please help me, tank is crashing!

R

ryanhayes96

New member
My 75 reef is crashing! My fish were acting wierd so i tested the water.

trate 180+
trite 2
ammonia 1
alk 3
calc 520
mag 1460

i dont know how this could have happened! I just remembered that i have not seen my soxline wrasse for a while, like a month, maybe his body has decomposed? but would that cause such a huge spike? I dont have an ro unit so im mixing 8 gallons of ro water right now to be changed but that cant be done until tonight at the earliest. and to top it off some of my fish are showing ick! I will run to aquaholics and pick up some ammonia lock and kick ick and n e other medication tomorow that i can. i just hope i dont loose my powder blue! most corals are ok but the carpet anemone is on the move but hes blocked by some rock. I really dont knwo what to do but if anyone has any ideas on for what i could do please help me out. i am expecting total tank meltdown when i get home from work
 
Water changes, as much as you can do.

I had a sandbed crash a couple of years ago - after 100 gallons of water changes (about 80%), it restabilized. Still, it was a miserable experience. Good luck to you.
 
Yea I agree, I would stop by a fish store and get some pre mixed water and do a 20 to 30 gallon water change. Then check it out and do another 1 if needed. and keep doing it as needed. Shouldnt you get another tank and quarentine the fish for the ick?
 
Walmart machine-produced ro/di. Amquel or carbon can knock the ammonia instantly and will not harm corals. Water changes will start affecting the nitrate. No single fish death caused something this big. Sounds like a sandbed collapse. Did you do anything to stir the sandbed? IF you did, and water is cloudy, a diatom or one micron filter can work major help inside 2 hrs. I'd use the ro/di/saltwater you've got to pull fish to qt for hypo, which I'd prefer to 'Kick Ich." I have a bottle myself, but I'd still go qt and hypo in this case---that tank is no place for a sick fish right now.
 
I agree with most of the above, LARGE water change. If it where me I would do at least 50% followed by another 50% in the next week or so if the levels did not all normalize. Those fish do need to come out and hit a QT tank for hypo treatment for long enough to break the ich cycle. Im not sure about anyone elses results but Kick Ich has done absolutely nothing for me when I tried it. Hypo for the fish, QT them for that. Let the tank sit with no critters in it to break the cycle. Search around here and you will find some great info on getting rid of ich. I finally beat the battle with the above mentioned process and a bunch of cleaner shrimp, hjavent seen any ich for just over a year. Good luck, just getting your levels back should help a bit
 
"Sounds like a sandbed collapse."

That is jumping to a conclusion...It really sounds like lack of maintenance. He mentioned he has not seen a fish in a month...that is a pretty good indication that more attentions is needed.

Get water fast, change lots of water.
 
Amquel is supposed to neutralize the ammonia. With nitrates that high, you have something decaying or your tank has had no maintenance done to it for a LONG time. Nitrite is nothing to worry about and not poisonous in SW unless at extreme levels.

I would do a 50% water change daily till ammonia drops severly. Your tank should eat that ammonia up if you removed the source fairly quickly.
 
I agree using the Fritz could help. Isn't this tank a fairly new setup? Like only 2 months old? Perhaps New Tank Syndrome.
 
no its around 8 months old. I do do matinence on it all the time. i just dont test all the time. i test like once every 2 weeks or whenever i notice something. the only change that i have made was adding a hang on tank filter with a bag of phospahte reducer in it. Could that be it? I do stir the sand bed every once and a while and have dealt with cyano algae up ti about 2 weeks ago. I did turn the lights off for a day andd a half as part of a 3 day cycle and to clear out some algae, you think the death of the algae could have caused a spike?
 
i did a 9 gallon change and will do more tomorow. my skimmer has been off for like 2 weeks but i finally got it running agian. and they all look good. idk if its ick becuase the bumps are larger and are raised on the skin
 
a nitrate level of "180+" doesn't sound like ich to me either. Sounds like something toxic is in your water (and a lot of it), a big water change will be a start in the right direction.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10079083#post10079083 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by InLimbo87
a nitrate level of "180+" doesn't sound like ich to me either. Sounds like something toxic is in your water (and a lot of it), a big water change will be a start in the right direction.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't will that out. It may be ich, may not be. Ich is caused by stress, and I would say that a nitrate reading of 180+ is a lot of stress. Either way I agree with Inlimbo and everyone else you need to do a watercange and a large one-not 8 gallons. You also really need to do one large one rather than more smaller ones. The random little ones still keeps that toxin in the water.
 
Guess I should've rephrased that as "180+ nitrate readings means you have bigger problems than ich that have to be taken care of first" .
 
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