evaporation top off problems.....AGAIN

[samuel88]

hey guys, this problem has been bugging me for a really long time, long story short, whenever i do water evaporation top offs frequently (less than 24 hours in between) even with the same amount of water (eg, lets say i pour in 3 litres of water once every 3 to 4 days, but in this case i pour in 1 litre of water every day sometimes split into 500ml one after the other a few hours between), my tank always starts to have bacterial bloom which starts killing everything.

doesn't matter if i dump it all in my tank, or i put it into the filter compartment of my HOB, or even if i drip my water via airline tubing. i've used tap water dechlorinated with seachem prime, i've used distilled water its all the same result.

BUT when i do the water top off once every 3 to 4 days, i NEVER have this problem.

i've had different tanks, with cooling fan, without cooling fan, with chiller, without chiller, 5 gallon, 15 gallon, berlin method, canister filter, 1 fish, 1 shrimp, no fish no shrimp, coral only, 6 months, 1 month, 3 weeks, 3 days before crashing, all with different conditions, but same bacterial bloom when i start adding water frequently.

i don't have a water test kit, but i kept a sample of the water today that turned cloudy, and i'm going to run some tests on it.

so does anyone have a theory why doing water top offs daily causes my tank to crash BUT doing a larger amount of top off once every 3 days is fine? i thought that doing it daily makes the aquarium more stable. i've used distilled water from supermarkets so i doubt its the quality of the water that's the problem.

i personally think that somehow, everytime i add water in, my tank takes a day or two to stabilize before i can add in water again. but then again large amounts of water less frequently are supposed to be less stable than vice versa right? :S

EDIT: the tank that turned cloudy today, luckily i was there, i saw my hitchhiker crabs dying, and the floating bodies of some copepods, i did bout 80% water change with some aged water i had lying around so i managed to save my shrimp.

[tunicate]

I suggest you test your water 1st. Maybe the answer is with the test results.

[samuel88]

I suggest you test your water 1st. Maybe the answer is with the test results.

i hope the test results are straight forward, i'm kinda expecting the ammonia to be high, but the ammonia being high could be triggered by the addition of the distilled water somehow. what should i be testing for other than ammonia?

[peacemaker]

Instead of jumping to conclusions, why don't you just test your water perimeters and list it down here?

[allantang]

I would say the same thing..

[BFG]

Who would use tap water for water change? All those chlorine and chloramine might wreak havoc on the beneficial bacteria population and cause die off. Do you filter the tap water through a ro/di filter media?

[samuel88]

Who would use tap water for water change? All those chlorine and chloramine might wreak havoc on the beneficial bacteria population and cause die off. Do you filter the tap water through a ro/di filter media?

i use dechlorinated tap water before, this latest crash was done with ONLY distilled water

[samuel88]

my water parameters are

KH = 8.6dkh

nitrite = 0

nitrate = 5

ammonia ran out of test kit.

[samuel88]

if i had used dechlorinated tap water before and my tank crashed, perhaps i could blame it on some impurities in my specific area, but even with distilled water it crashed.

and i've used the same setup, same 3 to 4 day top up once, but when i try to switch to more frequent less amount top up, it happens. within each time frame. when i used dechlorinated water, on the same setup, first time it crashed happened when i tried to switch happened in 6 months, second time 3 months, third time 3 weeks, followed by 3 days.

so after being scared of our tap water, i used distilled water, all was fine for 3 weeks, then when i tried to switch to every day top up, almost happened again but i was there to do a huge water change.

alot of people use dechlorinated water as well with no problems, so i don't understand how come it happen to me even when i switch to distilled.

after so many problems doubt i'll ever try to daily top up again. but i really wanna know why.

[samuel88]

somehow i feel that the less i do things to my tank the longer it'll live. when i touch it everyday by doing water top off shit happens.

[BFG]

Only happen after a top up? Have you check your salinity level? Fish can tolerate low salinity but not coral.

[vidextreme]

I've always believe that animals and plants can adopt to its environment. Although, this would not happen if the environment changes abruptly. Specially when crashes tends to cascade because of simple causes. Abrupt changes in your tank such as massive water changes, algae blooms, toxic chemicals etc. can affect the tank important but mostly ignored residents.... and these are the planktons. Try to kill those and you will get a crash most definitely.I think having a balanced amount of these will buffer your tank against crashes. These guys feed on microscopic bio and sometimes not bio debris. We know even if a tank is well oxiginated that doesn't mean this remove the carbon dioxide still present in your tank and excess carbon dioxide can actually kill(even for us humans). Phytoplanktons(and algae) transforms carbon dioxide to oxygen. Actually, the cloudiness you see on crashes are the not-too-happy dead planktons.

Regarding your case. I think it is not caused by water top-offs. But something else. Maybe related to the algae blooms you mentioned. Algae blooms most often caused by excess nutrients in your tank, phosphate, silicate, nitrates, etc. Phosphate can leach from your activated carbon filter, silicate from a certain type of sand that also leaches this, nitrate from nitrogen process. Planktons also needs these nutrients. When algae blooms happens, there is a often reported drop of levels of these nutrients. Hence, this could shock some of the planktons leads some amount to die and causes your tank to crash.

Anyway, sorry if I don't address your issue directly. I just want to share my take on the dynamics on tank crashes.

[samuel88]

Only happen after a top up? Have you check your salinity level? Fish can tolerate low salinity but not coral.

yup, the level was 1.023

and i don't have any corals at all, only live rock and sexy shrimp,

[samuel88]

I've always believe that animals and plants can adopt to its environment. Although, this would not happen if the environment changes abruptly. Specially when crashes tends to cascade because of simple causes. Abrupt changes in your tank such as massive water changes, algae blooms, toxic chemicals etc. can affect the tank important but mostly ignored residents.... and these are the planktons. Try to kill those and you will get a crash most definitely.I think having a balanced amount of these will buffer your tank against crashes. These guys feed on microscopic bio and sometimes not bio debris. We know even if a tank is well oxiginated that doesn't mean this remove the carbon dioxide still present in your tank and excess carbon dioxide can actually kill(even for us humans). Phytoplanktons(and algae) transforms carbon dioxide to oxygen. Actually, the cloudiness you see on crashes are the not-too-happy dead planktons.

Regarding your case. I think it is not caused by water top-offs. But something else. Maybe related to the algae blooms you mentioned. Algae blooms most often caused by excess nutrients in your tank, phosphate, silicate, nitrates, etc. Phosphate can leach from your activated carbon filter, silicate from a certain type of sand that also leaches this, nitrate from nitrogen process. Planktons also needs these nutrients. When algae blooms happens, there is a often reported drop of levels of these nutrients. Hence, this could shock some of the planktons leads some amount to die and causes your tank to crash.

Anyway, sorry if I don't address your issue directly. I just want to share my take on the dynamics on tank crashes.

thanks for the info, but i think mine was a bacterial bloom, it was white cloudiness, i'm not sure if algae blooms look the same. and my tank doesn't have any nuisance algae so i'm not sure about that.

my daily water top offs shouldn't be the problem but its kinda too coincidental cause it's happened too many times. may be some variables that i've overlooked, but i guess i just have to do what works for me.

[BFG]

What equipment do you use to get the salinity level?

[raymus]

i use dechlorinated tap water before, this latest crash was done with ONLY distilled water

i have been toping up with distilled water for years. Life or NTUC etc. it is safe.

i believe many reefer top up with distilled water.

i believe during the top up into ur direct fliter or main tank, destroy ur beneficial bacteria when it come contact to fresh water.

a sudden change in ur salinity level all contribute to the crash.

worst if you are topping up with tap water with anti chorine, it still contacts lots of impuriries such as PO4 or silicate,chloramine etc. diatom, cyno bloom.

[yikai]

I've always believe that animals and plants can adopt to its environment. Although, this would not happen if the environment changes abruptly. Specially when crashes tends to cascade because of simple causes. Abrupt changes in your tank such as massive water changes, algae blooms, toxic chemicals etc. can affect the tank important but mostly ignored residents.... and these are the planktons. Try to kill those and you will get a crash most definitely.I think having a balanced amount of these will buffer your tank against crashes. These guys feed on microscopic bio and sometimes not bio debris. We know even if a tank is well oxiginated that doesn't mean this remove the carbon dioxide still present in your tank and excess carbon dioxide can actually kill(even for us humans). Phytoplanktons(and algae) transforms carbon dioxide to oxygen. Actually, the cloudiness you see on crashes are the not-too-happy dead planktons.

Regarding your case. I think it is not caused by water top-offs. But something else. Maybe related to the algae blooms you mentioned. Algae blooms most often caused by excess nutrients in your tank, phosphate, silicate, nitrates, etc. Phosphate can leach from your activated carbon filter, silicate from a certain type of sand that also leaches this, nitrate from nitrogen process. Planktons also needs these nutrients. When algae blooms happens, there is a often reported drop of levels of these nutrients. Hence, this could shock some of the planktons leads some amount to die and causes your tank to crash.

Anyway, sorry if I don't address your issue directly. I just want to share my take on the dynamics on tank crashes.

not true.

plankton almost does not exist or in too little amount to make significant differences in our enclosed tank system. our water is too sterile. and cloudy water is not dead plankton.

plankton is microscopic and consist of many classes. phytoplankton, zooplankton, etc.

[Terryz_]

hey guys, this problem has been bugging me for a really long time, long story short, whenever i do water evaporation top offs frequently (less than 24 hours in between) even with the same amount of water (eg, lets say i pour in 3 litres of water once every 3 to 4 days, but in this case i pour in 1 litre of water every day sometimes split into 500ml one after the other a few hours between), my tank always starts to have bacterial bloom which starts killing everything.

doesn't matter if i dump it all in my tank, or i put it into the filter compartment of my HOB, or even if i drip my water via airline tubing. i've used tap water dechlorinated with seachem prime, i've used distilled water its all the same result.

BUT when i do the water top off once every 3 to 4 days, i NEVER have this problem.

i've had different tanks, with cooling fan, without cooling fan, with chiller, without chiller, 5 gallon, 15 gallon, berlin method, canister filter, 1 fish, 1 shrimp, no fish no shrimp, coral only, 6 months, 1 month, 3 weeks, 3 days before crashing, all with different conditions, but same bacterial bloom when i start adding water frequently.

i don't have a water test kit, but i kept a sample of the water today that turned cloudy, and i'm going to run some tests on it.

so does anyone have a theory why doing water top offs daily causes my tank to crash BUT doing a larger amount of top off once every 3 days is fine? i thought that doing it daily makes the aquarium more stable. i've used distilled water from supermarkets so i doubt its the quality of the water that's the problem.

i personally think that somehow, everytime i add water in, my tank takes a day or two to stabilize before i can add in water again. but then again large amounts of water less frequently are supposed to be less stable than vice versa right? :S

EDIT: the tank that turned cloudy today, luckily i was there, i saw my hitchhiker crabs dying, and the floating bodies of some copepods, i did bout 80% water change with some aged water i had lying around so i managed to save my shrimp.

Are you using Distilled water? Many will mistaken mineral water for distilled water... Even in my pico tank I top up 1.5liter of tap water daily without any problem... Bacteria bloom will not cause fishes to die also...

[samuel88]

What equipment do you use to get the salinity level?

i use a swing arm hydrometer to measure my salinity.

[samuel88]

i have been toping up with distilled water for years. Life or NTUC etc. it is safe.

i believe many reefer top up with distilled water.

i believe during the top up into ur direct fliter or main tank, destroy ur beneficial bacteria when it come contact to fresh water.

a sudden change in ur salinity level all contribute to the crash.

worst if you are topping up with tap water with anti chorine, it still contacts lots of impuriries such as PO4 or silicate,chloramine etc. diatom, cyno bloom.

i also thought about the topping up and destroying my beneficial bacteria, i used air line dripping method also died.its very puzzling thats for sure.

[samuel88]

Are you using Distilled water? Many will mistaken mineral water for distilled water... Even in my pico tank I top up 1.5liter of tap water daily without any problem... Bacteria bloom will not cause fishes to die also...

yup definitely distilled water. dunno why mine got problem when i do it frequently =(

[samuel88]

its strange cause when i pour it in with a few days interval at a time its fine, but less than 24 hours in between shit happens, doesn't seem to matter what the amount is as well. i made a small condensation tray to place over my tank so it won't evaporate so fast.

anyway, i have another tank right now that's empty with only live rock, and a few lil zoanthid looking things that have survived all the crashes, i'm gonna try all the triggers on this tank, and see what happens. i think i'll let the tank mature for a few months before i start using up my money again T_T

[BFG]

Don't use swing arm hydrometer but invest in a refractometer and calibrate it with Pinpoint Salinity Monitor 53.0 ms Calibration Fluid. With the use of this standardisation, you would have a true reading of your salinity level. The floating swingarm is not accurate. Later when you compare, you will have 2 different reading. Follow the calibrated refractometer reading. Get the correct basic equipment.

[samuel88]

Don't use swing arm hydrometer but invest in a refractometer and calibrate it with Pinpoint Salinity Monitor 53.0 ms Calibration Fluid. With the use of this standardisation, you would have a true reading of your salinity level. The floating swingarm is not accurate. Later when you compare, you will have 2 different reading. Follow the calibrated refractometer reading. Get the correct basic equipment.

thanks i'll look into it

[tunicate]

...i made a small condensation tray to place over my tank so it won't evaporate so fast.

I think it is more important to have good O2 exchange on your water surface than to restrict evaporation. Insufficient O2 in your water will definitely be detrimental to your LS.