My recent DSB experiance!!

[captivereefs]

Recently my Bi-color blenny decided to dig a hole under one of my rocks. The rock was covered in zoanthids and was very cool. The blenny dug down by taking mouthfulls of sand and spitting them out alittle ways away. He dug down about 3" into my DSB near the rock and slept in there for about 2 weeks. Here is what happened next. The zoo rock got coverd in cyano at the opening of the hole in about 2 days. 1 week later all the zoos disapeared of the rock and then the other day I find my 4 year old Blenny floating! Now my coralline is bleaching and flaking off! My calcium and alk is fine so is my PH? I think that there must have been some real toxic stuff that was distured by the blenny that is now playing havoc on the tank! My tank is 5 years old and was doing awesome to this point! I am not one to overreact so i am going to wait it out and see what happens next.Nothing looks stressed right now but there is just something not right. I can't put my finger on it but smething is just off in my tank.

 

[SquishyFish]

Sounds to me like your dsb may have gone anaerobic. When this happens pockets of sulfids will collect in the sand bed can crash a tank when disturbed.

http://www.reef-aquarium.net/resources/rocksubstrate/dsb.html


that is an article by Dr. Ron that will give you more information on it.

HTH

Squishy

 

[Brad]

Toxic release

That's really interesting. How deep is your DSB? How old is your DSB? Have you ever done any maintenance on the DSB (vacuuming a portion)?

 

[captivereefs]

Well i was aware of the potential problems when i set it up 5 years ago. It had no oder of hydrogen sulfide gas so i ruled that out.There is no sand clumping either. The sand bed is 5" deep with southdown sand and was so full of life that i never had to do anything to it. My nitrates are still at 0 so it must be still working. I did try coralife salt recently after using IO for many years. That could of been part of it i do not know. I will keep you posted on anything i come up with.

 

[Guest]

I don't know about the whole changing of the salt thing...I had started off using IO but went to Corallife cause I saw better responses by everything in the tank. Of course if funds alowed I'd actually use Tropic Marine I feel its the best I've come acrossed so far.But as for the whole change thing.. IMO I would rule it out.

 

[cj10488]

sorry about your loss/losses and such.. I know how it feels been there.. Hope everything turns for the better.. It sucks when that stuff happens... Would you still recommend someone use a DSB? I thought about it in the beginning but chose not to and went with a 2-3" sandbed.. and then when i did a fuge down the road use a dsb in there that way i could remove it if it started issues... Now seeing your tank i think i would do without the DSB.. My nitrates have always been below 5 and for the last few months 0.. I guess i was pretty luck there...

Hope all turns out well,
James

 

[captivereefs]

I do not know yet i am goinmg to wait and see what happens! Nothing ever happens fast so i am not going to jump the gun and siphon my sandbed out just yet!

 

[SquishyFish]

I thought about it in the beginning but chose not to and went with a 2-3" sandbed.. and then when i did a fuge down the road use a dsb in there that way i could remove it if it started issues... Now seeing your tank i think i would do without the DSB..

Please dont rule out a DSB because of one persons bad expeirence. We are not even sure what has caused it at this point. With the proper in fauna a DSB is very effective and efficient at maintaining itself. If you have questions about how a DSB works, the link posted above is a great source of information.

Squishy

 

[captivereefs]

Deifinately. I am still a fan of the DSB I just have to figue out what happened. It was working fine up to this point. My DSB is full of life and I was and am still happy with it. I wonder why my blenny decided to dig after 5 years?

 

[BBReef]

mayne it was getting sick or could sense there was something wrong so it dug a hole to try to get away, making it look like it was the DSB but really it was something else. Just a thought

 

[jamal-188]

mayne it was getting sick or could sense there was something wrong so it dug a hole to try to get away, making it look like it was the DSB but really it was something else. Just a thought

I was thinking the same, maybe something was wrong with the blenny, but that still wouldn't really explain the cyano outbreak on the LR right above the hole

 

[BBReef]

well if it went down there to die, and started decaying and such, it could cause an outbreak before it floated out. you just never really know with these things. hows the tank doing now? better i hope.

 

[captivereefs]

Yea i thought about that but ruled it out. my corraline bleached and i have a small layer of a hair type algae forming. I am going to increase the lights over my macro sump and try and out compete what ever is going on. I will figure it out oneway or the other.

 

[captivereefs]

Great i had 4 large brown/green frilly mushrooms bleach today. My blue zoos also bleached! This is really bumming me out the tank was up 5 years and one day boom. All because a fish dug a hole! Maybe an excuse for that 52 corner i have benn eyeing up lately!