my saltwater tank

[jason_912]

OK, I have had my 90 gal saltwater tank running for approx 3 years now; I have an Eheim 2026 professional II canister filter w/filter media and a emperor 400 hang on filter as filtration. Also my protein skimmer, which is a (Red Sea Berlin Turbo XL Skimmer). I have approx 50-60lbs of liverock, 1" (less in some areas) of crushed coral on the bottom (changed approx once per 10-12mths). 300w digital display heater set at 79 degrees. Over time I have had lots of fish, and sadly have had lots of fish die. I bought a porcupine puffer fish, yellow tang, and blue hippo tang and a 6" snowflake moray eel all at the same time 3 years ago. I know tangs are not supposed to keep together but I took a chance. They all lived for 3 years together, 2 mths ago the puffer fish became ill and lazy and died, 2 weeks ago, the yellow tang died. The day before he seemed TOTALLY fine. The eel, now at 20" jumped out of the tank last week and I found him on the floor when I came home from work!!! The hippo tang seems okay, just his fins are a bit torn up, not sure why. I do water changes at least once a month (20%) and all of my water readings are okay, nitrates are the only thing that reads 10ppm. I do not know why I am still having fish die. A friend recently mentioned the possibility of having stray electric current running thru the water because of the submerged heater and skimmer. Is this a possibility? What do I do to fix this?? Please let me know what I can do to possibly correct this problem. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post.

[junior]

that stray electrical current has been a myth for sometime, some people swear by it, but as for me I think they are full of it. The thought behind it is that because the tank is not grounded the current just sits in the tank and affects a fish, but use this reasoning, think of the guys that work on high voltage lines, they are able to handle close to 1 million volts with no real injury(maybe small burns) . The reason for this is that they aren't grounded, now at this voltage they do need a special suit, ok a bit off target here. There isn't enough voltage to affect the fish, period. You buy a ground wire but I have run a 180 gallon system with very large pumps to 1g tanks with powerheads, never have I seen this problem exist.
If there was a loose current you would feel a tingle when touching the water because you are grounded
Was there any heavy breathing before hand? Also have you checked your ammonia levels as of late, or just nitrate and nitrite. I know most fish store only check those to. Also what salt do you use, there the freak batches, did this start happening when you bought a new barrel?

thanks
JR

[jason_912]

Thanks for the reply. I have tested for ammonia recently, and I have 0ppm reading. The sale I use, and have always used is Instant Ocean, I buy it bigalsonline.com, seems to be the least $$ there. The problem has not recently begun after adding new salt. There is no tingle when touching the water. Do the filtration and other things seem okay, I thought that they were plently to handle a 90 gal tank. Thanks again,
Jason

[junior]

If you want my personal opinion about the set up, I would take that canister filter off.
This is what I use on all my tanks big and small. High-flow pumps, protein skimmer, fuge and live rock.
With this set up I have even been able to negelect a certain tank for up to a year(no water changes) and as long as I supplement with additives(calcium, etc.) I was able to keep the water quality to a very high standard, I never had readable nitrates, EVER.
Now this isn't needed for a fish only tank and it seems you have a good set-up, the berlin is a little weak for the tank but shouldn't have a problem with that amount of load.
Also I would recommend to stop replacing the crushed coral, it just forces a small cycle on the tank.
As for that canister, the only problem with them is that they become nitrate and phosphate factories, what I usually do with them is remove the filters unless I absolutely need to polish the tank(avoids that afore mentioned problem).
As for the tangs not supposed to be kept together that is debatable, I go a different way than most people and this is from experience. I found as long as the body types of the tangs differ and you choose mildly aggresive tangs, you can keep quite a few together. When I say different body types I mean like the hippo and the yellow tang, yes they are competitiors of the same food but usually they will leave each other alone be because they look different. For a while I was able to have so many different tangs that they would school still with no aggression what so ever, just pick them carefully.
I still wouldn't even consider the stray current, I would really go with some disease but you seemed to be a commited owner(most don't do their regular water changes).
As I think about this have you noticed any algea blooms?
Do you use tap water?
How old is the bucket of IO?
Is there anyway some could have dropped something in the tank, like a solvent of some kind?

Good Luck
JR

[jason_912]

well, due to the sole fact that I just spent alomost $200 dollars on the filter, I am going to leave it on. Plus the water changes and tank maintence have become regular chores for me. And the Berlin skimmer was pretty expensive also, not that cost makes it productive but I read alot of good things about it. I have been told that changing the crushed coral was necessary because over time the minerals that are in the coral become exhausted. Not true?? I notice some algae on the live rocks, which i think is normal and a steady growth on the inside of the tank, less now that the canister filter is running (it has been running for 1 month now) before that I had only the emperor 400 and the skimmer. I use tap water, after it sits for 20hrs, and ammolock is added to remove chlorine and other toxins and the IO bucket is relatively new (3mths). And I would strongly doubt that something was accidentlly dropped in the tank. What benifit would the canister filter removal have? I thought that it would help my problem. Is too much filtration a bad thing? thanks
Jason

[junior]

Did these problem start happening, soon after you added the canister filter.

It is all an opinion and that is what I am giving you, most from experience and the huge amount of reading I have done. Everyone has there own way of building there saltwater tanks, I am just giving my tryed and true method. I worked at a fish store for about 2 years and I had built this system for many of my customers, they were all able to keep very sensitive fish with no problems, some of there fish are now nearing on 10 years(they had them before).
To much filtration is never a bad thing but the difference between saltwater and freshwater, is that you want to extract the waste before it can break down, instead of trap it and force it to convert to nitrates. The reason for this is because saltwater is much less hardy. A canister filter traps the waste, so if I was you I would either do a weekly cleaning of the filter to avoid that build up or just use the canister to create more flow. The idea in more flow is keeping the waste in the water collumn, so that the protein skimmer can collect it and remove it before it has a chance to break down.

On a side not you don't need that ammolock, most salt mixes have a chlorine neutralizer in them. I am almost possitive IO is one of those salts. Most of those chlorine killers cause the skimmer to go crazy, not sure on which brands.

As for the berlin, I did have one at one point but the more I read about them is that they were the top of the line in their hayday, but with the development of the downdraft skimmer, they were surpassed. Now that you have the skimmer it will work, but an urchin pro can be bought for cheaper and easily handle a 90g. Just remember that next time you need to get a skimmer. The reason they are so much better is that they can slow the bubbles from raising to the surface because they must fight against the current. The longer the bubbles stay in contact with the water the more waste they can attach to.

good luck
JR