Please help everything seems to be dying :-( coral and fish

[mattt6511]

Hey guys I was in this hobby years ago and started up again, here is what I own a fusion nuvo 10 tank with a small hydor powerhead a kessil a80 light, all salifert test kits and my water is premixed red sea from my lfs my top offs is distilled water. All my water parameters are spot on ph is slightly low but stable at 7.9 ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate below 10 ppm salinity 1.026 water changes twice a week. Basically my corals esp zoanthids are almost all closed up they never fully opened in this tank they have been dipped and have no parosites I have no idea what's going on, also I lost a clownfish and cleaner shrimp yesterday.... I'm pretty devistatrd any advice or help please???? Thanks so much, oh my current livestock is 1 clown 1 yellow goby and a few small snails, a few misc soft corals

[Newstead]

How awful! Parameters look fine, what filter media are you using? Can you share a pic? Have you tested alkalinity, salinity, etc.? My pH runs at 8, I have seen it as low as 7.7 and everything is fine, so I don't think that is your problem.

[mattt6511]

As of now no filter media I'm ordering the Intank media basket with purigen and Chemipure elite and filter floss, I also may purchase the ghost skimmer for the tank it's just a letdown only 6 weeks in and things are pretty aweful my salinity is 1.026 my dKH is a little high at 12.5 I tried to upload pics but it kept telling me the file size was to large!! Gah

[Newstead]

I use tinypic to post ftom - you can load you picture there and then copy the url for forums and paste it in a post here.

 

Have you siphoned out the back chambers? I was shocked when I first did in my first biocube, but I was showing very high nitrates and the fish were fine (they are now 4.5 years old).

 

Is there movement in the top of the water for oxygen exchange? Trying to think of anything ... Makes me wonder if the LFS water has something going on. That dKH is pretty high.

[Clown79]

I'm sorry to hear about this struggle.

 

 

Normally i would say its adding too much too soon. 2 clowns, goby, and shrimp within 6 weeks of cycle in 10g may have been too much for a tank to handle in the time frame but you say the ammonia is 0.

 

Ph i wouldn't be concerned about

 

Alk is high

 

Any visual signs on the fish for illness. Any symptoms before death?

 

Is there good surface water movement?

[Reeferadicto]

Six weeks Is a short time

J think you stock ur tank too fast and u dint get a chance to ur bacteria to reproduce and handle all that waste!!!!

[mattt6511]

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Water movement is very good main pump return facing water surface, my one fish that died wasn't eating since I got her from day 1 and she was always swimming near the surface which made me think it was a oxygen problem but it's a rimless tank with plenty of surface flow, the cleaner shrimp seemed fine, he molted then the next day he was dead the smaller clownfish and goby are fine no problems that I can see.

[Newstead]

The shrimp may have had issues after the molt, that is when they are most vulnerable. It seems like shrimp are the canaries of reef tanks - they go first when something is off.

 

You might try adding something like Microbacter7 to increase your biological filter before adding another fish. What do you feed?

[dandelion]

Has temperature been stable? Log that down like every few hours, especially when you turn off your heat at home (not sure where you live).

[jack1978]

Fish / shrimp may be a coincidence. Zoas closed up.....what intensity is your lighting at? Could be too much light for the Zoas.

Post a picture...usually helps.

[vegasgundog]

+1 to lighting if everything else is good. Fish not eating from day one could have been from collection/harvest process. Some use cyanide to harvest fish and some never recover.

[ReefWeeds]

Fish / shrimp may be a coincidence. Zoas closed up.....what intensity is your lighting at? Could be too much light for the Zoas.

Post a picture...usually helps.

That's what I was thinking. The light might be too intense

[ajmckay]

The high ALK might have something to do with the zoanthids...

 

As for the other issues can you post pictures and a timeline? Knowing when things happened can help determine what happened.

 

Also,

- What kind of rock do you have? Was it dry rock? Uncured live rock? Fully cured live rock?

- When did you add the fish? In what order, and how far apart?

- How long were they in the tank before they died? (fish and shrimp)

- How did you acclimate everything?

- Did you test the water for ammonia before adding the fish? Gasping at the surface is a potential symptom of ammonia poisoning.

 

 

Anyways, as mentioned my guess would be that you overloaded the bio-filter. I'm guessing all the fish (and maybe cleaner shrimp) were added at the same time or with very little time in-between? What can happen is you get an ammonia spike that corrects itself over time between when the fish died and your testing. Can be just a day too - doesn't always take long. This may have been the case if the fish were added just recently and the first clown died within a day or 2 of adding it.

 

My only other thought is possibly the acclimation process... I would be especially suspect of this if the clown died between 1-2 weeks of adding it and there were no symptoms of parasites/disease.

 

Of course these guesses are invalid if the fish were showing any symptoms of disease/infestation... The symptoms are sometimes hard to spot but could range from acting jittery/spastic to acting slow and lethargic. Also physical signs such as spots, excess sliming, colored patches, necrotic gills, raised scales, etc...

 

It's unfortunate that your clown and cleaner died - hopefully the current clown and YWG carry on fine. Good luck.

[Mariaface]

First of all, good step getting the filtration media - it's important in small tanks with inhabitants that add a lot to bioload, like fish.

 

But I just wanted to casually mention the idea that oxygen might be low. Salinity's at 1.026, you don't have ammonia or crazy-high nitrates, alkalinity's at 12.5dKH, and pH is still sitting at 7.9? Are your windows shut most of the day? Is the water surface sufficiently agitated? When you look down at the tank with the lights on, is there any kind of protein film at the top?