neglected tank... Bad "friend"

[flashflow]

Heya. I have a 20 gallon salt water tank that was neglected badly. I had went away on vacation and the "friend" I had watching it..... didn't!!!! Only thing that has survived was the red saddleback clownfish. I cleaned up the tank and brought back the water up to what it was and its still kinda cloudy with a green tint. Any ideas as to how to help clear this up? I am not sure whether or not to add anything to help this.

[reefpicker]

I am curious... what did you had in the tank and how long did you went away?

What is the setup that you have?

I had a similar problem. My sister fed my fish for two weeks... When we returned the fish had a lot of uneaten food in the bottom of the tank and nitrates where over the roof.

I believe she did not go fo a few days and thought that she had make it up by feeding more... a lot more .... needless to day, my fish went belly-up within weeks.... :(


The green tint sounds like it could be algae... again, excess nutrients... I would perform a massive water changed and clean the bottom of the tank and all filter pads, etc....

[kreblak]

What are your water parameters? Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate? You need to find the cause of your fish's deaths. Specifically, what did your friend forget to do? That should be the determining factor in how to get your tank back to normal.

[mogurnda]

I'm with Kreblak. It would be very useful to know what is bad and what is good. There are several things that may be going on right now.

If it crashed bad enough, it could be cycling again (NH3 and NO2 would say a lot).

If there was a lot of die off, you may have a ton of NO3 and PO4, which would be a feast for algae.

How bad did your specific gravity get? Where is it now?

I would be willing to bet an entire dollar that 20-30% water changes every few days this week will help a lot. Live reefpicker said, clean out all your filtration and vacuum the bottom (unless you have a deep sand bed, then just siphon the muck off the surface).

[flashflow]

I had gone away for about 4 months. I had left very stricked feeding guidelines and water change schedule. He said no problem and I went. When I got home, I found him in my tank dumping water in it. I stopped him and took a look. Half of the water was gone. I was sure all was dead. I had a serpent starfish, two cleaner crabs, red saddleback clownfish and an anenomie for the clown. All was thriving great and water quality was just as great. All died except for the clownfish. I tested the water and found a s.g of 1.040. I used to keep it at 1.023. I removed the fish and dumped it in my bucket with the water from the tank and gave the tank a real good cleaning out. I put distilled water back in and filled it up. I at the same time SLOWLY added water to the bucket with the fish to brong the s.g. back to 1.023. All is done now and the fish is back in the tank. I talked with a neighbour and suggested to let the fish slowly clamitize back as the tank rights itself again. As if this morning, the water is almost cleared up again and I am on my 3rd filter in 3 days. Fish is swimming alot better now and I think all will be okay. At least I hope

[flashflow]

I have a crushed coral base with no live rock. I have scrubed off all the rocks in the tank and as well as the coral in the tank. (bleached coral). oh abd I had a pincushion urchin in there too. So yes alot had died off. Being a 20 gallon tank things changed way to quickly for things to survive. went down really bad

[OrionGirl]

Yikes! Sorry to hear about the loss. Sounds like there isn't much more that you can do. I would begin to slowly clean the substrate--only a bit each time, and maybe invest in a pods/worm kit to help clean up. Sudden changes are probably the worst risk right now.

[mogurnda]

You will have to breed that clown. One tough fish!

[kreblak]

Yeah, I'd say you definitely found the cause of all your deaths in the neglect of the tank. It sounds like your friend wasn't doing top offs often enough, and the SG managed to rise to the point where it killed everything. I believe you said it was 1.040! Good lord, that is some serious neglect.

Anyway, I agree with Dave on the sheer toughness of that clown. You'll have to keep him around. Any fish that can pull that off is worth of a little extra! ;)

[flashflow]

Thanks for all the input. I got in touch with the lfs and told them what happened. They said they would take the clown back and give me another.... Now why would they sai that. i wonder. I am gonna keep the clown for sure. actually its pretty big too. Its about 2 1/2 inches long. Nt skinny or bonny. I guess it was feeding off the dead star fish. Anyhoot it has started to eat again. slowly. Water is getting clearer. I check levels out and it seems amonia is 0, nitrites were almost 0 and nitrates were 5.0 according to my tester. It seem to have recovered pretty quick but still keeping a watchful eye. The clown isn't swimming as fast as it did but I will chalk that up to being in hell. Anyone know of a vacuum that I can hook up to the filter assembly instead of using one that just uses gravity to siphon out the water? I will clean the substrate slowly as suggested. Now the next big thing is trying to find out what sex the fish is? male or female...... Or does it matter???? lol:D. Once again thanks for the help.

Dan

[mogurnda]

If it has been on its own for months, it is likely to be a female. You should be able to get a pair by adding a juvenile at this point.