Invert issues - young lads first tank

[crazyparrot]

Hi there,

Looking for a little advice on critters on behalf of my son as we’re not having much luck on that front.

He’s 13 and has had his tank (fluval 60l spec marine) running for a year. It has the standard kit plus an added wave/flow maker and an ocean free hydra nano filter)

Background

Key inhabitants:
2x clowns
1x peppermint shrimp
2x red hermit crabs
4 specimens of soft coral (zoa, Kenya tree, star polyps & pulsing Xenia)

Everything above is doing great and he’s doing everything slowly as and when he has pocket money.

Weekly testing and water changes

The fish have marine flakes and the coral reef roids.

Levels all stable. Nitrate is a little elevated each week (no3 usually 1ppm, no2 between 0.05 and 0.1 ppm)

He also checks ph, po4, kh, no4, salinity & temp each week and they are all within recommended levels.
He also checks ph, po4, kh, no4, salinity & temp each week and they are all within recommended levels.

The big issue is that the small inverts keep dying. We’ve lost 2x conches, 5x turbo snails, 3x banded trochus snails over the year and yesterday (the big upset) a globe sea urchin which was about 3 months old.

The tank has quite a bit of hair algae at the moment and has had spots of red slime algae/cyno too. Plus the glass gets quite a few algae areas every couple of days. Is this what’s killing the clean up crew? Whilst there’s been lots of algae we haven’t been feeding them. But when it’s been cleaner looking they have seaweed strips every so often.

At a bit of a loss! Is it the bacteria, or slightly elevated no2 do you think? I know the critters are the first to show issues when things aren’t quite right.

Any advice much appreciated!

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO the tank is too clean and too small for conches. I've tried them a few times, they always die of hunger in my tanks, I've heard the same comment from others as well. So I would say skip on the conches.

and if you're losing that many snails, its makes me think there is not enough food. I count 10 snails in that small tank, but I have less than 10 in my 32 gallon in comparison. I just buy 1 or 2 as I need.

I dont think its a water chemistry issue, looking at the pic, its a nice little tank, I dont see much or enough algae that can support so many snails and conches.

If your son really want more little critters I would suggest to get the carnivore type snails, that will eat the left over food that the fishes miss. And carnivore snails are more colorful and fun than algae eating snails anyway IMO

 

[crazyparrot]

IMO the tank is too clean and too small for conches. I've tried them a few times, they always die of hunger in my tanks, I've heard the same comment from others as well. So I would say skip on the conches.

and if you're losing that many snails, its makes me think there is not enough food. I count 10 snails in that small tank, but I have less than 10 in my 32 gallon in comparison. I just buy 1 or 2 as I need.

I dont think its a water chemistry issue, looking at the pic, its a nice little tank, I dont see much or enough algae that can support so many snails and conches.

If your son really want more little critters I would suggest to get the carnivore type snails, that will eat the left over food that the fishes miss. And carnivore snails are more colorful and fun than algae eating snails anyway IMO

Thanks so much for the reply. I probably should say we didn’t have all those critters at once. No more than 3 at a time but over a year we’ve lost that many. Good to note on the conch front. We won’t try those again! Would love another sea urchin but want to make sure they are happy. Maybe we need to feed more seaweed if we get another.

 

[ss30]

Thanks so much for the reply. I probably should say we didn’t have all those critters at once. No more than 3 at a time but over a year we’ve lost that many. Good to note on the conch front. We won’t try those again! Would love another sea urchin but want to make sure they are happy. Maybe we need to feed more seaweed if we get another.

IMO the tank is too small for an urchin

 

[Piscans]

yeah all those are herbivores that starve in small tanks.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi there,

Looking for a little advice on critters on behalf of my son as we’re not having much luck on that front.

He’s 13 and has had his tank (fluval 60l spec marine) running for a year. It has the standard kit plus an added wave/flow maker and an ocean free hydra nano filter)

Background

Key inhabitants:
2x clowns
1x peppermint shrimp
2x red hermit crabs
4 specimens of soft coral (zoa, Kenya tree, star polyps & pulsing Xenia)

Everything above is doing great and he’s doing everything slowly as and when he has pocket money.

Weekly testing and water changes

The fish have marine flakes and the coral reef roids.

Levels all stable. Nitrate is a little elevated each week (no3 usually 1ppm, no2 between 0.05 and 0.1 ppm)

He also checks ph, po4, kh, no4, salinity & temp each week and they are all within recommended levels.
He also checks ph, po4, kh, no4, salinity & temp each week and they are all within recommended levels.

The big issue is that the small inverts keep dying. We’ve lost 2x conches, 5x turbo snails, 3x banded trochus snails over the year and yesterday (the big upset) a globe sea urchin which was about 3 months old.

The tank has quite a bit of hair algae at the moment and has had spots of red slime algae/cyno too. Plus the glass gets quite a few algae areas every couple of days. Is this what’s killing the clean up crew? Whilst there’s been lots of algae we haven’t been feeding them. But when it’s been cleaner looking they have seaweed strips every so often.

At a bit of a loss! Is it the bacteria, or slightly elevated no2 do you think? I know the critters are the first to show issues when things aren’t quite right.

Any advice much appreciated!

Nitrates are likely due to reef roids which are notorious for raising both nitrate and phosphate and with steady algae growth may confirm this. Because the tank is quite clean, the inverts may very well be starving especially conch which have high dietary requirement.
How are you acclimating the snails and for how long ?

 

[crazyparrot]

Nitrates are likely due to reef roids which are notorious for raising both nitrate and phosphate and with steady algae growth may confirm this. Because the tank is quite clean, the inverts may very well be starving especially conch which have high dietary requirement.
How are you acclimating the snails and for how long ?

Thanks - this is all very helpful. Maybe he has been over feeding the coral whilst not feeding the critters enough of what they need making the balance off. Interesting that none of them recommended for small tanks - none of the aquatics centres have mentioned that so good to hear from seasoned keepers.

Snails etc. have been introduced over 1-2 hours with tiny amounts of tank water added to the bags every 10 mins after the initial floating bag time. They all seem to happily last 2-3 months then die so lack of the correct food seems the most likely after reading the replies.
Many thanks

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks - this is all very helpful. Maybe he has been over feeding the coral whilst not feeding the critters enough of what they need making the balance off. Interesting that none of them recommended for small tanks - none of the aquatics centres have mentioned that so good to hear from seasoned keepers.

Snails etc. have been introduced over 1-2 hours with tiny amounts of tank water added to the bags every 10 mins after the initial floating bag time. They all seem to happily last 2-3 months then die so lack of the correct food seems the most likely after reading the replies.
Many thanks

Are you using bag water at introduction?
Have you verified salinity in the bags prior to release to assure it matches that of tank ?

I suspect high nitrates as a contributor to their deaths. While you can occasionally feed roids to corals, the food you feed the fish and their feces will feed the coral as well.

 

[kevgib67]

Are you using RO water or tap water. Inverts are very sensitive to heavy metal. Any rusted components?

 

[Rick's Reviews]

Yes unfortunately as your aquarium is very clean I fear the snails may have starved.
You may just not have the right type of algae for them to eat.
it sounds wierd right

'hair algae' once it reaches a certain height/growth... not many invertebrate will snack on it, if your cleaning your glass regulery then this also removes the algae they need to 'graze' on.

Its a tough call as you want a 'clean aquarium' for viewing pleasure but for invertebrates to survive, it needs to be abit more dirtier (sorry)

In regards to 'reef roids' I don't know anything about zoa's, but your other corals do not need this food, they will grow just under the lights (photosynthetic) so I would reduce adding reef roids, to the smallest amount possible, like close to nothing (a little goes along... Along way)
' Just my opinion '

I hope this helps you out, it's all just my opinion

 

[wwarby]

I'm in a somewhat similar situation - fairly new to the hobby and I've lost a few snails. I think I got some pretty questionable advice from my LFS on how heavily to stock with CUC, with something like 25 snails of various species including one conch, a tuxedo urchin, seven shrimp including two massive blood red shrimp and a couple of hermits. I added most of that all at once when my tank was covered in algae, and within two days it was spotless at which point I realised I had a problem. I've only got two clowns creating mess and they just don't create enough mess to feed my army of inverts.

I feed my clowns flake in the morning and frozen in the afternoon, but I'm also feeding a few pellets a day and and I've been adding nori or marine grazer aglae rings every two or three days to give the inverts more to eat. Even so I seem to be losing snails here and there (mostly money cowries for some reason). Based on my limited experience I'd agree with the consensus that hunger is at least part of what you're seeing. Might be worth adding a few pellets, although I think it depends which species you have - my nassurius snails seem to come out of the sand when the pellets go in, and the shrimps get very excited, but I struggle to understand how a tiny number of pellets could do any good at all given I'm feeding maybe one pellet for every 4 inhabitants (and I've found when I go much beyond that my nitrates start shooting up).

 

[flyingscampi]

I have a 60 litre, and have never had more than 2 Trochus snails and 1 hermit crab as CuC. When there wasn't a lot of
algae in the tank, I fed the crab small Hikari algae wafers.

The snails died after about a year, but they have been replaced by loads of tiny limpets, copepods, amphipods, and bristle worms that hitchhiked in. Between them and the crab which now has a shell the size of a ping pong ball, my rocks are clean. GHA only grows in areas the crab can't get to. I'm thinking of putting some mesh on the back of the tank (which I don't clean) so the crab can reach the GHA there.

I had that red slime until I raised nutrients to around 1 ppm PO4 and 20 ppm NO3 by feeding more. Generous feeding and careful nutrient management keeps everything happy and the tank clean. I only use a cannister filter for filtration which has floss, bio-media, GAC, and about 5 teaspoons of Tropic Marin GFO every month to help control PO4. I change about 8-10 litres of water a week.

 

[Sasquatchv]

NO2 should be undetectable in established tank, after 1-6 weeks depending on bacteria seeding method. I suspect testing error.