We set up our first marine tank in February. it is a 70 gallon tank and also has a sump underneath with filter, protein skimmer, UV steriliser etc.
All seemed to go well - the tank matured well and quickly - our water parameters have always seemd pretty much spot on.
In there at the moment we have a sand sifting starfish aa couple of turbo snails - 3 others have been eaten. a few hermit crabs. Corals: A zoa, leather, cauliflour type coral and a lovely green carpety thing i can't remember the name of!
Up til a month ago we had 2 clown fish, a dottyback, a blue cheek goby and a blue streak cleener wrasse. We used to have a red firefish but we think he was bullied and we lost him.
A month ago we went on holiday and left the tank with an auto feeder. When we got back after 6 days the tank was an utter mess with the walls caked in algae. The clowns had changed colour noticeably with the bigger presumably female being almost black - her orange bits were VERY dark and the smaller cown was quite pale. We gave it a thorough clean which no-one took particularly well to. we scooped as much 'stuff' out of the water as we could but it did take a few hours to clear the water. A few of the corals die back quite a bit.
When we got back we noticed the Goby was very thin - when we had tested the auto feeder we noticed he did not go up to feed and so were worried about him when we were away. About ten days after getting back he disappeared and we lost him. 2 days later the cleaner wrasse went missing and we saw it being eaten by the crabs. The wrasse had shown no signs of ill health but was inseperable from the Goby - quite literally - so we wondered if that was the reason he went.
During this the Parameters of the water were all fine - though we did not test the water on return from holiday until it had been cleaned and the water changed which was in hindsight possibly foolish - but we were putting all our efforts into getting everything clean again.
A few days ago I saw our smaller clownfish struggling - he was sitting in one place in the tank - away from flow and his mouth was contantly opening and shutting. we turned the pump off for a bit to give him a rest from, the currents and left the tank like this overnight. He seemed to perk up a little and his fins which were held in close to his body perked up a bit but he would not be enouraged to eat. We tried adding immuvit and lipovit to boost his immune system yesterday but not eating it had no effect.
Last night I noticed he was skinnier than ever and you could almost see his bones coming through his skin. I took the decision to take him out - we had previously been advised that this would stress him even more so to leave him in if possible - and left him dripping through to the quarantine tank over night. I did not think he would make it through the night and I was correct.
We are kind of at the end of our tether and don't know where to go next. Our nitrites, nitrates and ammonia are all at 0, pH 8-8.2. Our alkalinity test is not working and the Red sea people have recently announced that there is a problem, but as the pH is fine and we have lots of coralline gro we don't think this is a problem. Our refractometer has been tested today and was a tad high but only at 1.027. We hae added RO to rectify this this evening
We have had one person advise us to test the Oxygen - but when we went to Dobbies today to get an oxygen testing kit they did not have one and told no point. We were also advised to use a Poly filter which might look for other impurities in the water - however when we went to Dobbies we were told this would be a waste of money - but not given any other advice.
We don't know where to turn next other than giving up! We love our fish and don't want to be putting fish into a tank for them just to die - even the natural life cycle stuff like crabs eating snails etc we find quite upsetting.
To clarify we only have a female clown left - looking very healthy and a dottyback whos fins i think are starting to look a bit raggy. She had a fungal thing a while back but that seemed to pass. She is eating well.
Sorry for the long post - we would be so pleased for any advice. :frustrat:
All seemed to go well - the tank matured well and quickly - our water parameters have always seemd pretty much spot on.
In there at the moment we have a sand sifting starfish aa couple of turbo snails - 3 others have been eaten. a few hermit crabs. Corals: A zoa, leather, cauliflour type coral and a lovely green carpety thing i can't remember the name of!
Up til a month ago we had 2 clown fish, a dottyback, a blue cheek goby and a blue streak cleener wrasse. We used to have a red firefish but we think he was bullied and we lost him.
A month ago we went on holiday and left the tank with an auto feeder. When we got back after 6 days the tank was an utter mess with the walls caked in algae. The clowns had changed colour noticeably with the bigger presumably female being almost black - her orange bits were VERY dark and the smaller cown was quite pale. We gave it a thorough clean which no-one took particularly well to. we scooped as much 'stuff' out of the water as we could but it did take a few hours to clear the water. A few of the corals die back quite a bit.
When we got back we noticed the Goby was very thin - when we had tested the auto feeder we noticed he did not go up to feed and so were worried about him when we were away. About ten days after getting back he disappeared and we lost him. 2 days later the cleaner wrasse went missing and we saw it being eaten by the crabs. The wrasse had shown no signs of ill health but was inseperable from the Goby - quite literally - so we wondered if that was the reason he went.
During this the Parameters of the water were all fine - though we did not test the water on return from holiday until it had been cleaned and the water changed which was in hindsight possibly foolish - but we were putting all our efforts into getting everything clean again.
A few days ago I saw our smaller clownfish struggling - he was sitting in one place in the tank - away from flow and his mouth was contantly opening and shutting. we turned the pump off for a bit to give him a rest from, the currents and left the tank like this overnight. He seemed to perk up a little and his fins which were held in close to his body perked up a bit but he would not be enouraged to eat. We tried adding immuvit and lipovit to boost his immune system yesterday but not eating it had no effect.
Last night I noticed he was skinnier than ever and you could almost see his bones coming through his skin. I took the decision to take him out - we had previously been advised that this would stress him even more so to leave him in if possible - and left him dripping through to the quarantine tank over night. I did not think he would make it through the night and I was correct.
We are kind of at the end of our tether and don't know where to go next. Our nitrites, nitrates and ammonia are all at 0, pH 8-8.2. Our alkalinity test is not working and the Red sea people have recently announced that there is a problem, but as the pH is fine and we have lots of coralline gro we don't think this is a problem. Our refractometer has been tested today and was a tad high but only at 1.027. We hae added RO to rectify this this evening
We have had one person advise us to test the Oxygen - but when we went to Dobbies today to get an oxygen testing kit they did not have one and told no point. We were also advised to use a Poly filter which might look for other impurities in the water - however when we went to Dobbies we were told this would be a waste of money - but not given any other advice.
We don't know where to turn next other than giving up! We love our fish and don't want to be putting fish into a tank for them just to die - even the natural life cycle stuff like crabs eating snails etc we find quite upsetting.
To clarify we only have a female clown left - looking very healthy and a dottyback whos fins i think are starting to look a bit raggy. She had a fungal thing a while back but that seemed to pass. She is eating well.
Sorry for the long post - we would be so pleased for any advice. :frustrat: