I’m so confused

[Joshifer]

Checking water with api kit like I always use. Everything even nitrates are all registering 0 even the ph wasn’t even a color on the chart. 

 

Last i checked the.  Nitrates were 20 and the ph was 8.0. I didn’t do any water changes just fresh water top offs for evap. 

 

One of the the hitch hiker hermits died. The heck is going on with this water and theirs big dead pods everywhere. Maybe not enough oxygen idk anymore 

Edited September 11, 2019 by Joshifer

[Origami]

Salinity? Where are you sourcing your topoff water? Any reason to think that copper is in your tank?

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[Joshifer]

Salinity is 1.025 temps about 77° I’m using bottled distilled water and the salt water premade from reef escape.
I did have a lid on it I’m thinking gas exchange/low oxygen for the dead critters.

As for why the test kit is all negative i have no idea. It’s a brand new kit. And it was showing results last week.

As for copper no idea the tank was brand new in box. Maybe the rock is starting to leech out copper if it was ever exposed to it. No way of knowing that. But then again the hermits came out of it after a few days.

I removed the lid and the other hermits starting moving around after about 20 mins. I ordered a small powerhead to get more oxygen in there. And put a little prime for the hermits.


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[Joshifer]

Things like hermit crabs can’t get velvet or anything like that can they? Now I’m paranoid I don’t wanna go thru velvet again that was a nightmare. I mean the rock could possibly have the little cyst egg things. Ugh I’m staying Fishless til Next month. And if these hermits don’t make it I’m turning the heater up to 90 and ignoring the tank for a month.

 

 

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[Origami]

No, they don't suffer the disease, but the can inadvertently carry eggs and larvae on their shells. These will eventually die if a host is never available.

Rapid salinity change (esp decrease) can be hard on crustaceans.

It's possible that the hermits are attacking one another, too. Gotta feed them.

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[Joshifer]

I was feeding them shrimp pellets every other day. But anyway their all dead now. 

 

Im gonna do a water test when I get home and hopefully something registers. I don’t have a copper kit but maybe reef escape can check a water sample for me for copper. 

 

Next question. I remember reading about turning up the heater to accelerate any parasite spores life cycles. thus killing them off because no host.  Will let’s say 85-90° water temp kill my beneficial bacteria? I’m waiting on ups truck for the power head today so that’ll give more oxygen for the heated water. 

[Origami]

You won't kill the most saltwater parasites at temperatures that low. You'd probably need to go up well beyond 120 and possibly to 160. Not worth it. Raising the temperature just accelerates the life cycle. So, if there's no host through that accelerated life cycle, the life cycle ends.

 

http://www.mrsaltwatertank.com/terrible-advice-tuesdays-what-really-kills-ich-cryptocaryon-irritants/

 

Sorry for the loss of your hermits. 

[Joshifer]

You won't kill the most saltwater parasites at temperatures that low. You'd probably need to go up well beyond 120 and possibly to 160. Not worth it. Raising the temperature just accelerates the life cycle. So, if there's no host through that accelerated life cycle, the life cycle ends.
 
http://www.mrsaltwatertank.com/terrible-advice-tuesdays-what-really-kills-ich-cryptocaryon-irritants/
 
Sorry for the loss of your hermits. 

Ugh my heater doesn’t go that high.

So I just did a test everything’s still 0 the ph registered 7.8. Saltinity is constant. I just don’t understand how my nitrates went from 20 to 0. Purigen is good but it’s not that good lol

Being the tank is devoid of all life now that I know of. I got my dr tims today. Should I put a cap full and some of that ammonia it comes with and see what it registers tomorrow?


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[Origami]

Ha! And neither would you want it to go that high. You might as well just pour a bunch of bleach in the tank and kill everything off. No, that's not the way to go.

 

Out of curiosity, what kind of ammonia are you using? It's just pure diluted ammonia, right? Non-scented, no coloring, etc.?

 

Nitrates are not all that bad nor are they lethal at low levels. It's likely that something else happened. How long did you have them before they died?

[Joshifer]

Just now, Origami said:

Ha! And neither would you want it to go that high. You might as well just pour a bunch of bleach in the tank and kill everything off. No, that's not the way to go.

 

Out of curiosity, what kind of ammonia are you using? It's just pure diluted ammonia, right? Non-scented, no coloring, etc.?

 

Nitrates are not all that bad nor are they lethal at low levels. It's likely that something else happened. How long did you have them before they died?

 

Nuking it crossed my mind but I didn’t wanna wash the sand lol. 

 

Non scented pure clear ammonia before. Now I have the one dr Tims sells ammonia chlor-something.  As for the hermits. I put the rock in aug 30th? They came out like two days after and went to work on the rock. Then I started giving a pellet to keep them fed. One died yesterday. And the other 3 died today. I removed the bodies whole. But yesterday I woke up to the sand bed littered in big orange pods. But no ammo or trite spikes. That was the first thing I thought of.  This is why I’m so confused. 

 

My next step is do nothing. For the next few weeks besides top off fresh water lol. Maybe I’ll save the dr tims one and only when I get a fish as a buffer. 

[Origami]

Non-scented, clear ammonia should be sufficient. But thanks for contributing to Dr. Tim's retirement fund.

 

Let things settle out and try just one hermit next time. 

[Joshifer]

The orange copepod things tho. Don’t they turn from grey to orange when theirs a lack of oxygen? Maybe I suffocated everything the lid was tight the only water movement was the stock return pump which didn’t even disturb my sand bed.


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[Joshifer]

Alright so it was bugging me why did everything go blank so I dosed liquid ammonia. It converted it to 1ppm nitrite. And now I have 5ppm nitrate. The ammonia is 0. This is in the matter of idk 3 hours. So tomorrow I’ll do another test if nitrite is 0 and my nitrates up my cycle is working. And it was an oxygen/flow thing. I’m still waiting for the power head amazon says by 9pm tonight.

I took the lid off my PH went up to 8.0. So I guess it was the lid. No air. No flow. No gas exchange. I kept the lid on to stop evap because the AC is never off in the house but I guess that just made things worst lol. That lid has no cutouts it’s just a big plastic square with crappy LEDs on it covers the entire thing even the filter. I think I’ll have my friend 3D print one but make the whole thing mesh and it’ll fit perfectly.


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[Origami]

That's a good operating theory. Also, adding ammonia stimulates aerobic bacteria growth. This can definitely affect oxygen levels. Low pH can also indicate accumulation of CO2 and poor gas exchange. The orange cooepod thing is something I'm not familiar with. However, it's possible and perhaps plausible that depleted oxygen was at fault.

It's worth addressing and testing.

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[Joshifer]

That's a good operating theory. Also, adding ammonia stimulates aerobic bacteria growth. This can definitely affect oxygen levels. Low pH can also indicate accumulation of CO2 and poor gas exchange. The orange cooepod thing is something I'm not familiar with. However, it's possible and perhaps plausible that depleted oxygen was at fault.

It's worth addressing and testing.

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I’m only basing my theory about the orange pods is because when I’m in Florida fishing we use live shrimp. And when the oxygen gets low in the bait bucket they start to turn orange. Well hopefully tomorrow that trite turns to trate thanks again Tom for your help.


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[Joshifer]

(Sponge bob voice) 4 hours later

 

it ate the nitrites lol their gone. I guess I didn’t have enough oxygen and gas exchange. The hydrometer I have is that fluval one with the suction cup I keep it in there to see if theirs swings in the salinity.  And my temp is also constant. 

 

Amazon failed with my one my one day delivery didn’t get the power head today. Hopefully tomorrow. Get some flow in there and I feel bad testing out a hermit but I need to know if that was the problem. But first I’ll have them check my water for copper before getting it. If the hermit lives. I’ll get a light and some coral. If he dies. 8 more weeks of winter 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Joshifer

[ImGoingCoastal]

You should get yourself a refractometer instead of the hydrometer. They can be picked up pretty cheap on Amazon or eBay. Just make sure to calibrate it and test the accuracy occasionally (an aquarium shop should be able to help you).

Additionally, it seems to me like you might want to consider slowing down. Seems like you might be trying to rush things and are causing yourself some issues.

Lastly, post a picture of your setup. It might enable others to help out.

You mentioned having a 5 gallon tank. Does it have an ATO? If not, you're definitely going to have to stay on top of topping off with RO.

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[Joshifer]

Oh I’m not rushing lol I don’t think you was around before I put fish in the same day In 2012 . They somehow made it for a long time I actually sold that whole setup because I moved to another state.

I plan on waiting til October for fish even tho I’m
Cycled. I don’t wanna risk velvet being in the system I went thru that with my 2nd tank. the LFS actually will QT and treat the fish and hang on to them til your ready providing you prepay. I wish I did that last time.

I’m curious and like to see what makes things tick. The vanishing nitrates and lack of oxygen and gas exchanges sparked my curiosity once the hermits just suddenly dropped dead. So I did experiments in an empty tank the other day.

I do not have a ato i was looking at some online last night a lot of the reviews were bad even on some of the more expensive ones.

The tank is just a basic AIO 5 gallon. Running stock return pump. Heater. Purigen. The rock came from established old tank. That white branch oranament is reef safe and very porous I’m trying to make it “alive”





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[Joshifer]

Power head installed. Surface agitation and flow. Removed lid. Hope that was the problem. Gas exchange and oxygen.


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[AlanM]

Are you totally sure that coral decoration is reef safe? It looks like the kind of dry branchy coral that is sold in home goods stores, so I can't guess what was done to it.  If it came out of someone's tank and you know where it came from then it's a pretty good bet that it's reef safe.

 

Also, why does your sand have two different colors or is that an optical illusion?

[Joshifer]

Oh that. I got it online the packaging it came with says

 

Safe for all Fresh or Salt Water Aquariums

Durable quality and non-toxic

Detailed accurately to look like real corals

Highly porous for beneficial bacteria growth

Made of bleached crushed sea shells and coral

 

I’m debating if I wanna attach a GSP or Xenia to it later and have it take over the whole thing or just let coralline algae take over it.

 

As for my sand. Probably a optical illusion. My cameras not all that good I still got a iPhone 6 lol

 

 

 

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[AlanM]

Nice.  I do like it a lot.  It's cool that they made it out of crushed material and kept it porous.

[Joshifer]

53 minutes ago, AlanM said:

Nice.  I do like it a lot.  It's cool that they made it out of crushed material and kept it porous.

 

Yeah it’s pretty cool. I’m getting my light Sunday and I’m gonna test a hermit in there and see how he does. If all goes well I wanna attach some kinda matting softy to it. I know people here toss it out but I love’em

[Joshifer]

Bacterial bloom today yayyyyy. Their isn’t any critters in there so just gotta let it do it’s thing. 

I think I did it with my ammonia experiment. 

 

Well better now then later when I invest in fish/critters/coral and it suffocates them by taking up all the oxygen. 

[zygote2k]

Josh-

 

like you said in your “I’m back” post- you’re ready to listen.

 

the best advice I can give you is to Slow Down. 

It seems like you always rush things and make mistakes that could have been avoided.

Your tank may have cycled the nitrogen, but has it gone through the whole algae cycle yet? 

Wait till it grows nasty hair algae and then add CUC to deal with it, then add fish.

 

Everyone here in America wants everything right now, including a cycled tank full of fish and corals within a month of purchase. It’s just not realistic and problems always occur with that method.

Just look back through all your old posts from years ago....

 

I’d suggest letting your tank cycle for a full month at minimum without adding anything more than those 2 hermits.