Help, Tank is Crashing

[AcuraCl1]

I have a 75 gallon tank. My nitrates are through the roof. Ammonia is 0, Nitrites around 0.25, PH is between 8.2 and 8.4, Alk is normal, and nitrates look to be around 80 or more. I added some algo on wed to help with bringing down the nitrates, tues I changed about 10 gallons of water. This morning I awoke to my skunk shrimp dead, my plate coral white, my leather toadstool is white, and one of my other coral is starting to turn white. Please help.......

 

[an411]

more water changes that would be my first suggestion.

 

[rogergolf66]

how much live rock do you have in the tank and how long ago was the last fish invert you added to the tank?

How long has the tank been setup?

Roger

 

[AcuraCl1]

I have about 75 lbs of live rock at least. The last time I added fish was about 5 days ago, and coral about 8 days ago. My tank has been setup for a few months now. The tank was doing great until I added some additional fish and coral.

 

[EllieSuz]

Introducing new fish to a system should be a very gradual process. The bacteria in the rock needs time to adjust to the increased bio-load and this takes time. What fish (and how many) did you add? It sounds like you have started a new cycle. The indication of nitrite means that you had ammonia earlier. Daily water changes and frequent testing will help.

 

[AcuraCl1]

Thanks, I added some green chromis and a oscillara clown

 

[rogergolf66]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13519753#post13519753 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EllieSuz
Introducing new fish to a system should be a very gradual process. The bacteria in the rock needs time to adjust to the increased bio-load and this takes time. What fish (and how many) did you add? It sounds like you have started a new cycle. The indication of nitrite means that you had ammonia earlier. Daily water changes and frequent testing will help.

agreed that is what i was getting to. Go slow with adding stuff. one fish at a time and only that one in say a 10 day time frame. that being said it sounds like what you added is not einough to start a new cycle if you have 75 lbs of live rock. pic please could help.

not much you can do right now. the bact. needs to build up to convert the nitrites to nitrates.

for the nitrates water changes don't do that much I would add a remote deep sand bed.



Roger

 

[an411]

You guys really think that is pushing it with the bioload in a 75 3 little fish added? If nitrates are high the best way to get rid of nutrients in the water column is through water changes IMO

 

[AcuraCl1]

I did add about 6 pieces of coral also. And a tiny little clam. I am going to take some of my coral over to my friends house to put in his tank until my nitrates are down. Is that a good idea. His tank is bare, only some live rock, and it has been setup for years.

 

[Zestay]

if you have a 1000 gallon tank with 3 pounds of live rock that has 0 bio load and add ten fish it will push the bio load. while i may be exaggerating a little bit but the bacteria only grows when needed. do daily water changes to help bring it down. dont add any addatives!

 

[AcuraCl1]

Right now, I have algone in there, which is suppose to help bring down the nitrates.

 

[sminker]

did you use the water from the bag that the fish came in?

ive seen people just dump that bag of water into their display tanks and it did some disasterous things.

 

[greggnyce]

Are you running carbon? What are you using for filtration? Are you using filter floss anywhere?

 

[AcuraCl1]

Some of the water did fall from the bag into my tank while I was trying to get the fish out of the bag. Maybe that is the cause of my problem. I was running carbon in a media bag that I had in my sump, but Algone suggest no carbon while running algone.

 

[audio101]

How long/big of a cycle did your tank originally have?

 

[tgfrench]

Get some of the KORDON AmQuel + It still might be too late for some of your corals but i swear by the stuff in a tight spot.

 

[Myrddraal]

I don't remember where, but I once read "The solution to pollution is dilution". It's water change time!

 

[sminker]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13522944#post13522944 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Myrddraal
I don't remember where, but I once read "The solution to pollution is dilution". It's water change time!

those words should be imprinted into the brains of all fish keepers.

 

[AcuraCl1]

Thanks everone. I did a 10 gallon water change tonight and will do another 10 gallons tomorrow. After the water change and the amquel, did notice my toadstool leather come back to life. It looks like everythig is starting to come back to life except my plate coral. He is completely white. I did lose one of my green chromis, I cannot find him anywhere. My nitrates are still sky high, but hopefully in a few days, they will be down.