FishChannel Forums / Saltwater Forums / Saltwater Emergencies

My brothers tank "sprang a leak", so to speak.

Conner — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:42:18 GMT

So I got a text from my brother this morning around 9am. Saying that his 125g reef tank had "blown a seal", and had emptied into his living room. He managed to transfer any fish and inverts to other tanks in the house, and so far hasn't lost anything, although one clownfish did get popeye, he said. Apparently there was a bad enough leak that water was "jetting" out of the side! He said the stand is ruined, the carpet and padding underneath are ruined, and the tank probably can't be saved.

Fortunately, he's talked with the makers of the tank, and since it is only about 6 months old, they are replacing the tank, paying for a new stand, and paying to replace all the carpeting (and anything else that is damaged) for free. Thank heavens for warranties, eh?

choc chip star being eaten?

blenny123 — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:44:40 GMT

i bought a chocolate chip star from a dealer who has kept them and has success keeping them, it keeps eating whenever i give it a silverside and likes to move across the aquarium but when i took a look today it seemed some of the flesh in two small areas show bones and as i looked i saw many of these small shrimp looking things that are bug like on ithe star and in some of the areas of dissapearing flesh i moved the star to a different location and the shrimp still found it and kept bugging my star is the shrimp eating my star?

Nitrate Help

caveman — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 07:00:53 GMT

Hello,

I just recently found out about this website and I am excited to exchange information with other enthusiasts.I have been doing this since I was five years old, I remember when underground filtration was state of the art. I currently have a 155 gallon fish only saltwater tank. Unfortunatley I just had a major wipe out due to a phosphate bag getting caught up in my sump. I have restocked and I am back on track. The major problem that I have are Nitrates,I do not overfeed and I do 25% water changes once a month if not bi-weekly.The levels were high 80-100ppm so I did a 50% water change but they ares still between 20-40ppm.I just changed my uv light (18w Turbo Twist )and my vho lights.Any Suggestions would be appreciated.Happy Holidays to all

Tank not cycled after 6 week's please help

Corona — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:31:49 GMT

Hello, please help me out here I'm new to this forum and well "new". I have a 55gal with built in wet/dry system. I've got an 1" of live sand also added cured live rock and bacteria in a bottle. 4 weeks after I've added 5 cromies and some hermit crabs and 3 turbo snails. Last week two snail died and follow by one fish. My ammonia level is .050, Ph 8.2, Nitrate 0, Nitrite 0 and salinity is 1.025 ish. I did a water change first 5gal and another 5gal the next day this was last weekend. I keep a close eye on my Ph and ammonia but they are still at the same level they are 5 days ago. Last night one more cromies died.

Please help me out here I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong....Almost forgot I have a Metal halide 250w and atinic.

ick!

ziggy — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:47:56 GMT

I have a real bad ick problem in my 92gal saltwater tank. Has anyone ever heard of & or used a product called nosickfish? I read the testimonials on their web site & it sounds like it may be what I'm looking for.

fish dying

woodys16 — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:08:38 GMT

i have recently lost 2 of my fish. the first i came home one day and discovered the other fish eating them. the other fish was being attacked by the others. is this a sign of disease? these fish have been together for over a year, and no indication of this kind of activity before.

i started with a four striped damsel, clown fish,lightning wrasse(just found out what it was tonight) in one tank. about 9 months ago i acquired a new 55 gal tank and its inhabitants. a bi color blenny, domino damsel, and what looks like a javanese damsel. i have two snails and 7 hermit crabs. i know its not enough cleaners but right now they seem to be working. i actually acquired the fish about 2 weeks before the tank. acclimated and never had a problem. then transferred everything back to the new tank. i probably didnt do that the way most would have but i moved setup water and all(water already stable and set). in nine moths have not had one problem. water quality has been steady, right were it should be. so thats the story behind my tank.

green hair algea

clownfishkid — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:40:39 GMT

I need suggestions on what to do to get rid of this terrible green hair algea that is growing all over my live rock. It has covered all of my live rock but has stopped growing on the tanks glass. I have told my lfs about this algea problem but all they have suggested is that i close all blinds in the room so there is no direct sun light, and they told me to buy some snails, witch i did yesterday. I bought 5 little turbo snails and one big mexican snail. So far they have not done anything but crawl around on the sand and the glass. I have had the blinds in the room closed for about 3 weeks and it has seemed to stop the algea from growing on the glass , but it still remains on the live rock. I have tried to pick it off and i have removed a great deal of it, but i just can't get it all. My local fish store also tested my water and said it was one of the best samples they had seen and that every thing was fine. I really dont know what else to do, besides maybe lowering the amount of time my light is on. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know i would really like to get rid of this algea.

clown fish always at the surface

diverdown2 — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:38:59 GMT

I have two clownfish that constantly stay at the surface. My nitrites are 0, my amonia is 0. I have good oxygen levels in the water and also good flow. Water temp 80, Ph 8.2, salinity1.023. Does anyone have any thoughts as to why they stay at the surface? They do appear healthy and they do eat well.

small spot on powder brown tang

10 acre woods — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:59:45 GMT

I have a newly set up 75 gal tank(3 months) all parameters are normal but had a slight drop in ph for a few days (it was only 8.2 insted of the usual 8.3). I buffed my tank to bring up my ph and then noticed the tang had a slight discoloration on his side. This is my first tang and he likes to swim eraticly around the tank and also flair his tail and shake wildly while point his head to the top of the tank (this only last a moment then he returns to swiming around). This may sound strange but didn't know if there might be something wrong with him. I have read a few articles about fish illness and the only thing that it sounds close to is a fungus but this is not a legon on his side but just a slight discoloration. I don't think it is a burn either I mixed the buff in to the sump/refugeim.

I have also been keeping fish for 13 years. 2 year of salt water.

nitrate out of control.

10 acre woods — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:38:45 GMT

Ok thought I didn't have ick then thought I did. Tang acting funny and started to see white spots. So I added some malachite green to water to stop infection spreding to other fish. Then Pow nitrate out of conrol and water cloudy. Amonia 0 ppm and nitrite 0 ppm and ph 8.3 all in line but every few hours nitrate jumps 10 ppm. So rushed up some salt water mix and put a heater to it seeing all my RO is cold in a garage.

100 gal tank with home made sump 900 gph pump system is 4 months old with rock and water added from other tanks that have been in operation for 2 years. I am almost 99% shure that tank is cycled. Lighting might be only other factor. After talking with friend he told me a quicker way to break the cycle is to leave lights on for 3 days or more. I guess Ick don't hatch in the day so eggs die after a few days. So I decided to try this. But lighting is only a 40 watt t5 and has been on for only 24 hours. Really don't think that this is it.

Questions

1. Do you think malachite green had any thing to do with spike?

2. If so will water change bring back into alinement?

3. Should I expect to see another spike?

4. What % water should I change out?

I know I should have a hospital tank but new tank and trying to get it up and running before investing in hospital tank. I know it is not that much and should have gotten it but I guess this is just another dumb mistake.

Mushrooms Shrinking

BEBOX14 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:00:56 GMT

I have about 10 blue mushrooms that won't open up. I did a water change and turned my lighting system on(750w sysetem halide and atinic) the mushrooms were fine. I did leave my halides on 2-3 hours more than what I usually run them which is usually 4 hours. The next day when looked at the tank the mushrooms were all curled up very small. More than what they are when the lights are off. I left my system off for a while to see if that would help heal them. about 2-3 days the lights weren't on except for the moon leds. I turned them bak on and the same thing. Im now wondering if maybe there are enough supplements in the tank for mushrooms. Everything else is fine.(bubble coral, two annenomes, and two zoos) really need help.

My eel is starving

ScottandBrenda — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:15:53 GMT

I upgraded to a 240g two weeks ago and my everything made the transition well except my Zebra eel and he has not ate since the move!!! Any suggestions on getting him to eat again. He used to have a voracious appitite and ate frozen shrimp from a feeder stick. It appears as he no longer trusts me since I had to remove him from his old home (He did not appreciate me moving him and one point he landed on the carpet!!). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I truely enjoy him!!

all my fish are dying!

savetheseaturtles — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:58:06 GMT

we recently switched our saltwater fish from a 46 gallon bowfront to a 55 gallon to provide them with more room to swim around. We used the exact same water that was in their tank to fill up the 55 until we ran out. They were all swimming around happily. we added 2 smaller pieces of live rock, an additional bag of sand and filled the water up, making sure the salinity was perfect and that the water was dechlorinated. Then they started breathing with thier mouthes open and all went downhill from there. over half of our fish died, including a green bird wrasse, a dusky wrasse, and a blue tang. However, our dragon wrasse survived, as well as our eel, starfish, and our damsel. What happened? Please help me, i don't wan the rest of them to die too!

thank you, Kristi

12 Gallon Aquapod

mteem — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:16:03 GMT

I have a 12 gallon Aquapod that I am having major water quality issues with. Very thing started after I moved back in August. When I did move all saved all of my water, after setting the tank back up I did a 2 gallon water change. I left the tank alone with the few pieces of soft coral (brown button polyps, green ricordea mushroom, blue mushroom) and a small blue damsel. After about two days everything was dead, but the brown polyps (which still have not recovered yet). Everything was doing fine before the move (tank was setup for 3 months before the move) and when they were in another tank that I had set up at the time. About a week after I moved and lost most of the livestock in the tank, I started to get massive green hair algae growth. So I completely truned off all of the lights but the moonlights and left the tank like this until the algae was under control, at this time I added some more snails to help with the algae. After about four weeks of no lights and water changes of 2 gallons every week, I turned the lights back on to run for only 1 hour each day, after 4 weeks I upped the runtime to 2 hours, 2 weeks later I upped it to 4 fours, now they run for 6 hours a day. During this time I adding chemi-pure elite and phos-zorb to the tank at the instruction of my LFS. Before I did I water changes I would test the water. Once I got the aglae undercontrol I added another damsel, which died the same day, my LFS replaced it with a new one after testing my water to make sure that everything was ok. That fish died the next day. So I left the tank alone and didn't add any new fish for several weeks. During this time I added an electric blue hermit crab which lasted for about a day and then died. During the time period were I let the tank set after the two damsels died when ever I did a water change the tank water would become cloudy four several hours and then would clear up. Once the tank did not cloud after doing a water change I added two small engineering (convict worm) gobies to the tank. Fish were doing great until today. One has died and I'm still looking for the other one under the live rock. The water chem was perfect before I did my water change for the week (was done on Sunday), but after that I noticed that the fish were showing signs of distress so I checked my water chem and my Ammonia, Nirtite, Nirtate, and Phosphates were through the roof, so I did a water change with the remaining amount of RO water that I had purchased from my LFS. The gobies came from another LFS. After the water change I check the water chem again and everything was still really high. I have several questions about what I should do. 1) replace the live sand, live rock, and water and start all over again like it is a new tank? 2) Switch to a different place to get my RO saltwater? 3) Get RO freshwater and then make my own saltwater? 4)Do a complete water change? 5) Add a refugium to the tank( something that I have been thinking of doing since I got the tank). Just about anything that I add to the tank does not last long. The only thing that is doing well right now is the brown polyps, a new red mushroom, and the snails that were added when I had the green hair aglae issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

cleaner shrimp missing antenna

crabs — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:06:22 GMT

i bought a cleaner shrimp last weekend and yesterday i noticed it was misssing two of its front right antennas could this be due to my 2 devil damsels and what im more worried about is if it will affect my new buddy can they grow back or is he a permanent amputee.

WHOA! SG is way high! Fish dying!

jessiesp — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:31:45 GMT

Okay, I deserve a thorough bashing for this, but I've let my specific gravity get out of control. After a water change the day before yesterday, two fish died almost immediately, but the other two seem fine. This is a hearty lot that has been with me for years despite a few periods of neglect due to some medical issues. But I sent my husband out for more RO salt water and a new SG tester this after noon (I haven't tested in months because the other one broke and we never replaced it. Don't worry, I feel horrible about this!) Before letting him do another water change, I tested the water and here's what I got:
Ph - 8.2
Ammonia .25 (too high?)
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 10
SG - 1.032!!!

Now, the instructions on the new SG tester say to let it "season" for 24 hours in salt water before use. Is it possible that this is just a horrible mistake? But if not, what do we do? Gradually add RO fresh water? How much? How slowly? DH is doing another 20% salt water change right now and we'll wait for some advice before adding fresh. Thank you so much!!

TOO MUCH CO2 IN MY TANK?

TopDizzle — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:40:15 GMT

I just hooked up a calcium reactor to my 45 gal salt water tank. two days later the co2 stays on for a while and I come home to my fish laying at the bottom of my tank. What can I do?

I have turned off the knob to the co2 and the clcuim reactor already.

Green Algea

clownfishkid — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:18:41 GMT

In my 55g tank i have about an inch of live sand. The tank has been running for about a month. All of a sudden about half of my live sand began to get this green stuff on the surface. Its been like this for a week now and is starting to spread to the walls of my tank. It comes of when i pass over it with my magfloat. I would like to find out what it is and get rid of this mysterious green stuff. Does any one have any idea what this stuff is or how to get rid of it?

HHEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im a fish — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:47:59 GMT

HELP IM RAISING BRINE SHRINP BUT SOMEONE SAID TO FEED EM CORSE SALT AND THEY HATCH PERFECT BUT I ALREADY LOST HALF OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!

Nitrates are to high!

patchmeupp37 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:35:19 GMT

I just found my diamond goby dead in my tank. I don't know if this is from the high nitrate, here are my test results from today. 7/29/08 8:30PM EST

Salinity/SG- 31/1.023

PH- 7.8

Ammonia- 0

Nitrite- 0

Nitrate- between 40-80 ppm according to the chart that came with my API kit.

I have a 75 gallon FOWLR, I am running a Fluval 405 cannister pump, maxi-head 1200 pump and a Aqua Medic Turbonator Multi SL 1000 protein skimmer rated up to 250g. (Protein Skimmer was just added less than a week ago.) I have crushed coral for my substrate and about 30 lbs of live rock. My tank is 2 months old. I have a stars and stripes puffer, volitans lionfish, picasso trigger, snowflake eel, blue koran angel, diamond goby(DIED TODAY), yellowtail damsel, blue damsel and domino damsel. I have had alot of algae growing causing me to test my tank and had the following results.

Ammonia- Zero

PH- fluxuates between 7.8 and 8.0

Nitrite- .25

Nitrate- off the chart

I did a 20% water change and noticed no difference in my nitrate readings. Since then I have added a protein skimmer and have done a 50% water change. I again tested my tank, ammonia and nitrites are both at zero, ph is at 8.0 but my nitrates are still to high, chart reads between 40 to 80 ppm more so towards the later. Should I perform another 50% or greater water change? I am at wits end as I don't know what to do anymore, the algae is still growing but has slowed down greatly but my nitrates are still to high. I see from reading some other posts that crushed coral can be a cause of high nitrates. Should I change out the crushed coral and go with live sand? I also must admit that I was over feeding the fish due to some poor advice from a local fish store employee. I am now only feeding my fish once a day. Should I feed them more or stay with the schedule I have them on right now? I am fearful of losing my fish as I am a new aquarist. I hope I have provided the right information for some one here to help out. If not I will be sure to provide whatever information will help. Thanks in advance for any help you provide.

Nitrates are way to high.

patchmeupp37 — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:47:02 GMT

I have a 75 gallon FOWLR, I am running a Fluval 405 cannister pump, maxi-head 1200 pump and a turbonator 1000 protein skimmer rated up to 250g. (Protein Skimmer was just added less than a week ago.) I have crushed coral for my substrate and about 30 lbs of live rock. My tank is 2 months old. I have a stars and stripes puffer, volitans lionfish, picasso trigger, snowflake eel, blue koran angel, diamond goby, yellowfin damsel, blue damsel and domino damsel. I have had alot of algae growing causing me to test my tank and had the following results.

Ammonia- Zero

PH- fluxuates between 7.8 and 8.0

Nitrite- .25

Nitrate- off the chart

Xenia coral dying

reef aquarist — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:18:38 GMT

I have a xenia coral in my 20 gallon reef tank and it appears to be very unhealthy. It seems that all thats left of it is a stump because the polyps never expand. The xenia was doing well for about a month and then it started getting worse and worse. I don't know what the problem could be because my other corals are fine. My tank has a compact lighting system that has 60 watts. Here are some of my test results.

Ammonia 0.25 ppm

Nitrite 0.5 ppm

Salinity 0.025

Ph 8.4

Temperature 80 degrees

The tank has been set up for about 7 months and it has a power filter on the back. I currently don't have a protein skimmer. If anyone might know what the problem is please reply.

New Fish being bullied, please help!

Pam — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:35:47 GMT

I have had my saltwater tank for a month. I purchased a blue tang 3 weeks back. I also have the 3 orange clown fish in there. There is a yellow tang and a dark blue tang in there too. Also pajama fish, 2 of them. I just put a yellow angelfish with blue around the eyes in there. I believe it is a dwarf. The blue tang is after him. I think the clown fish are after him too. He is hiding and seems to be breathing heavy like he is stressed. I can not get ahold of my fish guy that ordered him for me. He is the same aquarium guy that sold me the blue tang and knows I have the clown fish. He said these were compatible. Is this correct? Will this get better or will my angelfish be dead in the morning? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

brown algea

saltyfresh — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:27:07 GMT

Since I installed my 6 T-5 lights on my tank i have seen a slow growth of green algea on my live rock and base rock, I cut down the hrs of run time for the lights and introduced phosoban to the canister filter in an attempt to slow down the growth and seemingly overnight i've had an explosion of thick brown algea growing on almost every surface. I scraped and scrubbed the glass, let the filter's clean the water for an hour and then changed all the filter pads and did a partial water change. I tested the water and all was ok. where would all of this suddenly come from what can I do to fight back?

Stray Voltage

Dilla — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:28:45 GMT

I was tending to my S/W tank this morning and was jolted by voltage. A pump in my fuge is the suspect (it has been slowing down in flow). After i killed power to the whole tank i still feel a tingle when i touch the water. Do i just wait until it disapates? how long will it hold power? Must i ground it out? All the fish seem fine at the moment.
Thanx for any advice.

ICH!

FastFoward5k — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:04:24 GMT

My friends tank caught ich, and all of his fish and his eel died from it because he caught it too late! He had to start over from scratch. I don't want the same thing to happen to me, so how can I catch it? :unsure:

box anthia

saltyfresh — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:17:10 GMT

My box anthia was always hiding in its own little cave and wasnt very social. Now he is all over the tank, becoming very territorial and spends hours a day swimming head first against the front glass as if it was trying to swim through it. he's not slamming into it so he's not getting injured. Whats the deal? has anyone else had a fish do this?;)

dead anemone

saltyfresh — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:28:32 GMT

so, i was gone for work for three days and asked my girlfriend to take care of the tank. when i got home, the water was cloudy and stunk, particles floating all over, just a total mess. while cleaning it out and doing a water change ( at 1 am ) i found the cause, my sebae anemone has passed on and left a mess in its wake. chem readings were at toxic levels and it seemed that the fish were ok but a little more skittish than normal. i did a 10g water change and added some prime to the tank and hopefully this wont shock the bio filter. my tank is a 55g fish/invert. my nitrites,nitrates and ammonia is down a little but far from great. any suggestions?

money invested

Clownknife — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:48:43 GMT

How much do you have invested in your tank?

Help Pls..

Iman — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:17:51 GMT

Recently, I have came into saltwater tank keeping again after quitting it 10 years ago.

My present tank is only 20 Gal and it has been 3 weeks and 4days old. I have added a pair of clown fish two weeks ago but they died a day later. Last Monday, i have added a Coral beauty Angel, it survived till yesterday and i suspected it died of suffocation (the grills were wide open). Currently, only two damsel fishes are left and they are breathing at a very fast pace though eating well just like the Coral Beauty Angel.

i have bought the test kit but to my surprise, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are all ideal except the ph is at 8.0. I have added PH plus to increase it then.

Should i recycle the tank and start all over again or i should just let it be? I can't add fishes anymore as whatever fishes added in will start to breath heavily and died of suffocation eventually.

Your professional advise please.

Cyanide?

reef aquarist — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:53:54 GMT

I have recently had two fish die. One was a Banggai Cardinalfish and the other was a Fire Dartfish. I first had the Cardinalfish first. It was doing very well for a week but one day I noticed that it was lying on the sandbed but it was still breathing. It died shortly after that. Next I had a fire dartfish which was fine for a day but then it started acting like the Cardinalfish. It tried to dart up from the sand but it would fall back down. It also died. Both of these fish came from the same store and I was wondering if it could have been Cyanide that killed them. I do regular water changes and the water quality seems fine. If anyone has any opinions I would be glad to read them.

What do you do when the power goes out?

fishtk75 — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:12:37 GMT

What do you all do when you have no power?
As for hour or day.what is there that out there to use?
I have reefs 75 and 120.

clownfish disease or ich?

blenny123 — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:23:34 GMT

my clownfish has small white spots but does not look like ich it is pale in color and some of the white stuff is stringy like 1 mm it has affected my other clownfish and are both in quarintine i want to do a freshwater dip but how is it done?and what does my clownfish have ?.my paramentars are nitrite 0 nitrate 0 ammonia 0 and temp raised to 80F ph 8.3,please help

inactive hermits

jumpcon4 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:36:41 GMT

ive had my 55 gallon tank for almost a month and i bought it already set up.The man i got it from had in running for over 6 months and after we moved it the hermit crabs were constantly moving around and for the last few days ive noticed that they haven't been very active. all my water conditions are perfect my PH is 8.2 nitrites 0 ppm nitrates 0 ppm and ammonia 0 ppm and my salinity is 1.024. Im new at saltwater tanks and was wondering if this was something to worry about or not

Clam Trouble

deluxerider — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:20:34 GMT

:w00t: I have a Crocea Clam that does not look to well. I've had it for several months and it has always looked great and has even grown but for the past 3 weeks or so, it stays closed most of the time and when it does open it only opens about 1/4 of the way. It's getting pale. I keep thinking it will "snap out of it". Water quality is good, water flow is good & I have it about 6" under the lights which are 4x96w 2 are actinic. Please help, is there anything I can do?

HELP sick blue tang

Soccer4381 — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:16:44 GMT

The blue tang was wrapped around my filter this morning and seems to be not eating and now is laying on the bottom of the tank. It's still breathing and occasionally moves around, but looks very sickly. It also has a couple white splotches on its underside, but I don't believe it to be marine ich. I am enclosing a picture of the fish. I have removed it from the tank and have fed it some mysis shrimp which it ate and then went back on its side.....

Pinned Topics

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Fin Regeneration

Butterflifish — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:19:22 GMT

My Maroon Clownfish have been attacked by Damsel fish. I have taken out the Damsels but damage has been done to my fishes tails. I have Aloe Verra tap water conditioner that says it will help the fish heal. is this true? what else can i do to help the fishes fins?

Toadstool coral

lanmatt073 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:12:23 GMT

Help, my toadstool coral had his base pinched off in a small rockslide. What do I do?He opens up great still but is kinda free sitting,Can I superglue him to a base.I've heard of people fragging(splitting) them??

Starfish Plague

OHFISH — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 06:52:04 GMT

I have a a 55 gallon reef tank. In it I have about 75 pounds of live rock, live sand substrate, a carpet anemone, a big eye squirrel, two damsels, about 20 blue legged hermit crabs, a porcelain crab, a couple mushrooms, and my starfish.

I had a Chocolate Chip Star, and a Crimson Star. Remaining is a Bahama Star.

The tank has been in operation over a year. All water parameters are good. Fortunately I removed the dead Starfish quickly and the ammonia did not run up.

I change the water about every 10 days (20%). I use tap water with a conditioner to remove ammonia, chlorine, etc. Water is prepared a week in advance to the change. I do have a phosphate issue at times because of using tap water. Specific Gravity is 1.024 and PH is 8.4

Everything in the tank appears healthy and normal except for the starfish. The first signs of a problem was when the Chocolate Chip Star started to lose its spots. They faded away rather quickly. He also became more lethargic. Eventually he died. This was about two weeks ago. About four days ago the Crimson Star appeared listless, sitting on the substrate instead of the glass where it normally would wander about. Yesterday, it was dead on the bottom, the Bahama Star on top. Looked like the Bahama Star was attempting to eat it.

Today, the Bahama Star is moving about the tank, but it too appears that it is becoming more lethargic with less movement than normal. It keeps one of its legs up most of the time as if it were hurt.

Since everything else appears fine, no symptoms of distress on the fish or anemone, I am suspecting that I have a Starfish Plague of some sort. Perhaps a parasite, bacteria or virus? I don't know.

Comments, suggestions, experiences that you could share would be appreciated. Not sure how to treat a potentially ailing Starfish.

Thanks!!