CANT KEEP FISH ALIVE!!

[junya13]

My father-in-law can not keep fish alive longer then a few weeks. I think his LFS is just feeding him a bunch of BS personally. I do know he used tap water to get his tank up and running and for a couple of months for water changes.. But finally I got him to use RO/DI water, all his levels are fine.. Except nitrates are really high. He is running a wet/dry with bio-balls protein skimmer, and canister filter he cleans that tank on a weekly basis.. I don't know what could be killing everything. I know tap water is hard on corals but I don't know if it's equally hard on fish. He has a Cortez stingray, one spot foxface, maroon clown and bird warasse but has lost blue tang, yellow tang, naso tang, lionfish, saddleback butterfly, pakistani butterfly, 2 anemones, snowflake eel, goby, blennie, those are the ones I can remember. I'm begging you guy to help me help him, or even if u live in the duncanville area swing by his house give him some pointers.. Thanks you all in advance

[29biocub29]

Get off of sponges I use like rubble rock and cheato

[bimmerzs]

Can you post your test results for ph, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates please, that would be a good start to help identify initial issues. I would also recommend running some carbon and polyfilter to pull out any nasties left over from the tap water. Would be nice to know other basics like tank size, source of live rock and live sand, type of skimmer etc.

Cheers,

[junya13]

He uses API saltwater test kit he said nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
PH 8.3
Specific Gravity 1.022
Nitrate was high he said the red was the highest on the card and the actually test water was darker then the card color

[bimmerzs]

The API nitrate kit reads up to 160ppm, you can double the amount of water you use and get an accurate reading however that is really not necessary since 160ppm is incredibly high, very high nitrates can harm or kill fish. I would really do a few very large water change (50%) spaced a few day's apart while running the carbon and polyfilter, then start slowly removing the bioball's from the system over a few weeks time. The canister filter can also contribute to the high nitrates if the filter pad's are not cleaned every few day's. Do you know the acclimation process he is using for the fish?

Cheers,

[junya13]

He floats the bag for 20-30 minutes cut the bag open, add a cup of water wait 15-20 mins later add another cup wait 5-10 minutes then let the fish(s) free.

[mtraylor]

1. How big is the tank?
2. How bis is the sump?
3. How much live rock is in the aquarium/sump?
4. What kind of skimmer do you have?
5. What is the water flow in the aquarium.

**First of all, please stop buying fish until you get the nitrates under control**


Is everything dead now? If so, remove all the bioballs and replace with live rock rubble. This is your main cause of nitrates. If you have anything alive, at this point with your nitrates so high, you could change out a third of your bioballs immediately with rubble live rock and change the rest an additional third in about 4-5 days and the final third within the next 10 days. This will help the live fish you have acclimate slowly. Have you performed the water chagnes recommended earlier? Weekly changes at this point will help allot say 20-30%.

[junya13]

He is starting the recommend water changes tomorrow, all the fish are not dead there are still 4 alive and kickin', cortez stingray, foxface, maroon clown, and green bird wrasse. I believe he went and purchased 15 pounds of live rock to put in his sump.
1. 135 DAS aquarium
2. Wet/Dry i believe is a 30 gallon
3. He has somewhere in the range of 100-130 lbs of live rock
4. Skimmer He has no idea what kind it is. He had a older one that required a airstone but he has upgraded to the newer style that dont require a airstone
5. He has that Canister, 1800 GPH return pump, some kind of rio pump in the center of the tank and 1 koraila 2
hopefully these number can help you help him...

[mtraylor]

Has the live rock/bioball replacment process started yet?

[junya13]

Yes He started doing it Sunday, he did a 60 gallon water change, took out some of the bioballs replaced them with about 10-15 lbs of live rock. All the current fish are still eating well. But he is scared that if he takes of his canister that it will hurt the biological levels that it was carrying.. i guess...

[mtraylor]

Once the complete bioball live rock replacement procedure has completed, he should have no issues in removing the cansister with a little more addition of live rock rubble. Is there live rock in the display? If not a few nice porus pieces would make a nice addition.

[dwittster]

As long as the canister is being maintained properly, I don't see that it HAS to be removed. As long as it is maintained, it is only going to help. The key is that a lot of people don't keep them maintained. AS I am a newbie, I could be wrong, but I don't see how.

Witt

[mtraylor]

Any update on the progress? Yeah the canister filter is another bed for nitrates. I agree if you clean it and maintain it properly you most likely will not have many issues with it, but the reading is off the chart and it will be easier to get it out of the equation for now.

[bimmerzs]

I'm just being devil's advocate here by making this comment. If all was being maintained as needed......we wouldn't be having this discussion. I'm curious what type of LR he has...... with the amount listed, there should be zero issue's with removing the bio/ball's and canister filter.

Cheers,

just fyi i used to clean tanks for a store and some of the nicest reef tanks i have ever seen had bio balls
how old is this das system

[mtraylor]

I'm sure you have chappy, and you were cleaning the bioballs

Does anyone actually reccomend a wet/dry for a reef these days?

I'm sure you have chappy, and you were cleaning the bioballs

Does anyone actually reccomend a wet/dry for a reef these days?

not at all
they had a pad thing on top that we changed every other visit

[junya13]

Everything is starting to look up but the nitrates levels are SLOWLYgoing down..

On a side note from all the deaths, stingrays should not be housed with those fish. They should only be housed with suitable tank mates that wont pick at them or damage them so easily.

[junya13]

well the stingray has grown a tremendous amount in the past 4 months she was about 2in across now she is a god 6-7 inches, i dont think that the stingray is being picked on at all. but with that being said, when would it be safe to start adding more fish...

well the stingray has grown a tremendous amount in the past 4 months she was about 2in across now she is a god 6-7 inches, i dont think that the stingray is being picked on at all. but with that being said, when would it be safe to start adding more fish...

Well as long as you don't notice any damage, surely you can get away with it. I personally wouldn't add any fish until the nitrates are below 20ppm for a constant month or two. That would also mean 0 amonia and 0 nitrite. Then i would add a new fish and monitor how they effected my parameters. Your nitrate should be below 20ppm already, if its not you need to do some more water changes. If mine was 30ppm i would freak and water change till it read 10ppm(It would take 2 hours for the nitrates to go to 10). But I am really touchy with my water quality, and i don't even have corals.

If you get your ppm down below 20 and its still going up you need to configure your filtration. If your reading amonia or nitrite, you need more bio in your filtration. If your just having mass amounts of nitrate, you need to consult your refugium and its effectiveness. Also purchasing a new skimmer would be a great idea. Your water should not go over 30ppm in a month without any water changes. Then at the end of the month, you should drop it to 10ppm or so and it should take another month for it to build up to 20-30, then water change again. Working a schedule makes everything really easy.

My 125 has the following

x2 yellow tangs (4in)
x1 sailfin tang (5in)
x1 dragon wrasse (5in)
x1 toad fish (12in)
x1 scopas tang (3 in)
x1 purple tang (4 in )
x3 firefish (3in)

I also had a baby 12 in bamboo but the purple killed it.

I stayed below 20ppm each month and i make sure they have algae 18 hours a day. Then i do 2 cubes of brine and hand fed the shark and toadfish .01lbs of fresh prepared foods.


surely every tank is different and will have nitrate build ups differently and require different schedules. Although with your stock you really should not even have any issues. A couple other things could be damaging your quality... Do you have crushed coral? Crushed coral in tanks collect food and can trap it and cause excess nitrates. Although you shouldn't hvae crushed coral if you have a stingray. Do you have enough flow around your rocks? Rocks can build up crap and make it impossible to drop nitrates. Also check your filter equipment and mechanical pads, are they all clean? Ridden of debris?

I dumb 2lbs of food into one of my tanks and it doesn't require water changes for 2 months, but my filtration is awesome and its set up for high food intake. So your tank having such high nitrates is just crazy and it shouldn't be that way!

Also to the information above, changing bio will not do anything. If your reading 0 amonia and 0 nitrite your bio is doing its job. Especially with that high of nitrates its actually working quite well. Bio balls are a great source of filtration, but they can gunk up. Keeping a good mechanical pad before them so particles don't clog them and cause nitrates is essential. Which is why we put filter pads on drip plates. Keep your bio stuff gunk free, it should look almost new, with maybe a little brown around them. There should be no physical lumps or clumps of crap on your bio material though. Go through the tank and make sure there isn't crap on the bio, in the sump, around the rocks, or in the sand.

I drive by Duncanville every now and then, if he doesn't see any problems i listed or is still having issues i could swing by. I drive from lewisville to midloathian quite a bit, its almost on the way.