- Joined
- Oct 29, 2018
- Messages
- 261
- Reaction score
- 193
For years I have not been able to keep a Hippo or purple tang. They all end up with HLLE. I have spent hours and hours reading R2R posts, researching, testing and making adjustments with no success. Many of us have heard a list of the primary suspects:
1) Poor carbon leaching into the water.
2) Stray voltage leaking into the water.
3) Poor water quality.
To address the above, I switched to ROX carbon or ran no carbon at all - No help.
I struggled with a meter trying to find stray voltage, and never found any. Installed a grounding probe - No Help.
I was vigiliant in keeping low PO and N in the water. Run Phosguard and Biopellets. No help.
Figured maybe there is something in my water. Sent a sample to IPS for analysis of heavy metals. Nothing found. But now run PolyFilter just in case. No help.
Then....after talking to my LFS, I mentioned my glass covers. He laughed at me and said I was suffocating my tank. I installed egg crate immediately. This is my last hope. I am not sure if this will do it, but I see signs my blue tang is feeling better already. I have hope. If this does not work, I think I am throwing in the towel on Tangs. I share this in case it helps anyone else. I hope it does.
BTW, one thing I did not expect when switching to egg crate is how much harder I have to run the heaters. The evaporation has a SIGNIFICANT impact on water temp.
1) Poor carbon leaching into the water.
2) Stray voltage leaking into the water.
3) Poor water quality.
To address the above, I switched to ROX carbon or ran no carbon at all - No help.
I struggled with a meter trying to find stray voltage, and never found any. Installed a grounding probe - No Help.
I was vigiliant in keeping low PO and N in the water. Run Phosguard and Biopellets. No help.
Figured maybe there is something in my water. Sent a sample to IPS for analysis of heavy metals. Nothing found. But now run PolyFilter just in case. No help.
Then....after talking to my LFS, I mentioned my glass covers. He laughed at me and said I was suffocating my tank. I installed egg crate immediately. This is my last hope. I am not sure if this will do it, but I see signs my blue tang is feeling better already. I have hope. If this does not work, I think I am throwing in the towel on Tangs. I share this in case it helps anyone else. I hope it does.
BTW, one thing I did not expect when switching to egg crate is how much harder I have to run the heaters. The evaporation has a SIGNIFICANT impact on water temp.