? This piece is temperamental and it can go into hiding for weeks and then swell up beautifully in a matter of hours for weeks. I don?t know what triggers it. It appeared to open up during the spike normally and has no visible signs of stress at this time.
Acan Echinata ? This acan (about 8 ? 10 heads) bleached dramatically, becoming almost entirely transparent. Thankfully it is still alive and accepting food. Although it looks like it is in bad shape, I am hoping that it will recover.
Cloves ? The cloves closed up about 5 days after the spike, and it looked like they would not make it for some time, but they opened up. They quickly regained their color.
Green Star Polyps ? These resilient guys went into hiding for about a week and a half. They eventually came out little by little, but lost a lot of their fluorescent green color and stopped encrusting. I?m sure they will recover in time, half of them are open.
Duncans ? The duncans closed up almost entirely and are were almost entirely white. Amazingly they have survived and the smaller heads even grew a bit. They appear to be recovering but have become much more temperamental now, closing every now and then.
Plate Coral ? A small plate coral about the size of a dime has shown no signs of stress or bleaching.
Indicators & Tips
Here are some observations I made from my experience.
- Uncharacteristic decrease of copepod population may indicate poor water quality. When it happened in my tank I didn?t think of the decrease as unusual since their populations are known to fluctuate, but now I believe that it was no coincidence. Sudden signs of starvation in the mandarin goby could have also been a sign. Mine didn?t make it through this despite being healthy for a year in the environment.
- High population of bristle worms may indicate overfeeding. Their population has since decreased.
- Corals should not be used as a leading indicator of poor water quality. By the time corals show signs of stress, it may be too late.
- Follow test kit directions well and if you suspect that the reading may be inaccurate, test it again.
- Administering large water changes can substantially decrease your tanks ability to remove ammonia and having a bottle of Seachem Prime for emergencies may help.
- If you have another tank to move corals to during a spike, it is better to do it sooner than later.
- Promptly remove decaying matter from corals.
- It is better to underfeed than to overfeed.
I hope this information will be useful to some. As for me, I will be posting up some of my unused equipment and pieces for sale/trade in the hopes of recovering some of the things I lost.
