help!! fish dying...my coraline has turned white
 

Ive been dealing with ick in an 80 gal tank. 3 of my 6 fish died in 3 days. My saline is. 024 ph 8.1 amonia.50 nitrate 5.0 phosphate. 25 temp 81. I have still have 2 clowns, a wrasse and 2shrimp 20 soft corals, feeding frozen plankton,shrimp,blood worms

how old is the tank

Judging by your params I'd say you need to do some WCs
Get that ammonia in check and test for nitrites as well as nitrates

What are you doing for the ich ?

And that ... :smile:

BTW ...

You don't need to post this issue in multiple forums

Either Reef or FOWLR will get you help :wink:

Placing it in multiple locations will be harder for you to glean all the info as we all will read each others' responses and respond accordingly

Thanks for reply
 

I moved a friends 3 year healthy system to a different used tank at my place. We replaced the silicone seal as it was previously fresh water, I will test tomorrow for nitrite. How can I get my ammonia down ? I've been treating ick with temp increase 79 to 82 and a reef safe natural product herbtana but I was to turn off protein skimmer

You haven't clarified how new this system is

I suggest you read up on the nitrogen cycle on the web so you have a better understanding what's going on. You've led me to believe you don't understand it with your initial comment about having .5 ammonia :wink:

So ... I should have been a bit clearer with my comment about your ammonia
0.5 isn't bad but it's getting there. It just means that you are going through a cycle. This can happen any time you transfer stuff between tanks.

You should initially test for all 3 and keep note of the results
Ammonia NH3
Nitrites NO2
Nitrates NO3

Keep an eye on your NH3 and if it goes over, say, 1.0, do a 10 or 20% waterchange. And test your ammo more than once a day.
Don't change more than 75% water over a 24 hour period !!!

Keep an eye on your ammonia and, when it drops and goes away, then your NO2 will be most likely in the mid-point of it's cycle. Eventually your NO3 will take over and you're finished with the initial worrying.
As I stated at first, read up and understand what's going on !!!!!!


You should also be adding some air to your tank right now as the oxygen is probably low. Either an air pump, or some kind of surface agitation with the top open to the room. I'm not saying expose jumping fish, but you have to let the surface air exchange happen

Try adding some Prime to the system. It's supposed to detoxify ammonia and nitrite

Sure, Prime works great in a pinch, but what about knowing what's going on and learning how to deal with it ??

Absolutely, but right now they need something that works in a pinch

How long ago did you replace the seal and what type of silicone did you use?

You're absolutely right
Sorry for coming across the wrong way

I only meant to point out that, once they get things under control, they should read up on how to properly deal with things

Good point Steve ....
I missed this completely

Did you move the sand over?

I would recommend Stability help stabalize the bacterias, and AmQuel Plus for the Ammonia (we actually tested prime & AmQuel, and found AmQuel much superior for removing Ammonia Nitrates Nitrites Chlorine & Chloramines)

Silicone can be the issue also, depending if it was mildew resistant

+ 1 on the ammonia, get some amquel, but don't overdose it.
+ 1 on the silicone as well, all GE silicone has anti fungal and algaecide except the GE silicone adhesive.

Depending on the silicone used and its chemistry, it could actually be producing ammonia as it is curing. That and GE silicones contain petroleum distillates for mildew resistance (though many of their products don't advertise this). If you're not already running a skimmer, do so as aeration is the only way to remove distillates if there are some.

+1000 on bacteria stability. MB7 is great to get the bacteria going again. Take it slow though.

side note, I would try to remove all the fish from the tank and then turn ur heat up to speed up the ick life cycle. If you turn heat up but still have fish in it, it just basicly increase the amount of ick inside the tank as long as there is still available host.

First 2 Things that crossed my mind +1 and +1 -- I'm going to say its either one of these. GE or Sand gas off.