Okay, found out my nitrate test was not working at all and my nitrates were off the scale. I had always done WC's, but I guess not often enough. I bought a new test kit, because my blue-spotted grouper and Lion stopped eating, and the grouper had turned to his white color and my sailfin and niger tiger were breathing extremely hard. I changed out the filters to hopefully remove some of the nitrates in the media itself. The parameters before the water change were:
FO Tank w/ crabs and snails, all fish besides Sailfin have been in the tank for 6 months+
8-inch Blue-Spotted Grouper
9-inch Volitan Lion
4-inch Red Sea Sailfin
3-Inch Niger Trigger
5-Inch Porc Puffer
14-inch Snowflake Eel
4 inch Lawnmower Blennie
pH 8.1
Am .1
NO2 .1
NO3 100+
The Sailfin was added about 1 month ago and appears healthy beside a little HLLE, likely caused by the high Nitrates. Thinking, here in lies the problem, that getting the nitrates lower would solve the problem, I did a massive water change. Eighty gallons out of a 125 tank. I used RO/DI water from my filter and pre-mixed the salt and heated the water. The water parameters are now:
Ph 8.3
Am .1
NO2 .1
NO3 30
but everyone is still breathing hard and the grouper and lion have yet to eat. It has been about a week for the two of them and I am starting to get a little worried. I put an air bubbler in last night to see if it was a lack of O2 thing, and this morning they are all hanging around the air stone. I also added a small bicolor angel two days ago which was two days after the WC and he is now breathing hard as well.:help:
Just thought about the fact that I had switched salt brands in addition to the water change.. bad things are in store for my fish:nope:
