tank crashing

[GaryP]

that sounds like the tank is cycling to me. could you somehow be introducing ammonia to the tanks? or maybe Chlorine causing some dieoffs?

I have a feeling that whatever it is that is causing this isn't something that you will ever detect with a test kit. The ammonia levels are probably the result of the die off, not the cause of it. There are thousands of potential toxic chemicals that we will never detect unless you happen to have a gas chromatograph mass spectrophotometer in your spare bedroom. If you do, I want to come visit.

[leslie]

My amonia is now up to 1.0 :cry . All my fish are fine, no hard breathing, actively swimming, etc. Again if it were something in my water why did it not affect the paremeters in my SH tank?
As for TLC it is a product that eliminates toxic NH3 and NO2.

[leslie]

I am probably grasping at straws here, but could the TLC I put in my tank be giving me a false reading???

[GaryP]

Again if it were something in my water why did it not affect the paremeters in my SH tank? As for TLC it is a product that eliminates toxic NH3 and NO2.

TLC is a bacterial culture used to innoculate new tanks. Since this is an established tank I doubt it did much good. It would not have caused false readings.

Again, I doubt you will ever detect whatever caused the crash with a test kit if it was chemical. It could be that one of your corals was sensitive to it and caused it to die and that resulted in a chain reaction. Corals can release a lot of toxic stuff when they die. It may not have been a toxin at all. Some bacteria or physical condition such as temperature may have begun the crash. After the initial die-off, it could have just been like a snow ball effect. There are just to many what ifs in a situation like this.

Why didn't it happen in the SH tank? Who knows? How many corals do you have in there? How many of those corals were the same as those that died in the other tank.

[leslie]

I have only some mushrooms and a gorgorian in the sh tank. Thank you for all your help. I guess it is back to the drawing board.

[Richard]

TLC is a live bacteria culture (no chemicals) so it is not causing you false readings. How much did you add (ounces)?

What types of fish do you have? Many fish will tolerate low levels of ammonia but corals do not. So I think the chain reaction Gary mentioned is correct. One thing died (either due to something with the water change or that could be coincidental) creating excess ammonia which caused other things to die releasing more ammonia etc. etc.

You need to control the ammonia levels though or you will begin to lose fish if it continues to rise. Make sure you don't have any dead livestock still in the tank that is continuing to drive the ammonia levels upward. You can lower them by water changes, polyfilters, more TLC but you need to keep them from spiking higher one way or another.

[GaryP]

Thanks Richard

I was just trying to keep everyone in line until you showed up and offered some "expert" advice. I forgot about the poly filters. Do you think a bacterial food would help in this type of situation?

[Instar]

There is one thing that can change in your tap water source. Its been raining a lot lately, more than it was for a while and water treatment will add more chemicals when there is an excess of run off. We have no control over extra dosing or when its done as well as no control over when things are changed. There has been a lot of pressure on the water quality folks lately from news media and fanatics to clean up the SA river and there has to be some repercussions of this to area water boards. I've heard that some water district areas are changing from regular chlorine to chloramine as well. If you draw water on different days for changing tank than sea horse or the sea horses are more tolerant, then that may explain it. I would check for salt bridges on all equipment that is working. Also, if a pump crapped out, it can cause all kinds of havoc and you said your skimmer pump went bad. Some of those release very toxic chemicals into the water when they go bad and the case leaks. There really is no way for us to know enough about your tank or maintenance of it to be very helpful really. If you have someone nearby that could take a look who is experienced, they might be able to be more helpful.

I've had newly aquired large anemones die before and never had any problems with that like you describe here. I wait till I am sure they are gone before doing a resonable clean up of the area. I've never gotten it all out. There are also some animals like the cucumber and some fish that are very toxic in a tank. Do you have any of those kinds of things? Box fish or bass, etc? Do you ever make soft coral cuttings inside the tank?

This symptom and results are very similar overall, sooner or later, for almost everyone who uses tap water. It may not be the water this time since the pump went bad but, I personally recommend at least an RO unit for all marsh tank and salt water tank hobbiests so this doesn't happen because of source water.

[Richard]

I'm not familiar with coral life salt but oceanic is very high in calcium so another possibility is that the cloudiness you observed initially was caused by calcium and carbonates precipitating out out your water. This can lead to extremely low alkalinity and low ph so you should check those levels if you haven't already.

[NewB]

I live in New Braunfels and I have tested my tap water and it does have traces of amonia in it. I don't remember the exact reading.

So if you are doing large water changes I would definately not recommend the use of tap water.