Friends fish tank levels changing.

[Crooked90s]

Please help.

A few months back a friend of mine started his first marine fish, got it cycled and stable for for about 6/8 weeks. Had 2 fish in the tank and everything was fine, he recently purchased a mushroom from another friend and now one of the fish is struggling and levels have completely changed over night. Any advice would be great,really be appreciated.

Video attached

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Hello, we will need a lot more info, all parameters, are necessary to gain an idea of what might be happening. A good, clear pic of the tank would not hurt either.

 

[Biokabe]

Well, for one, he's keeping the fish in a cup of green Gatorade, that's usually not good for them.

More seriously: We need to know a lot more about the tank to figure out what's going on. Mushrooms are typically fairly benign, the addition of a single mushroom shouldn't be enough to change really anything.

Looks like a calcium test, and then the trio of tests from the ATI saltwater master kit (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate). The calcium tells us nothing (what matters there is how much liquid it took to make it take that color, not what color it is at the end), but if the ATI tests are accurate (and they aren't always), then that tank wasn't properly cycled. The one on the right (nitrate) is an acceptable color for an active tank, but the other two (nitrite and ammonia) are wrong. The ammonia should be a pale yellow instead of the slime green that it is (indicating a small amount of free ammonia, which can be toxic), and the nitrite is showing at the maximum value for that test - in an active tank, nitrite should always be zero (light blue on the test). Instead, it's showing as 5.0 ppm.

That's all we can definitively say. My guess is that the tank wasn't properly cycled. Either there's not enough surface area for the bioload, no nitrifying bacteria were added, or the tank was dosed with something that killed off the bacteria.

What we need to know: Size, how much rock, maintenance habits, parameters before the fish died, parameters now, anything that was dosed, any chemicals that may have accidentally been introduced, and ideally pictures of the tank in question. Your friend should also probably get on here so that we can directly talk with them.

 

[Crooked90s]

Well, for one, he's keeping the fish in a cup of green Gatorade, that's usually not good for them.

More seriously: We need to know a lot more about the tank to figure out what's going on. Mushrooms are typically fairly benign, the addition of a single mushroom shouldn't be enough to change really anything.

Looks like a calcium test, and then the trio of tests from the ATI saltwater master kit (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate). The calcium tells us nothing (what matters there is how much liquid it took to make it take that color, not what color it is at the end), but if the ATI tests are accurate (and they aren't always), then that tank wasn't properly cycled. The one on the right (nitrate) is an acceptable color for an active tank, but the other two (nitrite and ammonia) are wrong. The ammonia should be a pale yellow instead of the slime green that it is (indicating a small amount of free ammonia, which can be toxic), and the nitrite is showing at the maximum value for that test - in an active tank, nitrite should always be zero (light blue on the test). Instead, it's showing as 5.0 ppm.

That's all we can definitively say. My guess is that the tank wasn't properly cycled. Either there's not enough surface area for the bioload, no nitrifying bacteria were added, or the tank was dosed with something that killed off the bacteria.

What we need to know: Size, how much rock, maintenance habits, parameters before the fish died, parameters now, anything that was dosed, any chemicals that may have accidentally been introduced, and ideally pictures of the tank in question. Your friend should also probably get on here so that we can directly talk with them.

thank you very much for your reply, I’ve forwarded it on to him now and the advice and information is really helpful thank you, his gonna make himself an account now