I meant 80 and not 90 degrees. My tank is actually 44 gallons and I have live rock along with a prizim skimmer.
I cycled my tank for around two weeks. At the time. I finished my cycling my nitrates were near zero.
So I added a blue tang and two clown fish. I used a drip system to add the fish. The fish were doing well. I started to get red hair algae. I bought the star fishes and shrimp. I used a drip system to add the invertibrates. My blue tang gets a case of ick. It takes around three weeks, but I get rid of it. The blue tang looks great, but one of the clown fish dies. I get the skeleton before the brittle star.
Three weeks after the ick is gone I add two cardinals (Looks like an angel fish) and two dart fish. Again I use a drip system. All is well for around two weeks. I have a rock avalanche that claims a cardinal. I fix the rocks. I go through many water changes, because my nitrates are high 40
PPM. I get them under control, but my other cardinal (I never recover the body, I think the brittle star got it) dies and a few days later the other clown fish dies.
I spend four weeks doing water changes to keep my nitrates down. I get them to a point where they are around 20
PPM. I keep it stable for around 1-1/2 weeks. I add a yellow tang more snails, and a cleaner shrimp. I use a drip method. I still have a little bit of red algae problem.
After around two weeks, my son buys me two more clownfish. He uses the drip method. I figure I am done adding fish. I really just need one more dart fish and I have a complete tank. All is going well my nitrites and ammonia are nothing and my nitrates are still a concern, because the are around 30PPM. I keep doing a 10% water change.
All of the sudden, One clown fish dies. Then the blue tang gets a case of ick. I can't get rid of it. Around two weeks, later it looks like it is starving for oxygen and dies. I check my water it shows high nitrates. I take it to the fish store and they say the water looks good a little high on nitrates (But not real bad), but keep doing water changes.
Then the other clownfish dies. Then the yellow tang has a brown spot on its side around the gills. Later a white streak along its spine shows up and then it dies. Again I take my water sample down and they find nothing really wrong with my water. It took a 2-3 weeks when all my fish died accept the one dart fish.
Here are things I am doing:
A massive 40% water change and have followed that up with weekly 15% water changes
I add nitrate remover once a week along with alkalinity and
ph buffer.
My current nitrates are around 10-20
PPM and my nitrites and ammonia are zero.
I use marine basic to make my measurements
I have 25 lbs of like rock and 15 lbs of dead rock. My dead rock has started to turn live. So somethings are going well. My snails are having lots of babies. I did lose my peppermint shrimp, but that was weird, it was split down the middle. It looked like it jumped of a cliff and killed it self or got caught between rocks and got stuck and died trying to get out. It had grown big in size.
I have always wanted this fish tank and got it on my birthday in September and need to get this working
What am I not measuring or doing that keeps killing my fish.
Thanks to all of you who have looked and responded
