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:help:
I am not a religious person but I am beginning to believe that my tank is cursed.
I have a 75g reef tank with a 29g sump/refugium that is filled to around 18g. I estimate that there is about 90g in my system. The tank has been up and running for about 3 months and has cycled. I had a previous tank from which I used all the LR and about 40% of the water to seed this new system. I currently only have a small damsel, some mushrooms, some zoos, a hand leather, green star polys, and a few hermits and snails.
Up until last week, everything in the tank was flurishing. Then, the curse....
Last week, I purchased a small hippo tang from LFS, which turned out to be tremendous mistake. I must admit that it was kind of an impulse buy...he looked a little pale, but I rationalized this and got him anyway. (I always wanted a hippo). I acclimated him and put him into the tank...Although he was swimming around, he seemed really weak and kept getting stuck against the cuts in the overflow box and stuck against the intake if the powerhead...I figured he was just swimming weakly b/c he was new so I turned off the power to my sump and powerhead so the water was stagnant for him overnight. I also used some ammo-lock at this point because I had about .25 ammonia which I thought might be stressing him out a little.
The next morning I found him stuck in a rock upside down...he was still alive though, so i coerced him out of the rock and put him in my quarenteen tank b/c it looked like he had ick, or some other illness. He had white marks all over and he was very disoriented and couldn't get his bearings. He kept swimming in circles and looping upside down, this was very sad to watch.
Anyway, he didn't make it...I flushed him and then did a small 10g water change in my tank.
Over the next few days, everthing in my tank that had been flourishing up to that point had begin to look horrible! The mushrooms became shriveled, the polyps and the zoos were hiding...and worst of all, my devil's hand leather was black and totally limp! My one damsel seems fine, however I do not use her as an idication of anything because she is the toughest little fish ever and has survived the worst emergencies!
I ran some tests and found that my ammonia level was unbelievably high...I'm talkin like 8 ppm!! I don't know if anyone has ever seen this dark green color on the Aquarium Pharmacuedical test, but it is very disturbing. All of my other numbers were great however. Temp: 82 Salinity: 1.022 Trites: 0 Trates: 0 Phosphates: 0...but ammonia was 8!
I initially thought this was due to the ammo-lock which I have heard can give false readings, but my corals looked horrible so it seemed logical that something was definately wrong.
Over the last 3 days I have been working really hard to get this level to drop. I have been changing about 20 gallons a day, but this hasn't been showing any decrease on the test kit and the corals still look horrible. That is a total of 60 gallons which I have changed and no improvement....This is why I believe it is a curse, because it defies all science. If i'm changing that much of a percentage of my water, shouldn't it show some improvement??
Is it possible that the little hippo caused all of my bacteria to die and therefore wiping out my filteration?? I am planning on continuing to change 20 gallons tomorrow and the next day, but if anyone has any ideas other than a curse, I would greatly appriciate it...please!!
I'm starting to think I'm just not meant to this stuff, I don't know what I'm doing wrong!!
I am not a religious person but I am beginning to believe that my tank is cursed.
I have a 75g reef tank with a 29g sump/refugium that is filled to around 18g. I estimate that there is about 90g in my system. The tank has been up and running for about 3 months and has cycled. I had a previous tank from which I used all the LR and about 40% of the water to seed this new system. I currently only have a small damsel, some mushrooms, some zoos, a hand leather, green star polys, and a few hermits and snails.
Up until last week, everything in the tank was flurishing. Then, the curse....
Last week, I purchased a small hippo tang from LFS, which turned out to be tremendous mistake. I must admit that it was kind of an impulse buy...he looked a little pale, but I rationalized this and got him anyway. (I always wanted a hippo). I acclimated him and put him into the tank...Although he was swimming around, he seemed really weak and kept getting stuck against the cuts in the overflow box and stuck against the intake if the powerhead...I figured he was just swimming weakly b/c he was new so I turned off the power to my sump and powerhead so the water was stagnant for him overnight. I also used some ammo-lock at this point because I had about .25 ammonia which I thought might be stressing him out a little.
The next morning I found him stuck in a rock upside down...he was still alive though, so i coerced him out of the rock and put him in my quarenteen tank b/c it looked like he had ick, or some other illness. He had white marks all over and he was very disoriented and couldn't get his bearings. He kept swimming in circles and looping upside down, this was very sad to watch.
Anyway, he didn't make it...I flushed him and then did a small 10g water change in my tank.
Over the next few days, everthing in my tank that had been flourishing up to that point had begin to look horrible! The mushrooms became shriveled, the polyps and the zoos were hiding...and worst of all, my devil's hand leather was black and totally limp! My one damsel seems fine, however I do not use her as an idication of anything because she is the toughest little fish ever and has survived the worst emergencies!
I ran some tests and found that my ammonia level was unbelievably high...I'm talkin like 8 ppm!! I don't know if anyone has ever seen this dark green color on the Aquarium Pharmacuedical test, but it is very disturbing. All of my other numbers were great however. Temp: 82 Salinity: 1.022 Trites: 0 Trates: 0 Phosphates: 0...but ammonia was 8!
I initially thought this was due to the ammo-lock which I have heard can give false readings, but my corals looked horrible so it seemed logical that something was definately wrong.
Over the last 3 days I have been working really hard to get this level to drop. I have been changing about 20 gallons a day, but this hasn't been showing any decrease on the test kit and the corals still look horrible. That is a total of 60 gallons which I have changed and no improvement....This is why I believe it is a curse, because it defies all science. If i'm changing that much of a percentage of my water, shouldn't it show some improvement??
Is it possible that the little hippo caused all of my bacteria to die and therefore wiping out my filteration?? I am planning on continuing to change 20 gallons tomorrow and the next day, but if anyone has any ideas other than a curse, I would greatly appriciate it...please!!
I'm starting to think I'm just not meant to this stuff, I don't know what I'm doing wrong!!