Help, tank is tanking!

[Janet]

My 20 gallon reef has been in distress for three days now.
pH 8.1 (down from 8.2)
sal 1.025
nitrites .05
nitrates 1.0
ammonia 0.3
alk 3.2 (never varies)
calcium 650 (up from 450)
E-Heim as usual, HOT BakPak skimmer. Only new things are Hawaiian feather duster (only healthy thing in there now) and a ZooMed rotating current. The curlique is gray hair, BTA won't open, Condylactis open on and off, green star polyps not opening anymore, and, worst of all, false Percula is lying on the bottom, not moving. He (she?) and its mate were hanging out together for days, but now this one just lies on the bottom; the other is swimming normally. What is wrong? Thank you, all. Janet

:eek2:

[Janet]

I forgot to add that my normally robust frilly brown mushrooms have shrunk to the size of buttons. They still show some movement, but clearly are not well. Thank you again. Janet:confused:

[asmujica]

You should have no amonia and no nitrates. How old is your tank? What lights do you have?

What is the temperature?

[JazzMan]

20% water change immediately!!!!!

[hartman]

Janet,

I read the other post about the fish and stuff. Your Ca is high and I think you need to increase your water movement. Try getting a MaxiJet 900 and pointing at the surface. This will increase the gas/air exchange.

Hartman

[albertj2]

How old is this tank? With ammonia and nitrite like that it sounds like either your cycle is not finished or something large died in your tank that you can't see.

[DgenR8]

Hi Janet,
I merged your threads for you, since they both dealt with the same situation, I felt they would be better off together.

About your problem, ANY ammonia or nitrite in your system is cause for alarm. I don't think that the high Ca reading is as important, especially if ALK stayed constant (I'd first want to confirm test results though).
For now, the solution to pollution is dillution! Get on the stick about changing some water. Clean out that canister filter, and look for the cause of the ammonia. (possibly a dead animal)

How old is your system and are there any fish beside the two clowns you mention??

[ScottT]

I agree with the other posts regarding your ammonia/nitrite levels, but am curious about one thing...

you say the zoomed ph is a new addition to the tank... maybe some leaking current for the ph is stressing your animals..?

[griss]

Water changes:thumbsup: Sounds like something died or is dying....look for a body.

Griss

[Janet]

I tried to follow all of your excellent suggestions: the Zoomed Power Sweep might leak electricity (I just bought a gizmo to test it). I also did immediate water changes: only real change was nitrates went from 1.0 to 0.1. I had thought my numbers were low according to my new Salifert tests. Before, my nitrates tested routinely at at 10 to 40ppm, and ammmonia .25 to 1.0.
So, now i know better. How do you-all keep nitrates and ammonia at zero???? (Temperature is 80, and I've cut back drastically on feeding--every other day with phytoplankton and some liquid invertebrate formula for porcelain crabs and condylactis and BTA, and a dash of Coral Vital.)
I'm afraid to retest the parameters: might have to drown my head in the tank:rolleyes: Thank you all so much for helping this newbie. Janet

[harry1215]

How old is the tank those numbers are way to high.

[cyclist1]

What type of biological filtration do you run (sand bed depth, lbs of live rock, etc)? Definately continue with the water changes until everything is straightened out. You can also stop dosing the Coral Vital. I don't like Mark Weiss products.

Andrew

[DgenR8]

I second the suggestion above to discontinue use of Marc Weiss's products. I have no personal experience, but those who know have warned me against use of his stuff. Not because it will necessarily hurt anything, but because it won't help anything.

[squeezix]

I understand why people don't like his products, but I must say I've seen explosive coralline growth after using them.

Either way it sounds like this tank is too new and/or getting stocked too quick. Your inverts will not do well with such high nitrate readings, and nothing will be too happy with any ammonia/nitrite readings at all.

The way to keep ammonia down is to stock slowly. If you are showing high ammonia it means your biological filter (live rock, live sand) is not processing waste quickly enough for your system. Now if you have animals or pieces of animals dying, your ammonia will go even higher.

Most people do not stock until ammonia and nitrite are at zero. Coral Vital may make your nitrates read a little high, but with the ammonia reading so high, the additives are of little consequence.

How much live rock do you have in this tank? If you have one pound per gallon or less, maybe you should find a fellow reefer close by who would be willing to sell you some cured rock from an established system. The extra biological filtration some nice porous rock will give you may help your system process the ammonia.

[squeezix]

Oh, PS, dosing things like coral vital at this early stage may also be creating waste that turns to ammonia that your system can;t process. Rather than dosing, weekly water changes will replenish your system with needed trace elements. If you keep dosing that coral vital right now, and your system does balance out, I envision you posting in a month about hair algae. That's what happened to me dosing coral vital and reef dna. I had this huge lawn growing in a nano and had to buy a bigger tank to save myself the trouble. Now I don't dose. I'll wait till september to start screwing with additives (other than kalk)

The bottle of coral vital says you might show high nitrates after dosing.