Disaster

Tuesday 29th May 2007

Arrived home to find tank cloudy. Very cloudy. Thought something must be wrong so immediately ran full set of tests.
Horrifying. Ammonia off the scale. Nitrite off the scale. Nitrate off the scale. All bad.

Did an immediate water change (about 20%).
It was actually my first water change (probably shouldn't have been but until today tests had been fine). Made ANOTHER mistake by not thinking about salt and having to add salt AFTER I'd added the water. Ended up stirring as I added it. Far from ideal.

I also removed the black sponge (1st level filter) and found it, to my surprise, full of worms.
On checking with the guys at the fishkeeping forum I decided to bin this and replace it with filter wool (which luckily had just been delivered).

Alvin (the starfish) looks sick. Limp and moving hardly at all. The bright coloured stripes on his body have faded to almost nothing. I am most concerned about him.

Crabs have gone completely lifeless. Still living but not moving as they usually do.

Have read up on how to do a water change in a marine tank and feel I do not have enough kit to do it the recommended way but will definitely be adding salt to the water BEFORE adding the water to the tank.