too clean?

[eliramos]

hey everyone i have a few dumb questions which may actually solve this problem ive been having with my frogspawn.

Can your water be too clean?

i have the 29 gallon biocube hqi which runs everything it came with along with a blue led strip and instead of bioballs i use some live rock and chaeto.

now currently im running the stock protein skimmer, the carbon filter pad it comes with along with, chemipure, and a uv sterilizer.

i do 5 gallon water changes sometimes twice a week

current inhabitants include

2 percula clowns
1 yellow choris wrasse
3 bristle starfish
10 nassarius snails
5 blue leg hermits
2 mexican turbos
2 skunk cleaners
1 fire shrimp

corals
2 montipora
1 hammer
1 frogspawn/hammer hybrid
1 rose rock anemone
2 kenya trees
stalks of pulsing xenias/clove polyps
1 duncan coral with 5 months went from 3 heads to 8
1 green star polyp
1 mushroom
and a few other misc

do i have too many "cleaner" things running?

Also how often should i trim my chaeto its pretty massive now but is it possible its taking out too much of my beneficial nutrients?

any input would be great!

 

[Spendley]

I have a biocube 29 and my cleaning critters include approx 15 hermits, 20 cerith, 12 Astrea, 24 Nassarius, 3 Turbo, 3 peppermint shrimp. If yours is overkill mine is overkill x5 lol. I only have like 8 pieces of coral, and two clowns w/ a royal gramma. All seems to be doing well.

I run media basket with floss, chemipure, purigen. No skimmer, however. Don't think water can be "too clean".
What kind of salt are you using?
What are your parameters?
What kind of problems is your frogspawn having? I bought one on Monday actually, it opened up and is flailing around happily (to my knowledge)

 

[shred5]

Can a tank be too clean yes if you mean nutrient wise.. I doubt your is if the cheato is growing..
Are you asking if you have to much clean up crew?
Size of thank really does not dictate how much clean up crew you need anyways, it is food available (amount of algae). Snails can starve in a big tank or a small tank and most clean up crews are really only beneficial during a algae bloom. Really clean up crew is used to rid a algae problem and sometime you need to remove them once it is back under control or they starve and die refueling your algae again.

I am actually more of a fan of controlling algae through nutrient control than a clean up crew.

 

[eliramos]

Can a tank be too clean yes if you mean nutrient wise.. I doubt your is if the cheato is growing..
Are you asking if you have to much clean up crew?
Size of thank really does not dictate how much clean up crew you need anyways, it is food available (amount of algae). Snails can starve in a big tank or a small tank and most clean up crews are really only beneficial during a algae bloom. Really clean up crew is used to rid a algae problem and sometime you need to remove them once it is back under control or they starve and die refueling your algae again.


I am actually more of a fan of controlling algae through nutrient control than a clean up crew.

Gotcha! alright well the issue im having is my frogspawn just wont open im so confused all my other corals look great even growing and my F.S wont open up. i have him in moderate flow and placed him on the bottom of the tank but he wont let out a single tentacle. i know he doesnt have brown jelly disease but i dont want whatever is bothering him to mess with my other corals.
any advice would be great!

 

[Duffam3434]

Gotcha! alright well the issue im having is my frogspawn just wont open im so confused all my other corals look great even growing and my F.S wont open up. i have him in moderate flow and placed him on the bottom of the tank but he wont let out a single tentacle. i know he doesnt have brown jelly disease but i dont want whatever is bothering him to mess with my other corals.
any advice would be great!

I got a 10 Head frogspawn a as my first coral 4+ years ago and it didnt open for a few days.. Went and picked up some RX Coral Dip just to try to see if it would help it along. Next day all heads were opening up and I still have the frogspawn not a problem since. SO maybe thats worth a shot?

 

[shred5]

Well when something is not opening up the first thing I do is check salinity and then move on to alk and calcium.. If all that is ok i like to look to so if anything is irritating it.
Has the frogspawn ever opened up? How long have you had it. They really take long to acclimate to higher levels of lighting and really do not like very high levels . A coral will close up to avoid light in to high light situations. In lower light a coral will expand more to increase surface area to capture more light. If everything about checks out ok with your water parameters I would try shading it. You say hqi I assume 150 watter.

 

[Spendley]

Question about acclimating corals:

FW dip...could you explain the process and how effective it is?
I imagine its just dipping a frag in a cup of FW, which would kill any of the creatures living on it? Seems easy, but figured I'd clear every question up before messing with any FW. Reason I ask, is I got some zoa's that haven't opened in two days (I know not enough time to worry, doesn't hurt to collect knowledge though!)

 

[NanaReefer]

Personally I would never dip my corals or fish in fresh water. Just to stressful.
I would also cut back on the water changes to 1x every 7-10 days. You've got some great filtration going on.

Also when it comes to LPS I always look to my ALK being out of wack.

 

[eliramos]

I got a 10 Head frogspawn a as my first coral 4+ years ago and it didnt open for a few days.. Went and picked up some RX Coral Dip just to try to see if it would help it along. Next day all heads were opening up and I still have the frogspawn not a problem since. SO maybe thats worth a shot?

ill definitly give that a shot ive had him for about 5 months and then one day bloop nothing and that was almost a month ago, i havent checked the parameters since my last wc but i will update you all when i can and for the first few months he was under the mh lighting with no problems whatsoever! how does the rx dip work?

 

[shred5]

Question about acclimating corals:

FW dip...could you explain the process and how effective it is?
I imagine its just dipping a frag in a cup of FW, which would kill any of the creatures living on it? Seems easy, but figured I'd clear every question up before messing with any FW. Reason I ask, is I got some zoa's that haven't opened in two days (I know not enough time to worry, doesn't hurt to collect knowledge though!)

Freshwater dips are for fish..

 

[Spendley]

Freshwater dips are for fish..

Right. Explanation of the year!!