Tank crashing of sorts?

[Fitz19d]

Trying to get a good overview.

2 months or so during some neglect from house buying madness etc, started getting build up of I thought diatom, but maybe some other kind of easily blown away brown algae on sand/rocks. Started losing random zoa's and acan frags and a few other things. But others like nems doing fine/great. Eventually cut back feedings etc. Finally got things tested at Great White and 1.03 phosphate. Over the course of 2-3 weeks I knocked it down to .13 phosphate and 20-30 nitrates (Weekly 25% water changes followed by Phosguard then GFO)

Now a few things seem ****ed from the fast drop coral wise. Anemones not so happy. My fumanchu randomly seemed to go blind and refused to eat for a week until it died. Was usually on selcon krill on stick.

Now last night my dwarf lion was eating. Found him this evening wedged somewhat under some rocks he usually hung out at dead. No sign of trauma or anything obvious. Nothing stuck in throat.


I'm at a loss for what's going on. I've been avoiding disturbing stuff or trying to get rid of all the algae or what I'm worried is actually some other pest growth. (Dont want to scrape and end up just re-releasing ton of phos/nitrate) The sudden chain of fish deaths is odd. Newest additions from a few weeks ago, Rock Wrasse hasnt shown sign of aggression to anything other than maybe Tang and the engineer is far too small.

Pretty sure not a copper issue as all my inverts are fine. So I'm kinda befuddled. Adding some carbon back into a reactor to try and help skim out any possible contaminants.

 

[SynDen]

Sorry for your lose, never a good thing to see things die.
Few questions though, what are your other parameters like, sal, alk, ph ect...? and had you used phosban and gfo before in the system? if not how much did you use to start with? are you running it passive or in a reactor?

 

[Fitz19d]

Oh, and one other idea is, it's a fairly new package of krill. If it's only my lions that bit it, maybe it's the culprit separate from my overall issues.

 

[Fitz19d]

Reactor, phosguard(not ban) is out, only ran it 3-4 days. GFO was I thought half of recommended. After almost a month I'm still working on 2cups (1/4 lb) in the reactor after the first 2 cups I dumped after 2 weeks.

1.025/1.026 ish.

I can get new #'s, but last tests for alk/ph were within usual ranges. But who knows suppose some of what I've been doing coulda jumped those around.

 

[djkms]

Fish loss leads me to believe it's more likely a contaminant getting into the water/food or a pathogen. Nutrient level changes have little effect on fish, unlike inverts. Any new additions in the last couple weeks and your QT procedure? I believe the coral issue is separate from the fish issue, you already explained that as 2 months neglect.

Sent from my Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

 

[fishguy69]

Fish loss leads me to believe it's more likely a contaminant getting into the water/food or a pathogen. Nutrient level changes have little effect on fish, unlike inverts. Any new additions in the last couple weeks and your QT procedure? I believe the coral issue is separate from the fish issue, you already explained that as 2 months neglect.

Sent from my Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

+1 on the contaminant possibility

 

[FinsUp]

Or electricity leakage

 

[High Plains Reefer]

what about stress it may not seem like much but the sudden po4 drop may have stressed the fish and made them open to catch whatever may be floating around in the water I would have a post mortem done on any future losses

 

[Fitz19d]

I'm wondering if I wouldnt be well served by just doing a big 50% water change. Or I wish I could move sooner but was hoping that I could get a good restart outa having everything in holding tanks and getting the tank scrubbed down and all new water in the new house.

 

[jahmic]

IMO you would be better off doing daily changes of 10%. Larger changes might just stress the tank more; there's no definite indication of what caused this decline, but if a contaminant entered through your water supply, a large change may only exacerbate the problem.

 

[jda123]

Lions need to eat more than krill or they can slowly die... or get weak to later die by a major event. My apologies in advance if you feed more than this. They need 3-4, or more, different food sources to live long lives. Whole krill (not the stuff you typically find at the store), fish cutlets, whole shrimp with shell, mysis (if the lion is small enough), ghost shrimp, cuttlefish heads, chopped octopus & squid, crabs and silversides and other various things. The heads and guts are good. A trip to the local asian market can get you months of nasty food for pretty cheap. Injecting a piece of food with the Zoe or Selcon, like a fish twinkie, is better than a soaking, since most of the soaked stuff just washes off - use a syringe with a needle, not a Salifert test kit syringe.

The elevated N and P, and rapid drop, are probably to blame for the rest.

There is not likely any contaminant that you cannot eradicate with a heavy metal resin (cuprisorb) or activated carbon. Aragonite can absorb/bond minor/moderate amounts of most of these things before you ever know that they are an issue - copper included. There is little chance of a contaminant.

I would do minor water changes and start to vacuum the sand bed at about 5-10% a month to get it working well again.

Come by if you want to add another skimmer to help bring the levels down. I have a ton just sitting around.