After a year - SO TORN

[KarenLR75]

112 gallon aquarium, been plagued with issues from mysterious fish deaths despite tank parameters having been posted at the time to try to puzzle it out.

I joined a local aquarium club so my husband and I can get to know some local people & get help in our own community.

Haven't posted in a while as it's been too hard to watch the tank struggle but I forget that not everyone learns or processes info the same way. I think nothing of posting and trying to get some input/checking the input, but it's not easy..and honestly not always even for me and I love to 'data mine'.

Basically we now only have the following livestock:
1 melanarus wrasse, 3 firefish, and 3 blue green chromis, 2 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 red fancy shrimp that hides, rogue pistol shrimp & about 15 hermit crabs.

We also have some LPS corals and one RBTA.

Carib sea rock overcome with bryopsis again (just did fluconazole again) & now is overcome with bubble algae (and starting to see cyano for 1st time in 10 months) and I can now count at least 20 aptasia (sp?).

Husband wants to get Foxface and maybe filefish but now is at turning point (or maybe breaking point) - with his desire to change the aquascape, he wants to talk about what to do but i have no clue!

He is interested in maybe doing barebottom. We have a 75 gallon we can stand up to possibly either 1) House current fish and corals (unsure that lighting is good enough) 2) Take the 'infested' rock to the 75 gallon and work on cleaning the individual rocks and chiseling the new 'design or 3) ??

Concerns about taking rock out to clean even if putting back into the SAME tank is will it cause the tank to cycle again. Biggest concern is not doing anything else to harm the few remaining critters & corals. Although he does need to trap a rogue pistol shrimp that eludes us ea time.

Open to ideas, preferably based on having to make the same decision..but I"m open to anything. In case you wonder about the odd wording, I am a tank 'viewer' and I accompany on trips to LFS's and read up on fish, but I am NOT the tank 'keeper'.

However, I love my husband and I want to help however I can..so I'm posting asking for help from ANYONE as to what is the best way to proceed in the really really bad place that the tank is in.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

If you can give us some more info on your tank and husbandry routine we can help you figure things out.

How old is the tank?
What are your current params...pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, salinity, temp.
Are you using RODI water?
Salt mix?
Additives?
Lighting?
Skimmer? Sump?
Water changes? How often and how much?
Are you using GFO or carbon? Reactors?

I'm sure there's more I'm missing but it's a start.

 

[KarenLR75]

I can answer a FEW of them, Sugar Magnolia!!

Yes, he always uses RODI water. Use Red Sea salt mix. Have protein skimmer in the sump, runs GFO and carbon. Uses filter socks?

He used to dose calcium but haven't seen him do it in long time.

Tank temp is 77.2 (range of 76.7 to 77.2) now. Everything was 'offline' (skimmer, etc.) due to fluconazole dosing but he's supposed to 'turn it back on' this week. Tank has been dosed with fluconazole for 4 weeks now (thought it was 3).

Water changes - 1 to 2 times per month - about 20 to 25%.

No idea on tests - I'll look @ my spreadsheet to see when the last time he tested was - ok, it was last tested on 8/7/18. I understand..kind of..why he hasn't tested while running fluconazole but i"m going to bite my tongue on my own opinion of 'the last test result' we have being 8/7/18.

Lights - some fancy lights from Europe (see how technical that is?).

He was testing about 2 times a month before the last 8/7/18 one and everything was stable. Everything was 'stable' when fish started dying too...I remember posting all the test results that were ran.

Tank is 14 months old. Oh, and he's adding a UV sterilizer...and is working on doing another water change tonight

 

[Uncle99]

You mentioned the fish that still survived, however Which ones died, and did you just wake up one morning and dead, or did you notice any behavior changes, scratching rubbing breathing lathargic, glassy eyes.....etc

Smaller more frequent WC is better than larger less frequent.

I have seen great outcomes to remove Bryopsis with elevated levels of magnisum. Google this process for details of implementation.

Of course numbers of all 8 parameters would be very helpful, when something goes wrong, is many times the water, second by changes made or introduction of non-QT fish, thirdly by stress and poor nutrition, or combination of all. Most certainly phosphate and lighting are suspect. If not LED, old bulbs can really fuel algae as their colour spectrum had changed.

I have seen Sugar chime in, thats encouraging, others will follow, the members here are very much the experts so mine their data carefully.

 

[journeyman]

Bryopsis/algae problems are likely a sign of water quality issues. The water parameters are good in your tests because the algae is consuming the nutrients, but that may be a sign of a larger problem.

There may be disease, such as ich in the tank that the fish fight off when healthy, but when the water quality drops the the fish get stressed and the disease overcomes their immune system and you get mysterious fish death.

My only suggestion is to leave your tank population stable for now. Since you have fewer fish, your water quality should improve. Then maybe address any filtration needs if you want to increase your livestock after your tank stabilizes.

 

[sde1500]

Bryopsis doesn't need much to be a massive nuisance. Hopefully the flucanazole took care of that. After you are done, get that skimmer going, and do some big water changes, I'd right off the bat do a 50% change, to pull nutrients from the die off out of the tank. Bubble algae isn't a terribly worrisome problem, you can remove manually pretty easily as you see them pop up. Get some testing done pronto though, that will tell you how the tank is as far as algae feeding nutrient levels.

Aptasia, honestly I wouldn't worry too much about them yet. I probably have 15-20 at all times in my tank. They haven't yet become a plague. Balance nutrients and they seem to balance as well. If the tank starts to get over run with algae, likely they'll follow. Now I have blasted them a few times with aiptasiax if they are places I don't want, or are easy to get to and kill, but never have eradicated them that way.

Adding fish or anything else. I'd caution against this. Let the tank get to a spot where you feel comfortable. Let it stabilize for a few months. Adding something to a closed system throws things off, more fish means more poop means more nutrients and stuff in the water. If your tank isn't yet running where you want it to, adding more won't make it better.