PLEASE HELP! trouble after moving aquarium!

[holitaish]

Hello! My name is Fabricio and I really do not know what to do, here is the situation:

 

I've installed my first 12 gal. saltwater aquarium since 1 and half month ago.

Everything was ok, my water parameters were perfect, fish were happy, corals too, until I detected a leak :'(. Thanks God I had another fish tank that was exactly same as the main but almost half short.

So I had to move everything to that little fish tank, and after that everything was ok, fish were happy, water was perfect, corals even happier (at least it seemed to be), so in the time that my father was repairing the leak (about one week) my fish were all perfect on that little tank, until the day that the leak of the main tank was fixed (it was this Monday).

 

I moved everything to the main tank, sand, rock, water, etc. But there is when the problems started.

 

First of all my rock flower anemone was hard stick to a very big rock, so I tried to detach the 'nem but it did not work, I tried to make the flow heavy, and did not work, so I left it to the end I thought it was going to detach by itself, so I removed rocks, I drained the water and the anemone almost out of the water did not detach, so I took the rock and shake, but it did not work, I decided to put the whole rock to the little bucket where the other corals and fish were. But it was too big so and it didn't got in so I shaked the rock again and the anemone detached.

I put everything to work (water fall filter (sponge and active carbon) skimmer and power head)

And I waited a about 2 or 3 hours for the water to get clear but it turned little bit cloudy, then I put all corals and my fish, and my rock flower anemone attached to the bucket so I tried to detach it with heavy flow, shaking and water under it, the last worked and then I put it into the tank.

 

The anemone started to open and close its mouth, and get small, and closed, all my corals are closed since then until today, my zoanthids are closed but large, my anthelia is open but it looks really stressed, my star polyps are closed too, my daisy polyps closed too, my blue mushroom shrieked up and after it was big now it is a really tiny poor thing, and my stylophore got bleached, and by the way, the first night my clowns were laying at the sand, right side down, both, and next day then are ok ( at least it looks like, then eat, then swim, etc.)

Today the water is still little bit cloudy, and I researched about what could be and Internet forums said that it could be bacterial bloom, and that it gets over with a water change. After that I went to my LFS to check parameters and that was the result:

pH: 7.8-8.0

Ammonia: 0-0.25

Nitrite: 0.5-1.0

Nitrate: 0

 

The guy at the LFS told me that with the water change everything was going to stabilize again, so I made a water change of 25%, with RO IO water and Instant Ocean salt. And added bacteria.

The water is still cloudy, and corals are as I said before but now my anemone turned little and is closed.

 

PLEASE HELP ME, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO, and I don't want to get anything dead, nor my clowns, nor my corals and nor even my anemone because I love it and if it dies everything is gonna die in there. PLEASE HELP ME, I'm desperate :'(

[jamescstein]

Do you know what silicone he used to repair the leak?

 

Make sure it wasn't the anti-mildew kind.

[12_egg_Omelette]

I was going to ask what you used to repair the tank, it might help to run something to help pull out any impurities, did you give the tank a couple good rinses with RO/DI water. In some tanks if medication was used, you'll always have issues.

[seabass]

A guess - moving the sand has released organics which has caused an ammonia spike. The livestock is reacting to this. Some Seachem Prime might help detoxify the ammonia to ammonium; however, this is only a temporary solution. It's hard to say how long this "cycle" will last.

 

You might try transferring everything again into new water, remove the sand bed (cure it separately leaving your tank bare bottom during the process), and move everything else back.

[holitaish]

Thank you all guys, I just asked to my LFS to host my corals and clowns until the water gets better, today I'll make another water change of 10% and add again bacteria with Bioptim, then wait one day and check parameters, if you can tell me any other suggestions I'll take them in count! Thanks

[HarryPotter]

Thank you all guys, I just asked to my LFS to host my corals and clowns until the water gets better, today I'll make another water change of 10% and add again bacteria with Bioptim, then wait one day and check parameters, if you can tell me any other suggestions I'll take them in count! Thanks

That was a great decision. It's SOOO much better to just get the innocent critters out of there during an issue like this rather than to try to "get through it".

 

I bet in less than a week the weird spike will be over and you'll be ready to get them back. Don't rush it though- make sure everything is nice and stable

[Hammerstone]

That's really cool! :-)

[brandon429]

well said so far. transferring tanks means making the new one free of organic rotting waste that was captured in the other one and not released until stirred up. the new system must be waste free in order to avoid an ammonia spike. you clean out 100% of the sand and all the rocks during the move and when the new tank is set up, nothing can cloud or rot.

 

none of the old water is used, totally new water is used ideally for ammonia prevention.

[holitaish]

Guys, I've got bad news, my two clowns are dead, them died 1 day after my LFS hosted them (so sad, yesterday I got really mad and sad because of the dreads due the ammonia spike :'( ), and my corals are in bad health according to the LFS guy.

 

The good news is that my water is clean now, after 2 water changes of 20% and after adding lots of bacteria and one ampule of Bioptim, the water is clear now, so today I'll go to the LFS to do a parameters test and check if I can put fish to my aquarium and get back my corals or let them get better and then get them back.

 

So I hope anything gets better now, thanks for all your support guys!

[Gooburz]

Maybe it's just me but sounds like things are being rushed very quickly and a lot of chemicals being dumped into the tank and hoping it will make things "ok"/stable.

-You didn't answer what kind of silicone was used to repair the tank and that could be the cause of your issue and could happen again if you used the wrong kind.

-Adding corals to a tank that has only been up and running for a month is way too soon, the tank isn't established yet and throwing "lots of bacteria" into a tank isn't going to fix it at all.

 

You need to give your tank time to establish, several months. Just because your fish "seem happy" doesn't mean they are, 1 & 1/2 months isn't anything comapred to the lifespawn of some of the fish we keep in these systems. Clownfish can live over 20 years.

[holitaish]

Maybe it's just me but sounds like things are being rushed very quickly and a lot of chemicals being dumped into the tank and hoping it will make things "ok"/stable.

-You didn't answer what kind of silicone was used to repair the tank and that could be the cause of your issue and could happen again if you used the wrong kind.

-Adding corals to a tank that has only been up and running for a month is way too soon, the tank isn't established yet and throwing "lots of bacteria" into a tank isn't going to fix it at all.

 

You need to give your tank time to establish, several months. Just because your fish "seem happy" doesn't mean they are, 1 & 1/2 months isn't anything comapred to the lifespawn of some of the fish we keep in these systems. Clownfish can live over 20 years.

First of all, the silicon that I used was not anti-mildew kind.

Second, I went to the LFS to check my parameters about 1 hour ago and the test said water was ok:

Ph: 8.2

Ammonia: 0

Nitrite: 0

Nitrate: 0

 

And my corals... Them are not good even hosted at the LFS, my Anthelia looks like it is saying good bye to this world, my anemone is between here and there(heaven) and my daisy polyps are getting good,

[holitaish]

My zoanthids are still stressed but 1 of 7 is open, and my blue mushroom is less stressed than before but is still stressed, and 2 corals died thought, or them are really slow recovering and one truly died, it was a stylophore.