Antsh

Yes, my weekly change was on Sunday.

Hi all, My occelaris has been acting strange for about two days now. He's been lying on/near the sand and has rapid gill movement. I've done some research and I'm confused because he doesn't match all the symptoms of some clownfish diseases. I haven't notice any discoloration, sores, redness, or mucuous. I have noticed that my black occelaris seems to be picking on him more than usual. The larger, black clown will push the small (sick?) clown around with his nose, but there is no biting. He also still seems interested in food, which I guess is a good sign. Do you guys think this could be a disease, or just stress from being picked on? Thanks

Well, I got the premixed RODI water. It was heated up to 77F from the car drive home, so I went ahead, added it and turned the sump on. Fish got freaked from the bubbles in the return line, but other than that, I don't think they even noticed. I'm not sure that they are too keen on the new water flow. It's basically going in one direction now (left to right, with about 500 GPH), but I suppose they'll get use to it. I guess its time to save up for a RO/DI unit. Thanks again for everyone's help.

I think I figured it out. I found a post here, entitled "Nitrites in aged mixed saltwater": http://www.wetwebmedia.com/no2probfaqs.htm The user mentions that he mixed his water near some cat litter boxes and noticed that only after aerating the water did it have traces of ammonia and nitrite. When he stopped aerating the water, the nitrite disappeared. I've had a new batch of water mixing for about 4-5 days and I just tested it. The ammonia was sky high and there was nitrite present. I've also tested after mixing water for my PWC (which, as I mentioned before, I don't really let it sit out) and both readings have been zero. I mix my water in the laundry room, and there are two animal cages outside the laundry door with a noticeable "ammonia scent". I think for now I am going to go and get premixed saltwater from a LFS, put it next to the tank and run a heater and powerhead (without airline) in there and use that. Does anyone else have any experience with their water becoming contaminated after sitting out? I may run a test with different buckets of water with both aeration and none to see if there are any changes in the readings.

Sorry, I missed that question. It was left out about four hours or so. I usually wait until the salt mix isn't cloudy anymore when I do my PWC.

I see. Would that situation also cause a new diatom bloom?

I did remove the urchin has soon as I noticed it was dead. It wasn't really decomposed at all. I use the API liquid drops and some test strips. They both report similar numbers (hard to tell if they're exactly right, because the strips go in intervals of 10, but both tests are close).

I feed about twice a week using these small pellets I got from BRK. I can't remember the brand right now. I've actually been using tap water for top offs and water changes. I've been saving up for a filtering system, but haven't been able to get one yet. I've tested the tap water for nitrates and it came up with zero. I also use Amquel+ and Novaqua+ and I get a zero reading for chlorine after using those two products. I think I may go purchase some RO/DI water just to get the sump up and running, in case the water is the culprit. The tank's been perfectly healthy for months, though, so I'm not sure if its the water :-/

Yeah, but I guess it naturally cooled down running through the sump. I'm sure it would have gone down more than 2 degrees if the water was room temperature.

That's actually what I did last time. I siphoned water out of the DT into the sump, then added new water to the DT. Could a sudden temperature change have caused my problems? The tank normally runs at 78, but it dropped to 76 when I turned the sump on. I was trying to get the heater back to a good setting, because the extra water volume meant I had to turn it up. So, I think the tank topped out at 79 or so. I'm still trying to get the temperature back to normal. It was 78 last night, and this morning it was almost 80.

I'll probably try again this weekend... I suppose I'll go slow and hope the same thing doesn't happen again.

I did add carbon a few days ago. The display tank is a 46 gallon bow front. I didn't notice any change to skimmate production. I actually need to take the skimmer apart b/c it doesn't appear to be producing the same amount of bubbles as it used to. The SPG is about 1.025 and my girlfriend (who's at home with the tank) just told me that the pH appears to be 8.0. Here are some parameters that she reported today: Nitrate: 40 Nitrite: 0 Alkalinity: 300PH: 8.0 I try to keep the nitrates at 20ppm or lower. Which is the main reason I installed the sump. After installing it, I tested and saw the nitrates had dropped a lot. I also had some chaeto and a light bulb in the sump to help. I'm not too sure why the they are so high right now, but since they were so low when the urchin was sick, I'm not sure if they are to blame. In the past, I've had 40ppm nitrate and all of my inverts seemed perfectly normal.

Thanks for the reply. Everything was brand new. I did a freshwater test run with the return pump, but I didn't try to clean it with anything. The tubing was this poly stuff I got from my LFS. The only livestock I have (that I added myself) are the two ocellaris, a few dwarf hermit crabs, some different types of snails, and the now deceased urchin. I got the 20L new, but I did spray it with some vinegar/water and wiped it off, just to clean the glass. It was dry before I added any water, though. The water did appear to be cloudy after turning the return pump on. I assumed it was microbubbles, but maybe it was bacteria/algae...

Well, I got everything set up and started up my new 20L sump. I noticed that my tuxedo urchin started acting funny. He dropped all of the things he was carrying and wasn't moving as much as usual. I also noticed that my two ocellaris's were staying at the bottom of the tank. Two days ago the urchin died... so, I took the sump offline and am just running my tank. The fish still aren't acting completely normal, but they are moving about more. I'm not sure if this is related, but I also noticed another brown diatom bloom after installing the sump. I did notice that there was a small ammonia spike after installing the sump. I'm not sure if I stirred up the sandbed, or what caused it. It didn't last for very long, but I'm thinking maybe that killed the urchin. All of my other inverts are acting normal, though. Plus, its been a few days since the spike, and my fish still aren't acting completely normal. I also notice a large amount of corraline algae seems to have died... Does anyone know why my tank would start to die after installing a sump? I made sure the salinity and temperature were matched up, so I'm not sure what would cause this. It's kind of disheartening since the tank has been running fine for a few months :-/

I have heard that they can change colors... I just never thought the colors would be so different (pink and blue) from what their pigment normally shows. I did notice the black and white had a lot more orange coming through this morning, but I just chalked it up to the night/day cycle. I am running one of those 50/50 lights...