How Are My Water Parameters?

[Dcole12]

Hi Everyone,

I have one clownfish and had a coral beauty and a YWM Goby, but the coral beauty died after two days and the YWM Goby died after a week. My clownfish I have had for over a month, but I am unsure to why they are dying. I slowly acclimated both of them. Took me roughly 30-45 minutes to acclimate them. The YWM Goby did great for the first few days, but changed extremely quick and came home and he was dead. These are my parameters:

Salinity - 1024
Ph - 8.2 - What should this beat? I do see it says online 7.2-8.6 is like where it should be at for the average reef tank.
Ammonia - 0 if anything maybe in between a 0 - .2,
Alkalinity is 3.21.
Nitrate is at a 5.
Water Temp 75-76 degrees.

I do not have a calcium tester or phosphate. From these levels what should I do. I am planning on buying a protein skimmer within the next week.

Fish Plans:
Clownfish
YWM Goby
Wrasse
Dottyback

Corals:
Bubble tips
Zoanthids
Suggestions on this? I want ones with good amount of movement as well.

 

[S.K.]

Hi
What is your tank size?
How are your corals doing?

 

[Dcole12]

I have a 46 gallon bow front. Sorry for the confusion. I currently do not have any corals. The only thing I have in the tank is a clownfish as well as 20 snails and 2 hermit crabs currently.

 

[S.K.]

How long have your tanks been set up for?

 

[Dcole12]

My tanks been up and running for about 3 months. The clownfish has been in it for month-1.5 months

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The parameters you show are fine. I presume the alkalinity is in meq/l, not dKH.

I’d personally raise the salinity to a specific gravity to about 1.0264

 

[Idoc]

Your alkalinity is being annotated in meq/L, and not dKH, correct?
3.21 meq/L is close to 9dKH...which would be ok. But if you are annotating in dKH then a 3.21 is very acidic...which wouldn't make much sense since your pH is over 8.

But, I would suspect your fish are succumbing to a disease in order to die that quickly and with little warning...especially if you are not quarantining and prophylactically treating your fish. Do you have pictures of the fish before and after?

 

[Dcole12]

yes, as dKH it is a 9. But that was listed as a 9. I might have pictures of before and after. I think I do of the YWM Goby. The second one was either earlier today or yesterday. The first picture was the day we got him.
Sorry for not being so clear.

 

[S.K.]

I think your fishes must been ill before you got them

 

[Dcole12]

I think that they were. My Clownfish that I have had for over a month - month and half did die.. I need to set up a QT tank.