I’m very sorry to hear of this. You’ve gotten some good advice about saving what you can.
There’s what started it, which is often hard to know and you may never find out. Then there’s what turned it into a crash instead of just some limited mortality, which we know more about.
I think running a skimmer is very important to mitigate against the second part. Tank crashes are so crazy because they are a feed-forward problem. Stuff starts dying, which releases dead organics, contributes to a microbe bloom (as well as messing up your good microbiome), which lowers pH and O2, which kills more stuff, etc. Skimming isn’t required all the time when things are going well, leading people to believe they don’t need it, but it absolutely helps when things are going south, even before (especially before) you realize there’s a problem. It’s not just for nutrient control.
Some safety net type benefits of having a skimmer running all the time to reduce the risk of full-tank crashes:
1. Air exchange- adding O2 and blowing off CO2 (protecting against low pH). This can potentially stop the beginning of the crash from feeding-forward and propagating, or at least slow it down to buy you time.
2. Removal of dead organics- this is what the crash is feeding on, so removing as much as possible in real time helps to slow the negative loop.
3. Removal of bacteria blooming- often bacteria blooming is part of the crash, so thinning it out helps.
4. Visual early alert- when you see your skimmer cup filling up with smelly stuff too fast, you know it’s doing a lot of the above steps and you should pay attention. This may be your first warning of an impending crash, before you would otherwise see it.
Again I’m very sorry to hear you are going through this. I realize the above isn’t really helpful to you at this point, but when I heard you weren’t running a skimmer and had a crash of unknown cause that progressed quickly, this is what I thought might be helpful to throw out there to maybe help next time.
There’s what started it, which is often hard to know and you may never find out. Then there’s what turned it into a crash instead of just some limited mortality, which we know more about.
I think running a skimmer is very important to mitigate against the second part. Tank crashes are so crazy because they are a feed-forward problem. Stuff starts dying, which releases dead organics, contributes to a microbe bloom (as well as messing up your good microbiome), which lowers pH and O2, which kills more stuff, etc. Skimming isn’t required all the time when things are going well, leading people to believe they don’t need it, but it absolutely helps when things are going south, even before (especially before) you realize there’s a problem. It’s not just for nutrient control.
Some safety net type benefits of having a skimmer running all the time to reduce the risk of full-tank crashes:
1. Air exchange- adding O2 and blowing off CO2 (protecting against low pH). This can potentially stop the beginning of the crash from feeding-forward and propagating, or at least slow it down to buy you time.
2. Removal of dead organics- this is what the crash is feeding on, so removing as much as possible in real time helps to slow the negative loop.
3. Removal of bacteria blooming- often bacteria blooming is part of the crash, so thinning it out helps.
4. Visual early alert- when you see your skimmer cup filling up with smelly stuff too fast, you know it’s doing a lot of the above steps and you should pay attention. This may be your first warning of an impending crash, before you would otherwise see it.
Again I’m very sorry to hear you are going through this. I realize the above isn’t really helpful to you at this point, but when I heard you weren’t running a skimmer and had a crash of unknown cause that progressed quickly, this is what I thought might be helpful to throw out there to maybe help next time.
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