tank is crashing!!!

[hawaiiguy]

I've got multiple problems going on in my tank right now. All of these symptoms began over the past week or so...

First, my bicolour angel stopped being active and now she sits at the back of the tank and her fins are deteriorating fast.

Then, I noticed the start of a dark red slime on the substrate (probably cyano) that has spread to cover half the tank over the past two days.

My zoanthid colonies will not open up (they havent been open for about 3 days now)

My mushroom corals are "shriveled" and they won't spread themselves out.

My LTA looks ok, but its tentacles are "corkscrew shape", not extended like normal.

Now, this morning about half my corraline algae is white!! It happened over night!

My ammonia and nitrates are almost undetectable. I'm not sure about phosphates though, currently I don't have a test kit for it.

The strange thing is that my leather coral is doing great! I would've thought it was more sensitive than zoos.

Can anyone help?

[shotzee]

Get some good (Salifert) test kits and find out where your water parameters are at. Its pretty tough to make any guess from what you described.

[MobyDick]

Did you change anything that you usally add,Cal.,Alk.,Or trace min.?

[Ruth]

I agree - get some good test kits and post your params ASAP. It sounds like a serious water imbalance to me but hard to say without numbers. Have you switched salt mix lately?

[hawaiiguy]

I don't think anyone down here in Lethbridge has salifert. The test kits I have are hagen. There are only two pet stores that deal with salt water stuff here and they both carry hagen. Anyways, I will pick up a PO4 kit and an alk kit later today. I already have an ammonia kit, nitrate kit and pH kit. Do I need anything else?

Mobydick, yes I did change things around in the tank about two weeks ago. I decided to try and find a goby that disappeared in the rocks. I took the rock work apart and then put it back together. That was it. It made the water pretty dirty but I did a massive water change and things looked normal soon after. Do you think that could've caused all my problems?

Other than the rock rearranging, everything else has stayed the same (lighting, Ca dosing, salt, etc).

[TheReefGeek]

I would do a 30% change every day until you see improvement.

I would also start running carbon ASAP

[Ruth]

Test calcium, alk, and mg for sure. If you have cyano you probably won't get any readings for PO4 and nitrates are probably reading low as well. Do you have a way of testing to see if any stray voltage could be getting in your tank. I would also suggest checking your heater (make sure it's not stuck on or off) and your pumps to see if they might have cracked or somehow broken their seal.

[dufferdan]

My guess is the same as the others your water parameters are like out of the norm. You need to test your tank water. But regardless, a water change will certainly help.
Do large water change, but test your new batch of water first for everything. Especially check the Alk and the Ph.
How old is you tank?
Has your sand bed been disburded?

[shotzee]

You can always order Salifert test kits from online stores and have it delivered to your house. Usually even free shipping once you spend over a certain amount, and if there are only a couple of stores locally that sell saltwater stuff, the online stores will probably have some other things not found locally.

I would have probably avoided doing a "massive" water change after you moved some rockwork around. If the salt wasn't mixed with the water for long enough, or if conditions of the new water weren't all that similar it could have thrown things a little out of wack.

[dufferdan]

I would also suggest removing your bicolor angel if you can catch it, and quarantine this fish. Are there any patching spots on the fish?

[dufferdan]

Moving the rockwork around could have caused this problem, yes. If your sand bed was badly disturbed you would have released lots of nasty stuff into the water.

[TheReefGeek]

That is my guess, which is why I reccomend water changes and carbon.

[Ruth]

What do you mean by ammonia and nitrates "almost" undetectable? If you are getting ammonia readings then your tank is going through a cycle and is probably caused by moving your rockwork and disturbing the sand bed. Water changes and running carbon will definately help in that case. OTOH if it is something with your salt mix or source water then you are only going to make things worse. Running carbon definately won't hurt and if possible try running it in a canister filter of some kind and change every day for a week or so. You really need to get some test kits and also post what actual reading you are getting for ammonia etc.

[hawaiiguy]

Thanks for all the advice everyone, I didn't think I'd get such a great response! So, I'll change about 30% of the water when I get home tonight and do a bunch of testing.
Dufferdan, I've been trying to catch my bicolour for a few days now... Sometimes I can flush her out of the rocks, but she still has enough energy for a fast break back in! And yes, she does have a patchy spot at the top of her head just in front of her dorsal fin. It's not a growth or anything, she's just lost her colour there. Its not her regular vibrant yellow, it's a dull whitish yellow colour.

[TheReefGeek]

Test the new water you mix up before adding it to your tank to make sure that is not the problem.

[hawaiiguy]

Right, I'll test the new water too... The salt mix I'm using is RedSea (I've been using RedSea since I started) and the water is RO/DI.

[hawaiiguy]

...and I'll run carbon. I don't have a canister filter (used to but I sold it) but I have a HOB filter so I'll use that.

[dufferdan]

I think your Angel has Ick. It could have been brought on by the stress from the water conditions. You will need to treat this fish and probably your others as well. Do some research on the symptoms of ick and treatments. Hyposalinity or copper. Don't treat the fish in your display tank.

[hawaiiguy]

ok here are the parameters:

pH: 8.4
nitrate: 10 mg/L
phosphate: 0.5 mg/L
ammonia: 0.05 mg/L
KH: 160 mg/L
salinity: 1.024

no one here carries Ca test kits... I'm going to have to wait until I head up to Calgary to get one. After dinner I'll measure the new water that I make for a water change.

[DEAD_BY_DAWN]

i think from the fact that you have any ammonia in your tank,and i would assume some nitrite that there is a cycle going on,the best thing you can do is remove all fish and inverts till it is finished,then slowly start putting them back in,i have personaly found that doing as you said massive water changes can cause more harm than good if you are shifting from one extreme to another,testing you cal level is not super important at this point ether from what you have listed for corals etc,you dont seem to have any stony corals so i would take a guess and say that you cal level will be high,and finally for the cyano covering your tank this should dissaper when things return to normal ie low nutirents if not them chemi clean will kick its ass within twenty four hours..good luck things should work out fine with a little bit more time ..john

[dufferdan]

Are you reading your Alk properly. It should be around 8dKH or 22.4mg/l.

[TheReefGeek]

Ammonia is not good, means your don't have enough bacteria in your rock and sand yet to break down the wastes being produced.

If you can get your animals out and boarded for a while that would be best, and let your tank cycle fully.