Tank Journal Archive

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
Stressful Weekend!
Wow, what a weekend... You know you should always be worried when your tank seems to be going a little too well!

Had my bad luck (hopefully for the whole year) come and go this weekend, 3 decent sized disasters that strangely all seem to have no relation to each other. It all started with my battle against rising nitrates. Having a fairly decently stocked tank with a habit of feeding fish up to a nice fat size, nitrates have hovered around the 15-20 mark for almost a year now which hasn't bothered me too much as all was still doing well, but I have often pondered if it could be better with nitrates between 0.25 and 5. In order to tackle this, I have installed a larger nitrate reactor to replace the one I currently run (as it is pretty optimistically rated to 400L and just not keeping up)

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I recently gave my skimmer a clean out and decided to turn the pump right up (controllable DC pump) as I had it on setting 2 of 6 and the gate valve fairly closed, decided running the pump on setting 6 with the gate open should produce more bubble (which it seems to do nicely!). Unfortunately whilst doing this, I seem to have unplugged the neck cleaner from its timer and over the course of the next week or two - the usual dark skimmate film had covered the neck making it difficult to see the skimmer bubble level.

As my skimmer is connected directly to the drain, I don't get a visualisation like others do as to how much it is skimming. With the neck covered in film, I didn't realise I was skimming very very wet and was starting to lose salinity in the tank (really should have twigged at this point, disappointing.....). So to combat this, I just up the auto water change value for the amount of water pumped into the tank as opposed to the amount pumped out. Note, at this point I didn't realise the skimmer was skimming wet and was curious where my salt water was going...

Thursday night I go out to my shed and notice I have a small algae bloom in one of my IBC's, slackness from me to cycle through a filter sock for a while plus just a bit of extra sunlight we have had this week combined with only a couple hundred litres of water left in that tank. Clean that up and cycle through a filter sock for a couple of hours and all looks ok.

Pop home from work Friday to sell a local mate a hundred litres of NSW and notice one of my 4 GHL Mitras lights has stopped working.... Don't really have a lot of time to work out why, but decided to check the plugs to the power supply and discover water on the ground..... A decent amount at that, not like puddles but the carpet is damp and I can see water damage to the wood..... CRAP (wasn't the word I said, but this is a family forum ;) )

Have to go back to work as I have been gone long enough, three hours till I can get back home to investigate further.Whilst at work, I get a message to say that the water I had sold is very cloudy and they are worried it will hurt their tank... CRAP! Although not too worried as it is the exact water that I have my auto system connected to and my tank was looking better than ever, I certainly don't want to hurt or kill anything in someone else's tank. They let me know that the corals all look happy so I get them to give me updates each 30mins and if it gets any worse , I will come over with ASW and do a water change ASAP.

OK, get home, have pre-warned the wife I will be tied up with the tank as it is an emergency (she is very supportive, not sure if because she loves me or because she doesn't want water in the house.... LOL). Start looking for this leak. I swap power packs around on the lights to find out that it is not water damage that has killed the power supply for the light, it is working fine when switching to another light. Seems the light has just packed it in itself... Still need to take it off and pull apart to find out what is going on, but the other three plus 8x80w T5's will keep things ticking over.

Back to the leak. Whilst down the side of the tank looking for the source of the water, I notice my blenny dead at the back of the rockwork.... WTF. I haven't lost a fish in this tank for ever, I mean I did lose a hogfish who did his best two-face impersonation after giving the caret nem a bit of a cuddle, but other than that I have had a great run. What the heck?!

Anyway, back to the leak again.... Where can it be coming from, must be salt water as my salinity has being doing its best to drop.. Seems like the wood damage is mostly around the RODI unit, but that cant be it... Wait, I can see water coming out of a fitting to the RODI unit... There it is. A slow leak that has been there for who knows how long, MONTHS at a minimum.... But why is my salinity dropping? At this point I did find the skimmer neck cleaner lead out and promptly replaced it to finally see in the skimmer neck and see that the bubble level was WAY too high which should explain the dropping salinity.

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Anyway, RODI unit out, leak fixed, back in, test the water to make sure nothing is wrong that has killed my blenny. Water is schmicko, all parameters are where I could dream of, even with the remains of a blenny still in the water! Can't see any reason why he has passed, so might just put it down to one of those things. Could have been age as I got him from another reefer and he was already huge then and has been in my tank for about a year and a half. Or perhaps the Kole tang finally chased him a little too much?

So at the end of it all, I have a yet-to-be-determined dead light, a fair amount of water damage to the cosmetic section at the back left of my cabinet and a dead blenny :( But the good news is, the new sulphur reactor is kicking ass, been on for a couple weeks and has steadily brought the nitrates down to 3 and the corals are looking AWESOME.

Apply whatever saying you want, bad things come in threes, take the good with the bad - whatever. I just hope for no more drama and just to sit back and watch more corals enjoy the lower nitrate goodness!

Sam
 

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
Thought of another saying that applies, no pain no gain. Hopefully had all the pain - can now just focus on the gain ;)
 

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
Yeah, probably lucky that the light failed so that j went looking and found the water leak. Could have been like it for a long time before I noticed otherwise.

Hopefully I can fix the light and as much of a shame as it is to lose the blenny, these things do happen in this hobby.

Onwards and upwards! (Just to get saying #4 in this thread!)
 

Buddy

Member
Mar 13, 2012
3,142
1,526
Where exactly was the leak coming from Sam? Also, what is the part with the braided line going in to it?

I recently had a big puddle from my RODI filter in my laundry (I still carry my RODI to my tank like a cave man lol) and it took me ages to find a pin hole leak in my booster pump that is sitting behind the washing machine... who knows how long that was leaking for!

Hopefully your light isn't fried and its an easy repair!
 

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
the braided line is coming from the freshwater tap at the wall and going into my solenoid before the RODI unit (as my RODI reservoir is automated to switch on when near empty). I'd like to say it was a slow leak, but for something that always has water pressure behind it, it was a quick enough leak! (probably a drop every 2 seconds?)

Yeah will see how I go with the light, I have a spare at work over my 6L tank - but it's pretty cool and would like to leave it there :)
 

GhostRPH

Member
Sep 19, 2012
441
170
Sounds like a bit of a hectic hurdle Sam!! Hope things have progressed well and back on track now mate!
 

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
Sounds like a bit of a hectic hurdle Sam!! Hope things have progressed well and back on track now mate!
Cheers mate - certainly pushed my anxiety levels up there for a while, but appears to be back on track again. Will grab some new snaps soon to show the happy corals with lower nitrates
 

jart

Member
Apr 10, 2015
207
106
Wow, that is quite a run of things you would rather avoid, Sam. Good job in sorting them all out and glad to hear you appear to be back on track. Sorry to hear about your blenny.

Your tank looked amazing before with the high nitrates. Looking forward to seeing it with < 5.
 

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
Yeah I have questioned if lower nitrates would really make much difference to my tank as despite hovering around 15-20, the corals always looked pretty good to me! But I always have that niggling thought in the back of my head that they could be better... (don't we all think that?)

This reactor came up on these forums marketplace at the right time, I had idle hands, just enough spare cash and enough guts to make a significant change to my tank. Early results are showing that the corals are responding, but the proof will be once they have stayed below 5 for a couple months.
 

ajs

Member
Aug 18, 2014
28
20
Geelong
Forgot to say, my good mate @ajs had me stressing that the drop in nitrates could be hurting the fish, but I think he's just jealous his sulphur reactor isn't set up yet :p
i just wanted to pinch that reactor off of you mate haha. Good to see its all sorted, now up you get for some photo's ;-)