Need Help!

[Citra]

I am fairly new to reef keeping, I have had a saltwater tank for about a year and a half now. My current system is about 120 gallons (60-24-18)+sump. Everything was doing quite fine. I added some soft corals to my tank, two different kinds of leather fingers, one with fatter branches and a darker pinkish-purple color and another with skinny branches and a light pink color, a leather vase, a colt coral and a small piece of rock with about 5 mushrooms on it. I was getting a lot of corraline alge growing everywere and mushroom polyps started appearing on other pieces of live rock. One night with my flashlight I noticed about 9 snails on my rock this quickly turn into about an army of 200. Anyways my corals did well for some time and then they started to not come out and started wilting next thing i know they are getting lessions on them and starting to dissinagrate and they get a brown algee growing on the stems. Only two at first one finger and the vase. About a month ago I did some modifications to my tank. I put everything into my 55g and emptyed my 120g I put a overflow in the corner and built a sump. I have a Auqamedic OR3500 return pump that returns into a 4 foot spray bar which was covered with coralline algee. After I set everyting back up I made the mistake of filling the tank up with tap water as I don't have access to R/O water. I ran the tank for only 2 weeks with nothing in it except salt (coralife) and some Seachem chemicals and some live rock. I then added the rock, fish, and corals back in. the two corals still very sick. The coralline algee on my spray bar in is white posibally bleached by the tap water? My finger is falling to pieces and my vase is starting to dissinagrate at the stem and fall of the rock. Now my other finger is getting quite a large hole in him as well and brown algee growing on his stem. My colt is shrunk up very small and even my mushroom polyps are small and not doing well. I do a 25% water change monthly, I fill buckets with tap water and let them sit for 2 days to evaporate the clorine before adding salt. I have always used chemi-pure and in my new sump the overflow drains into a chamber of bio-balls and through a 500 sponge and then 4 chemi-pure's. I have 2 marine-life aqutics aggressor-90 skimmers in the sump. NOT SURE ABOUT THOSE BIO-BALLS at the moment? Is it safe to keep sick and dissinagrating corals in the tank? I have tryed Seachem Reef Dip on the corals a number of times but I don't think it does much of anything. Half of my colony of snails is on my sand bed in the daylight? Many upside down and a lot of empty shells they are starting to die off is this normal? How long is their life span? What chemicals should I be using? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[saltnmyeye]

you didnt mention anything about testing. what are your tank parameters? it almost sounds like you have an ammonia problem and not enough bacteria to process it.

 

[Citra]

I have tested the water and the ammonia reads zero. But my test kit is a cheap hagan kit (the blue breif case) and I don't fully trust it. Could you suggest a good brand of test kits to use for all tests that is easy to read?
Thanks!

 

[saltnmyeye]

Surely, Aquarium Pharmaceuticals makes a good saltwater test kit. Red Sea is also a good one. It is wise to always have a good fairly new test kit on hand at all times. the shelf life on these test kits is about 6 months. after that they tend to be not as accurate. hop on over to marinedepot.com and see what they have in test kits, or a local saltwater retailer will be glad to help you out i am sure. you want a kit that will test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph and it is good to have a hydrometer to see where your specific gravity is. you may even want to know the calcium content also as some corals depend on calcium alot. good luck. :lol:

 

[saltnmyeye]

can you post your tank specifics please, like temperature, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and so forth please. it will help determine whats wrong.

 

[Citra]

Alright here are my water parameters:
Temp 78.4
Specific gravity 1.022
pH 8.5
Ammonia 0 mg/l
Nitrate 5 mg/l
Nitrite 0.1 mg/l
Phosphate 0.25 mg/l - 0.50 mg/l
Calcium 400 mg/l ppm
kH 120 mg/l - 130 mg/l


My lawnmower blenny was also dead this morning?
Something must be wrong?
Any help would be greatly appreaciated. Thanks!

 

[saltnmyeye]

everything looks good, but did you get a new test kit? another way is to take a sample of your water to a saltwater fish store and have them test it. most will do this for free. i dont know if the abundance of snails would have such an ill effect on your tank or not. anyone else can chime in here at any time. i think it may be a combonation of several factors. one, you used tap water. second, you didnt really know if your tank cycled when you put everything back in the 120. so it kinda steers me in the direction of ammonia. which is why it is important to know what is in your water. if you are serious about fixing this it needs to be checked accurately. i am in no way questioning your credability, i simply think a new test kit will reveal what your looking for. ro/di water sells for about 25 cents a gallon. it is very important to have the cleanest possible water to start out with to avoid really big problems down the long road to success. thats my 2 cents. good luck.