klwheat
Fri, 18th Oct 2013, 10:56 AM
Well, as it says, my 210 crashed completely while I was out of town. Not sure exactly what happened, my 20 yr old daughter was at home, and we had a fish-knowledgable friend tank-sitting for us. When she started noticing things "not right", about a week ago, I had her check all parameters that I could test for, but with no useful results. (noted below). The tanks inhabitants included a VERY large stars & stripes puffer, 6" sailfin tang, 6" magnificent foxface, 5" harlequin tusk, dragon goby, diamond goby, 3" tomato clown, 1 large pink tuxedo urchin and and a long tentacle anemone.
First indication of badness was a dead dragon goby, missing anemone, and tomato clown that looked "dusty". This was about a week ago. When tested, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates 20-40 (after the first death and missing anemone), sg 1.023, calcium 400. Never noted any "cloudy" water appearance or abnormal odors. During the few days that followed, the harlequin started acting "funny" and the puffer, foxface, sailfin looked like their eyes were "cloudy". The puffer also started "jumping" into the overflow box! (had to be rescued twice!) (I wasn't home...so I didn't actually see them). The day I arrived back home (tuesday), the tomato clown died and the sailfin disappeared. I arrived home that night and started saltwater mixing. The following morning the puffer, harlequin and foxface were still alive...but looking VERY poorly - cloudy eyes, dusty, swimming abnormally. Did 65 gallon water change (most I could mix at a time) and started more mixing. By the following morning, foxface, harlequin and puffer were all dead. Only survivors in this tank were the small diamond goby and urchin.
I'm not sure what happened here...and I welcome any help. The only thing I can really guess is that the anemone managed to get shredded somehow in a powerhead (though all are covered, and the vortech I have has the foam cover on it too). I've always read that this is associated with a cloudy appearance in the tank and obnoxious odor...but that never happened according to my daughter. We also thought that it could have been something from the topoff water. However, I double checked the rodi when I got home (still measuring 2ppm tds - needs di resin i guess) and the 90 gallon reef tank uses the same topoff water reservior...and NONE of the corals, anemone or fish in that tank had issues...so I pretty much ruled that out.
So now the tank sits after large water change and new carbon with 2 small creatures very lonely.
I'm not even sure where to go from here with this tank. It was kinda centered around the large puffer before.
Anyone have any ideas?
First indication of badness was a dead dragon goby, missing anemone, and tomato clown that looked "dusty". This was about a week ago. When tested, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates 20-40 (after the first death and missing anemone), sg 1.023, calcium 400. Never noted any "cloudy" water appearance or abnormal odors. During the few days that followed, the harlequin started acting "funny" and the puffer, foxface, sailfin looked like their eyes were "cloudy". The puffer also started "jumping" into the overflow box! (had to be rescued twice!) (I wasn't home...so I didn't actually see them). The day I arrived back home (tuesday), the tomato clown died and the sailfin disappeared. I arrived home that night and started saltwater mixing. The following morning the puffer, harlequin and foxface were still alive...but looking VERY poorly - cloudy eyes, dusty, swimming abnormally. Did 65 gallon water change (most I could mix at a time) and started more mixing. By the following morning, foxface, harlequin and puffer were all dead. Only survivors in this tank were the small diamond goby and urchin.
I'm not sure what happened here...and I welcome any help. The only thing I can really guess is that the anemone managed to get shredded somehow in a powerhead (though all are covered, and the vortech I have has the foam cover on it too). I've always read that this is associated with a cloudy appearance in the tank and obnoxious odor...but that never happened according to my daughter. We also thought that it could have been something from the topoff water. However, I double checked the rodi when I got home (still measuring 2ppm tds - needs di resin i guess) and the 90 gallon reef tank uses the same topoff water reservior...and NONE of the corals, anemone or fish in that tank had issues...so I pretty much ruled that out.
So now the tank sits after large water change and new carbon with 2 small creatures very lonely.
I'm not even sure where to go from here with this tank. It was kinda centered around the large puffer before.
Anyone have any ideas?