Where I am in my Journey

[beasone]

Ok, I have an 'established' tank.. which 'eats' fish. So, I am trying to learn how to get it healthy.. You can see it under my gallery.

This is where I am at.. I ordered a test kit and all tests are good, Ammonia, Nitrites, PH.
Nitrates are around 30 - which I presume is too high. So, water change right?
(no fish right now, just live rock, 1 blood shrimp, 1 peppermint shrimp and a crab and snails.)

So, I am going to take 10 gallons out of my tank (figure around 20+ in water in the 33gal tank - live rock) and replace.
Am planing on buying distilled water adding it to two 5 gallon buckets and adding appropriate salt. Will add powerheads to aerate for at least three days and then run tests on that water.

What should I find and do I need to do all tests? If water is fine add to tank?
So does that sound good for a water change?

On an unrelated (?) issue - I have protein skimmer that has been off - turned it on before doing water test on existing water... now my pumping Zenia looks a little sick? Actually it looks like it is breaking apart.. will post pick on this shortly.

I am so gun shy on this whole process.. the water was fine before when the fish just started to die.. so I can't help but think there is some crazy issue going on here.

We do have a ground probe... who knows..

If anyone can let me know what they think of the water change plan.. once I get the Nitrates down.. hopefully, I can try to add a fish.

Ok, guess I need help with photography as well! lol took a pic - but can't really see the detail on the stem that seems to be falling apart. Maybe this is normal

 

[lcstorc]

The water change plan sounds fine but nitrates of 30 are nowhere near levels to kill fish.
Give us more specs on the system to see if we can figure out what is killing the fish.
What could have changed around the time fish started to die.

 

[beasone]

well we started to vacuum sand.. so I thought that might of upset the balance of things but when the water was tested it was fine. The protein skimmer is new too, but can't imagine what that would have to do with anything. The shrimp are doing fine. Though another interesting tidbit was that the snails were actually crawling out of the tank! Kamikaze right to the floor.

So that is where I am at. And the poor pumping zena.. since the protein skimmer was turned on again.. it seems like it is not happy..

(hardware is two 50 gal filters and protein skimmer rated to 100 gal. and one powerhead and one ground probe.)