Please help... tank on the verge of a crash

I'm trying to figure out what the h is going on with my tank. It's a 29g biocube that has been established with me for 3 years, and even longer before that. It's been healthy and great this whole time.


Lately I've been making a lot of updates, and something has gone terribly wrong. First I will say that the last time I checked my ammonia, nitrates, nitrites was a couple weeks ago and it was looking good, but I didn't have time to check them again, will check tonight. I don't have any other test kits on hand at the moment, and I don't know where to start.


Thursday and Friday my new orders came in the mail.

-A magenta/blue panorama pro light strip to add to my existing leds

-koralia nano pump since my other pump was 5+ years old and wearing out

-new filter media - same kind I always use, Chemi Pure Elite and Purigen


I did a 5 gallon water change Friday and put in all the new stuff, I got in a hurry and I did NOT rinse the new media like I should have.


While I was in the process of all this updating, I blew out the rocks a little bit to catch some of the gunk that gets trapped back in there, and figured the new koralia would help with that. I was not having any issues - this was just part of routine maintenance and cleaning to keep my tank pretty.


I am also helping a friend set up a tank, so I was digging around in my little refugium in the back chamber that's been going for years, to pull out some brittle stars and rock rubble to help cycle her tank. I only removed a couple little pieces of rubble. I have tons of live rock in my main display. Left my chaeto and everything in the fuge.


Rinsed out my skimmer as part of the regular maintenance too.


After I did all that, my tank was very cloudy. I didnt think much of it, other than kicking myself for not rinsing the new media. Saturday morning, still really cloudy, didn't look like it had gotten much better. I was a little surprised by this. Sunday morning, only a little bit better. Did another 5 gal water change. My fish look fine, my corals look ticked off. They are sliming and mad still.


This morning - I'm getting scared. It's still pretty foggy although it's clear enough to see all my rocks, but there's clearly something going on. My huge rhodactus is hanging off it's rock like it's melting and ready to drip off. My frogspawn is turning brown on top, and my coco worm (my favorite!) looks like it has mange. Almost all of it's "hairs" have come off!


What the heck could be going on? Where should I start, and what should I do to stop this before all my corals die???? I did another 4 gallon water change this morning. I'm so stuck between wanting to get this water out of there and not wanting to kick my tank into a new cycle.


I'm guessing I did too much at once, and freed up too much junk that was hiding in the rocks and in the fuge, but I don't know how to get this under control quickly....


HELP?

 

I think I do have some plain carbon, I will check. I'll pick up a filter sock too. The chemi pure should be helping, but maybe I should take it out of the bag it's in. It comes in a bag, but I double bagged it this time since I had one break. Maybe that's keeping the water from flowing through it.

Here is my tank Friday right after adding the new light, but before I got my hands in there screwing everything up:


I won't even show you a pic of it now, it's too sad.

 

Will do, thanks

 

*Looked* great, and thanks! Yeah that was Friday before I started getting my hands in there messing stuff up. Now it's cloudy and my corals look awful. I didn't take a picture of that and now I'm not at home, just did a quick 4gal water change before I left.

Too much?? I didn't think you could have too many corals - at least I could never have too many! It's been going strong like this for a long time, I just frag back some corals to make room for others as needed and everything has been happy until the Friday night cleaning.

I think he's just making that suggestion to me because of the pickle I've gotten myself into, to help clear this crap out. If your tank is healthy and doing good, you probably don't need carbon. I know that not everyone uses it. My chemi pure elite does have carbon in it I know.

 

3 years with me. I purchased it as an established setup back then and have just been doing upgrades over the few years I've had it.

 

Thank you for the suggestions - I will make sure I have plenty of carbon and change it often. I think I will go ahead and pull out the chemi pure and purigen in the meantime until I figure this out.

Same old buckets, dedicated to new saltwater only, I would never use them for anything else and my family knows better than to go near them for any other purpose.

I will check the salinity tonight, it actually didn't occur to me to check that before. I buy all my saltwater from Sea of Marvels since it's convenient and I trust him to mix my water more than I trust myself to do it. His tanks are looking great as always, so I suspect it's not the new water. I've even went back for newer water, just to try a different batch.

 

Ok update, ammonia is really high. Nitrites are good, and nitrates look good, but it's hard to tell they could be a bit elevated.

Did a 3 gal water change. I added Amquel Plus to convert the ammonia, but didn't add extra carbon since my freshwater carbon has zeolite in it. Planning to dose with Amquel Plus again tomorrow night after another 5 gallon water change.

The tank is considerably less foggy this evening and some corals are starting to show some improvement. I think I'm going to make it though this! I'm just deeply concerned for my coco worm I've had for a year and is really dear to me. It is losing its head, or heads? and looks quite pitiful. I've heard this can happen when stressed and it may grow back in a few weeks if I get this under control, so fingers crossed!

 

Couldn't find my gadget to check salinity...