Someone help me understand what happened

cristine

cristine

Member
Friday I did my normal weekly 10% water change. Did my own water testing:
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
PH 8.2
Nitrates approx. 80
I've been battling my nitrate levels for a while now and took a water sample into my lfs to confirm my results. Their results:
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
PH 8.2
Nitrates 0
Their words "Your water is perfect"
Decided to take a sample to another lfs. They tested for PH and Specific Gravity only :notsure: . They said my Specific Gravity was too high 1.027 and my PH was too low-can't remember exact number. They suggested I do another water change using fresh water with an added buffer, 10 gal. for my 60 gal. tank. After the water change my specific gravity is 1.022. The PH looks good, but according to my test, it was fine before. This is a tank with live rock, fish, and two small bubble tip anemones.
Now for my question: This morning fish look great, much more active :joy: , but my sally crab is belly up, missing two legs, and moving/twitching occasionally. I'm guessing this was too rapid a salinity change for her
. I would have thought she would be more able to adjust to the change than the fish, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Also my cleaner shrimp are fine. I'm not sure if she is actually dead yet because of the movement I'm seeing. I'm really bummed about this especially because I feel it's my fault

Obviously I'm new to this (Tank up since April), and I've been very frustrated at the differences in test results depending on who is doing the testing. I use the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kit-same as both local fish stores. I live in Orange County California-any recommendations of a good lfs? Any thoughts on what went wrong?
Thanks
Cris
 
auntkaren

auntkaren

Member
My parameters started going silly on my 24G too. Mine was alk and ph mostly. This happened when my tank had been running for about 6 months. I've seen several posts where people's tanks start doing whacko things sometimes killing critters and the reefer has done nothing different or added new things etc. All their problems started for them around the 6 month mark. Your tank might be going through the 6 month syndrome. Do some research on this in various forums you might find that this is what's happening to you, too.
I've learned that even when levels are waaay out of whack to take my time and change things slowly. Things like pH, salinity, alk levels etc. It's hard to discipline yourself not to just "fix" with a large water change or putting in buffers to raise pH so that it's at the level you want - fast! Things don't change "overnight" in the ocean so your critters systems don't know how to handle rapid changes and they suffer the consequences. Just take things more slowly.
Deeeep breath! Good Luck! Hope others respond to your problem with more specific info for you. :)
 
cristine

cristine

Member
Thank you. I do believe I moved too fast. I hear it over and over again-take it slowly-but it's difficult to do. I've never tested for anything other than Ammonia, Nitrates, Nitrites, pH, and specific gravity. I was told I didn't have to worry about anything else unless I decided to go reef. I'll look into other tests.
Six month syndrome, hmmm-interesting. I'll definately look into that :thinking:I've noticed a marked increase in brown alge growth recently. Maybe there is some relationship there :notsure:.
Thanks again.
 
S

sea_star

Guest
Nitrates at 80 is not good for anemones. You should get that down fast.
 
cristine

cristine

Member
Thanks Sea Star. It's difficult to know what my "true" nitrate levels are but after two back to back water changes my test results have gone from 80 to 20 :jumping: . I'll be testing over and over again for the next several days.
 
tx reef

tx reef

Active Member
Originally Posted by AuntKaren
My parameters started going silly on my 24G too. Mine was alk and ph mostly. This happened when my tank had been running for about 6 months. I've seen several posts where people's tanks start doing whacko things sometimes killing critters and the reefer has done nothing different or added new things etc. All their problems started for them around the 6 month mark. Your tank might be going through the 6 month syndrome. Do some research on this in various forums you might find that this is what's happening to you, too.
I've learned that even when levels are waaay out of whack to take my time and change things slowly. Things like pH, salinity, alk levels etc. It's hard to discipline yourself not to just "fix" with a large water change or putting in buffers to raise pH so that it's at the level you want - fast! Things don't change "overnight" in the ocean so your critters systems don't know how to handle rapid changes and they suffer the consequences. Just take things more slowly.
Deeeep breath! Good Luck! Hope others respond to your problem with more specific info for you. :)
There is no such thing as a "6 month syndrome."
There is a reason that your nitrates were too high. You need to figure it out. Are you doing weekly or bi-weekly water changes? Do you over feed your fish? Do you have too many fish?
I keep the specific gravity in my tank at 1.026. This is actually better for inverts and corals and fish handle it just fine. If you want to lower/raise the specific gravity, you need to do it slowly over several days. If you want to raise it, top off with salt water until you reach the desired specific gravity. If you want to lower it, take out half a gallon of water every day and replace with freshwater until you reach the desired specific gravity.
Does the LFS use strips to test the water? Test strips are highly inaccurate and if you use them, ditch them and buy a decent liquid test kit.
Slow down and do some research or things could continue to go wrong.
Hope this helps.
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
Originally Posted by TX Reef
There is no such thing as a "6 month syndrome."
There is a reason that your nitrates were too high. You need to figure it out. Are you doing weekly or bi-weekly water changes? Do you over feed your fish? Do you have too many fish?
I keep the specific gravity in my tank at 1.026. This is actually better for inverts and corals and fish handle it just fine. If you want to lower/raise the specific gravity, you need to do it slowly over several days. If you want to raise it, top off with salt water until you reach the desired specific gravity. If you want to lower it, take out half a gallon of water every day and replace with freshwater until you reach the desired specific gravity.
Does the LFS use strips to test the water? Test strips are highly inaccurate and if you use them, ditch them and buy a decent liquid test kit.
Slow down and do some research or things could continue to go wrong.
Hope this helps.

I agree 100% with this post. All of this info TX_Reef provided is sound advice.
And just another note - the only way to get high nitrates down is with large water changes. Small 10% water changes will do nothing to high nitrates. You need to do at least 25-30% weekly to get high nitrates down.
 
a&a2

a&a2

Member
My LFS recommended a nitrate absorbing media to put in my cannister filter. Haven't done it yet, has anyone else used this to decrease nitrate?
 
wingnut sr

wingnut sr

New Member
IMO, the first thing that is needed, is to verify the actual nitrate level. Her test kit showed 80, her LFS showed 0. I would recomend to get another kit and then check it. Like a 3rd opinion. 2 different readings from 2 different tests leaves a person guessing! Also, when the LFS didi your water tests, did they just add the water to the test tubes, or did they rinse them out with a little of you water first, as they should. Many samples get run through them.
Second, salinity changes should be made slowly and gradually, as stated by others here.
And legs of crabs just dont fall off. Maybe another predator in the tank?
 
Y

yeffre kix

Guest
I live in Orange County California-any recommendations of a good lfs?
Jeff's Exotic Fish is a great store for corals and reef supplies.

I regularly drive an hour to get there. I've never really discussed tank problems with them so I'm not sure about how educated they are. I will say the store looks as good an any I've ever been in as far tanks and live stock.
Use a refractometer to measure you salinity and quality test kits for other parameters.
 
lion_crazz

lion_crazz

Active Member
I have tried all of the nitrate absorbing media and they have all been a waste of money. Some of them brought the nitrates down 5 or 10 ppm (SeaChem), but none of them worked as they claimed.
 
puffer32

puffer32

Active Member
I agree with doing larger water changes. I was battling high nitrates and doing a 30 gal change every 2 weeks in my150, so decided to get aggressive and did 60 gal change one week and 60 the next, trates are down from 40 to 10 in 2 weeks.
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
Nitrate tests can be finicky and some are just bad out of the box. Others can get old, or be left too long, etc, etc all impacting readings. But unfortunately this test kit is just not very accurate, and I would suggest that you invest in some better one's. Its unfortunate that the LFS uses this as well but oh well...
One bit of advice: NEVER use the LFS that didn't test anything other than pH and specific gravity, and told you to reduce the specific gravity to that level and rapidly. 1.022 is highly stressful to many invertebrates, taking it down at once is definitely fatal for many. Adding buffer is a very bad idea...also possibly a fatal one. They should not suggest you add buffer unless they tested your alkalinity. Both of these may have resulted in the death of the crab, and both are very very bad advice.
Invertebrates are FAR less able to adapt to changes in salinity or other parameters than fish are. You can take a saltwater fish and throw it into freshwater for a few minutes. You can keep them long term at 1.017 without trouble...but invertebrates have a very narrow range of tolerance, which is why low salinity is used to kill invertebrate parasites on fish.
 
cristine

cristine

Member
Wow, lots of great advice given.
TX Reef-Thank you for all those words of wisdom. I've been trying to figure out the Nitrate issue for months now :notsure: I have continuously done bi-weekly 10% water changes since I started the tank last April. Over the past few weeks I have bumped that up to weekly. I really don't think I overfeed. I have 9 fish (all under 2 inches each) 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, and until two days ago, a sally crab. Is that too much? I wanted to add one more in the next month or so. I don't have a clean up crew other than the sally crab, shrimp, and a couple of turbo snails. Any advice on what I should get?
lion creazz-Good advice. I ended up doing a 20% water change trying to reduce the specific gravity. My nitrates went down to about 20-according to my test kit (drops not strips). I feel pretty confident that my results are more accurate than the lfs because they are consistant even though I've tried three different kits. I'll continue doing large water changes untill things are more under control.
I agree with lion crazz that nitrate absorbing material is worthless. I used purigen and had no results what so ever.
Wingnut Sr-Never thought of my lfs needing to rinse the tubes with my water before testing. I'll bring my own next time. It's obvious to me now that I went way too fast with the specific gravity change , I should have known better
.
Ophiura- you make excellent points
. I feel like such an idiot . I know that is not your intent and I truly appreciate your advice. It makes so much sense, I can't believe I didn't see it before. Geez, this is such a humbling hobby. Just when I think I'm finally getting it all down, everything goes to pot. In fact, just yesterday I bought a sea slug for my 12 gal. tank. Thought it looked very cool and was told it would eat all the algae off the glass. Had never seen one like this or researched them (yeah, there's the idiot thing again
) Turns out I got myself a Scrambled Egg Nudibranch-toxic little fellow that can kill everything in my tank, am I right?
Thanks everyone for the help. I'm sure I'll be back. In the mean time, I'll read and read and read these message boards
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
There was really only one mistake that you made, and that was basically trusting the advice of the LFS. We've all been there. And it is not that they were necessarily purposely misleading you...it was just outdated information in all likelihood. So once that lesson is learned, unfortunately the hard way, you can get yourself on the road to success
I think you are probably well on your way!
 
nigerbang

nigerbang

Active Member
Originally Posted by Quaos
I recomend salifert test kits if you don't have them.
agreed..Kinda pricey but in the long run alot better then having your tank crash because of improper testing..Some LFS are okay...not many but a few..
 
1knight164

1knight164

Member
No doubt, salifert is the best. Used to go cheap with test strips (lazy) and only went crazy trying to get my nitrates down wondering why my constant large water changes didn't drop the nitrates. I consider myself color blind when it comes to matching colors on the test strips. But saliferts was much easier to match.
Also, have you (or Yeffre Kix or anyone in socal) ever considered filtered natural sea water? I had a post in the "Reef" community asking if it was safe and most agreed. Its FREE from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, SD. All parameter are pretty consistent which is great for us beginners. Takes the guesswork out of mixing and since it's free, there's no hesitation ($$) in doing water changes often. If you (or anyone else) needs directions, let me know.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/243139/is-filtered-seawater-okay
 
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