Blog Comments

Hey Phil, just an idea. Make sure the office workers don't spray glass cleaner directly on the tank, but into the napkin away from the tank. And, make sure they don't have any auto fragrance sprayer in that office area and make sure the workers know not to spray in the area also. I just thought of these things and wanted to share them with ya. It is probably something silly going on.

Any updates?

Hey Phil, it may help if you do some water changes. If it is any kind of a water issue it would help. (contamination of some kind)

A faulty heater, a leaking return pump, either of these could be a source. The refugium lighting as well. I'm just trying to rule out anything since you're watching a decline, and the sooner we can determine the probably cause, the more quickly we can post solutions.

Thanks Marc, that makes me feel a bit better. I only glued about 3 elbows in place on site. everything else was running for a week in freshwater. I'm running about 2 cups of carbon in a reactor now, and getting water mixed for a change.

I can't imagine it would be stray eletricity because nothing new was added to the display. In fact everything but two power heads was removed down to the sump. I'll check though. Since I did have to replace a powerhead that I broke while cleaning it last night.

Usually not. It depends how much glue and primer you used, how many connections you glued and the total water volume.

When I glue together plumbing, I assemble everything except one or two connections. I take the assembly outside and flush it out with a garden hose, or soak it in the bathtub. That way only one or two spots have to be glued before I fire up the pumps. 2 hours is long enough. I know some fish store owners wait 5 minutes before they turn on the pump.

Running lots of carbon (a Phosban Reactor holds 3 cups) should really help. Have you checked for stray electricity yet, in case that's the culprit? http://www.reefaddicts.com/content.p...ay-Electricity

the sump was built with GE pure silicon, I checked carefully to make certain it wasn't the anti-mold type. It had a week to cure before water was added.

The only cleaner I used was denatured alchohol prior to using the silicon.

This tank is in the office, and we had a major spring cleaning recently. I was out doing field work at the time, but suspect that spray cleaners were heavily used. It also dawned on me that some of the PVC piping I used had been sitting in a corner of the hangar for a year. I paint and use various solvents and lubes in there all the time, so It may have been contaminated.

I don't know that it matters what the source is, the solution is the same. Running lots of carbon and doing water changes and keeping all my measurable parameters were the need to be until things improve again.

Phil that just stinks greatly

What has "Changed" in the system in the last couple of weeks other than the sump. If the sump is the only change recently then let's look into the "Sump" in how it's made, cleaned, connected etc. Since this does seem to be more than just a slight shift in parameters I suspect there is a contaminant to blame.

• What type of sealants were used?
• What type of cleaners have been close to the tank in the last 72 hours?
• Anything changed in the house (New plants, new candles, air fresheners etc)?

I wish there was something we could do to help you out. I know how bad it sucks to see something like this "in progress".

Hey Phil, take a bunch of pics of the build! I really want to make one myself.

Let's hope not!

Yep, I've got a 2 Little Fishys reactor half full of carbon in the sump with a Mini Jet 606 running wide open.

Tonight I manually removed as much of the algae as I could and cleaned my two power heads. In the process I broke the mounting stem for my Koralia 3, so had to replace it with the Maxijet 1200 I normally use for doing water changes. That probably improved things as the koralia 3 was a bit too much for this tank.

Anyway, I'm going downstairs now to take stock of my plumbing fittings and try to build a turf scrubber. Maybe with one more change I can completely crash this system.

Are you running the carbon actively in a Phosban reactor or similar device?

It's currenlty 80 degrees and sunny here in North Pole Alaska.

Yeah, I'm just crossing my fingers and praying right now. What's weird is that it didn't start bleaching in one area and spread, the whole colony just started fading, so each day it had slightly less color. My frogspawn, toadstool and finger leathers are all looking unhappy right now, and the water is even a little cloudy. So I'm really praying I'm not headed for my first major crash.

Yeah, that looks pretty bad. I don't know what you can do to save it, and I wouldn't dip it or move it. Just hope some part of it survives.

Nice, but I don't believe that's Alaska. I can't see the tell-tale snow and North Pole!

Originally Posted by melev

I hope it hangs in there. I'd be willing to ship you some frags if you wanted some.

Marc, I appreciate the offer, but I suspect I could purchase some on-line cheaper than shipping from Texas. Especially if I combine the order with a couple others to get free shipping.

Here's how my monti looks today. Compare to the pictures above and you can see how much it grew in just a few weeks.

OK, I did add an album for a few shots of my other addiction.

Hmmm...maybe I need to start another blog titled "My other hobby". What'a ya think Marc?