Majorly Confused

[tyrfing]

Here are my specs:
75 gallon reef tank, 3.5 inch sand bed, 75 lbs live rock, protein skimmer etc.
First, let me say that I moved too fast and am returning the favor to MLFS by ordering on line in the future. At any rate...
I have a nice rock of button polyps, a great pice of colt coral, two gorgeous feather dusters, and unidentified coral that looks like (I'm not kidding) buckwheat's hairdo. I had 3 damsels, two small lions and a pair of false perculas; lost everything except the clowns to a bacterial infection. My cleaning crew is 2 brittle stars, a coral banded shrimp, peppermint shrimp, about 25 turbo snails and probably 15 each of red & blue hermits.
The tank has sat by itself with just he cleaning crew for the past three weeks since I quarantined the clowns.
The problem: I can't get my ammonia down. It's been reading .25 since I put the tank up. Nitrates are 40 ppm & nitrites are .5 ppm. I switched test kits because I thought I might be getting a false reading, but both come out the same.
Why after 90 days can't I get the ammonia down? The other bizarre thing is that I have had a major pod bloom. The tank is just crawling with them. How can my water be so unhealthy, but still have a 'pod bloom?

 

[kris walker]

Yea, that is really confusing. I'm stumped. I assume you removed every once-living coral after it died.
EDIT: in retrospect, do you think the LR was fully cured?
sam

 

[broomer5]

Tyrfing
Did you ever add any additives or medications to the tank ?
Any sort of anti-bacterial medication at all ?

 

[tyrfing]

Sam:
I just removed a dead feather duster (that was an absolute b***h to pry from the rock it cemented to!) last Friday, other than that, there are no dead corals or vertebrates floating around.
I'm not sure about the rock-I bought each piece from 3 different LFS each within an hours drive. I remember one set smelling kind of dead, but all the rock is pretty encrusted with green, red, purple and white covering which would seem to indicate that everything is stable there.
Broomer:
I have not added any medications at all, since I have the corals, I was advised not to. I isolated the lions in a QT but still lost them. I was told by two knowledgeable members of this board that they had some type of bacterial infection, but we ruled out velvet. I was told to leave the tank without any fish for at least 30 days, that way the bacteria or parasites that harmed the lions would die without hosts.
I'm still stumped. Thanks for your help.

 

[fshhub]

if i had to guess, i'd agree with sam, something dead is in there, and very well could be the rock, if it was not fully cured; but something, is driving up the ammonia, and normally this comes from something organic decaying, maybe too much food, or adding partially cured lr to an established tank, is the coraline, all still good, or is it fading or changing color to a yellowy or white appearance, if it is, then that would be the culprot, but if not, look for something else
and if the ammonia never came down, it may be that you never fully cycled either, although odd, that it is 3 months, did you do anythign to prevent it from finishing, such as water changes, or additives to bring the levels down, when you do this, IMO, all you do is set back the cycle a bit, never letting it complete
now, i like sam, am just not sure, so i am just grabbing at straws, which may or not be the case, but
HTH
HTH

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

AAAHHHH!!
I've seen this on this site before. What type of filtration are you using ? Sometimes the die off is in your filtration unit keeping the ammonia level up. also - if you got a pod bloom it sounds like you arwe doing pretty well. These things don't grow in poor conditions like that. Percs are pretty tough, send them back to the tank and I bet they'll do OK.
You may want to get someting to eat some of the pods too.

 

[tyrfing]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the input. As far as the lr, even if it had experienced die-off, shouldn't it be re-seeded after 3 months? I did do a lot of water changes because I had some cloudiness and also had an algae bloom. LFS told me to do 20% water changes each week. Now I've just been topping off with R/O water since I filled my 15 gallon QT tank.
Wanted to get a mandarin to feast on the pods, but I know they are fragile and am a bit frightened of the current levels. Just using LR and a protein skimmer for filtration.

 

[fshhub]

like bud said, what type of filters are you using, if any, it could be that they are just loaded with crap, and yes the die off should have passed , but everything in this hobby nothing is wrtiien in stone, there are exceptions to every rule(some have much fewer than others)
another thing, can't remember, what substrate do you have, cc can also be trapping crap on you, and anything organic lyingg there could be at least part of your problem
HTh give you some more suggestions

 

[ratbattey]

The one thing this hobby will teach you, unless you have unlimited funds, is patience. Is 90 days total up time or 90 days since die off?
If you started water changes and skimming from the start you probably never cycled.
I would keep the percs in the QT tank and let the system run.
Set your lights on a about a 12/actinic 10/daylight cycle, turn off your skimmer, don't feed the tank, clean your prefilter and wait. You need to let it run untill ammonia is at 0. Not near zero, not around 0, at 0. At this time turn on your skimmer and reintroduce the percs. They may be hardy, but why stress them out. You have plenty of ammonia in the tank now, and that's all you need with everything else you have to cycle the tank. I know it can be frustrating, but I have had tanks take up to 6 months to cycle when I tried changing too many thing too early or added too much of a bioload too soon.
Time is probably all you need to get things staightened out.