this is really puzzling...

[marvinsae]

me and my buddy started our own marine tanks. he uses tap water from his sink, doesn't dechlorinate it, he'll throw in warm water from the tap to get his temperature right during water changes, and he never acclimates anything! he just dumps it in. somehow his tank is thriving. hes got a couple acros, zooanthids, a star polyp, an anomone, 2 black clowns, green wrasse, 2 astreas, a diamond watchman, and 2 cleaner shrimp. oh and the anemone and clowns hosted within a day. by the way his tank is only 20 gallons...

i on the other hand have a 65 gallon, and do everything by the book. drip acclimation, i premix salt water and heat it up before adding it in, i use distilled water and have a sump and stuff. HOWEVER, i've had 2 cleaner shrimp and a starfish die on me. my live stock atm includes 2 yellow tail damsels, 2 occelaris clowns, 1 powder blue, a diamond watchman, red brittle star, and 8 snails.

how does his livestock never get sick and mine seem to die even though i take extra precaution

[Seamazter]

Your probably a over feeder, this is a common thing and fish keepers don’t even realize it, this is the biggest reason for unsuccessful tanks

[Bloodasp]

Much like gardening I guess. Some people just have a green thumb.

[no_bs]

Hmmmm....strange, very strange

[RIPTANK]

Yeah, I kinda had the same issues. When I was using straight up tap water everything seem to be thriving but of course so did the algae. Then I switched to distilled water and everything I threw in died! Seriously, I lost 5 fish in a week.

My pH was too low and I was always adding buffers to get the alkalinity and pH back up. I seriously needed a doser for all my chemicals but just didn't have the set up and decided to go back to tap water again until I was able to accommodate a proper sump and doser. And now everything is fine again with just tap water... Just weird. Of course, I wouldn't recommend using tap water with any sps in your tank 'cause of the insane algae blooms but with softies no worries.

[Frenchie2]

I have a few SPS but mostly softies, and I use tap water only that I dechlorinate with Prime. The corals are thriving. I'm inclined to think that it depends where you are located in an area.. Some city/suburb systems seem to be better than others.. Where I am, the water is very "soft" as opposed to some other areas where it is "harder" - could it be a factor?

[no_bs]

We use RO/DI, clear as a bell. Now, our tap water has a yellow tinge to it. I couldn't imagine using it. Now that being said, the use of carbon would get that yellow tinge out, but with TDS of 150+ i would figure that would be harmfull.

[BlueTang<3]

Part of your issue could be a powder blue in a 60 gallon tank then need about a 160 for them to dart around, the fish could be stressed and affecting other livestock in the aquarium. Or too large for your system to handle and with minor overfeeding you n03 levels could be wacky. When we started to build our 90 gallon way back had a tiny regal tang and when he went into the 40 for holding he stress the crap out of the tank. Just a thought. It would help a lot if you were to post all your levels.

[kien]

Sometimes it is just luck. There is that element in this hobby as well. Marine life in general can be fragile and unpredictable (especially invertebrates). Powder Blue tangs are difficult to keep and many people are quite unsuccessful with them, but you have one :-). Starfish as well are notoriously hard to keep. For a lot of starfish scientists don't even know what they eat!

Bottom line is don't get discouraged. Sometimes you will bring something home that is supposed to be easy to keep but just ends up dieing and sometimes you'll get lucky and cam keep something that is supposed to be difficult. All else being equal, that is, if your parameters are in check and you're maintaining everything, there are elements that are just out of our control.

[BlueTang<3]

Kien is right on the whole luck thing in this hobby. Do you shop at the same pet store as well? Could be a condition of the livestock at the store. Whats your salinity at inverts are very sensitive to changes in this stores could be way different and even acclimating them wont help.