Coral Beauty and Ammonia Spike

Laurafishgal

New member
Hi, I hope someone can give me a hand. I am new to the hobby, I've had a72 gal tank for about 4 months now. My #s have all been great until this Sunday. Sat afternoon I did my normal routine and checked everything, Ammonia & Nitrates were 0 (everything except phosphate was normal, I've had slightly high phosphate for a while).

I have ~100 lbs of live rock, coral beauty, hippo & yellow tang, 2 clowns, Orange Linkiia, algae blenny, leopard wrasse, cleaner shrimp, 2 bubble tip anemones, 2 peppermints and a few turbo snails and blue legged crabs. All of which have been living together for over a month at least. I added a little Mandarin and a Seahare on Thursday.

Sat around 8PM, my Coral Beauty started to go crazy, up to the surface- then float down upside down.. repeated about 50 times before she fell to the bottom and sat there breathing on her side. I eventually pulled out 5 gal of water and put her in the hospital tank where she died about 5 hrs later. When she was running to the surface her belly was more orange than usual and gills were red.

I tested the water on Sun AM, and my Ammonia was at .75 - big spike for the tank, especially considering I've had no trace of ammonia for months. I am not missing anything, and the coral beauty did not die in the tank, so I can't figure out what caused the spike.

On Sunday Afternoon I did a partial water change and Monday removed the Mandarin, Seahare and the Linkiia-- ammonia is about the same.

No-one else seems to be stressed this am, all eating fine. -- I'm concerned on what caused this spike (or what killed my Coral Beauty).---(other message boards and friends suggested that the CB ran into the anemone, it had cyanide poisoning, or it took a bite of the seahare.).

Any ideas?
 
Here are my #s from just 4 hours before the Coral Beauty had the episode.
Temp 79
Salinity 1.023
Phosphate .8
Ammonia 0
High PH 8.2
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Calcium 480
KH 143

My Ammonia went to .75 on Sunday and has been hovering at .5 for the last 3 days. I am not missing anything in the tank so I cant figure out what's causing the ammonia.
 
I've been doing this about as long as you have...but is your test kit accurate, maybe try a second kit to be sure. Maybe the fish was sick and that caused the spike? I wish i could help more
 
Yea, I thought that.. so I took a sample to the fish store and tested with his kit about 4x.. had the same result. So bizarre. Well the good news is that the remaining animals are doing ok, and my Ammonia I think is just about 0 this AM!
 
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