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pmac
07-27-2003, 9:38 PM
I would not normally have considered myself a newbie since I have had my 65 gal FOWLR tank for 5 years. However, 2 years ago when moving, I decided to switch from gravel to a sandbed and have had nothing but algae outbreaks and problems with my Fluval since. So, a few weeks ago I decided to go to aragonite. I emptied the tank, saved the water, live rock and everything in the filter, added the aragonite and reassembled. For the next couple weeks, everything was great. No algae problems, fish all looked good (2 oscellaris, 1 hawaiian wrasse, 1 fuzzy dwarf lion, 1 longfin bannerfish, 1 coral beauty, snails, crabs, 1 coral banded shrimp), everyone was eating, etc.

However, last weekend I purchased a goby on Sat. He was dead by Tues, the bannerfish by Thurs, coral beauty Fri, wrasse Sat. Did emergency 25 gal water change (RO, as always). All inverts look good, clowns good, but the lion looks like he will be next. In addition, I now have long red hair algae growing on the substrate. All water parameters currently look good now, however, I had not tested for over a week until the third fish had died (my test kit was expired and had to get a new one).

Is it possible that the goby had a disease that killed off everything? Or is it more likely that the change in substrate and the filter media within a few weeks of each other caused the tank to recycle and the ammonia killed everything?

How do I get rid of the new hair algae (never had it before)? Or will it also eventually go away? Any help would be appreciated...

BrianH
07-28-2003, 8:55 AM
If I read your post correctly you said you switched your substrate and your filter media. Even If you did have a large amount of LR which you kept in tank water, you lost a large portion of your biofilter by removing the sand AND the filter media. This was probably the cause for an ammonia spike.

Brian

kreblak
07-28-2003, 8:59 AM
The VAST majority of your biofilter lives within your substrate. When you changed out your sandbed, you basically removed your biofilter with it. Hind sight is 20/20, but if you had kept several scoops of your old sandbed mixed in with the new, it may have avoided this.

pmac
07-29-2003, 11:14 AM
I did keep about 20 lbs of the live sand to mix with the aragonite, as well as all filter media for 3 weeks. I then switched the filter media at that point. I thought the 20 lbs would be enough to prevent another cycle.

Any other thoughts?