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

[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

[Salty_Hobby]

Sounds like we're mostly all on the same page, I think I have a game plan for now

Thanks everyone!
Erika

[Funky_Fish14]

Originally Posted by bvlester

by the way a massive water change can shock the fish faster than finding the cure of the problem and resulving it.

Nobody said do one right now... and 50% is not massive. I know many people that do this on their tanks without issue, one who STILL does it regularly on two tanks after 5 years.

And you are missing the fact that the ammonia was terribly high. I dont care how much stress the fish gets from a 50% water change... constantly high ammonia WILL kill fish.



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Keep working at it Salty Hobby!

Cheers,

Chris

[Salty_Hobby]

New update!

My fish are in my 10gallon reserve tank for now and doing well, they all look much healthier and energetic, evern the anemone is coming back!! The only thing that hasn't shown improvement are the polyps.

I think I am going to down size and keep the ten gallon instead. At least then I will have enough live rock for the volume and a skimmer that's is way more than enough to keep it clean!

Two things: I will definitely need a home for the Tang if I'm keeping the 10 Gallon instead. Second, I may have a 47 Gallon for sale soon, I will post both accordingly unless someone here mentions they're interested! I will make sure the large tank is clean prior to selling of course. Whoever wants the Tang will have to isolate it to be sure this doesn't happen to them!

Thanks all!

Erika

YOu may want to use the 47g and still sell the tank as they should be in a min 100g tank but one can get away with a 90g tank, Nems put out alot of waist so you may want the 47g any way. did you get the 47g from a store or used? Just wondering because if it was used the problem could be with the tank its self and you may want to resilicone the tank and use it. I only say this because you say every thing is starting to bounce back quickly. So there maybe something leaching out of the silicone in the 47g, I would only suspect this if the tank was a used tank. I find that some fish are way more suseptible to water changes than others. Your polups should come back but may take a bit longer. they could be the problem did you give everi thing dips before putting them into the temp 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.