Tank Emergency

[wetpresidents]

in the last two or three days ive lost a cleaner shrimp, a racoon butrfly, and my panther grouper's fin looks all shriveled SP? up. sort of the like the fish equilelent of the butler from SCARY MOVIE 2...interesting simile...NE wayz that all happened in my 150 fowlr. pH8.1 ntrite0 ntrate110
bout 3 weeks ago i lost a clown, two damsels, and a coralbanded in a two day span for different reason each but then my ntrate spiked to 190! so i did a 15g water change and two days later i did a 20g water changed.
lately the temp here in brewcity has been crazy, hot then really hot then cool for a day, so my central air has been flucuating the tank temp between 80 and 85 f. i know thats high buit my tank always has been, maybe cause the LG 2mdsc-qx...
does NE1 have an opinion or have dont nething different?

 

[lcstorc]

Water change. Personally I would make it a big water change and be sure to vacum out as much debris as possible. Has anything gone missing and not been removed? Be sure to look. IMHO you need to get the nitrates under control as quickly as possible and the best way I believe is water changes. I would probably do 20% every 3 days or so, but that is just me. Also use a turkey baster to suck up any yuk in your rocks. Often debris accumulates there which will contrubute to nitrates. Oh and be sure to test the water you are using for water changes. I had my r/o filter go out and I didn't know it. Bottom line I was doing water changes w/ water full of trates.
Hope this helps.

 

[Boomer]

What is your ammonia level, have you checked it? Just because Nitrite says zero does not mean zero ammonia. High ammonia inhibits nitrite production at times.

 

[blade25]

like boomer said check your ammonia, How long have you had your live rock. where are you getting your water from for your changes?

 

[wetpresidents]

i cant find my ammonia test , hopefully mypitbull didnt eat it, shehas already eating a large flake food(18oz) container and about 10 oz of natural green seaweed. my sisterinlaw and her man use the faucet city water for topping off and mixing. i use high qaulity salt and add some novaqua and amquell or amplus something. in my 150 theres no lr just coral skeletons with green n purple cora;ine algea

 

[saltyfishtanks]

wow thats a lot of loss in a short amount of time i would get about 50lbs of live rock (hand picked) wait till u know its fresh too, and get it cured the live rock is truely the backbone of a healthy salt water fish tank u cant have enough i have over 100 lbs in my 29gal mostly fish tank i have 2 corals in it to keep track of water quality.

concider getting a hardy leather coral for the top of your rock. it will tell early when things are going south

 

[blue_eyes53813]

wow sorry for your losses... I would slow it down a little and do several small water changes over the next couple of weeks... How old is the tank and how fast did you add the fish.. High nitrate spikes in new tanks means it cant handle the bio load...Patience is the key to this hobby..

To keep the heat from fluctuating get the air moving around the tank by using fans...

Do not add anymore fish until all levels are 0...

 

[mempho reefer]

Set the heater to 82 degrees. It's high but that will control any large temp fluctuations. Add a fan to blow across the top of the tank to promote evaporational cooling. That should control your temp. As Lynn and Boomer have advised water change, water change, water change. I do 10 to 20% a day until the nitrates are controlled. That should also take care of any amo problem that you may have. How old is the tank and how much live rock do you have? Have you noticed your fish gasping or their eyes turning white? That is an indication of an ammonia spike.

 

[blade25]

I have no live rock in my tank either, just base rock ( dead rock ) I dont add live rock to my tank since i used copper safe in my tank once. Im afraid it will kill the rock if there is any residue of copper left.

 

[mempho reefer]

That could put an end to the LR Blade. But, if it's been a while and you dosed in a while then you can gradually add LR. By the way, why did you use the copper safe?

 

[blade25]

I had ich on a couple of fish and I wanted to stop it from spreading. I have done test to check for copper and it tested 0. But im not sure if there is any left that might reactivate itself

 

[mopecula]

OK with nitrates that high I would recommend 50% water changes till it is down to 10 or less. then I would also get that tank temp under control for whatever reason that seems a bit high for a fish only tank. maybe something is adding a lot of heat to the tank water. try to cool the room down to 72 and add some fans as someone said before. A high tank temp can and will deplete oxygen in the tank water. also check your other levels like ammo and nitrates to see were you stand. for the water changes try to get some r/o water instead of tap water this way you know you are not adding any nutrients with the water changes. good luck

 

[reiple]

ahhh the copper med would definitely kill the shrimps! when you doused it even when it was gone later it would already have poisoned the shrimps.
plus killed the LR (even if it was only baserock) and poisoned the sand.

the nitrate your fishes might resist. but only if the specimens are good enough (of reputable source).

the tank might be highly toxic now. the panther survived till now cause it is a very hardy fish. in it's weakened state it will not last long.

sorry but my best bet is tear down the tank. dispose of all copper/toxic items. start anew. and this time put up a separate quarantine tank for new fishes. as the new tank matures (say 21 days) you may start quarantining animals in the quarantine tank. now you'd prevented parasites from entering your tank from the beginning. Dont add fishes until you reach 42 days minimum (and only start counting AFTER you placed the last piece of LR you want to put). 42 days is the period to starve ich and the rest of the parasites. Do this even if it only takes around 27-28 days for ammonia to disappear in a cycle.

Damsels are very hardy fish. yet even those died. Patience.