I recently had a die off a few months ago because of my own stupidity. I recycled the tank again got everything back to normal and every was running great for a couple months or so. About 4 days ago I tested the water, everything was good but nitrates were at about 45-50 so I did a %50 water change *because my sumps in my basement and is about the same size as my tank* I didn't add anything I just changed the water. Since then my firefish and orchid dottyback had disappeared. Also my green star polyp frag has been retracted. I retested all the water yesterday and today because I haven't seen either of those fish or the polyp. All the parameters seemed fine. Tested today all was fine. But I decided to do a bit more inspection and found that the orchid had died becauase I found a largely decomposed body of it. I have not found the firefish but I assume the same has happened. I don't know why this has happened.
Here are all my parameters.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
Phosphate .25 (This is the only one that seemed unusual and I have had extra algal growth lately but haven't paid it much mind because I have a black comb tooth blenny and a coral beauty who tend to decimate algae when it pops up)
Calcium 460
Salinity 1.024-5
PH 8.2
Copper 0
Alkalinity 300 dkh
Temp 81.5
As far as I know pretty much all is fine except for slightly elevated phosphates.
A couple other things I should mention is that I recently made a DIY chaeto reactor and put it in my sump I was hoping that doing that would help to keep nitrates down and eat up any phosphates.
Also recently in the north east it had gotten extremely cold and because my sump is in the basement I had a little difficulty maintaining the temperature I prefer it to be at which is around 80-82 It has warmed up now, but a couple weeks ago or so it was getting down to about 77-79 degrees on average until it warmed up again. I don't know if maybe the temperature swings stressed the fish too.
I also have not had any inverts die. I found a dead turbo but its possible it fell off a rock in the back of the tank and my shrimp got to it because the shrimp have a habit of going after snails if they are upside down. But besides that all my inverts seem to be alive.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I would prefer this not happen again. Ive been at this for about 10 months now and would like my fish to stay alive and fix anything I might be doing wrong.
Here are all my parameters.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
Phosphate .25 (This is the only one that seemed unusual and I have had extra algal growth lately but haven't paid it much mind because I have a black comb tooth blenny and a coral beauty who tend to decimate algae when it pops up)
Calcium 460
Salinity 1.024-5
PH 8.2
Copper 0
Alkalinity 300 dkh
Temp 81.5
As far as I know pretty much all is fine except for slightly elevated phosphates.
A couple other things I should mention is that I recently made a DIY chaeto reactor and put it in my sump I was hoping that doing that would help to keep nitrates down and eat up any phosphates.
Also recently in the north east it had gotten extremely cold and because my sump is in the basement I had a little difficulty maintaining the temperature I prefer it to be at which is around 80-82 It has warmed up now, but a couple weeks ago or so it was getting down to about 77-79 degrees on average until it warmed up again. I don't know if maybe the temperature swings stressed the fish too.
I also have not had any inverts die. I found a dead turbo but its possible it fell off a rock in the back of the tank and my shrimp got to it because the shrimp have a habit of going after snails if they are upside down. But besides that all my inverts seem to be alive.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I would prefer this not happen again. Ive been at this for about 10 months now and would like my fish to stay alive and fix anything I might be doing wrong.
