Urchins and Snails keep dying

[Mrcote1]

Hi everyone,

I Have a 1 year old reef tank that has a plethora of LPS and soft coral doing great and a bunch of healthy fish.

I cannot keep any cleanup crew alive that I buy now. I have 2 cleaner shrimp that have been with the tank for the full year, trochus snails, nessarius snails and a pincushion urchin.

I am fighting a crazy hair algae outbreak so am trying to get more cleanup crew but they all die within a couple weeks.

I bought a sea hare a few weeks ago, dead within a few weeks. I have bought over a dozen large turbos and dozens of astrea, they all slowly die over the course of a month. And last week I bought 2 tuxedo urchins, both dead after a week.

I have attached my ICP results but I am dumbfounded.

I keep my temp at 78

 

[BryanM]

Are you buying the CUC locally, or having them shipped? I've had very good success with reefcleaners.org for CUC.

The only time I've had any real issues with my cuc was when I had dinos, and I had one of the toxic varieties.

 

[Mrcote1]

I buy from local stores. The CUC is not usually there for more than a couple days before I grab them though so maybe its stress from transport twice in a short time period?

 

[BryanM]

I buy from local stores. The CUC is not usually there for more than a couple days before I grab them though so maybe its stress from transport twice in a short time period?

I've had good success with local as well, but you might try and small order from reefcleaners and see if you have better results. I've had very solid experience with their critters.

 

[Subsea]

Hi everyone,

I Have a 1 year old reef tank that has a plethora of LPS and soft coral doing great and a bunch of healthy fish.

I cannot keep any cleanup crew alive that I buy now. I have 2 cleaner shrimp that have been with the tank for the full year, trochus snails, nessarius snails and a pincushion urchin.

I am fighting a crazy hair algae outbreak so am trying to get more cleanup crew but they all die within a couple weeks.

I bought a sea hare a few weeks ago, dead within a few weeks. I have bought over a dozen large turbos and dozens of astrea, they all slowly die over the course of a month. And last week I bought 2 tuxedo urchins, both dead after a week.

I have attached my ICP results but I am dumbfounded.

I keep my temp at 78

ICP test do not measure DOC (dissolved organic carbon), which is a by product of photosynthesis. Coral DOC is mostly lipids & proteins while algae DOC is mostly carbohydrates. Nuisance algae (includes dinoflagellates which can be toxic) predominates when nitrogen & phosphorus are limited.

I disagree with 0.10 ppm of P04 as ideal. I consider that limiting.

I also disagree that iron is ideal. I would dose iron.

 

[Mrcote1]

ICP test do not measure DOC (dissolved organic carbon), which is a by product of photosynthesis. Coral DOC is mostly lipids & proteins while algae DOC is mostly carbohydrates. Nuisance algae (includes dinoflagellates which can be toxic) predominates when nitrogen & phosphorus are limited.

I disagree with 0.10 ppm of P04 as ideal. I consider that limiting.

I also disagree that iron is ideal. I would dose iron.

I started dosing tropic marin A- and K+ for all the trace elements.

Are you saying my PO4 is too high or too low? And would that impact health of inverts?

 

[BryanM]

I started dosing tropic marin A- and K+ for all the trace elements.

Are you saying my PO4 is too high or too low? And would that impact health of inverts?

previous numbers for nutrients are being questioned, and there's a lot of that thing 5-50 nitrate, and .1-.3 phosphate is just fine, even though the previous phos nunbers were in the .03-06 range.

 

[pledosophy]

I would recommend running some poly filter and some carbon for pollutants the test does not cover.

It sounds like you have descent algae growth, but also remember snails like young algae, not long algae. For longer algae you might do better with crabs.

I am actually in a similar boat with snails and urchins. No idea why either. I try again ever six months. I probably have a thousand baby stomella's but only my conch snails have lived over a year. In my other systems I have snails that are 10 years old.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

You may have a Predator Snail. Check your Aquarium before the lights come on in the morning. I used a Red Lens Flashlight. Also our Reef Aquariums are too warm for Mexican Turbo Snails, unless you can get the African ones, which are extremely rare in the America’s.

 

[Mrcote1]

Ill be placing an order with reefcleaners to see if I have better luck there.

I do run poly in a filter cup. My water is actually quite yellow when i do a water change. I have activated carbon and bags but never used it so just threw a bag of about 2 cups of carbon in one of my filter cups.

 

[Subsea]

I started dosing tropic marin A- and K+ for all the trace elements.

Are you saying my PO4 is too high or too low? And would that impact health of inverts?

I say your phosphate is low. Does that directly affect inverts? No. However, low phosphate can lead to dinoflagellates and some species of dinoflagellates are toxic.

 

[Mrcote1]

I say your phosphate is low. Does that directly affect inverts? No. However, low phosphate can lead to dinoflagellates and some species of dinoflagellates are toxic.

I had dinos bad in my last reef tank so i learned my lesson and run a large UV sterilizer now 24/7

 

[TeeJay87]

Any updates?

I lost a huge cleanup crew a couple years ago. My best guess is that the Cyanobacteria that was covering most of my tank was toxic. The cleanup crew appeared fine the first few days and then slowly died. I don’t think many made it past a month.

I don’t know that Iodine that low at 20 is killing CUC/SPS, my current CUC were doing okay at Iodine of 30. But the Iodine is the most concerning thing on your ICP report imo. Seachem’s Reef Iodide is a good choice. I dose it based on the instructions in the Reef Moonshiner’s handbook, but there are lots of ways to do it.

 

[Mrcote1]

Any updates?

I lost a huge cleanup crew a couple years ago. My best guess is that the Cyanobacteria that was covering most of my tank was toxic. The cleanup crew appeared fine the first few days and then slowly died. I don’t think many made it past a month.

I don’t know that Iodine that low at 20 is killing CUC/SPS, my current CUC were doing okay at Iodine of 30. But the Iodine is the most concerning thing on your ICP report imo. Seachem’s Reef Iodide is a good choice. I dose it based on the instructions in the Reef Moonshiner’s handbook, but there are lots of ways to do it.

So I started running activated carbon in my filter cups and dosing Tropic Marin A- and K+ at 5ml a day using a doser.

My torches have responded phenomenally to this change. Snail deaths seemed to have stopped as well and my urchins are doing great (including a new tuxedo I added). I have golf ball sized turbo snails that seemed to have been dying before but are now starting to eat algae.

Another large change is the film algae growth is now almost non-existant. I used to have to clean my glass every 3 days, and now I can go a week easy. I have another ICP test in the mail so I can see what the water chemistry looks like with these changes but the advice from everyone above seems to be working great

 

[Freenow54]

My Urchins died in one day. I bought one at a time. As to snails dying now and then . I did not give the snail deaths much thought because if they fall off a rock on to their shell they seem not to be able to right themselves. Yet I have had a snail in another tank that has been there for years but its partner died ?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The tin might be an issue.

ICP is really only a part of the story, since it does not indicate chemical form, which can greatly impact toxicity, but tin is generally pretty toxic to inverts. Most folks with some tin don't see bigger problems until higher levels, but you may have a more toxic type of tin.

If you search on tin in the title of Reef2Reef threads you'll see a bunch of folks experiences on what levels they had, what symptoms, and what they could do about it. Tin often comes from plastics as it is used as a heat stabilizer.

 

[Mrcote1]

The tin might be an issue.

ICP is really only a part of the story, since it does not indicate chemical form, which can greatly impact toxicity, but tin is generally pretty toxic to inverts. Most folks with some tin don't see bigger problems until higher levels, but you may have a more toxic type of tin.

If you search on tin in the title of Reef2Reef threads you'll see a bunch of folks experiences on what levels they had, what symptoms, and what they could do about it. Tin often comes from plastics as it is used as a heat stabilizer.

i have read some posts that state the tin can come from colored dosing tubes (which I use). I wonder if it will eventually stop leeching at some point or if it will just be continuous.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

i have read some posts that state the tin can come from colored dosing tubes (which I use). I wonder if it will eventually stop leeching at some point or if it will just be continuous.

It isn’t colored. It might be in colored tubes, but is also widely used in other settings.

 

[W31Olds]

It isn’t colored. It might be in colored tubes, but is also widely used in other settings.

Randy, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Iodine a critical component for invert?. OP's Iodine is low.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Iodine a critical component for invert?. OP's Iodine is low.

That’s a hobby mantra, but I’ve not seen convincing evidence that it is true. I think it is based on a misinterpretation of shrimp molting after dosing it. I thing that may be a negative response, not a positive one.

The counterpoint is that folks who aquaculture shrimp for human consumption have zero “lore” that iodine is useful.

FWIW, I dose iodine for years, then stopped and saw no difference in anything in my tank.