Corals died, killed my fish

[cleandrink]

I have a fairly new nano tank, 24 gal with about 35 lbs live rock and a few fish. All had been doing good for a couple months. I ordered some corals, a small red flower thing, and a hairy mushroom. I acclimated them and added to the tank. Everything looked good until the next morning when the water was so cloudy, I could hardly see through it. The corals had died. I cleaned filters, did a 3 gallon water change. The amonia went up to just .20 and the ph to 8.6. Then the fish died.

Any ideas on what I did wrong or suggestions. I have been working on getting it cleaned up but need suggestions on what to do and how to clean it up now.

Mark

[WaterKeeper]

Hi Mark
<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

What you had was a bacteria bloom that reduced oxygen to fatal levels. The ammonia spike was just the artifact of dead and dying animals in your tank.

There are two probable causes-

A. You added too much too fast overcrowding the tank.

B. You added too much food for your tank to process

Either way it spells disaster. At this point I dump the current water and completely replace it. Then give the tank some time to recover. Following that add critters slowly and realize that a nano can only support very few fish.

[cleandrink]

That is what I was thinking, just pretty much changing all the water and starting over. Clean up my rock and substrate. I think I may only have a few snails and a couple crabs living.

If I want to grow corals in the 24 gal nano, would you recommend I try just doing that first before I add any fish at all. And if so, how many and what kind of corals? And how do you keep enough oxygen in the water to keep this from happening, besides not adding too much to the tank.

Mark

[WaterKeeper]

Good question. The biggest thing about keeping corals in a nano environment is that you usually start with frags whose growth will be somewhat self limiting, Even when they grow the can be refragged and the population kept in check by trading them in to other reefers,

From experience I have found that fish is a small tank produce undesirable results. They tend to grow unchecked and do not tolerate fragging them very well. :D

Therefore, you only want to add a fish or two, depending on size, to a nano. Read up on corals and the size and growth rate and only choose small, slow growing species.

Sorry you had to find that out the hard way,

[cleandrink]

It can only be a learning experience if I actually learn from it. I will find a way to make it succeed. I do have a protein skimmer coming to add to the nano tank the first of the week. So I will get all cleaned out, cycled, and ready to go again. For clean up crew, what would be your recommendations on how many and what kinds.

Also, what is the best acclimation process to use for adding corals and any recommendations on where to order from?

Mark

[Sk8r]

On corals---test both the incoming corals and the tank for the following: ph, temperature, salinity, alkalinity and calcium. Watch out for loose [floating] mushrooms and powerheads; and keep your cleanup crew usually to micro hermits like scarlets and a few snails.

Stock carbon and polyfilter: these can remove contaminants. Always have a jug amounting to a 20% water change. Whenever you get in trouble, do a 20% change and run carbon: this will drop ammonia immediately; run polyfilter if you suspect something more complicated, like a nephew throwing a penny in your tank. Keep a log of your tests and additions and test often after this until you can be sure the tank has settled.

[returnofsid]

Watch your cycle closely and test often. You want to see an ammonia spike and then see the ammonia levels fall. Then you want to see a Nitrite spike and see those levels fall. Finally, you'll have a Nitrate spike. Don't add anything at all until your Ammonia and Nitrite levels are both 0. I would then add 1 or 2 fish. After adding a couple fish, you may see another small rise in Ammonia as the biological filter grows to compensate for the larger bio-load. I wouldn't add any corals until you have a nitrate of less than 10 ppm. Even then, add corals slowly and make sure you aren't combining corals that are going to take up chemical warfare against one another. Adding carbon to your system will remove a lot of the chemical warfare problems.