Random tank deaths after adding coral!

Jellyfishmon

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yesterday I bought some coral (pulsating xema, zoa, and a small hammer) and a BTA. This was my first time adding coral and I read that bioadvanced (bayer) was stronger then normal coral dips, I used 6oz in 1 1/2 water solution and let them sit for 5mins (not the BTA) then I washed them in some tank water before adding them to the DT (this was at 12pm). In the morning everything was fine and I went to work but when I came back one of my clowns was dead (she had some worms and wasn't eating much) and my old and new anemone had white feet and one was falling off of its rock, the fish where breathing hard too. Then my fire shrimp curled into a ball and died so I took the anemones, coral, and fish out into a QT and It seemed they recovered. I noticed a ton of amphipods that I didnt even know I had climbing against the front glass. My first suspect was the bayer that somehow it got into the tank and killed my sick fish and the inverts but now im not too sure because when I looked at my front glass I seen that my brown flatworm infestation was still alive and moving about and so was my cleanup crew and one of the fish I was unable to catch so I have no idea whats wrong, im currently doing a 90-100% waterchange just to be safe but all my levels are at 0 except my ammonia thats at .5 please help me figure out whats wrong :(
 
Your English is fine. :) Sorry you're having such trouble with your tank. I think you've done the right thing so far by moving the fish to QT and doing a large water change.

How old is the tank? What were your ammonia levels like before you added the corals? .5 is pretty high that could very well be the problem. Can you post the rest of your tank parameters too? If you can give more information it will help narrow down the problem. Hopefully someone with more experience will chime in soon.
 
What test kit are you using to measure ammonia? If it actually is .5 ppm, then that is definitely an issue. Are you sure you used the correct Bayer dip? How old is your tank?
 
Agree ammonia has played a role. Ammonia could also be from the die off from inhabitants of your tank .

Flat worms and pods moving to the front glass are probably trying to escape the water conditions.

I would do a water change and add prime. Prime is only a stop gap. It changes ammonia to non lethal form for 48hrs.

I would also add a bunch of activated carbon to absorb any toxins that may be in the water. If the flatworms start dying loads of toxins will be released.
 
I used API test
temp: 78
salinity: 1.035
PH: 8
Ammonia: 0.5
Nitrite/rate: 0
I cant test for the others but im having the reef test kit shipped to me soon.
My tank is 2-3 months old (was set up 3 months ago but finished cycling 2).
Im going to say the ammonia has been at that level for a week, but just before that I went a week with a crazy high 80ppm nitrate so im sure that made them stressed.
heres the kind I used
1.jpg
 
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If possible, I would pick up a different test kit, at least for ammonia. API tests are not reliable, I personally had one of their ammonia tests give me a false positive before. I don't think yours is a false positive, .5 is really high, but I would still recommend getting a different test kit if you can. And your nitrates went from 80 to 0 in a week??? That also sounds really suspicious, maybe you can take a water sample to your LFS and ask them to double check your test results. I would ask them to check a sample of your QT water too just to be safe, since that's where your fish are living now. QTs can get ammonia built up even quicker since they're often smaller than DTs and don't have as much/any live rock for bacteria.

How many fish do you have in there now? I could be wrong but it sounds like you have a lot of stuff in there for a tank only 2 months old. If you've been adding fish quickly, that could be contributing to the high ammonia as well since the bacteria doesn't have time to catch up.
 
in truth there were only 3 fish in the DT the blue tang is in QT for ich, the convict and wrasse I got on my way back from work when I found out my tank was crashing (talk about bad timing). I also just noticed my salinity is 0.010 over the recommended amount so that probably didnt help. The nitrates lowered so fast because of several large water changes over a few days and an addition of a protein skimmer. AS for the QTs I have 2 separate tanks ones a 10 and the other is a 20 with the bulk of them in it.
 
Do you mean Bayer? If you have bears in your reef tank, maybe it's time to throw in the towel. :)

I used Seachem coral dip personally. Only added two corals so far but the dip did the trick! Coral RX and Bayer both seem to be popular but I don't personally have any experience with them.
 
I have used the same Bayer product. When I dip new corals . I use 2 cups of saltwater from my tank. Then 15ml of Bayer . Leave the corals in for 10 mins. Sometimes is 20ml if I know the reefer tank is full of pests. Then I used about 2 cups of fresh saltwater in different containers (about 3) to remover the Bayer.skake the coral inside then transfer. Repeat . To remover as mush as possible. Afterward all corals do fine. I wouldn’t recommend to dip anemones.
 

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