Salt water tank in trouble....?

Question

ok had really bad red slime, no mater how many water changes, no mater how many times I pulled all 30 pounds of live rock out and scrubbed it. The slime kept coming back.

Then I got these almost zit like white dots all over everything, the rock, the power head, inside and out of the filter...everything, hard as a rock they were took steel wool to remove it all.

Still loosing fish, still have red slime.

yesterday I lost my friggin mind, removed all remaining fish (3) pulled out every bit of live rock to find the flat 'base rock' on the bottom was covered in red looking worms with almost white looking short legs...kinda like a centipede.
Covered the bottom of each base rock looked like spaghetti.

Took all the rock outside and set in direct sun light. Really thinking about chucking every bit of it.

The sand in the bottom of the tank seems to be fulla worms to.

Should I scrap everything and start over?

We have had this tank for about 2 and a half years, all this trouble started about 6 months ago...with the red slime. Since then it's been one nightmare after another.

It's a 30 gallon tank with 30 pounds of live rock and a bag of live sand.

The rock and sand sat in the tank with the power head and filter for almost 2 months before we put anything in and seen only 2 'bristle worms'

Then we added 10 snails, and 5 crabs. About a month later we started adding fish. And all was fine.

Now I have no idea what happened...have lost everything….any info would help.

Answer 1

I'd have to agree with craig and big gourami on most of their info they've posted. Bristleworms, spaghetti worms, and small tubeworms/feather dusters, all of which are normal in a saltwater tank in some amount.

The fact that you're seeing so many of the bristle worms and have the red slime (which is cyanobacteria, a form of bacteria rather than a true algae) leads me to think you have too much organic wastes in the tank. These all need food to live and reproduce, and a reef tank should be low on nutrients in the water.

First item to address is the nutrients - do you test the ammonia, nitrite, and phosphate in your water? For the time your tank has been running, you should only be finding nitrate, but this can be toxic if the level is high enough. In a tank with invertebrates, the level should be kept under 20 ppm, and even less is better. If you don't have a test kit yourself, most pet stores will test a sample for you.

Is it possible that you're overfeeding the fish? They should only get what amount they can eat in a few minutes twice a day, and any that's uneaten after about 3 minutes should be removed right away. Cleanings and 25% water changes should be done on a weekly basis, and use a small powerhead to "blow" debris out from under/between/behind the rock so it doesn't accumulate. Scrape any cyano off surfaces and use a gravel vacuum to siphon it out immediately. Do you use a protein skimmer to remove small particles/dissolved organics from the water? Adding one may help. Do you use tap water (which may contain nitrate and phosphate that will fertilize the cyanobacteria) to mix up the saltwater? Switch to reverse osmosis water which doesn't have these (available at Target or SuperWalMart for about $0.33 per gallon once you buy their refillable containers). At the very least, a phosphate absorbing pad that you cut to fit your filter could help. You might try adding some macroalgae (chaetomorpha or caulerpa) to compete with the cyano for nutrients as well, but caulerpa can become a problem itself if you don't periodically remove some from the tank, it grows so quickly.

Once you get the nutrients in the tank under control, you can begin to address the red slime. Since it also needs nutrients to grow, you've already started to solve this problem. Cyano doesn't like areas of high current, so you might try adding some additional powerheads aimed at the worst growth. Keep at physical removal, use a small toothbrush or paintbrush to gently remove the cyano from live rock, or an algae scraper on the glass. If any is left in the water, allow your filter to remove it, but after a few hours, rinse your filter media (in dechlorinated water so you don't kill beneficial bacteria) to remove it from the tank. Unfortunately, there aren't any good organisms to add to eat this, as there are for true algae.

You can look over the info in the links below for some additional hints:

Answer 2

No reason to start over...The worms and the white dots (also worms)are ok! Every SW tank has them. Though bristle worms if they are fire worms can be problematic. But the theory these days is MOST are ok. (read of a guy who tore down a 15yr old 55g reef only to find a 5 FOOT worm!) You would be amazed at what lives in our tanks!

The red slime is Cyanobacteria and that is a problem but as other's have pointed out it is also a common problem with solutions.. follow what has been posted and you should be ok. Back off on feeding and do more preventative maintenance. Cyano actually comes off rock rather easy.it will peal off the rock just lie an orange in on sheet if you do it right! . just suck it up when you change your water. Try to remove as much as you can this way, even catching the floaters with your net or some other container.
Because you scrubbed the rocks, though you didn't say with what, you prolly spread the Cyano around and caused a bigger problem then you had to start.

I think the reason you may be losing your fish has nothing to do with either problem...

When you took everything out and cleaned it you killed off ALL your good bacteria! You sterilized your tank and now your tank is cycling all over again. THAT is what is killing your fish! Do some major water changes and test your water! Cut back on your feeding and maybe ever your light cycle.. though that really isn't going to stop the Cyano.. it's a bacteria not an algae. so doesn't need the light like green algae.

Careful maintenance and time is all you need to fix this problem
here's some other links on the subject...
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/microalgae/a/aa092800.htm
http://www.livingreefs.com/forums/saltwater-aquarium-articles/390-cyanobacteria-red-slime-algae.html
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/marinewormcare/Marine_Worm_Profiles.htm

Answer 3

those centipede looking thing are bristle worms and the spaghetti looking things are spaghetti worms
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/wormidfaq2.htm scroll down both of the worms you are describing are on this page. the white dots are diatoms. All of these are normal. What probably happened to your fish was you got so crazy over these and kept doing so many water changes you shocked the fish from costantly changing the water parameter.
Do you test your water? pH amonia nitrite nitrate? do you have a protien skimmer? the only big issue it seems you have is the red slime. agressive protien skimming and cutting your lights back should do the trick after a few weeks. The worms could have been taken care of by predatory meathods. Adding a 6 line wrasse or a fairy wrasse would eat up the spaghtti worms and there are many species that would love to make a meal of the britle worms. these worms arent bad in fact the stir up the sand bed which is actually a good thing. If you got really annoyed with the red slime you could have added a phosphate sponge and phosphate absorber filter media to your filter. If you wish to email me and go further into detail id be more than happy to help you work through this. The thing with saltwater is you have to be willing to do research befor over reacting and inturn killing off the entire tank. Sometimes just leaving things alone is the best way to go. If you are testing yuour water and your fish look happy and everything is fine other than the tank not looking so presentable then you just gotta let it do its thing.
here is a website on redslime algae this might answer some questions on how to get rid of it and where it came from in the first place. http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/microalgae/a/aa092800.htm
and if you can please give your readings for pH amonia nitrite nitrate calcium phosphate and alkalinity. incluse type of filters used, lighting used, is the tank near a window that gets direct sunlight, what the temp is of the tank what species of fish and inverts you have or have had. everything and anything you can think of and we can get to the bottom of all your recent troubles.

Answer 4

Only things that can cause a really high ammonia would be lack of live rock and sand with a death in a tank with no carnivores or over feeding. If you had enough live rock and sand, it would not be ammonia as much as it would be nitrate. I'm only taking a guess at this but it almost sounds like you lack the bio filter to properly turn the ammonia into nitrate which is why you have low nitrate and high ammonia. Your producing ammonia faster than it can be processed. When you say you have 3 live rocks, that could mean anything. It's not how many you have but how much you have. If those are only 1 pound rocks then they won't cut it. On a two month old tank, die-off is not a concern as this would have been cleared out already. Usually within the first month.

Answer 5

im with copper, to mcuh waste in the tank. use RO water and do a 35% water change, 50% may help but i am hesitaeant to say that. start doing 10% weekly, every week water changes with Ro water and maybe back off on the feedings, i only feed once a day, and their ar popelwho feed them every 2 days. if you dont have any coral in the tank, do a water change now, cover thtank with a blanket and add a phospahte removing resin. after about 3 days do another water change of 20% and change the phosphate resin, also vacuum 1/4 of the worms (only to remove them before they die, losing all that material\ to feed on of alot will die) and take the blanket off, continue with a normal 10% weekly water changes for the life of the aquarium, rinse and scrub all the rock loosly to remove dead material since you set it out to dry, put it back in the tank, and add a few powerhaeds to move the water around, red slime likes slow moving water, shoot for 10x tank flow as a bera bones minimium, 15 or 20 is alot better, it allows the rock to work better, sorry baout the looss, it can be salvaged but it will take a few months to begin looking good again. any other question we can help with repost. repost and tell evey piece of equipment you have, every detail ou can think of and we can help at more, what kidn of filter howmmcuh you feed, how often the filters are cahnged anything and everythign

Answer 6

bristleworms are'nt bad but some kinds can be predatory on really small slow fish (like clown gobies, especially at night) and corals, if you don't want them you can remove them.
the hard zit-like things sound likt the begginings of a tube worm colony, i got that and a bunch of tube worms sprouted up by the return pump of my filter. they are jut filter feeders and do no harm but may die if not fed.
i ouldn't start over. what are the water parameters of the tank? that may offer a clue to why the tank died.


EDIT: oh and the cyano does come form excess nutriment, just cut back of feeding a little and do more water changes and test your tapwater for nitrates or use RO water.
if it's diatoms (more brown than red) increase flow and use some kind of silicate remover (commercially made i like Kent's as a brand)

Answer 7

To prevent this, keep the tank out in Fresh Air. Meaning OUTSIDE. In a safe place. Also, the worms came from bacteria. So you might wanna wash your hands first. Another thing, it could also be you put too much salt.

Answer 8

you have bristle worm.