All kinds of problems

k so as of last week my tank's nitrate level was pretty high. Now I've been trying to correct the problem and have run into some other problems.

I did a water change and brought the nitrates down to about 30 ppm from 80+.

Things that have gone wrong are:

Powerhead slid off of aquarium wall and blew sand all over the tank for at least an hour.

Not only that but I Think my heater broke as my tank is now at 74 degrees and the orange light in the heater is sometimes on sometimes blinkng randomly or is mostly off.

And not only that, but while doing the water change today I stepped on my glass lid and cracked it

AND when doing the water change I noticed some sort of pest/parasite in the tank. It swam like a fish but was some sort of bug looking thing. It uncurled and sort of looked like a meal worm. Any ideas?

So tomorrow the Plan is to buy a new heater and hope that everything stays alive tonight.

 

Hay remember when it rains it pours but don’t let that discourage you what you saw sounds like a bristle worm .

 

If you are adding the water to the tank with out heating it, the orange light will go on and off as the heater does (at least in most models) it is adjusting to the temp you set. Doesn't hurt to have two though, now you can get the temp correct before adding the water. Some heaters will stick too so adjust the temp a little lower.

Keep the lid off it has more negatives then positives.

 

Wow, thats a fairly bad reef day.

Good luck on getting it back in shape!!!

 

Peace.......John.

 

you're replacing that old heater with a titanium one I hope good thing you stepped on the glass hood and broke it. You really shouldn't use those on an aquarium. They hold in too many nasty gasses

 

I wouldnt get too upset. Sounds like a normal day of reefing to me. Little by little you get the kinks worked out!;D

 

yeah, listen to what pharmrjohn said. those are very minor problems and nothing to get worried about. The sand blowing up really shouldn't cause a minicycle but you might notice a bit of cyanobacteria in that area for a couple days- but should dissapear sooon after appearing.

 

make sure when you are doing water changes, your heater stays submerged in the water the entire time. i am pretty sure that if you expose it to air while its been on/still is on they can break or crack.

 

It's good to have extra heaters. I got a couple 500W titanium heaters on ebay for $40 a piece. Not sure how big your tank is, but seems like they have to work less with more wattage. They have a nice thermostat setting too. Doing a water change it heats the water from 74 up to 78 in 5-10 minutes for a 32 gallon trash can full.

Not sure what your temperature was before , but a sudden drop in temperature can kill bacteria and start a mini cycle.

You needs some karma for simply having a bad day...