urgent!!! my tank is dying

[graber]

i dunno whats happened to my brother's saltwater tank, it was fine yesterday morning, but this afternoon i checked and saw everything practically dying. the yellow tangs nose was all red, the serpent star had a big gash on his side, a mushroom coral fell off its rock, the other corals are recoiled into the positions they take at night, and a clown fish has died.

on some of the rocks i noticed a spider web looking fungus or something growing on some of the rocks, is that something harmful? the tank is in bad shape right now, please help.

[CaymanLoversII]

First thing is check all the water parameters to se if somthing is grossly out of range.

The injuries present additional concerns - a Mantis shrimp comes to mind. You may have to wait until dark and use a red filtered flashlight to see if you have a "night stalker" who is causing the damage.

Just my initial thoughts.

Steve

[FishDaddy]

Graber,
Several things come to mind but we really need more info about water parameters, Ammonia, Nitrates, occupants, and the like.
Is the Brittle Star a green one perhaps? If it's a big green one, it could have ambushed the Tang and got a cut from the Tang's scalpel. What size tank is it?

The Clown dying could have triggered an Ammonia spike which would affect the corals. A Mantis Shrimp is a possibility which could inflict the wounds.

Is the spider web stuff widely spread or just in a few random patches? There are certain snails that live in Live Rock that exude spidery mucous strings to capture food (fine particles, not fish).

Certainly a major water change is in order to try to bring the water back in line, as well as running some Activated Carbon.
Dick

[graber]

i tested the water... ph was low (7.9), phosphates were high, with 0.1 traces of ammonia and nitrates. also, i noticed that the sponge in the overflow filter was really dirty, and wasn't letting water get to the filtration media, and was instead pushing the water back over the ledge and pumping unfiltered water back into the tank. i cleaned that out, and plan to do a water change now.

should i make an attempt to test the oxygen, considering that the overflow filter was basically clogged the way it was?

[FishDaddy]

Graber,
Clogged and dirty filters can certainly cause problems, usually high Nitrate levels. Lack of good circulation, especially surface agitation, can also cause oxygen depletion and lower pH. Adding a powerhead to the tank to agitate the surface can help. Is this a Fish-Only system with a wet/dry filter?

The Ammonia and Nitrite levels could be as a result of the dead fish, or even be the cause. There shouldn't be any Ammonia or Nitrite present.
None of this would explain the fish and starfish injuries.
Dick

[dark horge]

Hello,

Just my take:

The grayish white, filming on the rock indicates that some cryptic inhabitants IN the rock have expired. You should try to siphon out as much of that smelly, putrid mess as you can (the grey rot). Then you can replace the water lost in siphoning with proper saltwater --effecting a dilution of remaining pollutant in the water.

Whatever it was that killed them, their death casued an ammonia spike, and you are likely reading the tail end of the event in the water. A severe ammonia spike would explain the stress response of the animals in the tank (and the death of the fish), or those fish and corals suffered impact at the same time as the cryptic inhabvitants of the LR (poisoning perhaps).

If you can obtain some calcareous macroalgae (Halimeda is a good choice), you can put that in to mop up remaining organics before hair algae and filming growths opportunistically bloom.

Low pH can indicate accelerated bacterial activity/decomposition of organics, fitting the scenario I have presented.


The question is what triggered the deaths in the first place.

Were the rocks newly-purchased? Die-off is a normal phase in 'curing' rock, as many hitchhikers simply starve to death away from the sea's rich soup of live food, and their corpses rot.

Perhaps a toxin or heavy metal was accidentally introduced? You will have to investigate.


hth

horge

[Doug1]

t*f*a*