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

[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...

[Myka]

Originally Posted by fishytime

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...

I'm in agreement with Doug.

Personally, I have seen white slime/film appear when ammonia present in a tank. I think that is a direct result from the ammonia, and is a bacterial film. I wouldn't change the temperature or salinity at this point...neither are at a point of causing damage. If I was in your position I would follow these steps:

Find a new home for the tang asap.
1. Do a 50% waterchange today, with water that has been mixing for at least 6 hours (in emergency), and matches the temperature and salinity of your tank.

2. Use Prime to neutralize the remaining ammonia. Add the tank's full dose to the water change water.

3. Do a 25% water change tomorrow.

4. Buy 30 lbs of live rock, and put it into a Rubbermaid container with a powerhead and a heater and allow it to cycle in the tub for several weeks. After the cycle is over you can add it all to the tank without worry.

See where you're at after that.

[Salty_Hobby]

I will try and answer everyone's Q's here...

They are not snail eggs, I've seen those before and this doesn't look like them.

The white spots are small flat circles, adhering to the surfaces like my glass, thermometer and shelf. Unless I scrub the sides of the tank there is no white junk to siphon off (I don't know if I was clear but it is not free floating in or on the water surface)

Anyone have space to take my Tang? Obviously it would require isolation until we're all sure it's healthy.

I do run a skimmer and a filter (including carbon), my hermit crabs and snails are smaller than nickles so I don't want to give the wrong impression that I have lots of bioMASS, all my fish are relatively small except the tang.

I have been doing water changes twice a week of no more than 25% (as I didn't want to remove beneficial bacteria)

This is where I'm at now: this morning the ammonia levels were still causing my fish stress. I have relocated them for the time being, they should be ok in my reserve tank for now. I will buy more live rock, get a better testing kit and take in a water sample.

As for my Bio load, I think with more live rock the ammonia levels won't be an issue, however, I still don't know what this white junk is or how to get rid of it! So my last option unless anyone has any ideas about irradicating the white stuff... is to entirely clean out my big tank and establish it again (I'm not a big fan of this idea, putting my old live rock back in might reintroduce this white stuff and we're back to square one)

Please let me know if I missed anyones questions!

Could it be a caliume buildup as in to much ca as your pic kind of looks like a ca buildup or even anouther scailing type of substance. get the test results they will tell you more than we can guess at. You should not have to tare your tank down and re do it, if it is something realy bad and needs a host it will die off it may take some time Ie velevet take 3 months I believe. I don't know if there is anything else that take that long. You see you have to kill any eggs that are in there also.

I don't think at this point that it is any thing that bad, it realy looks like scailing of some type even ammonia will cause scailing if it is from the ammonia then scrape and sphifon at the same time. Ammonia scail will keep your tank levels high, I was up late last night thinking about your problem.
I did take anouther look at the eggs in my tank and your pic, no not eggs looks more like how coriline algea dose when it starts but with no color to it.

See when your over tired and you are thinking about something you can be pulled back to your original thought and be wrong. Not eggs...

Bill

[Salty_Hobby]

Thank you for spending so much time thinking about this, I agree I think if I leave my tank for a while and add some live rock after that, things should settle out and help prevent this again!

[Funky_Fish14]

Just to let you know:

Doing a waterchange removes very little of the bacteria from the tank. 99% of the benefical bacteria lives on the surfaces within the aquarium, and not within the water column, so taking lots of water out wont remove much.

I agree with Myka's post.

Cheers,

Chris

he is talking about taring down his tank and scrubbing it and then refilling it. I think it is not nessasary to do this. If the white stuff is ammonia scaling then all he needs to do is siphon the scale as he scrapes it off the wall. ammonia scape will draw in ammonia as it is prodused and release it slowly you can do all the water changes you want and it will not do much to corect the problem phisical removel of the scale is best option. But lets see what the tests come back as. A CA scale will also absorb ammonia and release it in to the tank.

by the way a massive water change can shock the fish faster than finding the cure of the problem and resulving it. He is running carbon and a protien skimmer. treat 1 thing at a time and you can help to do that by doing smaller water changes, and he has moved his fish from the problem tank which also gives him more time and yes he can now do a larger water change.after he does a good cleaning of the tank glass and sand bed vacume the sand bed realy well. Now is the time to do it while the fish are out of the tank.
Bill

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Salty_Hobby

I do run a skimmer and a filter (including carbon), my hermit crabs and snails are smaller than nickles so I don't want to give the wrong impression that I have lots of bioMASS, all my fish are relatively small except the tang.

I have been doing water changes twice a week of no more than 25% (as I didn't want to remove beneficial bacteria)

What type of skimmer are you using? What type of filter? How often do you change the media and carbon?

Considering you only have 10 lbs of live rock, and good quality live rock is a better filter than most protein skimmers can claim your bioload IS fairly significant. Don't fool yourself.

FYI, you won't remove any significant amount of bacteria doing water changes. The beneficial bacteria mostly colonize the live rock and sand. You could (in theory) do a 100% water change, and not remove any significant amount of nitrifying bacteria.