Saltwater Reef Tank Contaminated

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drbrown214

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Sep 2, 2011
Messages
7
So I have an issue and I am lost. My reef tank has bee doing great. All of my Shrooms and Brains and just everything is doing great. THey are growing and spreading nicely. I have no concerns whatsoever with those. I have been testing all water parameters and also, everything is good. My phos was a little high at one point but phos remover and water changes cleared that problem. I had, yes i say had, a nice tang, watchman goby, 2 clownfish, and a damsel and a sand sifter, cannot recall the names of the last 2. 4 cleaner shrimp, have a couple of turbo snails and hermits. So i brought a fish and Boom, ICH problem. OK cool. I treated my fish food with Garlic. Raised my temp from 75 to 81-82 and it seemed to go away. I bought No parasite or whatever it is called. I added that and within a day every single fish and shrimp was dead. First assumption was the product and i called the company and researched it and tested the parameters of the water so somehow i was able to rule that one out. Maybe something went toxic from the corals, but all of the snails survived. I am pretty sure that the snails are the first to go if something was toxic. I let the tank sink and added some cheap damsels to see how the tank was.. it is pretty mature, but both of them died within 2 days. i am not sure what it is that i can attempt. i have a silent killer in my tank and could not tell you where, why, how... i am ready to give up
 
Sorry for your losses, I am dealing with a similar situation. Best thing to do is to let your tank stay fallow for around 28-36 days - This is typically the lifecycle of a parasite without a host. That should give enough time for your tank to "Cleanse" itself.

Keep up on normal pwc's.

I hope that the product wasn't copper based... Did you treat your main display tank with it? If you did you might have added chemicals / metals that can not be removed easily.
 
no the product that was added is organic or some crap like that. I believe i brought a fish that may have had ich. not too sure. i know that you cant use copper for the reef system.
 
It seems odd that they all died so fast - I don't think ICH kills that quickly. I think there might be something else afoot.

Don't give up, one suggestion I was given was to test for pH low or high. Maybe look into this.
 
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