Al
08/27/2001, 11:22 AM
Dr Ron
Last week I had a partial crash in one reef tank - The one coral, a fungiid, melted away, leaving the bare skeleton, and the brittle stars disintegrated. Some of the astrea snails lay around as if stunned and then died, but most of them pulled through. All dying animals were removed as soon as it seemed that they were done for. The fish (a lemonpeel angel and orchid pseudochromis) seem perfectly ok, as are a small crab, a few small hermit crabs, and a scattering of small fanworms. I noticed there was a strong odor in the the liquid from the skimmer, and on the bags of carbon I was replacing every day. This particular tank has been up for a couple of years, and there have always been problems with it, but nothing as bad as this.
I'm thinking that perhaps there is some kind of contamination in the sand I used in this tank, not a lot, but enough to cause recurring problems. I don't think its the rock (It was all used in other tanks without a problem), or general maintenance techniques (I have two other reef tanks, including a 75 in the same room, where the only problem is that macroalgae and soft corals grow too fast).
So what would you do? I'm thinking that I should dump the sand (which I don't like to do - there was all the trouble of carrying it home and then rinsing during the initial setup, and now there's some life in it, not much), flush out all the hardware, and restart, using new sand. Any suggestions?
Last week I had a partial crash in one reef tank - The one coral, a fungiid, melted away, leaving the bare skeleton, and the brittle stars disintegrated. Some of the astrea snails lay around as if stunned and then died, but most of them pulled through. All dying animals were removed as soon as it seemed that they were done for. The fish (a lemonpeel angel and orchid pseudochromis) seem perfectly ok, as are a small crab, a few small hermit crabs, and a scattering of small fanworms. I noticed there was a strong odor in the the liquid from the skimmer, and on the bags of carbon I was replacing every day. This particular tank has been up for a couple of years, and there have always been problems with it, but nothing as bad as this.
I'm thinking that perhaps there is some kind of contamination in the sand I used in this tank, not a lot, but enough to cause recurring problems. I don't think its the rock (It was all used in other tanks without a problem), or general maintenance techniques (I have two other reef tanks, including a 75 in the same room, where the only problem is that macroalgae and soft corals grow too fast).
So what would you do? I'm thinking that I should dump the sand (which I don't like to do - there was all the trouble of carrying it home and then rinsing during the initial setup, and now there's some life in it, not much), flush out all the hardware, and restart, using new sand. Any suggestions?