I need major help pls :(

[RowSonic]

Hi guys. I am really worried about my reef tank. I will give a little bit of history of my tank so you guys have an idea whats up. My fish had ick problem in my display tank and i put them in a hospital tank. The fishes have been there for like 1 week and a half.

Without the fish the tank seemed to do well. But this morning when I turned the lights on, I noticed that my corals have been releasing slimes and my metallic brain is releasing slime the looks like fungus. My snails are also falling off the glass and dying My starfish is also releasing funguslike slime too. My crabs are all ok and my shrimps seem to be fine. All my corals and anemones are shrinking though.

For a week and a half I did not put any chemicals in my tank like buffers and calcium or whatsoever. I did not even feed the corals anything. I did feed them plankton today though.

What do you guys think? I really need help I can't imagine myself loosing my corals and inverts after spending this much

[Radcast2]

Can you give the tank parameters, pH, Ca, Alk, ammonia, trites, and trates. Why did you stop your noraml routine of adding/feeding the corals?

[Genetics]

How long have you had the tank setup? What kind of equipment do you have on it? The parameters on the tank are definitely paramount to figuring out this problem.

[JPerkins]

Don't freak out and do anything drastic.

Check the major water parameters:

Salinity
Temperature
PH
Alkalinity
Ammonia
Nitrites

Report back here with your numbers

Personally, I think Ick is a symptom of stress and removing the fish to a quarantine tank probably stressed them more...but the harm is done, let them chill out now.

[RowSonic]

I woke up this morning and I lost hope. My sally hermit crab is like trying to jump off my tank. All my snails are dead and my hermit crabs running around. I have a strong feeling someoen poisoned my tank Allmy corals are dead now and for some reasons my coral banded shrimps arm is like falling off. My redfire shrimp is jsut standing not moving in one place on my substrate. This stinks. I feel like quitting


These are the test

ammonia .3
ph 8.3
nitrate is 50
salinity is normal ( in the middle of the green thing on my hydrometer)
temp 77 f


I am thinking of moving my corals that are dying to my friends tank but will it endanger my friends tank. Also my Live rocks, will they die?

Thx everyone

MY tank is 3 months old. Everything is going absolutely well and my corals are bvlooming until two days ago when I forgot to turn th elights off but forgetting to turn off the lights should not harm anything

[Boxingcrab]

Just tagging along to see whats going on with your tank. This is horrid! I can imagine how you feel. Please don't give up tho. I can't offer advice as I am also a newbie. Good luck!

[chaseracing]

Hey! First of All....Do a decent water change. Maybe Half?
Whenever my tank acts weird, I do a 50% water change and add the stuff called "cycle". It is a bacterial formula that is supposed to make new water act like old water. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I have always thought of a water change as the first place to start fixing a problem.

-=E=-

[Elim]

I'm still new as my tanks only 3 months old but from my understandings corals dont do well with any nitrate above 0. You say yours is 50??? Would seem really high for them. I'm sure someone else will chime in.

[thrlride]

Do a 25% water change today and then do another in a couple days. If you can, run some carbon in your filter to get out any nasty chemicals if you have warfare between corals happening. Chances are your ammonia is high because you have some dead animals in there. How much live rock do you have in your tank? Nitrates being 50 seems awfully high for a 3 month old tank.

[Fizz71]

I agree on the water changes. Any ammonia is too much ammonia. And I think 50 for trates is a bit high for a reef too. I'm down to 25 on my new system and still refuse to add corals until I reach near 0. Your fish probably had ich for the same reason your corals are dying.

--Fizz

[RowSonic]

k ill do that thx

[ToyWon]

In my opinion the cause of the ammonia and nitrate spike were probably caused from an increased bioload. I dont know much about your tank, but if you add to much too fast, it can cause your parameters to spike and place stress on fish and corals. Just a thought.

[ignite1402]

do add carbon to ur filter... it works... have you got any stuff for ur corals? strongtium, calcium, iodine? and also i strong advise u to do atleast a 25% water change... and ur nitrate level seems preety high.. gonna do smthing to it man..

Hey! dun give up... u will never learn until u fall and pick urself up again... treat this as a lesson and learn from it.. in a few years time u can share with others who are just starting out with this lovely hobby too!

All the BEST!

[RowSonic]

Hey Guys I figured out what caused the problem. I found the scrabber I use to clean my tank and this scrabber is made of metal too( the one used in cleaning cooking pans). It got rusted in my tank and that caused the toxic. The spike on ammonia and nitrate is due to the death of my livestock.


Im curious though. What do you think caused the death of my snails?

[Radcast2]

I believe that your ammonia and nitrite spike is what killed them, as well. IMO

[ignite1402]

yeah.. i agree with radcast... lol... so how's ur tank now? settled?

[RowSonic]

I really cant think its the ammonia and the nitrate spike because i never added any livestock before ithappened. I jsut cleaned my tank and everything was ok for a day. I think my little cousin kinda coppied me and he dropped the scrabber i used to clean it that is made with metal. It was rusted when I found it in my tank. Right now im worried about my live rocks but iwas told not to worry about it.

What do you guys think?

[RowSonic]

btw im restarting over again. I jsutbought a new tank complete with sump and oceanic stand. Its 120 gallons ( 48 x 24 x 24)