Hi everyone. It's a sad day for me. I have had a 120 gallon reef tank well established and successful for over 15 years. The parameters have been stable for years, with Nitrates a little on the high side, around 150. All others are fine, pH 8.2, salinity 1.025-26, Nitrites 0, etc.
I noticed a small algae bloom last week (red slime and a bit of brown on the live rock) and purchased a reef booster pack from SWF.com
When I added the crabs, snails, two small condy anemone, and 1 clown goby...disaster. As mentioned, I've been in this hobby for a long time, over 20 years...I acclimated everything and followed all of the protocols that have been successful in the past. Within 30 minutes of adding the livestock, two green chromis (+5 yo) died. Bam...just like that. I immediately removed them, but within the next 90 minutes I lost the entire fish inventory. Yellow tang, flame angel, 2 mandarin, a Moorish Idol and the saddest of all...my mated family of 6 percula clowns.
Although they are closed up, it looks like my ricordias (I have a ton of mushrooms) and other SPF corals and all snails and crabs have survived.
There is no smell from the tank.
120 Gal reef tank w/overflow
LED lighting
Temp 76f
4 in of live sand substrate
250-300lb live rock
sump
protein skimmer
4 in-tank 1200 power heads
two pumps from the sump
The only thing that I see as a difference is that the skimmer is producing about 4x as much foam as normal. I usually remove about 10 ounces of waste water from the skimmer a week. Now it's every day to other day.
My questions:
Should I do a large water change and what percentage?
How will I know its safe to re-introduce livestock?
The water is clear, no smell and chemicals are right...WTF?
Seriously...I cried. Such a loss. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Eric
I noticed a small algae bloom last week (red slime and a bit of brown on the live rock) and purchased a reef booster pack from SWF.com
When I added the crabs, snails, two small condy anemone, and 1 clown goby...disaster. As mentioned, I've been in this hobby for a long time, over 20 years...I acclimated everything and followed all of the protocols that have been successful in the past. Within 30 minutes of adding the livestock, two green chromis (+5 yo) died. Bam...just like that. I immediately removed them, but within the next 90 minutes I lost the entire fish inventory. Yellow tang, flame angel, 2 mandarin, a Moorish Idol and the saddest of all...my mated family of 6 percula clowns.
Although they are closed up, it looks like my ricordias (I have a ton of mushrooms) and other SPF corals and all snails and crabs have survived.
There is no smell from the tank.
120 Gal reef tank w/overflow
LED lighting
Temp 76f
4 in of live sand substrate
250-300lb live rock
sump
protein skimmer
4 in-tank 1200 power heads
two pumps from the sump
The only thing that I see as a difference is that the skimmer is producing about 4x as much foam as normal. I usually remove about 10 ounces of waste water from the skimmer a week. Now it's every day to other day.
My questions:
Should I do a large water change and what percentage?
How will I know its safe to re-introduce livestock?
The water is clear, no smell and chemicals are right...WTF?
Seriously...I cried. Such a loss. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Eric
