Reefmergency!!!!!!!!!!!

[ReeferNets]

Last night I swaped out the nano koralis for koralia ones and it looked like to much flow the clowns, they couldnt event stay in place they had to fight to swim. So i took them out and replaced them with the nanos again.

This morning i woke up and found my clowns in the corner of the tank breathing heavey and not moving.

I left to take my exam at 8:00AM and then stopped at the doctor for sinus pressure. Came back while waiting for a decongestant and did a 30 percent water change.

I came home tonight and they are still in the corner breathing heavey and i got a .1 reading on my ammonia kits. Nitrite was low and nitrate was low.

I feel terrible they look bad. I used matching saltwater and my old rock and a peice of cured macro rock. I anticipated a spike but am i gonna have a new cycle.
The water change this morning was with matching saltwater.

Should i do another tonight or wait till morning and test again? They are still moving in the corner just breathing heavey the wierd thing is that all of my corals and anemones look perfectly healthy. My monti cap is fine and so is the zoas.

Its wierd. I dont know if im getting messed up readings or the stress from the move and the pumps last night lowered their ability to fight disease hopefully not brookneyla.

 

[vangvace]

another waterchange never hurts.

Have you tried feeding a little?

 

[ReeferNets]

no eating. tried they didnt take.


Everything is doing find i even see my birttle stars and snails roaming around.

will it stress the clowns out by turning the off the pumps and doing another water change.

 

[vangvace]

It might. I'd like to offer more/better advice, but stressed fish isn't something I'm that knowledgeable on. Hope they're alright.

 

[ReeferNets]

It sucks.

I shouldnt have had any cycle. My only thing is if the clowns got too stressed and something got to them..

Its crazy all the zoas are fine and anemones are all fine.

 

[mott768]

Get a bag of bio spira that will take care of the ammo, you should have 0 ammo and 0 nitrites. Try some garlic on the food, it may help intice them to eat. It could have been the rock wasn't fully cured. Good luck, hope they pull through

 

[MikeNapoli]

This may sound stupid but are the Nanos breaking the water surface... your fish maybe breathing heavy because there isn't enough oxygen in the tank. The water surface should be rippling. Not sure the Nanos would do that in a 30. I would put one Korallia 1 in the tank. And see if that's good. I had a Korallia 2 in my 29 with seahorses and it wasn't too much flow so I doubt a 1 would be in your 30.

 

[ReeferNets]

As of this morning and according to my testing 0 ammonia 0 evertyhing else

I am gonna do a 5 gallon water change just in case.

The female looks much better her movement is good and color..

Bad News the male has taken a turn for the worse. Its not a waiting game till improvement or death.

 

[Phyl]

I agree with the O2. With the higher temperatures the O2 saturations aren't what they used to be. What's your water temp?

 

[mott768]

Curious, how/would o2 make ammo and nitrites rise? I'm wondering this because he didn't get a reading till he added a stronger power head which tells me that there is still decaying stuff inside the rock.

Reefer in a 30 gal the nano's are definitely not enough flow, I would add the 1's or even a koralia 2 and aim them at the rocks, keep testing. If you get a reading then add the bio spira wait 24 hours and test again, keep a extra bag of the bio just in case you get another ammo reading.

 

[Phyl]

Two different topics, Tom. My O2 comment has more to do with the gilling and clown behavior than the Ammo in the tank. That, as you said, is likely to be due to the die off in the rock. The fastest way to remediate that would be to take that rock back out of the tank and cure it externally.

This is in no way a comment about the Bio, I'm sure your recommendations are well founded in experience where it comes to that product (I don't have any personal experience with it).

Early on in our reefkeeping experience I dumped a whole can of tiny sinking pellet (accidently) into our tank. Even with ammo readings OFF THE CHARTS, the fish didn't behave the way Barry is describing the clowns. Our fish took the ammo spike amazingly in stride, and we still have some of those fish today. Sure wish I knew about bio spira then!

 

[reefsandrotts]

I've cycled tanks with clowns and had a 100% survivale rate, so I'm going to agree with lack of 02 and bacteria die off in the rock.

 

[ReeferNets]

I have three pumps in their, two koralia nanos and a about 200 gph in the middle.

When i put the Koralia ones in the clowns couldnt handle it they kept getting blow to the back of the tank.

The Nanos are def causing lots of ripples on the water surface. The water is moving since i adjusted them to point more toward the surface. The Rock from my old tank can not be dying off the only thing i can think of is the Macro rock that malulu gave me?

I have two RBTAS and a GBTA and a Purple Bubbletip anemone, One small colony of tubs, colony of green zoas, green monti plate, Two zoa frags, Scarlet Hermits, and Snails are all doing great. Polyps extended, zoas open, no signs of stress from the anemones.

The only thing i can think of is that when i swapped out the powerheads it kicked up some stuff or the too much flow from the koralia 1s stressed them out. And i did another 30 percent water change this morning.

 

[MikeNapoli]

I really don't think the Korallia's were too much flow. I had 2 Korallia 1's in my 29gallon with Seahorses and they got around fine. Now I have 1 Korallia 1 in there and 1 Maxijet 600 and they're still fine. If they were getting blown around they may have already been stressed/unhealthy from the initial move.

 

[mott768]

I agree with Mike, my clowns are fine in a 80 gal with a vortech and 3 tunze 6055's and they handle the current just fine.

Phyl,
I see now, I always assumed if you got a ammo reading and the fish where breathing heavy it was to to the ammo. Good to know there could also be another reason.

 

[ReeferNets]

I cant explain it. My ammonia readings were .1 yesterday and today .0.

Wouldnt the inverts show signs of lack of O2 or ammonia? how can i find out?

my temps stay at 78.6 all day until night time when it drops to 77 or 76.9

 

[IrradiatedReef]

Ammonia toxicity is directly related to temperature too. The warmer the water, the more toxic ammonia becomes. So if you keep your water temp in the high range, the ammonia will have a more dramatic effect.

 

[reefsandrotts]

If possable,I would pull all the rock and flush it in a bucket of saltwater and see what falls off.I also feel if you have really dense rock it takes along time to actually cure due to the fact the water doesn't saturate the rock as fast.What are you feeding with and how often?
With the bigger power heads you may have caused alot of uneaten food and dietrus to kick up from the substrate and off the rocks causing the amonia which would also rapidly deplete the 02.
Just thoughts.

 

[ReeferNets]

Reef im starting to think thats what happened.

I still dont understasnd how non of the iverts are showing any signs of stress. Wouldnt the corals or anemone show signs of stress from ammonia.

 

[Phyl]

.1 of Ammo just doesn't seem to be enough, in and of itself, to cause any dramatic behavior changes in the fish though...? That's the part that's throwing me off.

Your corals probably wouldn't react as quickly as the fish since they don't respirate as much.