Please help--snail died and then I made things even worse...

[sharuq1]

Well my tank crashed last week due to a dead snail I did not find in time. After that I subsequently made things worse by torching the algae I have had a hate-on for off of the live rock and putting that in a tub with a heater and powerhead as it, of course, smells terrible due to the die off. (I am waiting for the nitrate spike in there to settle before I return it to the 14g.)

After this happened I did a 100% water change in the 14g, the water was nasty as heck. My corals are sitting on a rack made of egg-crate in the 14g, and since the crash have all looked terrible. Many of them may be dead, but I am unsure which ones are and so I have not thrown them out. (holding out on hope I suppose)


I have been doing 5 gallon water changes every day since this happened as my ammonia is reading very high due to my wrecking everything and only comes down slightly after a WC (none of the colors on the test card match what is in the vial so I can only assume the worst, sayyyy over 8ppm?? >.<) I have also been dosing with prime to try and detox this water from hell.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had advise about what I can do to rectify this situation?

Please don't flame me or say "you should not have done this/that and it is all your fault"--I already know this, I know I made mistakes and went too far taking the LR--what's done is done though and I can't go back and change it and I really don't want to feel any worse right now. But if you have some advice so I can fix what is happening now I would really appreciate it. Some consoling would be nice too


Edit: yes there are 3 small fish in the 14g... I have nowhere else to put them with the exception of the vat where the LR is.... The nitrate in there is about 50-110 mg/L at present. I don't know what's worse, to put them into toxic levels of ammonia or nitrate. Suggestiions?

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I'm a little confused--the live rock isn't in the 14G with the corals, right? What's causing the ammonia spike in the tank?

Are there fish in there, as well?

[Aquattro]

only thing I can suggest is finding a sitter for your livestock until things settle down..

[whosinpower]

Here is what I would do if I were in your situation -

1. Set up a seperate qt tank for your fish. Check water daily - use your skimmer on the qt tank and change water as required. Requires diligent maintenance!

2. Find someone to take the coral off your hands until you get your main tank up and running and stable.

3. Clean out your main tank. Get rid of the sand - and put in clean new sand.
Maybe this is not necessary....not sure.

4. Put your liverock back in the tank and allow it to cycle - rebuilding its bacteria to convert ammonia into nitrite and then nitrate.

Basically - you are starting over. After your tank has fully cycled and water is testing good - then add a clean up crew....followed by your fish after a couple of weeks.

Wait another month.

Then add back your corals if your friend has managed to save them. Sorry for your troubles. Not sure what you meant by torching the rock?!? But - it seems to me that you have inadvertantly killed off the bacteria that converts ammonia if your water is testing high for ammonia......it is this biological filter that you need to reintroduce - be patient and diligent with the qt tank - and you should be good to go in the future.

[BC564]

one dead snail can do that? I have had snails die in my 20 gal nano before and never experienced this......am I missing something?

[Slick Fork]

I'm in Spruce View.

What kind of fish? What kind of Corals? I could possibly babysit for you.

[sharuq1]

If I remove the fish from the 14g and stick them in some sort of temp tank and leave the coral in the 14g as it is presently what are the chances they (corals) will be ok? I am inexperienced in this area and I feel rather hesitant and nervous to move the coral somewhere else. (especially seeing as no one in red deer that I know of has coral, so I would need to travel at least 45 mins to take it to someone else's established tank)

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Honestly, I'm really confused as to what caused all of this. You put the torched rock in a separate tub, right? If there's no live rock in the tank and you did a 100% water change, what's causing the water to be so foul?

[sharuq1]

It isn't "foul" per se anymore it is just having a very high ammonia spike. My only guess is that it is being caused by:
-my 100% WC
-removal and subsequent wrecking the LR, which effectively removed my bio-filtration almost completely (there was some BR in there for 7 mo. so hopefully some bacteria colonised that, it is still in the tank)
-dying zoo polyps, but I am unsure which are dead and which just look bad so I have only removed the ones that I know for sure are dead
-fish in the tank in "new" water that has not been cycled

Some corals look unaffected, some died, some are very damaged....

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I'm really sorry about that If I lived closer to you, I would offer to help with the corals. I'm really not sure what to suggest....