Tank issues

[Jessy]

OK so my tank has been on a steady decline for a while now.

My CBB died
my tangs have ich, and by the looks of it so do my anthias and my mandarin
my alk is 9.3
my no3 is 5-10
ca is ~390-400
mag is 1300

I can't figure out for the life of me why my green cap has gone brown. My bali slimer has little to no PE with makes IT look brown.

My acans all tried to die until I transfered them to another tank.
MY red stag frag RTN'd (not the whole colony)


WHAT IS GOING ON?

[Fine Fins]

1st why is your no3 5-10 that would be my first Q. I have a fish only and it reads 0 and it is crowded

[SDguy]

Awww, Jessy, I'm so sorry to hear this :(

Considering your situation with location, and subsequent logistics with feeding, water changes, etc. as well as your system/filtration, I would basically thin your fish herd as low as you can tolerate, increase your water change schedule as best you can, and consider a better hang on skimmer.

Also, I would get the Mg up over 1300 already. I told you to forget the epsom....just get some magflake. Once that's up, it'll be easier to get your Ca up over 400 while still keeping your alk above 9.

[Redeye]

considering your only there once a week, how is your Nitrates creeping up? Mom overfeeding? someone decaying? filter socks not getting changed?

Doubt this is the entire problem, but just wondering

[Nick_Kun]

Awww, Jessy, I'm so sorry to hear this :(

Considering your situation with location, and subsequent logistics with feeding, water changes, etc. as well as your system/filtration, I would basically thin your fish herd as low as you can tolerate, increase your water change schedule as best you can, and consider a better hang on skimmer.

Also, I would get the Mg up over 1300 already. I told you to forget the epsom....just get some magflake. Once that's up, it'll be easier to get your Ca up over 400 while still keeping your alk above 9.

+1 Peter, sell her your HOB when you get your new tank setup.

[Sat Cong]

Awww, Jessy, I'm so sorry to hear this :(

Considering your situation with location, and subsequent logistics with feeding, water changes, etc. as well as your system/filtration, I would basically thin your fish herd as low as you can tolerate, increase your water change schedule as best you can, and consider a better hang on skimmer.

Also, I would get the Mg up over 1300 already. I told you to forget the epsom....just get some magflake. Once that's up, it'll be easier to get your Ca up over 400 while still keeping your alk above 9.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread, but what would be a better HOB skimmer?

And Jessy, sorry about your tank going down all the sudden. It was one of the most colorful reef tank I have seen on here...

[Nick_Kun]

Warner Marine H2 Skimmers are great...

http://www.warnermarine.com/Skimmers/

[Trickman2]

Jessy, I am unsure what could be causing this but I would start with water changes. Also I would start attacking the ick by mixing Metro, focus and garlic guard in the food (pellets soak it up great). Lastly, if I was not home to feed I would be preparing daily amounts of food to be fed. This will eliminate overfeeding. This is also a great strategy for you go on vacation to.

[JHAI4]

Agree to the skimmer enhancement... How do you handle detritus? You don't have a sump right? so no filter sock is catching it, have you increased your cleaning crew lately? When you do a water change do you siphon out the detritus from the sand and blow the crap off of the rocks or do you simple pump the water?

Are you running any carbon, ecophos etc... ?

CB are fussy eaters, they may have run out of natural food in your tank and slowly declined from there! CB's are hard to keep in general even if you have a clean tank. Your tangs are stressed for some reason if they have ich and you have had them for sometime. When I feed my fish I add garlic drops in the mix and let it soak into the food, I do this once a week to help combat ich as a preventative.

My guess is this sounds just like my issue I had 9-12 months ago and had to empty the tank clean it out and start again. Here is a link to the page in which I describe what I found. LINK (http://www.sdreefs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25429&highlight=50g+build&page=10). I have noticed a huge difference and since my growth and colors are off the charts... I feel your pain here one because your tank is really beautiful and two because of the distance you need to travel to maintain it.

Best of luck.

[bkh_sd]

Just curious, do you dip your fish and or quarantine them before you put them in your main tank? Once one has it likely they all will.

[Nick_Kun]

Quarantine fish/corals is a must, but I've broken that rule many times.

[mikeyfromsd]

Just going to throw this out there since you didn't list it, what is your salinity at? Are your lights on a timer?

1300 Mag wouldnt cause your stuff to RTN or fish to get ich. And your nitrates being at 5-10 wouldnt cause that either. Im guessing you either have something wrong with your salinity level or lighting conditions which is causing stress to the corals and fish.

If these two items aren't causing it, do you have a UV sterilizer on the sytem? If you dont, try putting one of those on it and see if your conditions improve.

[zoa]

I would appreciate a PM back, if I had known this was happening to your tank...

[Fine Fins]

I mentioned the NO3 because there was in my opinion in something not clean.

[JHAI4]

Jessy, give us an update?

[Jessy]

Yes, I'll update you all in a few. Lots of things going on right now. Not going to be good news though.

[SDguy]

1300 Mag wouldnt cause your stuff to RTN or fish to get ich. And your nitrates being at 5-10 wouldnt cause that either. Im guessing you either have something wrong with your salinity level or lighting conditions which is causing stress to the corals and fish.


Sorry, my bad....I wasn't clear. For anyone reading this thread, I wasn't suggesting that low mag can cause these problems, it was just a side note of an earlier issue I thought I would mention :)