dying corals help.

[bbhomee]

tank is 75 gallons. 3 fish . 20+ corals. we have had the tank up and running for about 9 months+ (not including the cycling phase). in the past three days I have done 2 water changes. im scared to do another because I hear I can remove "good things". but I can't get my nitrates (40ish) and ammonia(.50) down. I did have 3-4 coral deaths. I left my tank for a week with someone to just feed the fish and also add water to water topper if needed. and my torch for example is hanging on for dear life. and a couple of other corals have very visible exoskeleton.
I also tested alkalinity which was 8.1 dkh.. calcium 390 ppm ... magnesium 1400ppm.

anyone have any ideas on what I can do?

 

[Lavey29]

Why are you getting ammonia readings? I've lost corals but never spiked ammonia. Are your fish showing signs of ammonia stress? It's probably not a good test read unless you had some snails die or a fish in the tank?

Are your corals dying slowly over time or rapidly like in 24 to 48 hours? Any signs of BJD?

 

[Dav2996]

If it’s SPS, Sps always dies on me I never buy that crap anymore lol . I just can”t keep it alive. Now what is your phosphates and nitrates? Feeding your corals and putting your frogspawn and hammers in less blowy spot will help them heal. Feed them more too. I like reef Roids and Red Sea AB+

 

[bbhomee]

Why are you getting ammonia readings? I've lost corals but never spiked ammonia. Are your fish showing signs of ammonia stress? It's probably not a good test read unless you had some snails die or a fish in the tank?

Are your corals dying slowly over time or rapidly like in 24 to 48 hours? Any signs of BJD?

Ammonia was like at .50 ish . Fish look fine , I only have three . They acting as normal as iv seen them before . And look the same too.
bow that you mention it I did notice more empty shells than usual .
and corals technically slowly but this week that I left my tank was rapid like within a day I live that scoly in the pic .
and forgive me I’m not familiar with bjd, This is my husbands hobby and Im taking control for a couple months lol I guess I shoulda paid more attention

 

[bbhomee]

If it’s SPS, Sps always dies on me I never buy that crap anymore lol . I just can”t keep it alive. Now what is your phosphates and nitrates? Feeding your corals and putting your frogspawn and hammers in less blowy spot will help them heal. Feed them more too. I like reef Roids and Red Sea AB+

I did not test phosphate ! Doing that now . I do feed them reef roid and I actually picked up that ab+ stuff today . Should I move my torch down as well to heal? You think that would help?

 

[Lavey29]

You shouldn't have ammonia in the tank. I would start with a 30% water change which will also bring your nitrates down. Then re test all parameters. The torch is struggling so moving it to low flow low light area may help temporarily.

 

[nopenotpeter]

I'm curious to the kind of ammonia test you're running. What brand name is the test? If it's API, my API test shows 0.25-0.50 for ammonia though every other test I've tried shows 0ppm. Really not a big fan of the API ammonia test.

 

[Jekyl]

2- 30% water changes a week until nitrate gets to around 10. Run some chemipure elite if your phosphate numbers are high also. Once parameters are in acceptable ranges keep them stable.

 

[Dburr1014]

Throw your API ammonia test kit in the trash.
Full tank shot in white light please, blue is hard to see. I bet you really don't have ammonia.
Water source?
Po4?
How do you acclimate coral?
How do you change water? Same temp?
Snails and hermits will not cause ammonia that high, no way, no how, in that size tank. Unless you have zero filtration. Which brings me to what filtration do you have currently including pounds of rock.

 

[Dav2996]

2- 30% water changes a week until nitrate gets to around 10. Run some chemipure elite if your phosphate numbers are high also. Once parameters are in acceptable ranges keep them stable.

I think 20 is fine mine is always 20 nitrate. Plus LpS thrive in dirty tanks. I would keep it under 20 if you got shrimp.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Regardless of whether your ammonia test was incorrect, ammonia feeds coral but can kill fish and invertebrates. So if your fish look good and the coral is dying, ammonia is not the cause.

 

[bbhomee]

After some research and much YouTube we are 99% sure tap water was added into the tank instead of the ro . I just did a water change it’s been 24 hours and brown stuff is growing like crazy . Nitrates and ammonia has gone down . It’s still not good but happy it went down . Now does anyone know if I should reduce light ? So the brown stuff won’t grow ?

 

[Lavey29]

After some research and much YouTube we are 99% sure tap water was added into the tank instead of the ro . I just did a water change it’s been 24 hours and brown stuff is growing like crazy . Nitrates and ammonia has gone down . It’s still not good but happy it went down . Now does anyone know if I should reduce light ? So the brown stuff won’t grow ?

If you think you put a fair amount of straight tap water with chlorine into your tank you would probably see some immediate fish distress. If you believe you did you can always dose a small amount of Prime to render it reasonably safe. I would do some decent size water changes over multiple days and run carbon to. I doubt anything significant got in there or the fish would struggle.

 

[MaxTremors]

After some research and much YouTube we are 99% sure tap water was added into the tank instead of the ro . I just did a water change it’s been 24 hours and brown stuff is growing like crazy . Nitrates and ammonia has gone down . It’s still not good but happy it went down . Now does anyone know if I should reduce light ? So the brown stuff won’t grow ?

If tap water was added to the tank, it’s likely diatoms (tap water had silicates). They will go away on their own once they run out of silicates to eat. If tap was added without dechlorinator, that could be the issue. Still curious what your phosphates are. Also, what brand test kit are you using? If it’s API I wouldn’t put much stock in the results. Besides the inaccuracy inherent with color match tests (not everyone sees colors the same), they have very low resolution (meaning they don’t differentiate between lower concentrations) and are useless for reef tanks (are okay for fish-only).

 

[bbhomee]

If you think you put a fair amount of straight tap water with chlorine into your tank you would probably see some immediate fish distress. If you believe you did you can always dose a small amount of Prime to render it reasonably safe. I would do some decent size water changes over multiple days and run carbon to. I doubt anything significant got in there or the fish would struggle.

If you think you put a fair amount of straight tap water with chlorine into your tank you would probably see some immediate fish distress. If you believe you did you can always dose a small amount of Prime to render it reasonably safe. I would do some decent size water changes over multiple days and run carbon to. I doubt anything significant got in there or the fish would struggle.

If she did add tap water it wasn’t much thankfully . Might Be a dumb question but do you think adding even a small amount of prime would be bad ? Like if it’s not helping will it make things worse ?

 

[bbhomee]

If tap water was added to the tank, it’s likely diatoms (tap water had silicates). They will go away on their own once they run out of silicates to eat. If tap was added without dechlorinator, that could be the issue. Still curious what your phosphates are. Also, what brand test kit are you using? If it’s API I wouldn’t put much stock in the results. Besides the inaccuracy inherent with color match tests (not everyone sees colors the same), they have very low resolution (meaning they don’t differentiate between lower concentrations) and are useless for reef tanks (are okay for fish-only).

Waiting game it is , We do use the api . Which testing kit do you recommend ?

 

[Lavey29]

It won't hurt anything. I've done prime to my tank twice before as a prevention when I had multiple fish die and could not find them.

 

[Dav2996]

After some research and much YouTube we are 99% sure tap water was added into the tank instead of the ro . I just did a water change it’s been 24 hours and brown stuff is growing like crazy . Nitrates and ammonia has gone down . It’s still not good but happy it went down . Now does anyone know if I should reduce light ? So the brown stuff won’t grow ?

Use RODI water and use Nopox it clear out my nitrates and use brightwell phosphate remover. That stuff works great at killing the phosphate jn the water.

 

[MaxTremors]

Waiting game it is , We do use the api . Which testing kit do you recommend ?

For Nitrates and Phosphates the Hanna checkers are well worth the price (HR and ULR respectively). For Alk, Cal, Mag, and PH Salifert or Red Sea are fine (Salifert is quite a bit less expensive).

 

[MaxTremors]

Use RODI water and use Nopox it clear out my nitrates and use brightwell phosphate remover. That stuff works great at killing the phosphate jn the water.

I wouldn’t recommend carbon dosing to someone who is just learning the ropes, there is risk involved and needs the dose needs to be titrated carefully. I would also not recommend using a phosphate remover, it’s just a bandaid, you need to solve the underlying issue (over feeding and inadequate nutrient export.