Ready to throw in the towel

[polyppetey]

Slowly for the last few weeks my nano has been in the decline, my monti cap this week has sloughed off its "skin" and has a bunch of bleached dead areas which was weird since it really took off when I added it and increased in size by about 30% in 1 month, my 2 colonies of zooas have been shrivelling up and dying for the last 6 month or so, slowly my xenia, once a forrest has been shriveling up and disappearing and one by one my mushrooms are shrinking away to nothing. Some xenia and mushrooms seem to be unaffected though with some other corals I have. My frogspawn has stopped growing but still opens up every day nicely as well as my candy cane which has shown a big improvement since I started the more aggressive water changes, my finger leather seems happy.

I'm running a nano cube 12g dx with one small clown, 4 hermits and 6 snails (2 nass and 4 turbos). I have been changing out 1 gallon of water twice a week for the last month now with the catalina water instead of the 1 gallon a week I have been doing. My parameters are not too bad, temp 77-80 F', ph of 8, nitrites at 0, calcium at 420 ppm, Alk at 2.2 milli eq, nitrates 10 ppm and ammonia at 15 ppm (I think is because of all the dying stuff).
The bulbs are also less than 6 months old.

Lately my alk and ph have been low and I started dosing every day or every other day with a little kent superbuffer at a little under the recommended amount. The tank seemed to get worse with the dosing (especially the monti) so I have now stopped and the alk has stabilized at 2 to 2.2 milli eq.

I've tried to read the forums and troubleshoot this myself, can anyone help me out here, im really bummed out by this. I love the tank and the hobby buy now it is no fun watching everything croak. The "expert" at my local store was kind of a jerk and didn't want to help me out all that much, even refusing to test my water for a second opinion as they only test water for people on sundays for some reason. I don't have anyone else I can ask for help.

Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

 

[saltycreefer]

Dude change 1/2 the water tonight and do it again tomorrow night. Run a poly filter in the back to pull out any residual ammonia.

 

[saltycreefer]

I would also recommend a 2 part calcium alkalinity buffer over the superbuffer stuff you use.

 

[VirginiaDiver]

Any time I get 1ppm ammonia I do a 50% water change. These tanks are too small to allow chemistry to drift, because once it starts going bad it can turn bad very quickly.

Even when my tank was first set up I did 50% water changes twice a week for the first 6 weeks. Most people say that's not required, but I have pieces of my rock where the corals (brown porites and some other yellow one) have come back to life.

Once you get your chemistry in spec I would switch to 25% water changes weekly instead of the two small changes. You'll see a much bigger impact on chemistry with a 25% change.

And if you truly decide to quit I have an address you can send your remaining live corals.....

 

[saltycreefer]

Word Virginia Diver.

 

[FLricordia]

I wouldn't think that 48wts light would be enough to keep anything but some softies (shrooms, some zoas,etc.) over an extended period. What is Catalina water? Maybe the 1-2gl per week isn't enough to supply nutrients if tank has many corals. As you state, the die-off is resulting in high ammonia which is probably causing more die-off so probably need larger water changes and use a good carbon/organic/phos remover. Luck

 

[TEDDYKOLLER]

I was having an issue similar to this and it wound up being my Phosphate levels were through the roof. Might want to check them if you havent

 

[Agu]

You need to have all your parameters rechecked.

In addition to the tests mentioned, Salinity and copper can cause the symptoms you describe.

 

[polyppetey]

Salinity is at 1.023 and phosphates at 0, I can not test for copper.
I added a small bag of carbon today with a 50% water change. I also used some seachem plus to see if that helps.
Catalina water is natural real sea water that I buy, my tap water sucks to mix my own salt and I am unable to find RO water here locally. I noted a remarkable improvement since I started using it a year ago. I do not believe the water I am using is the problem.

 

[bj32482]

What do you top off with?
I use catalina aswell but top off with ro

 

[polyppetey]

I don't really get that much evaporation, I usually top with distilled water when I can I steal it from my wifes Ironing stuff, sometimes I use bottled but really I only add 2-3 cups a week.