Help - high calcium!!!

[Zebrazim]

Hi, I hope you can help.
Four of my fish have died over the last two days.
I've just put 10kg new live rock and some new coral in the tank, but on doing water tests found the calcium was running at 600. Everything else fine (KH 170, NH3 .025, nitrite <0.1, pH 8.2, salinity 30, spec grav 1.022, nitrate 10). I'm new to all this, so I bought another calcium test kit to double check and came out with the same reading.
The only other change is that I'd started adding 1 teaspoon Coralgro (by RedSea) as per instructions to fish food each night - obviously I'll stop doing this till I'm definite what the problem is.
Help me save my remaining two fish!!!
Is the calcium the problem - do I have to do a water change if it is.

Thanks for your suggestions,
Zebrazim

 

[Woodstock]

Stop dosing the 'coralgro'..it is probably adding to the high ca.

High calcium would not kill the fish. My guess is your tank cycled and the ammonia and nitrite levels rose which can kill fish.
Do not add anymore livestock until both the ammonia and nitrite levels are zero...then slowly add fish.
A water change will lower the calcium (not an issue really) and lower ammonia/nitrite (CRITICAL!).
Continue doing water changes to keep the ammonia /nitrites at zero. Once the tank is cycled, weekly water changes will help at keeping the nitrAtes at 10ppm or less.

 

[Woodstock]

Ohh.. Welcome to RS :hallo:

 

[framerguy]

I think a water change is definately in order anyway. The Kh reading doesn't make sense to me, do you mean 17 instead of 170? For the corals, get your salinity up to ~35ppt. I didn't think that calc that high would kill the fish.. but they're dead, so something's up. I had a sudden unexplained dieoff once, all parameters were stable, the fish just croaked, 4 out of 9 overnight anyway. Never did determine what it was. Sorry I can't help more, except for the calc and alk being high and SG being low, everything seems OK. I'd get on a waterchange right away though, maybe 25% even. Someone else will be along shortly. Sorry, and Karma for your troubles.

 

[Zebrazim]

Thanks Woodstock - when I said NH3 and nitrite were .025 and .1, I said these because they were the lowest on the test kit scale - they were both almost colourless, so I presume 0. The tank has been going for 1 year or 2 - I've just taken it over recently and added to the rock and coral. Don't know if this makes any difference to your reply, but will monitor levels closely and certainly won't add more fish till this is sorted.

Cheers

 

[Zebrazim]

Appreciated Framerguy, sorry to hear 'bout your fish too. As far as I understand the normal range for KH is 140 to 178-ppm (8 to 10 ° dKH).

I've been trying to get the salinity up bit by bit, but now I'm worried to add more when I replace evaporated water in case that increases the calcium further.

One other thing - all the fish have died at night - so I don't know if something is spiking then ???

 

[Woodstock]

Any signs of disease on the fish before they died? Flashing, scratching, spots, skin problems, etc?
At night the lights are off and any photosynthisis of corals/algae stop and reverse (use up oxygen). The fish could be suffocating. What type of flow do you have in it?

Tell us more about teh tank. Size? filtration? flow? temp?

 

[Zebrazim]

Hi Woodstock,
There are 4 maxi jets in the tank (2 bottom = 1000s and two top 1x1200 and 1x500). The tank is 4 foot x 2 x 2. Temperature 23C (74F). There is no sump - just a protein skimmer (Prism).
I couldn't see any signs of disease on the fish. Two of the casualties were baby clowns, introduced this weekend. The four fish that have died are the four smallest fish in the tank - don't know if that's just co-incidence or what.
Hope that gives the info you need.

Once again appreciate your help

 

[Woodstock]

Newly added fish? I am guessing disease.

Are there any predators in the tank? A green brittlestar? Mantis? Larger fish/eel? Fish eating Anemone?

 

[northbay-reefer]

Actually the high calcium can cause a high PH spike and thats contribute to killing your fish, alk and cal cium have to be within one another or it will precipitate the other when one is too high or too low and this can cause ph to spike or lowered, also your salinity is on the low side. Inaddition with dead fishes you probably have nitrate,nitrite in your water.

To make the adjustment your best thing to do is by dilusion method which is water changes. use instant ocean since it has low calcium to begin with. I would reccomend multiple 10-15% water changes every 4-5 days for the next two or three weeks and keep testing your water until the calcium read about 400-420 and alk 7-8 salinity 1.026

Feed fish moderately, and make sure your skimmer is working over time. and make sure you are using an accurate device for your salinity test because the swing arm or hydrometer just doesn't cut it.

 

[CATALYST]

If you just added more live rock you could have had some die off and had your tank cycle a little. If you had an ammonia spike that could have caused your fish death. You can tell if your fish died from ammonia if the area around their gills is red. It would look kinda like they got hit there. I would say that the calcium isn't your cause. Water changes...get your salinity up some.

 

[Frankie]

You also might have introduced a killer hitch hiker on the new rock. Do a night search a few hours after lights out.

 

[Zebrazim]

Thanks Frankie, Catalyst, Northbay-Reefer and Woodstock,

AAh, Killer hitchhiker - what the hells that? What do I need to look for after light out?
We've not found any bodies so I've no idea what they look like, just got up in the morning and not seen them for two days plus. Presumably they've gone behind caves to die.
Other tank contents 4 inch (10cm) zebrasoma sailfin tang, damsel, various soft coral (x20), brain, bubble-tip anemone, linkia and long spined urchin. The fish that died were a baby yellow tang, two small percola clowns and a false gramma.

 

[CATALYST]

No bodies? That could be bad for your last two fish. If you leave dead ones in there you'll have problems. Maybe use a turkey baster to squirt into caves to move stuff a little and see if they float out. Do you have an overflow that they could be in? Did they jump?

 

[Frankie]

They could be getting eaten by the killer! LOL! Sounds spooky but if thats the case there not going to rot at least.
You never know what kind of killer you might have introduced. I saw one thread where a guy introduced a squid! If this is whats happening, I would look for some type of crab. Thats the most common hitch hiker.

 

[Zebrazim]

Thanks for the advice catalyst,
I've tried looking but can't see them - the whole of the back of the tank has rock set against it - moving 1 piece will create havoc. There's a maxijet aimed along the base of the tank behind the rocks - but that hasn't blown them out - not seeing any of the four has seemed strange to us. We've added 12 snails and 12 crabs today - are they likely to reduce the risk to the other fish ?
As I say, there's no rise in nitrate, nitrite of NH3 levels yet - is that what would cause the problems for our survivors?

 

[Kazzy]

Look for a crab, mantis shrimp, and a really BIG worm.
And you might have to look for a while to spot a mantis shrimp, as they den in caves.

 

[Zebrazim]

I'll be having nightmares tonight - sounds like we might have accidentally put Jaws in the tank !!!!
The rocks that I bought were all relatively small and had been cured in the pet shop for more than a month - could something survive that long without food ?

 

[Zebrazim]

Ta Kazzy.

The yellow tang that has died was about 2 inches (5cm) - could a mantis, crab, worm really eat that?

 

[Frankie]

Have you searched the floor all around the tank? Could have gone carpet surfing!