Fish Dying!!! Need some advice on Reef Tank

[hantzum]

Hi,
I think I am in some need of direction here. I have been a salt water tank hobbyist for going on 9 years now. I had a 80 gallon for 7 of those years and about 2 years ago upgraded to a 200 gallon. What I am so tired of happening is fish and invertebrates dying all the time. I had a large maroon clown with a huge 2 foot long tentacle anenomie with a large blue hippo and two large yellow tangs and some chromis and shrimp for about 5 years in my tank. Never any problems; well I mean if I ever added new fish the new fish would be just fine for a few days but would eventually go into what I call the death swim where they just hover in one spot of the tank then bite the dust over night. I didn't add many fish during this 5 years but just last year we were on vacation and we had a power outage. Well my UPS that keeps the filtration running when this happens must have broke because when we got home all of my guys were dead and none of the equipment was running. So......I cleaned everything out of the tank and did a series of large water changes for several weeks to get all nitrates, nitrites, phosphates, and ammonia out of the tank. I added some hardy blue yellow tail damsels in and let them do there thing for about 5-6 months. No one died and I continued to do bi-monthly water changes of 25%, about 50 gallons worth. I continued to monitor water levels and then just last week placed a massive order with the saltwaterfish.com website. Well I received a few DOA's and a few of the smaller fish died within a few days but everything else look great. Well, every day as I come home I see more of the fish acting weird and now I have two more tangs going into the death swim where they will mst likely be dead by morning. I am at a total loss here. I know this website guarantees there fish for 15 days but I really feel bad making all these guarantee requests because I have dead loss every couple of days. I went ahead and posted a link of how the tank looks as of this Saturday. The anenomie is a little stressed out in this vid but he is doing great now. I will post all of my test results on water conditions below too. I do intend on bumping the salinity up to about 1.0235 over the next couple of weeks because thats where most anenomies like it and get really big. Any suggestions would be great on any additives or medications or anything you may think so I can quit having dead loss every couple of days. Thanks

The first two vids are how the tank looks now. One of the vids is before my order from saltwaterfish.com


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Uf6P8XcHdM&list=UUsTrqjf1uwGAbh6zcZegvew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9elOfFoBFgY&list=UUsTrqjf1uwGAbh6zcZegvew


Here is the vid of how the tank looked earlier last year before the crash happened. All these fish are about 6 years old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oug9TplMPno&list=UUsTrqjf1uwGAbh6zcZegvew

Tank size:200 gallons
Filtration: One Emperor 400 with active carbon filtration X2. Changed every two weeks.
Two power heads. CAnt remember the brand. you can probably tell in the vid link
10 gallon sump with 200 gallon coralife protein skimmer
2 pouches of Phos-Zorb: changed every 2 months
Lighting: 1 orbit 325 watt light fixture with 2 blue 420nm actinic and 2 10K dual-daylight
1 GLO T-5 with two bulbs. One 460nm actinic and 1 10K dual Daylight
1 Piece of crap light strip the tank came with. I use this mainly to keep the light from getting out into the house and directed down to tank. It serves its purpose. LOL

Current water conditions
Salinity: 1.0215
Ammonia: about.25ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: between 5 and 10 ppm
PH: 8.2
Temperature: 74.4 F*
Phosphate: between 1-2 ppm
Calcium: 420ppm
*dKH- 15

Current supplements added according to the directions of the manufacturer

Kalkwiser added with fill water. Approx 1 tablesppon for 5 gallons
Strontium & Molybdenum
Magnesium
Iodide

 

[Art13]

I would double check your ammonia test, but i wouldn't put any fish in there if you are showing .25. Phosphate seems high but shouldn't effect the fish. If it looks like they are gasping for air then possibly ammonia burns? Sounds like you added a lot of fish all at once, it could have spiked the ammonia.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

I continued to monitor water levels and then just last week placed a massive order with the saltwaterfish.com website.


Ammonia: about.25ppm

In my opinion, these are the two issues currently. After the previous crash of your tank, the bio filter had equalized to handling the bioload of your two Blue Damsels. When you suddenly placed what you labeled as a "massive" order of fish in the tank, the bioload was overwhelmed. As a result of its inability to keep up with the decaying fish waste, you ended up with Ammonia in the tank, which in turn suffocated the fish.

You might want to think about a QT process and slowing down your tank additions and allowing the bioload time to respond to any new additions.

In the meantime, you'll want to plan some large water changes, monitor ammonia on a daily basis and add something like Prime to neutralize the existing ammonia.

Your temperature also seems very low.

 

[cakemanPA]

A massive order will test bio filtration. I would suspect ammonia from the large bio load increase.

The above advice is spot on

 

[hantzum]

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Gotcha......I guess I probably shouldn't have said massive order......well maybe....lol.....I added about 150 new members to the tank...
5 tangs,
2 clowns,
1 anenomie,
10 blue damsels,
10 yellow tail blue damsels,
5 spotted damsels
10 peppermint shrimp,
2 arrow crabs
4 camel back shrimp,
1 coral banded shrimp
50 hermits, "small"
50 snails "small

I have had this in there before with little dead loss...I figured a tank of this size and movement of water that I have in here would be sufficient.

ill get another water change in order today and check ammonia levels daily. When I do the test on ammonia it starts off at 0 but after 5 min or so changes color to between .25-.5 ppm. The thing is the fish arnt gasping for air. They just sit there and dont swim around. Then I come out the next day and boom. Dead. As for the biological load is concerned: even though I have had only those 5 blue damsels in there for 6 months I still had all the live rock and aggregate sand which I still filtered and moved but I guess that still makes sense.

So final verdict seems to be the ammonia levels....goal for this is 0????
Everything else look just fine as for water parameters?
Thanks again for all yalls help guys.

 

[ca1ore]

5 tangs,
2 clowns,
10 blue damsels,
10 yellow tail blue damsels,
5 spotted damsels

That is a lot of fish to add at the same time. Assume you are not QT'ing them. It would take me the better part of 6 months to add that many to my tank, so perhaps ammonia is the problem. How are you acclimating?

What kind of anemone?

 

[hantzum]

That is a lot of fish to add at the same time. Assume you are not QT'ing them. It would take me the better part of 6 months to add that many to my tank, so perhaps ammonia is the problem. How are you acclimating?

Drip acclimation for about 6 hours or longer. At least until the salinity they came in matchs mine. Then if temp is off by much then I will put in ziploc baggie and temp acclimate until water temps are the same so the fish isnt shocked.

 

[hantzum]

I have alos had some people tell me the temp is low?
I have always ept my tank between 72-75. Any ideas on this? Will this improve the quality of life if I bump it to 76-78?

 

[ca1ore]

Temp probably is low, I shoot for 78/79 degrees. Also, really should be drip acclimating for no more than 1 hour.

 

[HVAC Guy]

Personally, I don't think you have enough filtration for that size tank even with minimal livestock. To add that much livestock at one time was foolish. Even if you had a better filtration system, that much livestock would shock any system. I keep seeing this happening often because people are thinking its OK because they saw it on a TV show.It only takes 1 fish to bring a disease,fungus, or parasite into a tank that will always be there until its identified, targeted, and treated.

 

[Spyderturbo007]

Gotcha......I guess I probably shouldn't have said massive order......well maybe....lol.....I added about 150 new members to the tank...
5 tangs,
2 clowns,
1 anenomie,
10 blue damsels,
10 yellow tail blue damsels,
5 spotted damsels
10 peppermint shrimp,
2 arrow crabs
4 camel back shrimp,
1 coral banded shrimp
50 hermits, "small"
50 snails "small

I have had this in there before with little dead loss...I figured a tank of this size and movement of water that I have in here would be sufficient.

That's way to many fish to add all at once.

As for the biological load is concerned: even though I have had only those 5 blue damsels in there for 6 months I still had all the live rock and aggregate sand which I still filtered and moved but I guess that still makes sense.

You have to remember that the biological filter (i.e. bacteria) will equalize themselves to the number of fish in the system. So after the tank crashed, the bacteria began to die off because there wasn't enough fish waste to sustain the previous population.

After a period of time, the bacteria population was equalized, through die off of the bacteria, to the population required by the amount of waste produced by the damsels. When you added a ton of fish, the concentration of the fish waste increased exponentially and the bacteria couldn't keep up with the demand and the Ammonia began to rise. That is what killed the fish.

The object is to very slowly increase the fish population which allows the bacteria time to multiple and deal with the increase in waste production.

So final verdict seems to be the ammonia levels....goal for this is 0????
Everything else look just fine as for water parameters?
Thanks again for all yalls help guys.

Correct. Ammonia should always be 0ppm. I would recommend increasing the temperature, very slowly until you reach the 78-80 degree mark. I would do that over a period of at least a few days. Maybe one degree every other day. I like to go slower than what is actually necessary just to be sure.

You might also want to consider some form of quarantine process.

 

[tanked37]

Gotcha......I guess I probably shouldn't have said massive order......well maybe....lol.....I added about 150 new members to the tank...

5 tangs,

2 clowns,

10 blue damsels,

10 yellow tail blue damsels,

5 spotted damsels

10 peppermint shrimp,

2 arrow crabs

4 camel back shrimp,

1 coral banded shrimp

50 hermits, "small"

50 snails "small

It's already been said, but yeah, that's massive! No way your system manages that without some issues. I've added 4 fish to my 90 gallon in 1 year. Of course, I have about 2 months between each fish with QT process.

Have you been successful doing this before? Even if it did, the likely hood of introducing disease is high with that many fish so some could be dying from a parasite.

 

[Spslvr]

did i read corectly your kh is 15. thats a bit high mate.

 

[hantzum]

It's already been said, but yeah, that's massive! No way your system manages that without some issues. I've added 4 fish to my 90 gallon in 1 year. Of course, I have about 2 months between each fish with QT process.

Have you been successful doing this before? Even if it did, the likely hood of introducing disease is high with that many fish so some could be dying from a parasite.

Yes I have been successful before in doing this with about the same amount of loss but I always figured it was a given. Since the consensus amoungst everyone is a very limited amount of fish to be added I will most likely be doing that in the future. I have QT one of the fish that did start to act funny but as of now everything seems to be in order. I did add some Prime and some phosbuster which got the ammonia to 0ppm and the phosphates are about .5. I will be doing about a 75 gallon water change tomorrow and prob some small 15 gallon ones every day till I get everything where it needs to be.

 

[hantzum]

Personally, I don't think you have enough filtration for that size tank even with minimal livestock. To add that much livestock at one time was foolish. Even if you had a better filtration system, that much livestock would shock any system. I keep seeing this happening often because people are thinking its OK because they saw it on a TV show.It only takes 1 fish to bring a disease,fungus, or parasite into a tank that will always be there until its identified, targeted, and treated.

An Emperor 400 with two high powered power heads that both point t the top of the tank and disturb the surface all the time along with a huge skimmer and 15 gallon sump with the return pump being 500 gallon per hour isnt enough filtration and water movement. I just tested the oxygen levels and they are currently at 7.5ppm. Thats right in the middle of the green on the test strip of where it needs to be.

 

[hantzum]

did i read corectly your kh is 15. thats a bit high mate.

yes....the water here in west texas is extremely hard. I have never gotten it below 12 ever

 

[wrott]

If I were you, I'd try my thumb at house plants.
Please stop killing fish ignorantly. Use an acclimation box to introduce new fish AFTER QT.

 

[OrQidz]

wrott, I think the rudeness above is unnecessary, the poster is asking about what he can do better - and seems willing to listen to advice.

Anyway, that does seem to be quite a bioload to add all at once. There are a lot of good stickies that you might check out. It seems like we never stop learning in this hobby.

 

[acabgd]

Any reason for keeping salinity at 1.021? Also with kH beong that high I suppose you're using tap water. I would suggest investing in a RO/DI unit and stop adding additives which you cannot test for.

 

[EllisJuan]

An Emperor 400 with two high powered power heads that both point t the top of the tank and disturb the surface all the time along with a huge skimmer and 15 gallon sump with the return pump being 500 gallon per hour isnt enough filtration and water movement. I just tested the oxygen levels and they are currently at 7.5ppm. Thats right in the middle of the green on the test strip of where it needs to be.

That skimmer is not nearly big enough for your bio-load. It may be suitable for a moderately stocked 100g, not nearly enough for a heavy stocked 200g.