Pink slime in collection cup

Cephas27

New member
Hi everyone,

I am new to this hobby so please bear with a small prelude to the story.. I got this ~70gallon rimless tank from a friend who was relocating to another place.. i used 60% of the water that he had in his tank and added the rest.. however, he suggested that tapwater would do just fine (i know this was foolish).. after a week or two since the tank was already cycled i added 3 fishes a small powder blue tang and two lyretails (the tank already had a tomato clown, percula, strawberry dottyback and a chromise).. they were all doing fine for a week or two.. ocassionally i would see my tomato bullying the other fishes especially furing feeding time, the powder was able to hold his ground well by the lyretail were either hiding or at one corner mostly.. Then one fine day i fine the percula dead at the bottom of the tank, and within two days i lost the powder blue, one lyretail, chromis and the dottyback.. i though it was due to the tomato clown so i caught him in a small floating seclusion box in the tank itself.. i asked another friend and he suggested that it was due to the chlorine in the water and suggested a water change with 60% RO water which i did... All the parameters were showing fine during this time... Now the questions are:
1) After changing the water the skimmer collection cup has a pink water kind of substance, dont know what this is and why?
2) the tank has 8 corals which seem to be absolutely fine.. so could it be because of some other reason than chlorine
3) right now the tank has only the tomato and one lyretail.. i'd like to add more fishes, is it a good time?
4) Which fishes should i ideally go for?

i know its a very long post but any help will be greatly appreciated..!!!
 

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We will need more information on your tank. How long as it been running? What are your parameters? Did you QT your new fish? More information at the get go will get more people to chime in.
 
OK so the tank was aleady running for more than a year when i got this from my friend. It uses a simple filtration, with a hang-in-th-sump protein skimmer, bio balls, live rocks and some other biological media in the Sump.. in the tank i have about 15kg of live rock and 10 of live sand... The parameters are 1.022 salinitiy (As he had maintained, so i didnt change), Temp ~80 degree f, Ammonia 0, PH 8.2... Asi said, when i got the tank from him i only replaced half of the water so i believe the tank was already cycled and stable..
 
I understand that you added new fish to the tank. Did you quarantine them prior to adding to the tank?

To answer your questions.
1. Don't know what the pink stuff is...maybe bacteria overgrowth.
2. Corals don't get fish diseases....probably why their unaffected.
3. Don't add anymore, you may have a disease that affects fish. Read the ich sticky.
4. Don't know.
 
Thanks Phildirt for the reply.. No i had not QTed the fishes... i dont have a QT tank... i reckon i must get one... yesterday my anemone ate the lyretail so its just the tomato clown left.. but i did some reading up and it seems that mostly the lyretail must have been sick or already dead for the BTA to have eaten it... However, i must say that the tomoto clown who is about 3.5 inches seems to be doing just fine.. hungry like ever and active as well.. dont see any white spots on it as well..
 
Fish can build up a resistance to ich or pathogens so your clown might be a carrier. Definitely set up a QT. Regarding tap water if the corals are unaffected I doubt chlorine was a factor in the fishes demise. Here's a system I maintain with tapwater so don't worry about having used it (sounds like the corals you got from your friend didn't mind):
http://youtu.be/-eCQSVdqBQA
 
Fish can build up a resistance to ich or pathogens so your clown might be a carrier. Definitely set up a QT. Regarding tap water if the corals are unaffected I doubt chlorine was a factor in the fishes demise. Here's a system I maintain with tapwater so don't worry about having used it (sounds like the corals you got from your friend didn't mind):
http://youtu.be/-eCQSVdqBQA

While your tap water may be fine for you, it may not be fine for him. Even though the corals appear fine, there may also be other dissolved solids from his tap water. Like copper.

Other than the recommended use of a QT for fish, how did you acclimate your fish to the tank? Whether the fishes were already with the tank or new, still have to do a proper acclimation. Since you moved the tank and the water parameters may have been different in the water you saved, water made and the water the fishes were in.
 
@Timfish: Thanks for your reply.. Will definitely set up a QT next.. on being the tomato as a carrier, is there any way i can definitely say that ich indeed was the real cause of catastrophe? After i got the the tank from my friend, i added four new corals, one galaxy, a toadstool leather, an anemone and an open brain.. they all seem to be doing fine as well.. @Cymonous: Thanks for the reply..For acclimatizing the fish i used the water they came in, and in intervals of 10 mintes kept adding a cup of tank water until i added some 6 cups,, and then added the fishes to the tank leaving the water behind.. what puzzules me is they were all doing very well for a week o two and the suddenly started dying one after the other..
 
@Timfish: Thanks for your reply.. Will definitely set up a QT next.. on being the tomato as a carrier, is there any way i can definitely say that ich indeed was the real cause of catastrophe? After i got the the tank from my friend, i added four new corals, one galaxy, a toadstool leather, an anemone and an open brain.. they all seem to be doing fine as well.. @Cymonous: Thanks for the reply..For acclimatizing the fish i used the water they came in, and in intervals of 10 mintes kept adding a cup of tank water until i added some 6 cups,, and then added the fishes to the tank leaving the water behind.. what puzzules me is they were all doing very well for a week o two and the suddenly started dying one after the other..

It is also a possibility your corals brought something bad into your tank. While corals cannot be infected by something like Ich, they can still introduce it to a tank.
 
Also the fishes were not showing any white spots on them.. i reckon that stress could be one of the main reason as when i got the tank from my friend, he had the tomato clown for 3 years and it had grown pretty big (3-4 inches) and he used to bully other fishes during feeding time.. i tried spot feeding but he went into those spots and had that food too.. he is the only one remaining in my tank... Is there any way i can know for certain that ich was real reason... else i would just trade him with another fish and introduce an batch together so that no one fish is dominant..
 
Do you have cyanobacteria or did you use a cyano remover product? I once did and the skimmer skimmed pink for a while (and a lot of fish died, but that's another story)...
 
Nopes.. Don't have Cyanobacteria and didn't use any other additive otger than the water change I mentioned above.. Although I must note that the water in the collection cup is turning more brownish that pink.....
 
hi guys, I got an API reef master kit and the following are the results: calcium 680ppm; no3 ~60-70 ppm; kh 9dkh; po4 0.25 ppm; ph 8; ammonia 0 ppm... as per the card i realize that the Nitrate is high... just wanted to get more opinion if this means anything on my water parameters.. Please help... I am trying to get to the root of why my fishes died... this would help me take a decisive step to solve the issue... The tomato clown is still doing very well.. eating like a pig... although i see a few spots like powdered sugar on the top of the body... but it is if i look very closely like really closely... is it ich.. or is it velvet... i am going mad researching about this.. the friend who gave me the tank said that it was because of the chlorine in the water which choked the fish... the corals are still opening fine... please help me with this...
 
You may want to see if those white specs fall off when he darts somewhere. If none fall off, then I highly recommend to get that fish into a Quarantine tank and start some kind of treatment. Your main tank (DT) will need to be fishless for at least 8-10 weeks.

I would start to do some larger water changes with RO/DI water. Corals may be fine now, but may start to shrivel after a while with that high of nitrates.
 
You may want to see if those white specs fall off when he darts somewhere. If none fall off, then I highly recommend to get that fish into a Quarantine tank and start some kind of treatment. Your main tank (DT) will need to be fishless for at least 8-10 weeks.

I would start to do some larger water changes with RO/DI water. Corals may be fine now, but may start to shrivel after a while with that high of nitrates.

yea, if you want to start right and have a long term successful reef tank, take all the fish out and practice patience for a month and a half, (I forget the exact time it needs to be fallow) I would take that time to let the tank run in and stabilize. do lots of waterchanges with ro/di water to get those nitrates DOWN, if not, the rocks will absorb it and you will most likely not like your tank....
 
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