Jump to content

Afraid my tank is starting to crash


finaddict

Recommended Posts

I came home this evening and all my zoas were closed up. I noticed my birdsnest had black dots all over the bottom of the branches. My trumpets were much more closed than normal. Temp is normal 76.8, salinity is steady at 1.025. I have not done all the other tests yet. I have made a bunch of changes since Saturday. I added a pink linchia star, a big open brain coral and a smalll branching monti I think. I dipped the brain and monti and slowly acclimated the star. I also bought reef chili so after the corals were in I fed reef chili and the Corals seemed to react well. That all happened on Saturday. Last night I added 8 drops of phosrx which I do about once a month even though my phosphates always read low. I have a small amount of hair algae that I m trying to get rid of. Oh yeah one other change.. about 1 week Go I added new sand.. about 5 lbs of dry dead sand. I do 6 gallons of water changes every week and my tank is 36 gals. I have a skimmer and a hob filter that I have gfo in a bag and carbon in a bag...

 

Any ideas what could be going on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did you rinse the GFO and carbon before adding??? That could be why there are black dots? Are you tumbling the GFO or keeping in the same bag as carbon? It can break apart if you do this. Test for Nitrate, Thad what my tank crash was. If you can, add a pic of the "black dots" and try blowing it off the birdsnest.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

test for alk, ca, mg, n03, po4 and keep records. this is the only way to determine and monitor the health of the tank. anything else is guesswork.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

test for alk, ca, mg, n03, po4 and keep records. this is the only way to determine and monitor the health of the tank. anything else is guesswork.

+1

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I looked at the tank this am and everything was closed up tight which is pretty normal since my lights dont come on this early. I do keep up very regular (weekly) with testing and water changes and I will run the tests again when I get home. The only thing I have been adjusting is salinity because I always left it around 1.026 but with evaporation it would creep up slightly and my Duncans hate it over 1.026 so I have been adding more fresh water during water changes and right now my salinity is steady at 1.024 to 1.025.  I also dropped the temp in the tank over the last few weeks from 78-79 down to 76-77 because I read that turbo snails don't do well over 78.

 

I cant imagine a change like those would have any impact on the tank. I suspect something I did over the weekend with the new corals is causing my problem. I bought the corals at Fintastic in Frederick and everything they had looked great and I dipped the corals before adding them. However with the Star fish I diluted the store water that it came in with my water over the course of an hour or two and then put the star in my tank along with the water in its container. The star is doing fine in my tank right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, I think the black dots I was seeing on the bottom of the birdsnest were just closed up polyps.  My birdsnest always has great polyp extension and for some reason I think the polyps on the bottom of the branches were just closed up which look like specs of black.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is it possible that a hermit crab just walked over all of those zoas and that something messed with the polyps on the birdsnest?  I've had the same thing happen to a pile of zoas which normally open over time, and I've definitely seen a birdsnest get unhappy and close up for a while with those black dots only to come back at some point. 

 

Did you rinse the corals very well after dipping?

 

I don't think variations in salinity like you describe would make that big of a difference.  Definitely lower is better than higher once you get around 1.026, though.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I ran home at lunch time and checked the tank and everything is looking much better. Something more than a crab caused everything to close up because I have zoas in all corners of my tank and they were all reacting badly along with the birdsnest and the trumpets and my acans even looked a little contracted.  Almost all of the zoas are back to normal and the trumpet looks great.  A few zoas are till hiding but I think whatever caused the disruption seems to have dissipated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...