newish tank, inverts keep dying....

[BitR0t]

Hey all! I have a 1.5 month old 17 gallon tank, two frostbite clowns for a few weeks now, doing great. astrea, turbo, and margarita snail are doing fine. Pom Pom crab that was doing fine, but cant find him right now... have chaeto in the AIO on reverse photo period, copepods dosed before any fish added.

I saw what I think is bryopsis, and some general algae growth that was faster than the snails could handle, so I added a large amount of snails and crabs at once... 10 snails, Astrea, Cerith, and Nerites. Both star astreas died... at least one cerith died, maybe both, and it looks like all the Nerites are just fine. I also added an electric blue hermit, who never moved from where I placed him, but I did see him retract a few times. 2 days after adding him, he lost three legs, and now I believe he has died. I also added a Pitho crab, who was eating good the first two days, but I have not seen him since...

What the heck am I doing wrong? the snails came from a local fish store, the two crabs came from a sponsor here....

Tank heater is set to 75, I have spot checked it and it seems correct. I just started all for reef so I am still learning proper dose per day. all tests are salifter, except ammonia is Hanna, and salinity is Milwaukee

Parameters before adding

Nitrite 0.025
Nitrate 0
KH 9.3
PH 7.7
ammonia 0.1
Magnesium 1200
Phosphate 0
Calcium 430
Salinity 1.025

Parameters after death

Nitrite 0.05
Nitrate 0.05
KH 103
PH 8.15
ammonia 0.13
Magnesium 1275
Phosphate 0
Calcium 420
Salinity 1.025

 

[BryanM]

For starters, 0 nitrates and phosphates is not good. You should have detectable amounts of both. 5-20 nitrates, .1-.3 phosphates.

New tanks do not need dosing, and should be doing regular water changes which will replace trace elements.

Inverts do not always survive shipping, assuming you bought them online.

Any pics you can share, preferably under white lights?

 

[Tahoe61]

On a 1.5 month old tank there might not enough food to sustain that many snails in a 17 gallon tank.
Just my opinion but in such a young tank don't dose anything until you need to. Water changes for the first 4 to 6 months should be fine.

Happy Reefing.

 

[BitR0t]

For starters, 0 nitrates and phosphates is not good. You should have detectable amounts of both. 5-20 nitrates, .1-.3 phosphates.

New tanks do not need dosing, and should be doing regular water changes which will replace trace elements.

Inverts do not always survive shipping, assuming you bought them online.

Any pics you can share, preferably under white lights?

Forgive my ignorance, is there something about low phosphate and nitrates that will harm inverts?

I’ve tried turning my refugium light off for 3 days and couldn’t get nutrients up. I guess I’ll resort to manually adding them. I think I feed plenty, feeding Lrs nano reef food every other day to the clowns, then on the opposite day I feed them hikari marine s. Feed the tank phytoplankton about daily, and 2 times a week I’ll feed coral either reef roids or the smaller bits of fish from the lrs nano.

 

[BryanM]

Forgive my ignorance, is there something about low phosphate and nitrates that will harm inverts?

I’ve tried turning my refugium light off for 3 days and couldn’t get nutrients up. I guess I’ll resort to manually adding them. I think I feed plenty, feeding Lrs nano reef food every other day to the clowns, then on the opposite day I feed them hikari marine s. Feed the tank phytoplankton about daily, and 2 times a week I’ll feed coral either reef roids or the smaller bits of fish from the lrs nano.

I don't have experience feeding small tanks, but I will say that fish in the wild graze all day, and many of us here believe feeding 3-4x a day is good for fish.

Bottomed out nutrients aren't directly an issue for the inverts, but since the tank has no nutrients it is likely that algae can't grow, which is what they graze on, so you might be indirectly starving them.

Also, bottomed out nutrients are often cited as the reason someone gets dinos.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Pictures will help, its hard to imagine a lot of algae at 1.5 months, you should be getting brown diatoms about now.

Agree with others to stop dosing, your just pouring money into the tank at this point

 

[mcarroll]

Forgive my ignorance, is there something about low phosphate and nitrates that will harm inverts?

If dino's start to bloom due to the lack of N and P, then their toxicity will kill off inverts first (then other stuff later).

So zero nutrients leads to the condition that is anti-invert.

Could also be someyhing else "off" since you aren't doing water changes.

I’ve tried turning my refugium light off for 3 days and couldn’t get nutrients up. I guess I’ll resort to manually adding them.

In the short term dosing is the smart way to end the zero's. But disabling the macro algae system wold be the main thing.

I think I feed plenty, feeding Lrs nano reef food every other day to the clowns, then on the opposite day I feed them hikari marine s.

As long as you aren't overfeeding/wasting food you might be able to feed more. Definitely don't get into wasting food though.

Feed the tank phytoplankton about daily, and 2 times a week I’ll feed coral either reef roids or the smaller bits of fish from the lrs nano.

Don't feed the corals since that's almost 100% waste....you'll end up with algae and vermitid snails but your corals won't be any better off. The phyto might be helping (something?), but you might consider it optional.

 

[sgdnycct]

Your tank is way way way too young and small for such a large cleanup crew. I have a 120g and only have 10 snails.

As for feeding, increase that to 2-4x per day. This is better for your fish and will help up your nutrients.

For the macro, instead of turning off the light cut back on photoperiod to 3-4 hrs. Once nutrients start going up you can adjust the photoperiod to help manage it.

Sometimes we focus too much on cleaning up our tanks. Right now I’d focus on keeping it a little “dirtier” for lack of a better word: reduce macro photoperiod, stop adding CUC, increase feeding, and cut back or stop water changes. Once things settles (3-4 weeks) stat dialing your cleanup back up. Keep an eye on CUC. If they starve and keep dying they’ll introduce a lot of nutrients.

 

[BitR0t]

This is why I went wild with cleanup crew… I was thinking I probably had enough algae… and also the reason I can’t get nutrients to rise

 

[BitR0t]

As for water changes, I think I’ve only changed 2.5 gallons or 20% of my 13 water gallon volume in the 4 weeks I’ve had live stock. Lots of opinions even just in this thread that say that is too much and too little. I am dosing to maintain calc and don’t care about “throwing away money” 5ml of all for reef costs me 5 cents per day. I have RO and salt so I could just as easily swap water, but if I am testing and dosing, I guess I don’t understand how a water change is better than dosing, when I will definitely lose nutrients over time if I only do water changes.

 

[Walkadoc]

Nobody addressed the 75 water temp.. not sure that has an impact but 77-78 is where I would think you should be

 

[BitR0t]

Your tank is way way way too young and small for such a large cleanup crew. I have a 120g and only have 10 snails.

As for feeding, increase that to 2-4x per day. This is better for your fish and will help up your nutrients.

For the macro, instead of turning off the light cut back on photoperiod to 3-4 hrs. Once nutrients start going up you can adjust the photoperiod to help manage it.

Sometimes we focus too much on cleaning up our tanks. Right now I’d focus on keeping it a little “dirtier” for lack of a better word: reduce macro photoperiod, stop adding CUC, increase feeding, and cut back or stop water changes. Once things settles (3-4 weeks) stat dialing your cleanup back up. Keep an eye on CUC. If they starve and keep dying they’ll introduce a lot of nutrients.

A vendor here suggested I had an even larger cleanup crew than I did….

Yeah, I think I’ll turn my light on my chaeto wayyy down, thinking about it, it’s probably designed for a larger sump, and I have it under water smack against the macroalgae.

 

[BryanM]

I was shocked at how many snails reefcleaners recommended for my cleanup crew.

 

[BitR0t]

For starters, 0 nitrates and phosphates is not good. You should have detectable amounts of both. 5-20 nitrates, .1-.3 phosphates.

New tanks do not need dosing, and should be doing regular water changes which will replace trace elements.

Inverts do not always survive shipping, assuming you bought them online.

Any pics you can share, preferably under

I was shocked at how many snails reefcleaners recommended for my cleanup crew.

Just for clarity, I did not order from them. They recommended 27 snails of specific types, but my order was still too small for them to fulfill, despite asking. So I ordered elsewhere.

 

[BryanM]

Just for clarity, I did not order from them. They recommended 27 snails of specific types, but my order was still too small for them to fulfill, despite asking. So I ordered elsewhere.

Yeah, with shipping costs I do not like to order inverts online unless it is a large order.

 

[mcarroll]

Nobody addressed the 75 water temp.. not sure that has an impact but 77-78 is where I would think you should be

Good to point out.

I know surface water temps are much higher, probably something like 80-90+ºF. Reef temps down at (eg) 50-100 feet would vary quite a bit from that, so I wonder if 75º is that far off from "correct"?