Dead fish, missing anemone and nitrate spike

[Gripenfelter]

Did 25% last night. Doing 25% today.

Nitrates are down to about 40. Water is still cloudy.

Also can't keep the PH up. Dropped to 7.75 last night. Normally sits at 8.2. Using lots of Seachem 8.3 buffer which is also supposed to raise alkinity.

Also noticed the bulb on my UV sterilizer went out. Wonder if that did anything.

[dsaundry]

You need to do a lot more than a 12% water change. I would be doing 200% over 12 hrs.

I wouldn't advise this as it might be too much of a change too quickly for your system. You could actually cause more stress to the system. As far as the cloudiness goes, 2 questions, do you have any anemone's in your tank?? If so are any missing? Do you use activated carbon in your system?? If not I would set up a carbon reactor and this should help clear your water up and remove some of the toxins that may be in it.

[Gripenfelter]

Yes one anenome is missing.

Replaced my activated carbon yesterday with two new bags.

Should I hook up the UV sterilizer again with a new bulb or just keep adding cycle?

Wife just called, tank stinks.

[dsaundry]

Ok, one of your nems got sucked into an intake and is more than likely gone{that is the milky colour}.. Uv sterilizer probably won't make too much difference one way or the other at this point, keep up the carbon going and if you have access to a hang on back filter, like an aquaclear or something similar you can run filter floss and carbon in that as well. Keep up with the partial water changes 10-15% per day over the next week or so{never asked, how big is your tank?}watch and test your water parameters and be patient. Try to see if there are any remains of the anemone kicking around and do your best to get anything that might be dead out of the tank. Change the carbon every two-three days and you should be ok.

[dsaundry]

Oh and if you have any more anemone's in tank I would suggest putting some foam or some sort of filter media over the intakes for your pumps. Nem's are notorious for getting sucked into them....I know Lost a beautiful rbta a few years ago to a nem wandering into a fx5 intake on a previous tank.

[Gripenfelter]

I have a 120 gallon with a hang on the back overflow. I'll move the filter media over to the overflow that dumps into the refugium.

Thanks for the advice!

[dsaundry]

It should be ok in a few days, just remember that any fast changes in your water parameters can be just as harmful imo as when you get a contamination enter the system. If you have access to another hob filter system you could set that up as well for a few days if you have room in tank or sump area. The filters and carbon are the big key to clearing up your water and will eliminate odours as well. The water changes will also help.

[shiver905]

I had a large maxi mini get caught in a return..

I did 75% water changes daily for 4 days.. and everything was fine.

[Gripenfelter]

Lost 2 sponges, 3 anemones, 10 snails, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 torch coral, 1 porcelain crab, and I'm sure a couple of other invertebrates.

Water is almost completely clear. Filter floss really helped.

So it looks like my lionfish is very much alive. Just the anemone was responsible for killing the above in the tank.