I tried to post in ask the dr. they told me to post here I have problems

[poolstick01]

lots of problems, bare with me this is long
I bought a 75 gallon tank. 150lbs live sand and 60lbs live rock. A backpack skimmer up to 90 gallon. 4 vho 110 watt bulbs. I put my tank together and 2 months the later the fish shop tested my water and said it was cycled. They said I could put fish. I put a blue tang, a powder blue tang, a lion fish, 2 clown fish, and a yellow tang. All but the yellow tang died in less than 2 weeks. So I kept doing water changes and just let the tank sit. 2 months later I put a open brain coral and a green hammer coral. For the last 5 months they have done fine. During that 5 months I got sick and was in the hospital for 3 months. I didnt do any water changes. After I got out the hospital I did a water change. I have aspatia (cant spell it) all over my tank. I also had a algae problem, it looked like my tank got slimed brown. I called the local shop and they said cut lights back to 3 hours a day. I did that and it got rid of the slime. I went to the fish store and got 3 clowns, a copperband butterfly(supposed to eat that aspatia stuff), a mandarin gobe, and 3 anitameas (cant spell that either)- they are long tentacle things. After putting all this in I noticed that my green hammer wasnt looking very well, he got some white spots on the outside of him. Also my serpent starfish lost his legs, and most of my snails died. Today I noticed that my green hammer now has long brown slime looking stuff on it. I tested my tank= nitrite .05, nitrate 2.5, ammonia-.15, ph-8.0, alk-12.8, calcium-400. My copperband butterfly died in 3 days (he looked like he was bleeding in his nose internally. My 3 clowns are picking at each other, damaging fins and leaving little spots on each other bodies. I called the local fish shop he said to put melafix in my tank. Melafix made my skimmer go nuts and my tank now is full of tiny air bubbles. My long tentacle things are loosing their tentacles. So I called a lady off the internet and she said I should not have put the melafix. So I did a 20 gallon water change. So basically I dont know what questions to ask. I just need alot of help. I guess the local fish store dont have a clue, and all the info. they gave me was not accurate. They told me I didnt have to test the water so up until yesterday I had never tested it. I dont know what I am doing and the fish shop dont know what they are doing. Help would be much appreciated. My tank is 10 months old. Thanks in advance Josh

[Nek]

Wow.... First off, do not add another thing to that tank. Think of how much money you spent at the LFS based upon their advice.

The first thing you need to do is to get your parameters in line. Ammonia should be ZERO...all the time. Are you using RO/DI water for water changes??? If not, then you should be.

Fish were put in too many too fast.

Take it slow.......keep doing water changes until the parameters are stable, wait 2 weeks, and add ONE fish if you like.


As for the Aiptasia, do a search on this board for Aiptasia and kalkwasser.

Im glad you found this board...it is an invaluable resource.

[marietrg]

Josh, is this your first marine tank? Sounds like you need to move at a much slower pace!!!

[DgenR8]

Oh Josh,
What a mess! First, let me get this out of the way
[welcome]

Now, we have a lot of work to do. Is there anything still alive in your tank? If so, you should cut your losses and remove them. return to the LFS, have a friend babysit, whatever. Your tank is a toxic envirronment right now, nothing should be forced to live there.
We need to get you on the path of cycling right. Do you have live rock in the tank? How much?

[poolstick01]

I cant bring fish back they wont take them. I have 60lbs. of live rock. I have 3 clowns and 1 mandarin gobe and 1 yellow tang. I have 5 corals. I was told to do a water change everday, what do you think.

[tendar]

Sounds like your adding to many things to your tank at one time. You shouldnt add more than 2 fish at any one time and and spacing out new addatioins about once a mounth so your biological filteration can catch up with new loads added.
I would just let the tank sit and finish cycling again. Do a water change every couple days if the amonia or nitites get high.
You can get some ammonia lock to help eliminate some of the amonia in the tank and run some carbon.

Basically take it slower when adding things to your tank and make sure what you add are hardy specimens. Copperbands are not a hardy fish nor is a powderblue both are delicat fish and even advanced reefers have problems with these fish.
I would stay away from lion fish also since they are heavy waste producers also.

[dc]

Well I'd print this out take it to them and tell them to stuff it. Selling you all those fish is beyond poor advice IMO! Certainly don't spend another dime there and let them know it. It's bad enough when they sell you one bad thing, but that is rediculous. Hopefully you can save something in there. Water changes certainly can't hurt.

[Pomacanthus1]

Classic case of a LFS taking advantage of a new hobbiest.

I would do at least a 20% water change every day. There are 2 things i would buy from your LFS immediately: an ammonia-neutralizing additive like AmQuel, and a good book. The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robbert Fenner would be my first recommendation. After that, don't ever buy from them again. They really screwed you over, and killed lots of innocent livestock in the process. They don't deserve your business.

Even though your tank was initially cycled, the bacteria that convert ammonia (a waste product produced by fish, extremely toxic) to nitrite (also very toxic) and finally from nitrite to nitrate (not nearly as toxic as ammonia and nitrite) couldn't handle the huge new bioload. You should've only added 1 or 2 small fish at once after the cycle. That would have let the bacteria build up a sufficient population to handle the increased bio-load.

Does Melafix contain copper? It sounds like it because of what happened to your anemones. Copper is extremely toxic to invertebrates. If it is indeed copper, your live rock, substrate, and possibly even tank itself have absorbed the copper. The absorbed copper will leach out into the water over time, and continue to poison any invertebrates you may add to the tank in the future.

[JDS]

IMO this is what I would do. Water changes are a good thing I would do five to ten gallons a day for lease the week. I also would cut back on the feeding to every three to four days and only a little bit. So you can try to get the bacteria to catch up with what you have in the tank right now no sense of adding fuel to the fire. I also would highly recommend you get a good book and start reading so you'll understand what the people on this board are telling you. And then you'll realize what you been doing wrong so you won't do the same thing again. I don't know if you be able to save the finish time will tell good luck.

[poolstick01]

thanks for giving me advice.