Hello Everyone,
I may have a problem, but not sure. Three to four days ago my favorite starfish died, one day it was fine, and the next I noticed holes forming in it's body underneath. My other starfish has skin disappearing and it's concerning. My ammonia and nitrate read under 0.25ppm. Nitrates around 5ppm. No phosphate, and there definitely shouldn't be copper. Temperature 76. Specific gravity 1.025. dkH 11.
Now this could be the source of the problem, but not sure. There is an extremely small red worm like animal that is becoming abundant in my sand in the tank, so small I can't get a picture of and would need a microscope to actually see details. There's thousands of them and after close observation they cover even my snails. It is definitely an animal by the way it moves, initally I thought they were baby cerith excrement. I have tiny little clams in the my tank that live in my live rock and thousands of these tiny red almost unseeable animals may have begun to eat them, and are on my snails, and may have been munching my starfish.
I am tempted to use a parasite/ich killer made by kordon but don't want to make a decision that will kill invertebrates in my invertebrate heavy tank. Is there a dosage I can use that will kill these almost microscopic guys that won't harm my tank life? I haven't attached pictures, as 4-6 of them can exist on a grain of aragonite sand by Caribsea and my camera can't do take pictures that small.
Days ago I attempted to feed my starfish clams instead of freeze dried shrimp because people sometimes recommend feeding your starfish store bought clams or shrimp but I think this pest came in on a storebought clam. Does anyone have any advice?
I may have a problem, but not sure. Three to four days ago my favorite starfish died, one day it was fine, and the next I noticed holes forming in it's body underneath. My other starfish has skin disappearing and it's concerning. My ammonia and nitrate read under 0.25ppm. Nitrates around 5ppm. No phosphate, and there definitely shouldn't be copper. Temperature 76. Specific gravity 1.025. dkH 11.
Now this could be the source of the problem, but not sure. There is an extremely small red worm like animal that is becoming abundant in my sand in the tank, so small I can't get a picture of and would need a microscope to actually see details. There's thousands of them and after close observation they cover even my snails. It is definitely an animal by the way it moves, initally I thought they were baby cerith excrement. I have tiny little clams in the my tank that live in my live rock and thousands of these tiny red almost unseeable animals may have begun to eat them, and are on my snails, and may have been munching my starfish.
I am tempted to use a parasite/ich killer made by kordon but don't want to make a decision that will kill invertebrates in my invertebrate heavy tank. Is there a dosage I can use that will kill these almost microscopic guys that won't harm my tank life? I haven't attached pictures, as 4-6 of them can exist on a grain of aragonite sand by Caribsea and my camera can't do take pictures that small.
Days ago I attempted to feed my starfish clams instead of freeze dried shrimp because people sometimes recommend feeding your starfish store bought clams or shrimp but I think this pest came in on a storebought clam. Does anyone have any advice?