ATS Prevents Disaster after Move

[schnitm]

A bit of background...My daughter is disabled and spends a lot of time in her room for treatments and resting. Fish were suggested to us by a friend at church and we started an Oceanic Bio Cube 14 in January. Saltwater, live rock, some soft corals, a clown and a 6 line wrasse. Kept it in her room and she loves it! I had almost killed the whole thing by April, but got serious and have fantastic water parametes now with the help of a small ATS in the back.

Flash forward to today...Our friend is moving to a new house, and her 90 gallon system isn't moving with her. So, last Thursday this moved into my daughter's room:

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/schnitm/IMG_0194.jpg

Took 10 hours to move everything and we're just about to put the fish back in. I decide I'll test the water first. I have never seen a nitrate test change color so fast. By the time I'd finished shaking the vial it had maxed out. After tome RO/DI dillution I finally got a reading along with some others from my Red Sea Marine Lab kit:

Nitrates: 300+
Nitrite: 0.3
Ammonia: 0.25
Phosphate: 5.0

After freaking out and figuring I'd done something wrong and effectively killed my daughter's new aquarium, I decided I'd better test the water the fish were still in. It had come straight from the top of the tank that morning. I got something like:

Nitrates: 400+
Nitrite: 0.4
Ammonia: 0.25
Phosphate: 5.0+

Seems the fish had been living in this and we'd just dilluted it some with the water change from toping off the tank. 3 anemones and a dozen soft corals were living in this too. So, in go the fish.

I'm running around trying to figure out what to do. The protien skimmer is dead and hasn't worked for more than a year (thanks for telling me now!). The LFS store is closed because their moving too. I'd been "priming" an ATS screen in my shop using wastewater from the Bio Cube. It had been going for about 2 weeks and was nicely green but not thick at all yet. What the heck...I slap it in the sump and start it running with 4 CFL floods from WalMart. Then to bed to have nightmares of my daughter waking to a tank full of death.

To my pleasant surprise, the next morning (Friday) everything was alive and, apparently, well! I go to work installing the hood, chiller, etc. By that evening I took another water sample and got:

Nitrates: 200
Nitrite: 0.2+
Ammonia: 0.25-
Phosphate: 5.0-

Everything seemed fine. I'm wondering if I'd messed up the readings on Thursday. Saturday was mostly a day off. The ATS had grown thick already so I scraped it. Just a few measurements:

Nitrates: not done
Nitrite: 0.2
Ammonia: 0.25--
Phosphate: not done

Yesterday night (Sunday) about 36 hours after cleaning the screen it looked like this:

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/schnitm/IMG_0192.jpg

The white piece on the right is an extension I added Saturday. It's starting to grow already. Last night's water parameters:

Nitrates: 15 (I kid you not. 15 Checked this over and over. The 10X dillution I started with showed undetectable. I'd needed a 10X dillution before just to get a reading. Got this 15 on straight tank water.)
Nitrite: 0.2-
Ammonia: trace
Phosphate: 3.0

Thusday night I thought I was in the middle of a slow motion trainwreck, but by today all looks good. Thaks to all who have contributed! You lead me down the right path.

Sorry if that was long for a first post. :oops:

[SantaMonica]

Fantastic to hear! Daughter will be happy.

BTW, if you shrink your pics a bit, they will show up correctly. This site cuts off the right side of big pics.

[schnitm]

Thanks, my daughter is VERY happy! Grinning ear to ear.

I see the whole of both pics but maybe that's because I uploaded them. Where do you see them cut off? How far do they go?

[kcress]

Wonderful news!

Thanks so much for the details - I realize that takes a lot of time to put up a post like that.

We see, fore instance, just the left half of the tank.

[schnitm]

Water chemistry update from last night:

Nitrates: <5 (This is a system that "Has always had high nitrates" according to the previous owner)
Phosphates: 2.5 +/- Going down a lot slower than nitrates. At least I can get a reading without doing dilutions now.


I shrunk the images. Is that better?

[kcress]

Yes images are fine now.

So if the previous owner always had high 'trates he didn't have a TS?

If you added it how long did it take to get turf going?

[schnitm]

I'd been playing around with scrubbers using waste water from changes on my Bio Cube. A 15 gallon tupperware container a bit of live rock and sand. Threw some food in now and then and let the scrubber clean it up. The screen that's running in the 90's sump was in the tupperware system for 15-20 days. It wasn't thick but had good growth.

[kcress]

OK. That fills in a lot of questions (like instaTurf).

This is all great stuff. Your Daughter will hopefully be engaged with the dynamics of the tank life.

I hope you can explain it all to her to help her see the complexity and interrelated synergy of it all.

[schnitm]

Update:

Unfortuneately the nitrate miracle was no miracle, it was a test kit going bad. Determined that shortly after the last post and got around 400. I started frequent water changes (twice a week 25%) and the ATS was chewing away at it as well. However, phosphates came down very little. Less even then the water changes should have produced. By the beginning of last week I had about 50 for Niterates but still 3.0 for phosphates.

I'd been working on a fish room and DIYed a 100 gallon sump> Last Wednesday, I used it to take my system volume up from 80 to about 180. Did effectively a 90% water change at that point too. Got 5 for nitrates and 0.3 for phosphates. The next day nitrates were undetectable but phosphates were still about 0.3, maybe higher. Phosphates clearly higher, say 0.5 on Friday. By today nitrates are still undetectable but phosphates are about 1.0. I assume that the phosphates are leaching out of the rock that have been sitting in high nitrate water for quite a while. I guess available nitrates are limiting the ATS's ability to soak up phosphates any faster.

Now for the question:

Should I:

1. Feed more to give the ATS more nitrates
2. Build a bigger ATS
3. Dose lanthanum chloride
4. Sit back and relax, time will take care of it
5. Other

[kcress]

Sounds like fun.. :D

What are you using for all your water going into the tank? Often that is the route into your tank for phosphates.

How is your TS growth? Has it slowed down? Has it been 4 months since new bulbs?

[schnitm]

Hmmm...

The new sump system was circulating newly mixed SW made from RO/DI for several days before I hooked it in. Send and return. Nothing was showing up on tests, no ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, or phosphate detectable, so I felt safe to hook it up. Balanced the PH, salinity and temperature to match the display and went to it.

The rock was in 7.0+ phosphates near as I can tell for months. I replaced all the sand. I've taken a few small rocks with softies out over the past month and put them in my nano. I get a phosphate spike for about a week each time...up to 0.1 before it drops back below 0.03. I'm betting the phosphates are in the rocks.

The TS has really kicked in. It was an inch thick when cleaned last Friday and looks like it will be again this week. The bulbs are 2 months old. Two 23 watt and two 26 watt. All 2700K. I moved it to the big sump on Sunday. Easier to watch it grow and A LOT easier to get at for cleaning.

Overall, I'd say it went well. Had a good amount of cyano going before the big water change. Just did a survey and can find almost none left. Seems to have turned to greyish sludge in a few places, in others it's just gone. Fish, anemonies, softies, shrimp, snails, etc. all seem happy. The shrimp are noticeably more active. All of a sudden they've come out in the open.

[kcress]

OK. You'd be surprised,(or maybe not), but I've seen people going in circles over phosphates;

"umpteen water changes!"
"Do you have DI?
"D-what?"
"Following your RO?"
"My what"

"Your water filter!"
"OH! I just use tap water and Chlorine-B-Gone."
:shock:

Sounds like you just need to stay the course.

Oh, One other phosphate importer could be some sort of food.

[schnitm]

Update...Levels in the nitrogen family all remain undetectable. Phosphates have been climbing, above 1.0 maybe even up to 2.0. Hard to be sure. The screen is growing thick and mostly dark green with red turfish stuff on the bottom quarter. It's not cyano, some sort of tough algae. The red is tougher than the green hair grwoing on the rest of the screen.

Tested a rock in a bucket of fresh mixed saltwater with a light and airstone. Clearly leaching phosphates. Went above 1.0 inside of 12 hours.

Decided to try some GFO. Got some cheep stuff at PetsMart about 10 days ago and just threw the filter packs in the sump. Took days but yesterday morning phosphates were a touch below 1.0 by my eye. Cleaned the screen yesterday too. Seems the same as it's been for a month or so. The PetsMart GFO didn't seem to change screen growth.

Got a shipment of Bulkreefsupply.com HC GFO yesterday. A pound of that's been in for about 18 hours in a mesh bag and I just read what my eyes call about 0.2. We'll see what this does to screen growth. I'm curious to see if I slow it and start seeing nitrates.

[SantaMonica]

It will take several months to get all the phosphate out.

[schnitm]

4 days since the Bulk Reef Supply HC GFO went in. Just read almost undetectable phosphate by Salifert. 0.05ish by doubling water and reagents for the higher sensitivity test. Thought I'd have to replace the GFO by now. Guess not.

The ATS is still growing. The red algae is being replaced or changing to a light brown. Nitrate, nitrite, and amonia still all undetectable. Ph holding at 8.3 by my eye and Alk at 10.

I have a star polyp frag that is not opening today. Seemed happy until now. This is why I tested. I guess it's not happy with me clearing the phosphates??

The rest, fish, shrimp, snails, anemones, mushrooms, zoas and palys all seem happy as can be.

Green growth on the glass has slowed quite a bit but still grows. For the first time there is coraline starting on the back glass Had not seen a bit of that until yesterday.

[schnitm]

Follow-up...

The star polyp was being pestered by my tomatoe clown. Caught the fish carying the frag in it's mouth across the tank a while ago and then picking on it several times before I moved it out of Tom's territory. :lol:

Couldn't resist any more. Pulled the GFO to soak in NaOH for a recharge. Best I can tell I pulled 400mg of phosphate out of the GFO in the first 4 hours. The tank went up about 0.2ppm in those same 4 hours. GFO's been rinsed and back in the NaOH.

[SantaMonica]

You'll have a contant flow of phosphate from the rocks to the GFO for a while...

[rainerfeyer]

Curious:

are there any draw backs to using GFO continuously?

Rainer

[SantaMonica]

My uninformed opinion is that it reduces the pH, and possibly irritates some corals.

[rainerfeyer]

Thank you, Santa!

Rainer

[schnitm]

I think long-term use of GFO is something to consider carefully. As SM mentions, it can drop PH (and ALK). It can precipitate calcium carbonate causing ALK and PH to drop similar to what corals and coraline do to ALK and PH. If your system's stable and you add GFO without making adjustments...

I didn't see any drop in PH or ALK, but I'm binding a lot of phosphate fast. Binding phosphate (and DOC's also) releases hydroxide ions and bumps PH up. I think I did see this, going up from about 8.2 to about 8.3. I'm not loosing sleep over this one.

Another effect is binding DOC's. My water is suddenly CRYSTAL CLEAR and there was a slight "ocean" scent that's gone. Supposedly this can increase the intensity of your light penetrating the water and change the nutrient profile of the water in more ways than just removing phosphate. Some of your critters might not be happy with the changes.

Am I going to use GFO long term? I hope not. I expect the scrubber to be able to keep phosphates in check once the GFO leeches my rocks.