SOS tank! plz help!!

[BananaHammox]

Hey guys,

I've been out of my office for better part of 6 months ish, and as you can imagine, I came back to one my saltwater tanks that has severely suffered (tanks we're looked after but not as good as should have been). Anyways I have a 155 gallon bowfront FOWLR, and we have major problems in this tank. This tank has been established for about 4-5 years, and has always ran with a somewhat high nitrate level.

The fish in it were* pretty rugged.
6 inch spotted grouper (barely moving stays stationary, eyes a little cloudy, not eating)
8 inch eel looking goby (partial fin rot over section of body?, looks to have a whitish tint over body)
7 inch Koran angel (laying on bottom barely moving past few days, not eating face)
9 inch lunare wrasse (looks healthy, but has been hiding most of last few days not really eating. He is fat and loves food)
2 striped damsels ( about 3-4 inches each, barely eating now)
1 Clarke Clown - about 4 inches - of all fish he is swimming a little around, but when i turn lights on he looks to have some whitish


*Newer fish (past 6 weeks)
-Small Clown Trigger - added about month ago - now dead
-Neon goby - still looks healthy
-Lionfish - about 4 inches, but have not seen him eat, stationary.

Now I walked into this disaster, and I've been treating tank with melafix, pimafix, and kordon Ich attach for about 5 days. I've kept lights mostly off during this time. I don't think the medications are working/ I'm afraid all these fish will die or disease or from starvation .

I have a 180 reef tank which is healthy, that I took water from and set up a 29 gallon hospital tank. Tank reading no ammonia, just a little nitrates, no nitrites, and is bare bottom with a bubbler and HOB filter with sponge from 180 reef tank to jumpstart filtration.

Should I slowly be moving sick fish into this hospital tank, and maybe treating with cupramine?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
RJ

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Have you done a good size water change? That would be my first go-to.

Hopefully someone else can offer more specific help.

 

[BananaHammox]

I was going to wait till i reach day 7 of treatment of mela/pima fix as the instructions say for a water change.

Ive never used cupramine but i've heard a lot of good things about it. Any thoughts?

 

[aresangel]

Cupramine can kill them all if not done properly. Whitish film may be fungus. Melafix should treat that. I would have done water change and dose melafix after a large water change.

Pictures would help with fungus/ich/etc. fish produce stress coats to protect them. Test the water for parameters. What is
Nitrates, pH, ammonia, nitrites. That would be my first tests.

My guess is there is an issue with the water parameters to affect all the fish. Maybe co-workers were using untreated water, or contaminated the water some how, or did not do water changes and now pH or other chemicals are out of whack.


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[BananaHammox]

Nitrate: wicked high, around 200 ppm
Nitrite: 0
Amonia: badge says safe zone and less than .02
PH: 7.4 - 7.8

Would raising the ph with Kent Superbuffer help out? ph is definitely a little on the lower side.

Tough to get a good pic, but its like faint white dots that come and go, only on some of the fish.

 

[BananaHammox]

I added a nitrate absorption pads into a media reactor, not sure if thats helping or not. I can't use skimmer because of meds.... Water change time??

 

[aresangel]

Water change, pH is too low. You could be affecting their ability to breath, potentially inflaming the gills.

pH should be around 8.2. You may not have any buffering capacity. How much live rock do you have, and what is your alkalinity (different test kit I know sorry). Your alkalinity/kH is the buffering capacity of the tank and can help reduce pH swings.

Nitrates are very high so hopefully the pads will help. Water change should help adjust the pH. I would be cautions if a pH buffer solution because that moves too much too quick that would stress out the fish as well.


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[BananaHammox]

Thanks for your help!!

I had a huge canister filter which I just took offline. This may have actually been the root of the nitrate problem.

I must have easily 150-200+ lbs of good live rock.

Alk: right around 180

Yeah I'm hesitant to use the buffer because of the stress level with the fish. How large of a water change do you think I should do? It's a 155 bowfront.

Thanks again,
RJ

 

[Chris A.]

Me personally would do a 50% but that’s not the norm. Most people will go with 30%

 

[aresangel]

That alkalinity reading doesn’t make sense to me. It should be between 2.0 meq/l and 4.0meq/l or 7-10dkH depending on the test kit. With no coral you could safely do 50% water change as long as it is mixed and at temp. But that’s if you have the storage for all that!


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[BananaHammox]

yeah the alk reading was from a 6 in 1 test strip, it says it's in the safe zone. But yeah will do a 50% water change in the morning, thanks for the help!

RJ

 

[jdemarco]

Any update?

Also When was last water change?

How long do u think nitrate could have been that elevated for (meaning do u think it dpujef or had climbed over time? )

 

[BananaHammox]

Hey yeah thanks for asking @jdemarco, I wanted to thank @aresangel for all the help! After treating with pima/melafix for a week then doing a 50% water change, my lil guys all (for most part) came back to life!! Even my Koran Angel who looked like he went through war and back, is back to eating again and has his personality again!! I lost the small Clown Trigger, and I have a small lion fish in a hospital tank, that is struggling at the moment. I would be surprised if he makes it through the night . But the cause of lion fish losing it, was after another water change a few hours ago, (smaller-34 gallon/ of 155), all seemed well until I hooked up my protein skimmer. It went absolutely bananas with foam and microbubbles, which even discombobulated my big Clarke Clown, who's a savage!

So I kinda have two problems now.
1. My nitrates are literally through the roof, and phosphates must be pretty high as well with all the black cyno present (and I'm running GFO, which seems to be deteriorating it, at least at night, but I can't use my protein skimmer...), Quick background on tank, nitrates have for the past 5 years been ridiculously high in this 155 gallon bowfront. I didn't realize how much a massive canister filter contributed, which I just just took offline when I got back to my office ~2 weeks ago. Does this mean just more water changes?? With the Mela/Pimafix combo, even after pretty substantial water changes, skimming is out of the question. I have a HOB Octo 2000 skimmer which is rated for 200 gallons, that after previously working great, is now a straight up bubble circus...

2. A little off topic, but related... I also have a 180 gallon Reef tank at my office, that was looked over poorly while I was gone past 6 months......Except everything thrived with nitrates through the roof, esp. my neon green kenya tree corals. They loved the dirty water!! Naturally, I'm back I'm trying to get parameters under control. I added GFO to the reef tank and while phosphates were noticeably reduced, the next day almost all of kenya trees started to melt/shed. This has been going on for about a week now, some branches have turned black and are easily removable, while some look like they're just shedding and making a comeback. I also added some activated carbon which seemed to help out a bunch, as my mushrooms are beginning to open up again. My question here is, when removing a dying kenya tree, is it better to let it turn black and be easy to pull out? Or, cut it/pull it off the rock.... Which releases out a nasty a** juice?! I pulled one kenya tree off a rock today and threw it in a bucket, the water in bucket immediately turned a nasty vibrant pinkish reddish color.

Thanks again for the help/thoughts!

RJ

 

[Arsalan]

I’d siphon out the dead trees so they don’t contaminate the water more.


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[aresangel]

I would guess less goo is best. Let them fall off and take them out if they don’t looks like they will recover.


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