a little friend dies, please check my readings

option720

option720

Member
Last night we had our favorite fish die (Barnaby) he was a maroon clown. I have lost many fish before, but he was the first fish that we ever owned and has been in every tank we’ve had. Well to make a sad story short I watched him go from good to dead in about 30 minutes. Well this sparked me to test my water and these are my readings.
Nitrate 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
PH 8.0
ALK 1.7
Ammonia between .25 and.5
Salinity 1.023
What do you think, did any of this kill my fish or was it just life? And will Ph Buffer raise the alkalinity as well as the PH? Thanks for your help.
 
fender

fender

Active Member
Has anything else recently died in your tank? How long has it been running? Did you do a recent water change? Any changes at all recently? New live rock?
ammonia should be 0. Always. If it is detectable something is rotting in your tank, your tank is cycling, or something has killed all your nitrifying bacteria(some meds can do this).
 
option720

option720

Member
What is currently in the tank is a cleaner shrimp, damsel, long tent anemone and 12 hermit crabs. It is a 29 gallon tank tha has 15 pound of live rock in it. We moved the tank about two weeks ago (only 3 miles)and all the sand and rock was kept in saltwater. No water changes have been done since early July, i was planning on doing one tonight, should i not? The tank has been up since May. I have some Seachem StressGuard should i add some or should i buy some ammonia eliminator?
 
playtime

playtime

Member
As you know, your amonia should be 0 but with a tank that size, your levels can fluctuate. simple water changes can help with that. I doubt that the amonia level is what killed your fish. How often do you test? How often are you feeding and what? If all other levels are fine and nothing is dead in your tank, over feeding can be the cause of the amonia. You might also take a water sample to your lfs and see if they can test it for you. I was having a nitrate proble (off the chart) even after 5 days of water changes and a 50% water change then I had my lfs test it and it was perfect, turned out I had a bad test kit. Sorry for your loss, I know how upsetting it can be.
Playtime
 
q

q

Member
It is kind of a coincidence that after moving the tank your ammo shot up. You could have killed some bacteria or stirred up some detrius. Just a couple of thoughts.
Keep up on water changes and test frequently to monitor what is happening.
My .02
 
flydan

flydan

Active Member
Bummer! Sorry to hear about Barnaby.
I'm with the majority on this one. Water change can only help, but try and find the source of the amonia spike.
Take care,
Dan'l
 
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