Im kinda new to the hobby and this is my first reef tank. I guess ill start by listing my hardware.
125 gal standard
Power compacts. White blue purple blue
Eshoops overflow, 200 refugium, 200 protien skimmer
digital 800 watt titanium heater
About 140 pounds of aragonite
100+ pounds of live rock
2 power heads. One on each side
Dual returns
Levels are as follows…nitrates 10…nitrites.00.ammonia… .25. Ph 8.1 to 8.3. Salt. 1.024 to 1.025. I use red sea coral pro salt only
Fish that are alive as follows. Foxface rabbit 2 black n white clowns engineer goby9 blue/green chromis flame angel file fish common cleaner wrasse algea blenny i just added a naso who went from good to not so good in 3 days. I dont think hes gonna make it. I have a purple tip and a green tip anenome. Green star polyp 12 in purple mushroom. 5 in green mushroom. 2 shrimp i cant remember what kind. Green brittle star. Theres some turbo snails and crabs also
Everything prior to maybe 2 or 3 months is doing great. When i add a new fish its dead in a lil over a week. My LFS and i are at a total loss. Great water flow and no eead spots. Water temp is 79-80. Sorry if i left aot any info. Like i said im kinda new…HELPPPPPPPPPPP
Ok heres the list of fish
Pair orange n white clowns
Atlantic blue tang
Powder blue tang
Bi color angel
There was 2 or 3 other tangs too
I get my fish trom fishbowl. Im in dover
Your ammonia reading should always be 0. There’s something up with the water chemistry in there - whether there’s something else dead in there, or your system can’t handle the load right now and needs time to establish the bacterial load more efficiently.
Have you noticed any disease or anything? Ich, velvet? If you’re adding a fish, then it dies quickly, you may be dealing with velvet - but that would wipe out all of your fish - very quickly. Look for red splotches and stripes on the fish, ich or even a slimy mucous layer. Could all be signs of infection or disease.
If I were in your boat, I would remove all of your fish and place them in quarantine (leave your reef fishless for a while) and observe them. If you notice anything out of the ordinary, you can easily treat them all without endangering your reef.
Every fish that died if i remember correctly had ich. But i was told that ich to fish is like a cold to us. Stress can bring it out?? The tank is about 9 months old by the way. There is nothing dead in there that i havent found. That im sure of. I also forgot to mention i have an 18 watt UV light. I dont have a quaranten tank set up either. Can i treat with prazipro? Is there something better?
Thats 18 fish if I count right. Seems like your biological filtration is teetering on the edge of being able to handle the load?
The ammonia issue is what leads me to that hypothesis, and ammonia is very harmful for fish. It burns their gills, making them less and less able to provide the fish with oxygen, the fish then get stressed, suffer, and die.
If it was ich, all your fish would have it, not just the new guys, it spreads like the plague.
One “rule” that I’ve seen, and personally use, is to use 1" of fish for every 10gallons. So my 90gallon tank, can support roughly 9" worth of fish. Following that rule, your 125 can support about 12-13" of fish roughly. If your nine blue/green chromis are all 1.5" long, you’re already over that rule.
Just seems like you have alot of fish to feed, when you do, they create waste that your system is having an issue handling biologically.
Yep, it should always be 0. Don’t need more carbon (That helps remove smell/chlorines/clarity of the water), you need more biological filtration.
Simply put:
The fish eat.
Then they poop.
And then begins the Nitrogen Cycle:
Nitrifying bacteria exist in the water/rock/sand to brake down that waste.
As they brake down that waste it 1st turns into ammonia.
Then, the bacteria that like to eat ammonia, eat it, and poop out nitrites.
Then, the bacteria that like to eat nitrites, eat it, and poop out nitrates.
Nitrates are the final phase of the nitrogen cycle in our tanks.
I remove nitrates via cheatomorpha (which uses nitrates as an energy source to grow) and water changes…mostly cheatomorpha
If you have too many fish, the bacteria can’t keep up with the workload, and you’re left over with whatever they can’t consume fast enough…in your case, its the 1st part…ammonia.
So its either less fish, more rock, and/or more frequent water changes. Or a combination of all of those. Finding that balance will be key, but I think right now, your tank, and the bioload that it can sustain is on the edge of being too much.
Rule #1 don’t buy fish that don’t look good!!! Rule #2 make sure that fish is eating before you take him home!rule#3 quartine everything!!! 1 sick fish could kill thousands of dallors worth of fish! Especially if you have to have a type of fish even if it looks ill. I have bought fish from that store with the same result! And I didn’t quartine it and it almost killed most of my tangs! Therefore I don’t buy fish there. And yes to you don’t want any ammonia or nitrates or nitrites.
What is your water change schedule?how much and how often? The other thing is that some fish are more fragile then others(powder brown and powder blue)seem to be harder then some others.
Ok…so knowing what we know now. Lets start with more frequint water changes and cut down feeding. Salt being 65 dollars a bucket how often and how much do you think is a good start?
This might change depending on the tank inhabitants.but it is a good starting point.in that future I would be a little more picky with what fish you buy. If you have an extra 5-10g tank it would make an easy hospital tank to keep any new fish in to Make sure that the are healthy and free of parasites. This will save you a ton of money in the long run.
What the LFS guy told you about the common cold thing is true to a very small extent. Some healthy fish can deal wih it in the tank and you’d probably never notice it - until something happens to stress them out. Heater failures, temp swings and especially adding new fish. Since the ich is already living in the tank, the slightest stress causes the breakout to which you’re pretty screwed at that point.
There’s only a couple ways to deal with ich. The easiest way is to set up a hospital tank, remove all of the fish and treat with copper. Leave you tank fishless for 4 weeks minimum. The corals and inverts will be more than fine without their fishy buddies.
He other way would include removing yor fish and put them in hypo salinity in another tank. The only tough thing with that is you have a very small margin of error with hypo and some fish can’t take it all. I guess the same thing about copper too.
Bottom line is this. Ich will be in your tank as long as there are fish in it. There’s no getting out of it unless the tank is fishless for at least 4 weeks.
Second thing to note -NO - do not treat your reef with any medications.
Good info on your initial post. The more detail you include the easier it will be for us to help. Being as you have detectable ammonia (and assuming something hadn’t dies within 24 hours of testing) I think the comment about bio-load is right on.
I do have a few other questions though:
HOW are you measuring salinity? Refractometer or Hydrometer? If refractometer, when was the last time it was calibrated?
How are you acclimating new fish to your tank? Drip method? Floating bag method? Temperature acclimating? Dump and run?
Now to touch on a few other points I noticed:
Don’t buy sick fish, you’re setting yourself up for years of heartache and stress.
Don’t believe everything your LFS tells you - while I’ve never had any issue with TFB, keep in mind they are a business and their job is to make money by getting you to buy things. If my LFS sold me a fish with obvious ich and told me it’d be fine, I’d never shop there again.
You’re using some higher end reef salt, but I didn’t see anything in your coral list that requires increased calcium or other of the “coral only” trace elements. You could probably save a few bucks and do more water changes with a lower priced salt - Reef Crystals, Instant Ocean, etc.
I recommend more frequent water changes than monthly - it’s better to change out 5 gallons a week than 20 gallons once a month. Water changes not only reduce nitrate levels, but they also add back in trace elements essential for happy healthy tanks.
You have 2 things going against you. Ich being the major issue. Ammonia is also exponentially more toxic with higher ph such as marine aquaria. This is also contributing to the stress level of the fish. Transport is a huge stress on fish. Many are in the ocean monday, caught (hopefully net, not cyanide) then in a holding tank. Tuesday netted, bagged & flown to LA where they are thrown in another holding tank. Wednesday netted, bagged & flown to Philly, driven to LFS & dropped in a tank. Thursday netted, bagged & brought to a house that we hope for the best. A hard life! You can see why many fish do not make it. The stress weakens immune the system and they can not fight off what the fish in your tank are able to. Let them chill in the store a while to see who does well.
+1 on no medication. Most effective ones are going to kill inverts. It will get in the rock & leech out later if you thought, “Why not pull out inverts only?” The “reef safe” ones are not very effective and have other side effects on both tank inhabitants & equipment. Uv is only going to kill ich if the contact time & intensity is enough. Too much flow and it hardly does anything. I had limited success with a diatom filter and uv sterilizer. It took a long time for any results. Best bet, quarantine. Or if the fish you have are doing well, just don’t add new ones. This isn’t a cure though.
Thank you for your reply guys. So to answer a few of your questions. When i get a new fish i drip for 2-3 hours. I have a 2 month old refractometer and hydrometer. I didnt know that after you use a hydrometer it was supposed to be washed out with fresh water. So my salt levels raised up. So those 2 items like i said are new. Its just frustrating. You think youre doing everything right and youre not. Ive spent ALOT of money on this and dont want it to fail.
Oh yeah - it’s easy to drop serious coin in this hobby, and I agree - you think you’re doing everything right only to get punched in the gut and watch your hard earned money go down the drain. It’s tough.
I learned my lesson with QT tanks around 7 years ago after dealing with ich twice. Never again. I always kept a small tank with some dedicated equipment laying around ready to go if I needed it. Usually, if you take your time finding QT stuff, you can end up getting a lot of it for free - small tanks, small heaters a simple powerhead and a HOB filter is all you need.
Remember this - most and I do mean most folks who get in this hobby are frustrated and fed up within the first 2 years and unfortunately (IMO) the 2 year mark is usually when a reef really starts taking care of itself. So the folks that get out never really get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Keep your chin up man - everyone goes through it.
My main recommendation to you would be remove and QT your fish, and take your time. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.
^^^^^^^ I completely agree! The problem with this hobbies is that I takes quite abit of time to get the tank to look the way we all want it! And this is that hobbie that you kinda have no choice but to sit back and watch the paint dry! Unless that is you have an endless amount of money just waiting to be flushed down the toilet. We have all been there and some of us not that long ago! Just don’t get discouraged and be paintent!
No. i wish i had endless money. dont we all? This isnt my first tank tho but it is my first saltwater. lets discuss the hospital tank for a moment. Do i use my tank water? Live rock? Live sand?
