Tank crashed...

I had a massive nitrate spike. All I did differently was turn off my bubbler (it wasn't working right). I woke up to a dead tank. >_< Nothing but hermits, and ironically, a guppy(!) were left, my emerald crabs died, my pistol shrimp dead, my red scooter blenny is missing and presumed dead. Also, my feather dusters are fine (thank god). I'm now up to 20 of the little buggers, 4 small, and 1 large one.

Does this mean I should get a skimmer? Or could this be unrelated? I tested and got tons of phosphates and nitrates up the wazoo. This could be related to bad tap water too, so I did a 40% water change using $10/5Gallon ocean filtered water. >_< 100% better, No ammonia, nitrites, ammonia is 5 ppm or whatever the scale is, phosphates are very very close to 0, calcium is right around 500, KH is in the norm (can't remember the number).

Since the owner of my LFS took pity on me, I now have a tiny one clawed pistol shrimp, only set me back $5. Doing nicely, even popped an annoying red legged hermit that has been eluding me for a while.

This is in my nano, and most of the angle hair algae I had on my LR is dieing or dead, will it bounce back now that the water isn't cloudy (couldn't even see 1/4" into the murk Sunday)? Any recommendations on what I should do? Oh shoot, I forgot to do a PH test, oh well, it should be fine.

10 lbs of liverock, a few blue legged hermits, a freshwater guppy, and a pistol shrimp are my current livestock. Ideas for adding more stock? I might get the Goby that the shrimp had accepted at the LFS, but I'm certainly more of a invert fan than a fish fan. I may be picking up some coral soon, but I need to swap around lighting first.

fishieness said:

what other types of flow do you have in the tank besides a bubbles?!
was the cloudieness green or more of a murky white?
Was it like that before or after the tank crash?
and wait... you ahve "no amonia, nitrite. amonia is around 5 ppm"???!!!! what did you mean there? lol

Click to expand...

I've got a "mini powerhead", and I meant Nitrates around 5ppm.

The "Mini powerhead" is actually a Fluval 1Plus filter that I removed the filter from. It's simply to move water around.

Cloudiness was green, it was green after the tank crashed, but has cleared up about 97%. I have another 2.5 gallon water change to do in a few days, then I'm hoping the tank will be 100% clear again. It might also be algae on my glass that's making it look cloudy right now.

grannylvsfish, it took me over 2 weeks to bring this guppy to full marine tank conditions, the little guy is happy as can be in the tank.

The pistol shrimp did fine last night, and is still fine today. I'm going to do a 2 gallon water change again when I get home.

Adding a mechanical filter back in helped get rid of more crap, the water's clear again.

dilbert said:

To me it seems impossible to reconstruct what happened. The list of those who survived and who died makes also not much sense too me apart from the Guppy that is a hardy livebearer.

But a few remarks.

Did you measure your ph, too?

As ph per se isn't good/bad, dirty/clean, it's often overlooked but many tank crashes are actually ph crashes.

I got also a Fluval 1Plus filter as a second backup filter just in case one fails in my brackish tank. The output of this Fluval 1Plus is almost zero. I would get a normal powerhead or two.

Oxygen could have also been an issue and maybe on those spots where it was more oxygen the animals survived.

Click to expand...

My reconstruction of what happened...

I put a pair of algae tablets in, a few, like maybe 2, shrimp pellets in, and some betta food for my guppy. I noticed the pump floundering, so I turned it off. I went to bed.

I woke up to an awful smell, and a PH of about 7.4, ammonia was off the chart, phosphates were a little bit high, but not too bad. I checked and found 2 dead emerald crab and a dead pistol shrimp. My Red Scooter Blenny was dead as well, I found it quite decayed under some sand. The water was nasty green, and smelled strongly.

I purchased a new air pump and turned it on. I purchased 5 gallons of filtered ocean water, and an extra "super active charcoal" medium filter bag and charcoal. I stuffed the filter bag into my filter. I did water changes and removed crap from the sand.

My PH is now 7.6, phosphates are almost 0, ammonia 0, nitrites 0, calcium is 400, KH is normal, nitrates 5.5 ppm.

Water's clear and the smell is gone. My new pistol shrimp is doing well, I can hear it popping warnings at hermit crabs when they come too close.