I posted recently about our 220 gallon reef tank that we inherited in the house purchase. Everyone was great with advice, so now I'm back again.
It's a mature tank, so we've been gradually stocking it and all was going well. We lost a few sacrificial fish, but most everybody was doing well. First in were a mimic tang and a coral beauty. Then four clown fish, two watchmen, ten green chromis. The watchmen died within days. Then the clowns died. Now the coral beauty is gone.
The soft corals are shrinking. The anemones seem to be doing fine.
We have been having the tank serviced by the place that was servicing it for the previous owner, trying to get our sea legs. They keep telling us everything is ok. So why are the fish dying? We are also having trouble with algae, the green stringy kind, some with captured bubbles, a red coating on the sand bottom, and now some blue green algae.
I have a 40 gallon tank with 3 comets, who are ravenous when I feed them. I don't see the same enthusiasm with the fish in the 220. They pick at the misso shrimp, and mostly seem to spit them out. We bought a different food (sorry, I don't recall which: frozen in small blocks with algae), in the hopes of getting them to eat more. We started out feeding them every other day, but the tang looks like he is getting skinny, so we have been feeding them no more than they can eat in 4 minutes, every day.
Todays water readings are:
Temp 78
pH 8-8.1
ammonia 0.25
nitrite 0
salinity .021
nitrate 0
The shop told us tonight that the pH is slightly low, as is the salinity, but neither should be causing the deaths.
We will schedule maintenance to do a water change (last one was done 4 weeks ago).
We've also added a bigger sump. Lighting was adjusted as the original owner had the lights on way too long. We bought a bottle of Fritzyme, which we will start adding (initial dose, then every two weeks).
Does anybody have any ideas for us? It's been very hard seeing our new friends die.
Thanks so much!
Laurie
It's a mature tank, so we've been gradually stocking it and all was going well. We lost a few sacrificial fish, but most everybody was doing well. First in were a mimic tang and a coral beauty. Then four clown fish, two watchmen, ten green chromis. The watchmen died within days. Then the clowns died. Now the coral beauty is gone.
The soft corals are shrinking. The anemones seem to be doing fine.
We have been having the tank serviced by the place that was servicing it for the previous owner, trying to get our sea legs. They keep telling us everything is ok. So why are the fish dying? We are also having trouble with algae, the green stringy kind, some with captured bubbles, a red coating on the sand bottom, and now some blue green algae.
I have a 40 gallon tank with 3 comets, who are ravenous when I feed them. I don't see the same enthusiasm with the fish in the 220. They pick at the misso shrimp, and mostly seem to spit them out. We bought a different food (sorry, I don't recall which: frozen in small blocks with algae), in the hopes of getting them to eat more. We started out feeding them every other day, but the tang looks like he is getting skinny, so we have been feeding them no more than they can eat in 4 minutes, every day.
Todays water readings are:
Temp 78
pH 8-8.1
ammonia 0.25
nitrite 0
salinity .021
nitrate 0
The shop told us tonight that the pH is slightly low, as is the salinity, but neither should be causing the deaths.
We will schedule maintenance to do a water change (last one was done 4 weeks ago).
We've also added a bigger sump. Lighting was adjusted as the original owner had the lights on way too long. We bought a bottle of Fritzyme, which we will start adding (initial dose, then every two weeks).
Does anybody have any ideas for us? It's been very hard seeing our new friends die.
Thanks so much!
Laurie
