I still need "help" with my tank... Please!

[MASTRO1]

So these pictures is what my tank looks like after 4 weeks of water changes after all my fish and shrimp dying. As you can see my corals aren't opened to their fullest but they are doing really good. So the only coral i really lost was my bubble coral. All my brains, riccordia's,mushrooms,polyps, finger leather, and 2 clams are better than ever. My umbrella leather and toadstool began opening and dimpling a little but not opened to their fullest yet. In the 3 days (a month ago) when i lost every one of my fish and shrimp. A few days later i also lost a lot of hermits and snails. The hermits and snails that didn't die are doing fine now. And i lost a small red fromia star but my 2 sand sifting stars are doing fine and my pink and yellow tile star is doing fine also. I tested my water yesterday and checked my results with 2 local fish stores and everything came out ok. (salt 1.25, calcium 460,nitrate 0,nitrite 0,ph 8.3,ammonia 0,phosphates 0. But for some reason fish die within hours of me dropping them in ever since the crash even after numerous water changes. Does anybody have any ideas, please? Oh and a liitle backround on my tank... It's the red sea 250, protein skimmer, chiller, i also put in a ground probe to rule out stray voltage...

Not sure if this means anything but... I routinley have had to clean my glass every 3 days because of slight green algae. But now ever since i lost all my fish(4weeks) i have no more growth of algae on the glass. My tank has been cleaner then ever. Is this normal without the fish or is this a clue for anyone to tell me what is wrong with my tank? Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
louie

 

[marrone]

The lack of algae on the front of the glass is because you don't have the load on the tank anymore, which the prior load was too much for the tank biological filtration to handle and resulted in you losing fish and such. The tank has recycled and can now handle the load and is cycled for even a higher load. I would wait a while longer, until all the corals are fully open and doing well, and then add 1 or 2 fish.

 

[aznt1217]

I'll be honest... I think something is still wrong. That Wall Hammer does not look good at all.

 

[frnkynlop]

I know this might sound dumb, but are you getting your live stock at the same place. The only reason I ask, is because I was have a similar problem and I figured out that the common issue was that i was getting my fish from the same place and they didn't acclimatize there live stock very well causing the fishes to be stressed and when I would get them home they wouldn't last a day. Just thought I would throw out there. Good Luck

 

[marrone]

Wall Hammer aren't the easiest to keep, and unlike branching type they don't expand that far outside the skeleton. So what you're seeing is it only partly open, and there may even be some die off on it. The other corals look ok, leathers do take a while to reopen, and the clams looks pretty good.

 

[KathyC]

Loiue - did you ever try the Poly-pad in the tank?

I am also curious if all of your fish are coming from the same place?

 

[adamt]

whats your procedure for adding fish to the aquarium? do you float, drip, quarantine? ph shock can be very deadly so maybe check and try to get ur parameters as close to the lfs where u get ur fish as possible. Sometimes stors will keep their salinity real low to cut down on disease, im not sure if it works but it can cause stress when adding to ur home aquarium if you dont drip. Alot of stores also keep copper in their fish systems, if ur adding this water to ur reef tank it could have killed all the snails, shrimp, and crabs which in turn fouled the water and killed ur fish. gl with it, hope u figure it out.

 

[MASTRO1]

well I was given 2 fish for free from a friend yesterday and put them in and qithin hours they were both dead, so I still don't get it. Why are they dying? I will be patient, but what do I do while I am waiting for the corals to look perfect again? Do I still do water changes?

 

[MASTRO1]

No i dont get them all from one place

 

[MASTRO1]

I am glad you mentioned that again... the two stores i know about didn't even hear of it. Where did you say I can get them in Astoria again?

And no I actually have gotten fish from different stores and friends

 

[MASTRO1]

I drip for an hour and i never use there water

 

[petraio]

what i would do now stop with water changes,make sure not to touch or better said do not put your hands in the water, use MicroBacter7 from brightwell aquatics instruction will tell you to turn off skimmer do not do so! but i will turn off the Uv light if you have one for a month ! put in some nice green cromis as they are hardy and pretty!! let be for a month that way!! once a week use lugol solution ! and good luck! also make sure that you do not have any kind of house odor killer some like febreeze!! or any type of odor buster ! as they enter the water and add stress to your tank!! good luck!!

 

[marrone]

It's been been a little over a week since you posted that you had problems. What you want to do is leave the tank alone. Don't add anything, fish, inverts or other products, you done enough areadly and you need to give the tank a chance to recover. Run some carbon and PolyPads and leave the tank run for about 1 month. At that point your corals should be better and you can try and add a hermit crab and see how it does.

 

[seldin]

"small red fromia star"

Not sure if this was a new tank, but it sounds like it was. If that was the case, it was very bad to buy this star on such a new tank. From what I read, this star needs lots of live rock in an established tank. It is finicky and does better in larger tanks.

"Poly-pad"

As per Kathy, the Poly-pad is great for removing stuff like metals in your tank, that need to go. I would use this to be on the safe side.