HELP ME! No one seems to know what is killing my fish!

Originally Posted by Salty_Hobby

I have a skimmer fit for the size of tank and a filter on it, it was ok before with some die offs if I didn't do frequent enough water changes but I've been good about them lately.

The ammonia kit should be ok, I've done tests in the recent past that were zero for ammonia. I don't have any film on the water surface, just the glass and stuff inside the tank under the water. I don't have any snails, other than 2 tiny ones that came with the live rock way back in Feb.

I will keep up with the water changes every few days, the ammonia levels have come down but not by much I'm only panicked because I feel terrible I am killing my fish!

Thanks everyone, I will update in the morning with how the increase salinity, temp and Stability additive for ammonia works out.

I took another look at the pics you posted and they look very similar to the white spots I have and the ones I have are snail eggs. Can you see from the out side of the glass is there a bit of yellow in the center of the disks on the glass if so they are eggs. If your white spots are eggs some maybe dieing off and that could give you a higher ammonia level. Hay everyone lets solve one problem at a time Bio load maybe on the demanding side of things but you have to take in to consideration the depth of the sand bed and how often he does water changes in the first place. And yes you can do a larger water change but not this often.

You have stated the ammoinia is droping with the water changes you have done alreadyand you have not done many water changes. With your bio load you should be doing water changes every 7 -10 days. I would get about 30 - 40 pounds more rock and sell 2-3 fish this will balance your tanks bio load out.
I still think the white spots maybe snail eggs, are they all about the same size and shape?
I have snail eggs every where, they hatch out and in a mounth or so there is a new batch on the glass and rocks and it only takes about 2 days for then to appier every where. As I said if they are not fertile they maybe decaying where they were layed, that will rase your ammionia


take your sample in and get the resualts and post them here.

Bill

[fishytime]

[quote=bvlester;471374 Hay everyone lets solve one problem at a time Bio load maybe on the demanding side of things but you have to take in to consideration the depth of the sand bed and how often he does water changes in the first place.[/QUOTE]

10 pounds of LR simply does not have enough surface area to biologically filter out that many fish, no matter how deep the sand bed is....I would suspect this is your issue....the way I see it you have a couple options, 1) you could do 10-20% water changes every couple days to keep ammonia down, 2) you could (and probably should) pick up some more LR( if you do add it slowly...a couple pounds at a time), 3) reduce your bioload( I would start with the tang...shouldnt be in a tank that small)....in the meantime pick up a bottle of Prime, it can be used to reduce ammonia in an emergency and run carbon if you have the means....hope things turn around for you...

[Funky_Fish14]

25% of 1ppm is still .75ppm = still rounds up to 1ppm. Test kits are not very accurate (when you really think about it), and I dont think the small water changes will be making much of a difference. I would try doing a 40-60% water change. 10% water changes wont really get you too far. As long as you let the fresh saltwater mix long enough(at least 12hrs) a 50% waterchange should be no problem. I know a guy who does a 50% waterchange on all of his salt tanks every 2 weeks and does not use a skimmer.

Good luck.

Chris

[Funky_Fish14]

To accentuate - Do much bigger water changes, and suck out as much of the 'white stuff' as possible.

Chris

[Funky_Fish14]

Also try not to swing your salinity too much during the waterchanges - this will stress out your fish/inverts alot, especially if it is an upward swing. Bring your temp up a tiny bit as mentioned.

Sorry for the triple post.