emergency!!!

[earman88]

Ok so today i got home and my tank had a film on the glass and the rocks/sand were covered in a golden brown algae. My torch coral was still tucked in. My firefish is laying on his side barely breathing. My water test strip looked ok.. but my alkalinity looked a little low. My temp and dalt are ok. What could be wrong?? I did a quick 1.5g water change.

 

[Reefydude360]

:shock:Test strips are a horrible way to test water they r really inacurate try to buy liquid test kits and until then I would do a large water change like 3 gallons also make sure ur using pure water tap causes algae and some chemical could harm fish srry for what ur going through good luck

 

[Bifferwine]

Hard to say what could be wrong! You did the right thing by doing a quick water change.

Were any chemicals or cleaning products used in the vicinity of the tank? Lysol, Windex, 409, Pinesol, etc?

Were there any tank inhabitants missing?

 

[earman88]

Well recently i did about a 80% water change. My lfs thinks my tank just is doing a mini cycle again and these diatons are jist part of it..
So i am going to ride it out the next day or so

 

[Bifferwine]

Why did you do an 80% water change?

 

[Reefydude360]

+1 biff. and by the way diatoms r normal in new tanks they go away if ur using pure water

 

[earman88]

After having to be away from my tank for some time.. it went bad.. algae everywher.. xenia dying off.. so i thought it would be good to scrape everything off the glass and just do a big water change.. my mistake lol

 

[jesse]

isnt it bad to do that big of a change because ur taking the good bacteria away

 

[Bifferwine]

Yes, you shouldn't do more than 40% unless it's an absolute emergency - like if your fish are dying.

 

[earman88]

You live and you learn =(

So this morning I noticed that my torch coral frag was pretty much sucked wayy back in. Under the blue accent moonlight LED's I couldn't even see any of it's 'heads' glowing green. I think I counted 3 little small heads on the side.

Does this mean he's dead or just retracted? Because typically when he's retracted I have still been able to see his green tips...

 

[Kelz88]

If you can easily take him out, take a little smell, when my torch died, i knew he was dead once he hit the air.

 

[little_fish]

Being totally retracted doesnt always mean they are dead. When they are dead you will only have the skeleton left behind.

 

[sen5241b]

I've done many 40% and a few 50% water changes and my tank was fine but 80% is risky. The higher percentage water change the more precisely the temp and salinity must match !

Try putting a phosphate buster chem in there. Your corals are probably sick due phosphates moreso than nitrates. On the other hand if ammonia could be the killer.