tstag
Community Member
Help I’ve just put 5 Turbo snails and two Cleaner shrine in my tank and I think they’ve all died within hours.
Although I’m new to reef tanks I believe I’ve cycled my tank correctly. I started with dry rock and live sand as I didn’t want to import any nasties. I have a seemingly happy Midas Blenny and for a while a few happy Zoas and Green star Polyps.
Anyway the corals started to close up so I looked at my levels and found that Nitrates were reading at zero.
I realised that using bio pellets in a reactor was stripping all the nitrates out so I switched it off. I thought that nitrates would then creep back up from zero and the corals would improve. Sure enough the corals started very gradually to look happier this week. Then disaster.
Algae was getting way out of control, it’s all over the rocks, I’ve got the hairy stuff and what looks like red Coraline algae starting in the sand and spreading to the rocks. So now I thought let’s send in the clean up crew.
In went 5 Turbo snails and two cleaner shrimps. Within a few hours all 5 snails dropped off the glass and the shrimps were dead. But why?
My levels all look enough to keep them happy I think:
Ammonia - maybe marginally above 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
Phosphates: 0.2
Salinity: 1.024
I’m planning to run carbon now in the reactor and will be switching it back on imminently so if Ammonia is slightly elevated (and I’m not convinced it is, I may have just been looking at the colours for too long) then that will bring it back down but I am just tying to get some nitrates in.
But what could be killing the snail and the shrimp? I’m at a total loss. To be clear I don’t think it can be copper contamination as I’ve not use anything that I know has it. Any ideas?
Although I’m new to reef tanks I believe I’ve cycled my tank correctly. I started with dry rock and live sand as I didn’t want to import any nasties. I have a seemingly happy Midas Blenny and for a while a few happy Zoas and Green star Polyps.
Anyway the corals started to close up so I looked at my levels and found that Nitrates were reading at zero.
I realised that using bio pellets in a reactor was stripping all the nitrates out so I switched it off. I thought that nitrates would then creep back up from zero and the corals would improve. Sure enough the corals started very gradually to look happier this week. Then disaster.
Algae was getting way out of control, it’s all over the rocks, I’ve got the hairy stuff and what looks like red Coraline algae starting in the sand and spreading to the rocks. So now I thought let’s send in the clean up crew.
In went 5 Turbo snails and two cleaner shrimps. Within a few hours all 5 snails dropped off the glass and the shrimps were dead. But why?
My levels all look enough to keep them happy I think:
Ammonia - maybe marginally above 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
Phosphates: 0.2
Salinity: 1.024
I’m planning to run carbon now in the reactor and will be switching it back on imminently so if Ammonia is slightly elevated (and I’m not convinced it is, I may have just been looking at the colours for too long) then that will bring it back down but I am just tying to get some nitrates in.
But what could be killing the snail and the shrimp? I’m at a total loss. To be clear I don’t think it can be copper contamination as I’ve not use anything that I know has it. Any ideas?
