ryudo80
Community Member
I'm pretty new in this hobby. While my first tank was in fallow for velvet, I started a new 15 gallon AIO tank to hold my QT'ed fish. The 15 gallon tank started with live sand and new rocks and has gone through fishless cycle with bottle bacteria. The fish have been living in it fine for a few week and the tank was clean since I didn't start reef light and no corals. Once I added corals and started up my light, the tank got hit by the ugly stage pretty bad. My rocks turned green brown fairly fast and lots of hair algae visible on the clove polyps, empty snail shells, and rocks. Slowly, the new corals started to not open as much. Initially, I thought it was due to flow being too strong (I have a jebao slw-5 running in its slowest speed). I moved some corals over to the fallow tank as a test and they improved fairly quick.
The 15 gallon tank water wasn't very cloudy but I can definitely see a lot of tiny particles floating everywhere. I bought a mini Green Killing Machine internal UV and aimed the powerhead at the water surface but the situation didn't improved. I noticed my fish becoming lethargic and stopped eating so I transferred them to my fallowed tank that just completed the process and their behavior also improved drastically. After I transferred the fish, I left my CUC that includes some hermit crabs, trochus snails, and a fire shrimp in the 15 gallon. A day later, I saw that the fire shrimp had died. It molted a few hours before and when I later looked for it, it was dead and the hermit crabs were eating it. I don't know if it died due to the tank situation or something occurred during the molting process. Also, my hammer coral with a few branches had also died. I decided not take bring it to the other tank because it didn't look good at the time when I moved the fish. At this point, I have a couple of kenya trees and a couple of barely opened clove polyps left in the 15 gallon tank. I also noticed there is a large amount of copepods all over the glass. The CUC, besides from the fire shrimp, are still alive.
At this point, what should I do? The tank looks to be in a sad state. Should I just leave the tank alone and just let it ride with low light or should I start over with live rocks from the fallowed tank? If I leave it alone and continue to feed it?
The tank parameters:
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 5
phosphate 0.03
ph 7.8
kh 8
salt level 1.026
tank temp: 78
The 15 gallon tank water wasn't very cloudy but I can definitely see a lot of tiny particles floating everywhere. I bought a mini Green Killing Machine internal UV and aimed the powerhead at the water surface but the situation didn't improved. I noticed my fish becoming lethargic and stopped eating so I transferred them to my fallowed tank that just completed the process and their behavior also improved drastically. After I transferred the fish, I left my CUC that includes some hermit crabs, trochus snails, and a fire shrimp in the 15 gallon. A day later, I saw that the fire shrimp had died. It molted a few hours before and when I later looked for it, it was dead and the hermit crabs were eating it. I don't know if it died due to the tank situation or something occurred during the molting process. Also, my hammer coral with a few branches had also died. I decided not take bring it to the other tank because it didn't look good at the time when I moved the fish. At this point, I have a couple of kenya trees and a couple of barely opened clove polyps left in the 15 gallon tank. I also noticed there is a large amount of copepods all over the glass. The CUC, besides from the fire shrimp, are still alive.
At this point, what should I do? The tank looks to be in a sad state. Should I just leave the tank alone and just let it ride with low light or should I start over with live rocks from the fallowed tank? If I leave it alone and continue to feed it?
The tank parameters:
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 5
phosphate 0.03
ph 7.8
kh 8
salt level 1.026
tank temp: 78
