Fish doing great, everything else dying!!!! Help!

J

jkrutch

AC Members
Aug 3, 2007
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Ft. Lauderdale
I have a 300g tank that was set up in my new home 9 months ago. I have all the right stuff (so I think) including a wet dry, 1/2 HP pump, chiller, Halide lighting, protein skimmer, UV, etc.

Needless to say, I have spent a small fortune in hopes of having a beautiful reef tank. Went through cycling with starter fish and then added some inverts....cleaner shrimp, turbo snails and an anemone. Within hours they were all dead. Fast forward several months....all live rock replaced, weekly 50% water changes, tons of testing etc. Add more snails...all dead within hours. Put them in the tank, they fall to the bottom and most never move from the spot they landed. Any small corals added also pretty much "dead on impact". One cleaner shrimp has made it through and a few hermits, but that's all for the inverts.

The fish are thriving...the damsels are laying eggs, the clowns are fine, the tangs and anthias are all fine.

I went through a local store that has been around for many years. Very reputable, long history, etc. No one can figure out what is wrong.


Please offer whatever suggestions you may have. Thanks in advance!!!!

Jon
 
If you're doing 50% water changes each week you're basically starting your cycle again each week and the tank can't handle the bioload. I'm guessing your water parameters are way off....and inverts hate that. They need super water quality. Give us all the test results from your test kits.

How are you acclimating?

Could you list some of the specifics on your tank as well? You listed general equipment but would you list brand & model?
 
The water changes stopped a few months ago. As for specific test results, the store owner tested the water one week ago and said it was perfect. Sorry to admit this, but I am new to all of this and I was hoping by going with a reputable dealer, I would avoid these issues. I have weekly service by the dealer and they are supposed to make everything right.

I was hoping someone with greater expertise on this forum might have a suggestion as to what is killing the inverts. I mean the turbo snails seem to die within a few hours of being added to the tank. It seems as if something like this should be obvious to my dealer but it isn't. I will try to get more info. Thanks very much!
 
What kind of water do you use? Tap, well, ro/di?

What are you testing for? Do you have your own test kits?

And like grins said, how are you acclimating them?

I bought 2 cleaner shrimp yesterday....it took me about 3 hours till I actually put them in the tank. I just kept adding a little of my water to their water, an ounce or so at a time, all afternoon, and then introduced them.

Inverts are really sensative to salinity changes. If your tank is at 1.026 and the petstore has theirs at 1.019 (as an example), that's a lot of change for the little guys.
 
Yeah, same thing here except I have a drip acclimate. I start them out on one drop per second for the next half hour, then 5 or so drops for the next half/to hour. I then dump half that water out and keep them at a steady drip rate for another hour. I go through well over a gallon acclimating.
 
this person asked for help, but won't give us what we ask. i don't think that he is interested anymore, he is letting a store to take care of the problem, but i just really wonder who gave him an idea to change all his live rock. acclimation possibly is not only a problem here. i brought snails and corals from someone else's house to mine and it was very hot in the car and the water heated by the time i got home, and i had no choice but throw them in my tank. they all are still alive few months later. with an improper acclimation something should make it through, unless it's a clam, which something in fact did. but if something like anemone isn't acclimated properly, it doesn't die that fast. i want to know what his corals and snails look like before he throws them away thinking that they are dead. shrimps do die withing few hours for whatever the reason because they are easy to stress. he depends on the store for testing, but my store was using dip sticks and was telling about my parameters that weren't true. their specific gravity was the highest you can go and hardness was off the chart, and so were their nitrates.
proper testing and letting us know the reasults is a must for us to go on in helping to figure out what is going on.
 
homie bought all tho goodies for a 300 gal reef, but has no test kits?

how can you expect to monitor a cycle w/o test kits?

unless you spending like a half hour every day at the lfs checkin all your levels...


Bobs guess is metals in the water.

id suggest a RO/DI unit, and test kits. monitor daily. (but like make sure thats the problem)
i tested every day for the first 3 months with my 18 gallon.no2, no3, amonia, calk, alk, metal, phos, Sg etc.
quit depending on the lfs. the only thing you can assure youself about an lfs thats been around for awhile, is that, its like, profitable.

take yourself on a tour of ac and any other forums you want to. were all here to help. no $$ needed.

good luck
 
Interesting Bob.. You thinking copper?
 
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