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?