So angry right now ... cleaning lady unplugged aquarium pumps (by accident) and my last two fish are dead.

[fingerwrinkles]

Yep Arnold ... still here and with the same pairs producing! Just keeping it low key ;-)

Vince, glad to see the girls are putting those beds to great use! :-D

 

[Vincerama2]

Oh man, must have missed that post about the 3 inches of fish poo in the sump. Yeah, that's definitely an over lazy problem.

But yup, if there's no fish, a series of water changes can bring down the nitrates, or if you don't have anything too delicate I'd just go balls to the wall and do a 100% water change.

The fish poops was in the sump. I had placed some LR in there and a chunk of chaeto. After the fish died, I added an ATS, but needed the space in the sump so I pulled the rock out and .... ew?! what is this I'm feeling? It was just literally mud at the bottom of the sump. I guess the LR prevented flow in that area and everything that went into the sump and wasn't caught by the skimmer or return pump just settled into sump poo. In fact that is exactly how a septic system works! I meticulously sucked it out with a turkey baster. I tried siphoning it out the door and off the porch since the sump is basically on the ground, it was the only way to get any gravity-siphon started...that was comical.

But having moved some rock around in the DT, I found that the sand in the DT is pretty chock full o' dirt too. When I did water changes, I just ... changed the water. I really should have vacuumed the sand, but I was reluctant to disturb all the tube worms there. My mistake.

V

 

[jccaclimber]

Hmm, a ticking time bomb of a sand bed probably doesn't help, although I don't know how much it'll hurt. I advise vacuuming through the sand regularly, at least where it is accessible. I didn't used to be a believer, but I've used nothing but a good sand cleaning to turn around a few tanks gone bad and now I believe that at least sometimes it has a purpose.

Another theory, how well sealed is your place? When I kept planted freshwater tanks I spent some time pushing the limits of CO2 injection. If you had high dissolved oxygen levels you could get away with more CO2 than if you had lower dissolved oxygen levels. Perhaps your CO2 is a bit high to begin with, so it doesn't take as much to push things over the edge?

I wouldn't immediately blame nitrates (probably doesn't help though), but a large amount of not yet broken down gunk that consumes oxygen does seem like something that will cause issues.