Need Expert Help... PLEASE!

[bgrae001]

Hi all,
I think that my tank is crashing!!!!
My corals haven't opened up in a week and my Foxface Lo died this morning. I don't know what is going on. I tested my water a week ago and my salt was a little high and my CA was really high. I did 3 15 gal water changes and my water came back into parameters.
My salt was at 1.028, my CA was 750, and my MG was 600 .
Now here is where I'm at.
Salt 1.024
PH 8.4
ALK 7 DKH
CA 450
MG 850
Ammonia .25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Here is a list of my equipment
54 gal corner display
55 gal fuge/sump 120 watt light 24/7
E.T.S.S. downdraft skimmer
380 watt MH/PC combo
PH monitor
1/3 hp chiller
1 ph in display
1 ph in sump
heater
2 different types of macro algae
750 GPH return pump
2.5" sand bed
80 lbs of LR
Tank has been up and running for about 6 months and I'm starting to get a red slime algae breakout in the fuge.
I also dose Iodine and Iron weekly, but I don't have test kits for those. I have been adding MG to try to bring it back to 1200.
I use IO Reef Crystals for salt and I only use RO/DI water
Does anyone have any clue as to what is going on???? I've been keeping corals for 3 years and never had a problem like this.

 

[kingsmith]

Well I am far from an expert but I read that Iodine becomes toxic if too much is dosed so a kit for that should be a starting place, and if you have amonia you should keep doing water changes and maqke sure something dead is not still in there

 

[bgrae001]

thanks,
I'm going to do a 40 gal water change now and I'm going to stop dosing the Iodine for now till I get a test kit.

 

[oneradtek]

yea most water changes will take care of all trace elements for you, so i do not dose for iodine. your ammonia is up because of the recent death most likely. mosre water changes will take care of that.
what kind of corals aren't opening up on you?

 

[bgrae001]

I wound up doing a 50 gal water change. I found my Christmas Wrasse dead too. I only have a Yellow Striped Maroon Clown and a LMB left.
All my Zoos are closed up and my Kenya tree is all shriveled up. My BTA is all closed up too. Only half of my star polyps are open.
This is what it looked like before the crash. I'll test the water tonight and see how everything looks.

 

[spanko]

A little late to be told this but you should never dose anything you cannot test for. I don't care who tells you to just follow the directions and it will be okay. Never dose anything that you cannot test for before hand and after dosing to ensure first you need to dose and second you dosed correctly. I think you are doing what you can now with the water changes but the ammonia problem will continue because of the deaths that are occurring.

 

[aquaknight]

Well, the first thing is that ammonia at .25, which at right at the breakpoint for immediate action. Doing large water changes is your best bet, but you'll need to find what is causing the ammonia. How old is the tank?

 

[bgrae001]

I know that you should not dose what you can not test, but I broke the rule and did it anyway.
It's only been 2 hours since I did the water change and already the corals look much better and are opening up.
I figure the slight ammonia spike is from my missing Christmas wrasse. I have a lot of rock work and I can not move it all around to look for a dead fish. I have an okay cleanup crew so I hope that it takes care of the carcass.

 

[bgrae001]

Okay,
So last night I tested my water and everything looked good my ammonia was even back to 0. Before I went to bed all my corals were open and doing fine. The only thing was my MG was still low at 875.
Now, when I came home this afternoon all my corals were closed up again. I wonder if I have some kind of bacteria growing in my tank and how to treat it. I was thinking of getting a UV sterilizer and seeing if that helps. I wonder if it could have come from the garbage can I use to store my SW. Sometimes when I do water changes I have a slight film on the sides of the can. I have a powerhead in the storage tank to keep the water moving.
What do I do next????

 

[fau8]

Though I agree with issue as disscussed with the idione, it is not the cause of the problem. The iodine would first affect your crustrations and then inverts. fish would be the last.
So something has upset your water balence, have you cleaned your sand bed or removed a large amount of algee growth from the back glass? or sump?
are your sure some thing has not died that you are not aware of?
The fact that everything opened and is now closed again is that you have a mini cycle going on. Did your add any new rock? Need to provide and monitor your water chemisrty to provide further info.
Maybe a dead clam or anenome? Clean all your filter media and pads and do another water change.
The 1.028 reading was a bit high and could have caused some die off starting the problem.

 

[bgrae001]

Originally Posted by fau8
http:///forum/post/2819360
Though I agree with issue as disscussed with the idione, it is not the cause of the problem. The iodine would first affect your crustrations and then inverts. fish would be the last.
So something has upset your water balence, have you cleaned your sand bed or removed a large amount of algee growth from the back glass? or sump?
No, I have a fuge and I havent had any algae in the DT for weeks.
are your sure some thing has not died that you are not aware of? I only had 4 fish, 2 died (8 corals and 1 BTA still alive)
The fact that everything opened and is now closed again is that you have a mini cycle going on. Did your add any new rock? Need to provide and monitor your water chemisrty to provide further info. I haven't added anything other than 3 small frags in the last 2 months
Maybe a dead clam or anenome? Clean all your filter media and pads and do another water change. I'm making another 30 gal of SW. I ran out of salt and waiting for more to get shipped in. I only use filter socks for media and one bag of carbon.
The 1.028 reading was a bit high and could have caused some die off starting the problem.
I'm going to run another set of tests tomorrow and do another 30 gal water change. Also I'm going to change out my water storage for a new one.

 

[bgrae001]

I did my water change and everything is looking much better.
I'm having a small algae breakout and I have the feared brown algae on my sand bed. I changed out my resins in my DI unit today. They looked pretty much depleted.
I ordered another bucket of salt and a TDS meter this morning. I also ordered an Iron, MG, CA, KH, and Iodine test too.
I'm going to replace my sock filter later today.
We'll see what happens. It sucks for me because my LFS is having an awesome sale on corals today. I'm trying to get a hold of them and see I can buy some and have them hold them till my tank recovers. I'm going to set up my QT again tonight and hopefully I'll be able to get a few fish to replace the 2 that died. They have Naso's for $19.99 so I definitely want to get one of those.

 

[bgrae001]

Well as of today, everything looks back to normal. I think that my container that I used to hold my SW was contaminated. I've used this container for 2 years. Once I changed out my water storage container everything starting coming back.

 

[jeanheckle]

How quickly did you drop your SG, you said it went from 1.028 to 1.024, that is a drastic drop and could have led to fish dying if it happened too quickly.

 

[barchtruong]

Originally Posted by jeanheckle
http:///forum/post/2821838
How quickly did you drop your SG, you said it went from 1.028 to 1.024, that is a drastic drop and could have led to fish dying if it happened too quickly.

+1.
it sure is a major issue to go from 1.028 to 1.024 in a day.
I don't think the prob. came from the garbage container.
I think the Iodine addition is the issue. You overdosed everything. 10% water change weekly and 1 capful of Reef Complete every other day is very much all it needs for a tank like mine (55g full of softies and stonies). I have a bottle of Iondine for 2 years and I only used it about 3 time last year and I put it in the storage cuz I know my salt has appropriate amount of everything in there.

 

[bgrae001]

It was over a 2 day period. I know that it was drastic but my fish were stressed before I did it. They were breathing very fast and not looking good. I'm glad that I only lost the 2, but in the oceans fish can go through fast changes like that with minimal problems. Besides if it was Iodine poisoning wouldn't my Inverts have died first??? First I lost my Xenia then my Foxface and then my Christmas Wrasse. I didn't lose a single hermit crab or snail, my BTA looked awful for a few days but now it's bigger than it's ever been!
I've been keeping SW fish for 5 years with a lot of success. I do think that it was a combination of the trash can and the iodine because when I did the massive water change I used water out of 2 different containers. One new and the old one. everything looked better in a few hours and then it started to look bad again. before this point I did 3 15% water changes over 3 days with no change, and then the 50%. After the large water change I started only using the new garbage can and I did another 30 gal water change 24 hours later. Since that water change everything is starting to recover, some of my corals are actually bigger than before the crash. I'm going to do another 15% water change on Monday and then test everything again. I should have all new test kits by then. The new trash can is a commercial food grade that wont leach into my salt. The old one I picked up in Europe. Lord only knows what was put into the plastic of that can.