HELP!!!!!!! My tank is under attack!!!

[Chraddam]

Okay, so here's the deal. I have a 24g Nano. Stock pump, regularly cleaned filters, and stock lights. A small protein skimmer. I have 1 fish, a Mandarin. And a bunch of corals.

A couple weeks ago, I was told my nitrates were through the roof, so I bought a skimmer, went home and did a 30% change. In the days thast followed, I did 3 more 30% changes.

Yesterday, my beautiful bubble coral disintegrated. It just started to float away into the current! I tried to rescue it, but it was already about 2/3 gone, and I lost it. Today, I noticed a small piece of one of my brains had disappeared, and in its' place was this...brown dischargey stuff.

And also, my frogspawns/hammers whatever-you-call-'em are now discolored.

Is this the dreaded "brown jelly"? It doesn't seem to have affected zoas, colts, mushrooms, or rics. But I did notice 3 dead shell-less hermits yesterday. In the past few weeks I have introduced 3 zoa rocks, a large red open brain, and a knobby mushroom. Some of the zoas had tiny starfish on 'em, but I was told they were beneficial, not harmful.

Here's my readings:
Ammo- .80
Hi ph- 7.8
Nitrite- .20
Nitrate- 2
Calcium- 480
Salinity- 1.024
Temp- between 76-78 degrees f.

If anyone has any clues as to what this is, or how to keep it from killing my tank, please let me know!!!

 

[daisy]

I am sorry to say that you are going to loose everything fast if you do not get it out of your tank and to a safe babysitting tank, perhaps - then do a HUGE water chnage until your ammonia level is down to ZERO. These animals can NOT tolerate ANY ammonia. Your Nitrite should also be undetectable for corals.

Your Mandarin will also die in this setting.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you will most likely lose everything soon in these conditions.

What kind of water are you using?
How long has your tank been up and running?

Best of luck and keep posting!

-daisy

 

[Chraddam]

The tank has been running for close to a year now. Could the introduction of the Mandarin 1 month ago have thrown my tank out of whack??? I only got it because I felt the need to have at least 1 fish in the tank...and as i look back at my records, the ammo was 0 until I added the Mandarin! And it's a big one at that! So tomorrow, I find someone to hold my corals(?Marc? You there?) and get rid of Mandy...then I'll do a 75% change. Thanks Daisy!!! I'll keep you posted.

 

[ZANYMASTER]

That Mandarin is going to need constant pods being it's such a small tank.

 

[Chraddam]

Yeha-I been giving him pods from a jar, looks like that will go with Mandy to wherever it ends up...I just added AmmoLock, hopefully that will help control things until I get some much needed help...

 

[ZANYMASTER]

Large water changes like that will throw things out of whack.Do small water changes.

 

[Chraddam]

i am gonna do 25 % change tomorrow, see what happens...hopefully some of the ammo will clear up, but i will be doing changes every 3 days or so...

 

[Bob 1000]

If you have ammonia and nitrite with all that rock in that small tank.. Try not doing any water changes for a week then check levels again.. But get the inhabitants out of the tank.. Your tank is cycling.. Do to,,, I don't know what.. If you were feeding the manderin live pods.. Did you start off overfeeding it dead shrimp that it wasn't eating???

 

[Awibrandy]

if you have ammonia and nitrite with all that rock in that small tank.. Try not doing any water changes for a week then check levels again.. But get the inhabitants out of the tank.. Your tank is cycling.. Do to,,, i don't know what.. If you were feeding the manderin live pods.. Did you start off overfeeding it dead shrimp that it wasn't eating???

ditto​

 

[Imbarrie]

How are you adding the pods?

Are you pouring them out of the jar?

If so, that could be the problem.

 

[anthony27]

the discharge on the brain is its exco showing because it is dying off. I would do small water changes and make sure the skimmer is running 24/7 Since you did the water changes make sure and test the levels constant esp the salt level. Did you add any thing into the tank prior to all of this happening. Checl the cal level as well is the coraline algie dying off on the glass on the tank.

 

[Chraddam]

I am feeding it Arcti-pods, only a small amount, and only 1x/day. I did add 3 smallish-sized ( a little smaller than my fist) rocks from another tank, could this be a contributing factor?

 

[Chraddam]

10:43 a.m.-lights have been on for an hour or so. Found a dead tiny brittle starfish. Red brain looks ok- green and yellow one still showing signs of disease. Zoas, trees, rics, colts, xenia, leather, gorgonian (yup, I saved 1 from a store) doing good. I even noticed a lot of little zoas growing- they were not there a week ago- how is it that they are thriving while other things are dying? Will do a water analysis later-gotta take the wife shopping first. "You played with your fish enough last night, I wanna go shopping today-I have coupons for blah blah blah"...

 

[Chraddam]

Update-12:19 p.m.- Wow. EVERYTHING in the tank is bouncing back. The frogspawn/hammers are bigger than they have been in weeks...the green brain is working hard on repairing itself(it has almost closed the exposed part of the skeleton!)...and the zoas are huge, bigger than I have seen them in a while!!! I also saw a ton of stuff that was living in the rock finally show itself-wow, big starfish!!! The coraline on the glass is okay, no change there. I did notice brown strands coming from the mouths of some of the zoas...brown jelly? Regurgitated food? vomiting? Here's what I did last night-

Added 2 1/2 capfuls of Ammolock, left the LEDs off, and gave the tank some extra darkness by leaving the lights off for a couple extra hours this morning. I will do a change tonight, and hope that this will remove some of the locked ammo. Then, I will have to determine the root cause of the spike- is the tank spiking because of the newer rocks? Is the mandarin releasing a lot of ammo into the tank? Before I added the Mandarin, the were tons of pods all over the tank- now there are none, did Mandy eat them all? Or were the killed by the Amonia? So many questions...

Thanks to all for the valuable input. I will keep posting until the problem is solved. Any and all advice is still appreciated. Thanks!!!

 

[daisy]

some organisms can handle "dirty" water better than others, but in the long run, they all need the water to improve.

I don't think that adding the mandarin would have thrown things out of whack - something died in the tank, and the tank did not have the inhabitants to eat the dead guy - perhaps it was food, or perhaps it was something on the new live rock. Regardless, your tank is cycling again. A year is not a new new tank, but it's not necessarily got everything it needs to absorb everything new live rock throws at it.

Have you noticed a population of bristle worms? pods? do you have a clean-up crew? Snails? any sorts of crabs? These will all help to absorb a loss in the system. They can help. But keep up with the water changes in the mean time, and hopefully things will improve.

I'm not sure how the mandarin will do with these ammonia levels and nitrite levels - if she is eating the pods you are adding, then I'm not sure what to say about that - maybe ask Marrone, as he's the fish-expert mod and could probably help you out with that advice.

Good luck!

 

[Chraddam]

I do have about 10 hermits, red and blue leg. I have 2 nice sized snails. And I got some rock with a bunch of bristle stars a few weeks ago, and there are a lot of bristles that were in the rock all along that are finally reshowing themselves...I am thinking there was just a build-up of ammo that was prohibiting the growth of the animals in the tank, and they are now responding to the ammo-free(er) environment they now have to live in. I did lose a clown fish a month or so ago, and didn't find it for a few days-it was partially decomposed, but that too could be a cause. Either way, I will monitor it closely and keep posting...

 

[daisy]

A fish you lost a month ago is not likely to have been a problem now - unless the problem has been growing all this time... but I think that your system would have absorbed that.... At night, do you see worms at all? They are an integral part of your system in terms of detritus clean-up.

The only fish in there now is Mandy, right?

 

[Chraddam]

Mandy is the only fish...and I have seen worms, brittle stars, some little tiny snails/slugs, and tiny starfish. I shut the lights early today to let the tank rest a little. Update tomorrow-thanks all for the input!

 

[rookie07]

I think it was the sudden water changes that caused things to die off quickly. You drastically changed the water in the tank for 3 days.

 

[Chraddam]

8-30 update-just did a 5 gallon water change, ammo dropped to .40, half what it was a few days ago. The green and yellow brain has taken a turn for the worse, losing a little more of it's skin. I also found a piece of sinularia that was dying, yanked that out too. Vacuumed the sand a little to remove detritus. Hopefully this will all help and improve the conditions. I will continue the ammo testing and water changing until this is cleared up.

Also changed my Red Devil's water-why is salt so much harder than fresh!!! GRRRRRRRRR...