Help! I Think My Tank Is Gettin Messed Up

[OnoIgotICH]

Well I have a 350 gallon system, with a 200 gallon sump.

I run Ozone, UV, and a skimmer.

Everything checks out okay.

PH:8.3
Ammonia: >0 ppm
Nitrates: >0 ppm
Nitrites: >0 ppm

I maintenance my tank all the time.
Make sure no algae on the walls, clean up. Water change every week (30%, Maybe more)

Everytime I put fish in, 2 weeks later, they die. before everything was A-OK Nobody died until now. Is my ORP too high? its around 300. Is something leeching into the tank that I dont know about that kills my fish slowly one by one? They arent gasping for air, they all eat, no signs of diseases. Diseases are one of my last options, I see no signs of it, no cloudy eye, no spots, they are all healthy active eating fish. Its just not a rarity of just one fish dieing, its most of them. Even damsels croaking. My salinity is at 1.023 I have rubbermaid bins as my sump PVC piping I just dont see why my fish are dieing. are some of my plastic decorations leeching into the tank? I run carbon, skim , uv, ozone 24/7 I have RO/DI water that tests 0 ttm on the meter. I use instant ocean salt. Currently testing Iodide, phosphates, and silicate.

Is there any other things I need to test for that my fish are dieing?
(inverts are okay, I dont carry corals in my 300gal and its FOWLR)

Do I not have enough bacteria in the tank? I have at least 200 lbs of sand , with miracle mud in total with my display and refugium.

[amike5]

Did you QT the fish prior to adding them to your display tank?

[seansod]

Maybe you have some stray voltage entering the tank. I can't remember how to check but I am sure that if you search the forum or ask someone will tell you how.

Good Luck
Tony

[OnoIgotICH]

Yes, but QTing right now isnt the major issue, the fish arent sick.

Phosphates are high at 3.0 and I've have a recent algae bloom but I cleaned it off, I've never had any cyano or anything bad happen to the tank. One time I turned off the UV to put on a differnt tank and alot of my fish died, but that was at least 1 1/2 months ago.

Iodide is at 0.025
Silicate is at 2

[OnoIgotICH]

Will stray voltage kill fish?

I also begun to believe maybe someone has poured bleach into the tank.. I have .50 ammonia with no other nitrites, nitrates.

Bleach has ammonia right?

[Nicholas89]

maybe it's going through another cycle?

[amike5]

You can only make an assumption that your fish aren't sick. When I first started my tank, I put fish directly into the display. As a result, I would loose every fish I put in; over a dozen. I then started QT'ing my new fish for six weeks with Hypo and now rarely loose any fish I buy.

[OnoIgotICH]

dude.. I told you QT isnt the problem. I QT.

[Bonebrake]

I would double check the ORP with a different tester.

[Conesus_Kid]

Bleach does not have ammonia in it. (In fact, you should NEVER mix bleach and ammonia together. It releases a toxic gas.)

How many fish are we talking about here?

Are they all from the same store?

I would try to locate the source of that ammonia.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

[OnoIgotICH]

You sure bleach doesnt have ammonia? Could there be another cleaning solution that is leeched into my tank? Ammonia could not be there unless it was brought in as a liquid into my tank.

Im talking about around 20 fish. Small gobies small tangs, small angels

No I get my fish from all the places
I cant find anything else that could have leeched into my tank that wasnt there before other than some toxin entering in. I do notice burns on my fish, and all the fish that die have their stomach pinched in REALLY tight. im talking about REALLLLY tight. Everything else lived, the small triggers, the small wrasse, and my damsels
The only thing that died is the somewhat tough to keep fish. But gobies died.. No signs of ich or diseases, I QT , It just seems to me it was brought in by some toxin

[OnoIgotICH]

I've also smelt the bins outside in my yard I leave to dry i use to do water changes and such, it sort of smells like bleach like my neighbor did something..since we despise each other I guess

[OnoIgotICH]

i just witnessed one of my clowns die.. he was doing barrel rolls and backflips out of no where.. all of sudden now hes dead, and just 40 minutes ago he ate. ***?

[OnoIgotICH]

^^^^

[Conesus_Kid]

How are the corals in the tank doing?

If you're convinced that bleach somehow got into your system, get some chlorine remover.

[nemofishclt]

I had a set of xenia in there.

They MUSHED away. They lost their pink color, balled up into brown stuff.

[corals b 4 bills]

If I wanted to kill someones reef slowly without anyone knowing I would throw a bunch of pennys behind the rocks, buy a copper test.

[Craig Lambert]

You only mentioned A, N, N in your parameters. What is your Alk level? A tank with low alkalinity will have greater pH swings from day to night which could be an issue to both corals and livestock.

[uncleant]

just check everything and look in your sump and refugium for anything that could have fell in

[Zestay]

unplug all your unnessasry devices. stick a meter in your tank turn them back on check for stray voltage.
again i second the use of a dechlorinater and do a copper test.
even tho i dont reccomend killing fish buy damsels untill you figure out whats going on.

[OnoIgotICH]

I already have damsels. they are OK. but it looks like they have burn marks on them.

My copper comes out to zero.

Im doing a BIG water change tonight.

I have a grounding probe just in case for stray voltage. not sure if that works though.

[reefing102]

whats your salinity level? i've heard sometimes if its to high it can burn the fish.

[uncleant]

burn marks? what color is it?

[ReefTECK]

I can't believe that nobody has asked thus far. Because it sounds like ozone issues for sure. Do you discharge all the water that comes into contact with ozone into regularly replaced carbon socks?

On a tank that size, doing about 200-300mg/hr, or on an orp controller, you should probably use nearly 1 cup carbon nearly every 2 weeks to keep excess ozone from entering the display tank and burning fish gills, scales, etc. That's probably why your xenia turned to mush.

This theory would be consistent with the burns you reported noticing on the fish above, and perhaps the pinched stomach.

Just an idea. Often times the most obvious answers get passed over.
Also, rubbermaid tub's, might not be ozone safe If you are injecting ozone into the water where the ozoned water is in contact with a rubbermaid container, maybe it is dissolving some type of toxic polyethy-propyl chlorides into the water system.

ltz,
andy

[ReefTECK]

Also.....

This would explain the elevated NH3 level since Nitrosomonas bacteria (convert NH3 to NO2) are more sensitive than Nitrobacter bacteria (convert NO2 to NO3), as Nitrosomonas has a much slimmer cell membrane.

[OnoIgotICH]

I have it going through 4-5 bags of carbon..

Trust me.. I know ozone.