need help with......

[dahenley]

well, i just set up my 96x24x24 tank with 55gal sump. My tank is cycled and all my fish are transfered along with 2 anemines.s. everything was going great, so i decided to buy 3 cromis to go with the one i already have. No problem right! well yea, up untill they started disapearing. well, i finally found them ( they were in my sump sucked up agenst the screen before my return pump. (without there bodies. just heads) so i figured my aneminies ate them) and now i have some amonia in my tank and i cant do a big water change like my i would do with my old 55gal. its hard to do that with 350ish gallons. i heard something about using carbon? will that work to help reduce amonia? im up for any ideas. please help

[RBU1]

You should not be seeing any amonnia in a 300 gallon tank with just a chromis.......You probably were not fully cycled. I have had 5" fish die in my 300 gallon tank and never had any amonnia.

As far as carbon removing it I have never heard of that. There is a seachem product called Prime that detoxifies it. Post on the Seachem forum.

I would give it another month or so before adding any more fish.

Good Luck.

[bertoni]

Carbon won't help with ammonia, in practice. I agree that Prime or Amquelmight help. Headless fish sounds more like a crab or other predator. Anemones can't shred fish, although once dead, they might have gotten torn up.

[reeferstace]

Anemones are best added to tanks that have been established for several months. I would keep an eye on yours. When they go downhill it is usually pretty quick.

[dahenley]

I lived in a apartment for about 9 months and then bought a house and set up this huge tank. (i had a 55gal at the apartment) I set up the new tank pritty fast and i thought it was done cycling (my water tested good for a week) and of course my time at the apartment was over and only had a few more days before my lease was up so i moved all my livestock here. For the 2 weeks before the live stock i have moved all my rock and been seeding the sand with my old sand for a month. my old live stock consisted of 2 clowns, 1 big cromis, 1 sailfin tang, 1 powder blue tang, 1 blue damsil, 2 anemones and misc snail and crab (blue and red leg crab) after everything was in my tank for about a week, i bought 3 small cromis, about 1/2 to 3/4 in in length. very small. and they slowly disapeared. all i found of them were there heads in the sump. all the fish and inverts have lived happily together for for 3 months or more. (im slow in ncome and slow in buying anything new.)

[HighlandReefer]

Dahenley,

From what you have stated, my best guess is that the ammonia was the culprit for killing your fish. Ammonia levels over 0.1 can kill fish. One other possibility that comes to mind, would be if your are not using RODI water. Chlorine & Chloramine are very toxic also.

From Randy's Article:

Ammonia and the Reef Aquarium
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-02/rhf/index.php

"Ammonia is very toxic to marine fish. The mechanisms of toxicity are complicated and are an active area of continued investigation by researchers. Its effects include damage to the gills, resulting in poor gas exchange, ion regulation and blood pH regulation.14 Other effects include hampering oxygen delivery to tissues, disrupting metabolism and toxicity to the nervous system that causes hyperactivity, convulsions and death.14 Ammonia can also be very toxic to many other organisms found in reef aquaria."

[tmz]

I don't know what kind of chromis you had. Chromis (verdis) ,Blue /green chromis tend to kill each other off in my experience. How much ammonia do you have? How long did the tank cycle?