Help. My first bad water test results.

[rkm]

The tank has ben up and running for about 8 months now. Today I got bad water tests.
Amonia .025
NITRITE .1
NITRATE 2.5
PH 8.3
Salinity.021
I know I need a water change. It's been 6 weeks. I moved to another house and could only save 50% of the water. So I figured I would try to let it go a little longer and then I bought 2 tangs (in the sig) 8 days ago. I wanted them to be in their for about 2 weeks before I did the change. But now I think I need to do it a little sooner.
I don't think the water change is the cure. I need to find out what is doing this.
So my other question is going to be my feeding.
I feed a little flake food in the morning. Then I thaw 1 frozen cube of formul1, and 2. I mix them up. and use this to feed the tangs 3 times during the day. I figured the clean up crew would eat everything else the tangs and other fish wouldn't.
I do have a little red slime I think. I have pics I'll post.
I am also trying to keep the back of the tank coverd with algae for the clean up crew. It has a little green, brown and red.
I do top off with RO drinking water from Walmart.
This post is kinda long I am sorry.

 

[rkm]

PIC2

 

[rkm]

pic3

 

[rkm]

Tangs are fine. They do not harm anything. But it is to soon to tell. It's only been 8 days. Do you have tangs. I read in a SW magazine that they eat constantly in the wild so I shoul make sure to feed them a few times a day if I do not have a lot of algae for them. Maybe I'll put in some frozen broccoli. The magazin said they would love it. And they can pick at it all day. How does the algae look on the back of my tank? How about that little orange clam thing that grew on my LR. I also read on my test kit the the amonia could be up a little from adding new fish. I didn't know how reasonable that was.
so all in all I need to cut down the feeding.

 

[jja]

I have a 55 gal and feed the fish once a day with formula 1 and2 alternately.I have one large sailfin tang,2 perculas,1 pink shrimp goby,1 coral beauty and one small dottyback. Twice a week I put some algae on a clip for the tang and coral beauty. This really seems to work well as they have all been healthy and together for about a year. I only feed them one cube a day. I do have corrals and feed them seperatly. If I fed them more they would probably eat it but sometimes less is better.

 

[dreeves]

If you took 50% of the original water out of the tank at one time, and replaced it with new, you could have caused a little damage to your bio system, which would cause a slight cycle type of condition...the red slime is actually cyanobacteria.
With just a major water change though, it should clear up on its own once the bio system gets full strength again.

 

[jumpfrog]

Water change will help but you may want to consider your feeding frequency. I experienced problems like yours early on and went to every other day feedings for the entire tank and on off days placed nori in the tank for tang and any other that wanted to graze.
Overfeeding definitely hurts water conditions faster than most anything else that you can control.
Good Luck!

 

[ophiura]

Always keep in mind taht simply because a clean up crew "cleans up," they still produce waste. It is not removed from the equation. I would say the primary problem here is the amount of food you are feeding. Might be better to focus on some good healthy LR for grazing, set up a refugium with tid bits to feed them now and then, and feed an algae sheet now and then also. Simply because it is a vegetable, also does not mean that it won't cause ammonia, so don't leave it in there indefinitely.
It is a rough approximation, but the stomach of a fish is roughly the size of their eye. So most captive fish have more than a full belly most of the time, and that passes right through them, even though they gobble it up (they don't know where the next meal will be, so it is an adaptation). However, you know when the next meal will be, so do let them stuff themselves every day. I think that is most definitely the problem.
In fact, considering you recently moved the tank, then added two fish that you are kinda overfeeding...the tank params aren't all that bad. Water change and cut back on feeding, as everyone has said.
I would be interested to hear how those two yellows get along over time (as they get much larger, and start to run out of room). Your LFS actually sold you 2 yellow tangs? Don't think I would have. But that was me.

 

[rkm]

Sounds like solid advice. Thank you. The tangs are a yellow and a pirple. I think I need to find this algae paper you all talk about. Do they sell it a SWF.com What is the correct name for it if I look it up.
Thanks Again

 

[sgt__york]

Just my 2cents - i think most ppl have hit the nail on the head with the over FEEDING. I have always had 2 tangs (achilees and bluehippo in the past ) - and now a (yellow and bluehippo). Tangs are GRAZERS - but they eat off the glass, the rock, and if u want - u can put in a piece of lettuc (romain) or spinache. I usually put in 2-3 large pieces of romaine once a week - and let em graze on it. If they eat it all - so bit it - let em pick on the rock. ALL my fish have full bodies - they are not starving - but if i put my hand in the tank - they ALL get into a feeding frenzy. Don't make the mistake of thinking they are just hungry - they are just responding to what they think is food coming in. I only FLAKE (or cube) feed about once a WEEK
YES! once (maybe twice) a WEEK - not just every other day. And as i said - all the fish have nice thickness to them - thicker than when i bought em.
You would be surprised how much they eat off the rock.
I have 0 hair algae in my system - and i havn't even done a water change in 4.5months. I just had my water tested as well and my nitrates are almost 0 - and i'm NOT running a refugium. I'm not quite sure why the nitrates are quite so low - I can only assume some anaerobic conversion is going on in my argonite substrate and within the LR itself - and perhaps the romain lettus I put in is helping to absorb some.
POINT tho - do not overfeed. I honestly beleive the 2 biggest problems with algae and blooms is 1) use of tap water - not getting r/o or d/i; and 2) over feeding (we just care for our fish too much sometimes)
cut ur feedings WAY back - no MORe than once every other day - and just a single PINCH of whatever - and put some grazing greenery in there - and see what that does.
Good luck to you

 

[maryc137]

For dried seaweed, go to an Oriental market. You can buy packages of Nori. It is dried sheets of seaweed. One package is under $2.00 and lasts about 6 months for me.

 

[rkm]

Just an update.
I did my water change this weekend. Boy that is very involved. I had to buy 20 gal of RO water from WalMart. Then I bought a 20 gal thick plastick round trash can. I put my water in the can. 19 gal of it. Put in a power head. Mixed in the salt, and added my buffer. Then I let the water mix for about 24 hrs. I added my heater in the last 2 hrs to help the water be at the same temp then took the power head out and let everything settle for about 30 min. While the water was settling I began to vac. the CC into 5 gal buckets. It was nasty. When I was done with that I began to syphen the new water into my sump and turned on the pump to pump it to the tank. This was very drawn out after doing this I will definately look into finding out a quicker way. The next day I tested the water and all was gone. I am back to good water conditions. I did however notice the following morning. That my CBS was acting very unusual. He was not hanging from his normal rock. Instead he is scurring around. Then the following morning (today) I noticed that both of his long anteni were shortend, and he moved slowly. The other odd thing is I saw what appeared to be little shrimp floating around in the current. I might have counted maybe 5 of them. Could this be left over feeding shrimp from around 3 weeks ago. I didn't think it could be possable. Not with the fish and fiters and powerheads. I dont have 2 CBS's so no babys unless they can do it without a partner. Could my CBS just be on its last legs. I have had it for almost the start. (8 months) He did grow a good bit and molted many times. He even molted a few days ago.
Sorry to ramble just a few questions figured I would run them by.