What is Wrong with my Pistol?

[Sharkbait19]

Specific Gravity: 1.025
Temperature: 8.2F
Ammonia: Looks to be 0 - Salifert
Nitrate: 13.1ppm - Hanna
Phosphate: 0.16 - Hanna
pH: 7.97 - Hanna
Alkalinity 7.1dKH - Hanna

I guess that solves the mystery. Nitrate is high and phosphate is super high, or am I not reading this right?

It definitely isn't terribly high, but for a crustacean, that can put a lot of stress on them.

 

[Apollo7235]

It definitely isn't terribly high, but for a crustacean, that can put a lot of stress on them.

Aiyaiyai.

Well, I'm stuck on what to do right now.

I am having issues with my DT not supporting corals and the advice has been to stop water changes, but now I feel like I need to do another water change to help my shrimp.

This is what I'm talking about, by the way:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/about-to-quit.829063/page-6#post-8936826

 

[Sharkbait19]

Aiyaiyai.

Well, I'm stuck on what to do right now.

I am having issues with my DT not supporting corals and the advice has been to stop water changes, but now I feel like I need to do another water change to help my shrimp.

This is what I'm talking about, by the way:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/about-to-quit.829063/page-6#post-8936826

Nitrates and phosphates won't always go away through water changes. I read your thread and it seems as though you may be doing too many water changes, to the point that the tank can't properly cycle.

 

[Apollo7235]

Nitrates and phosphates won't always go away through water changes. I read your thread and it seems as though you may be doing too many water changes, to the point that the tank can't properly cycle.

What can I do? The tank has been running for 3 months with ammonia at 0, so I had honestly thought it was cycled... I don’t have any idea what to do.

 

[Smirkish]

It isn’t that high. I would be surprised if that was the problem. My nitrates and phosphates are probably higher than yours right now. Your temp is 82?

 

[Apollo7235]

It isn’t that high. I would be surprised if that was the problem. My nitrates and phosphates are probably higher than yours right now. Your temp is 82?

No, I’m sorry, that’s a typo. 80.2F. I’ll fix that now.

 

[Smirkish]

That’s still a touch high. I wouldn’t go over 78, but that’s me. I would get a calcium and magnesium reading, and I agree with @Sharkbait19, I think you need to let the tank cycle a little longer. Reduce your feeding schedule a little to lower your phosphates. I think I saw you feed some pretty high quality food. Do 10% - 20% water changes weekly. Make sure your salinity and temp are the same in the water you mix, too. Are you dosing for alk/calc?

 

[Apollo7235]

That’s still a touch high. I wouldn’t go over 78, but that’s me. I would get a calcium and magnesium reading, and I agree with @Sharkbait19, I think you need to let the tank cycle a little longer. Reduce your feeding schedule a little to lower your phosphates. I think I saw you feed some pretty high quality food. Do 10% - 20% water changes weekly. Make sure your salinity and temp are the same in the water you mix, too. Are you dosing for alk/calc?

Nope, the only thing I dose is Phyto nightly.

I do feed rich foods; mix of SBB carnivore cuisine, mysis, baby brine, and NLS Plus A pellets for the fish, mix of Coral Frenzy, Mysis, and baby brine for the corals. I cut it back quite a bit tonight. I will continue to do so.

I have Kalk on hand just in case, but I haven’t used it. I am probably going to switch my salt mix from Tropic Marin because I really don’t like how low it mixes as far as alkalinity is concerned.

 

[Uncle99]

I don’t see Nitrate or Phosphate as high at all.
I recommend doing nothing at all except lowering temp.
By continuously making changes, that may stress out others.
I have not seen anything in the posts that points clearly to a cause so I would not throw darts at a board. Your call.

Could there have been a fight?

Anyone else in your DT that might take a shot at him?
He looked a bit stunned in the video?
could there have been some argument with the other shrimp/goby pair?

 

[Apollo7235]

I don’t see Nitrate or Phosphate as high at all.
I recommend doing nothing at all except lowering temp.
By continuously making changes, that may stress out others.
I have not seen anything in the posts that points clearly to a cause so I would not throw darts at a board. Your call.

Could there have been a fight?

Anyone else in your DT that might take a shot at him?
He looked a bit stunned in the video?
could there have been some argument with the other shrimp/goby pair?

No, there is only one shrimp/goby pair in the tank; the other goby is a little neon goby who minds its own. The Watchman the Tiger is paired with has abandoned him multiple times. Every other day, is what it seems like. Aside from the Watchman, the only other culprit would be the Bullseye Pistol who lives in the rocks, but he is so shy I almost never see him aside from at feeding time. he is about the same size as the Tiger, but just a tad bigger. I looked at him this evening when I fed and he has no signs similar to what the Tiger had.

I won’t do another water change until the weekend and then it will only be a 10-20%. Trust me, I would LOVE to not have to do water changes..... haha

I’ll also try to get the temp back down to the 78.9 it is usually at. Florida summers are HOT!! Even with air conditioning.

 

[Rmckoy]

This is in the dt that you’re having other issues with or is this in the qt ?

I believe there is something going wrong in the dt causing the few issues you have happening .
Both made from the same water but essentially 2 completely different systems .

 

[Uncle99]

Is it possible that the bullseye pistol fired a cavitation bubble at the tiger? Maybe the tiger went for a nighttime stroll?
This defensive action, travels at speeds exceeding 100kph and packs a huge impact at short range.
It would at least, fit the puzzle IMM.

 

[Uncle99]

No, there is only one shrimp/goby pair in the tank; the other goby is a little neon goby who minds its own. The Watchman the Tiger is paired with has abandoned him multiple times. Every other day, is what it seems like. Aside from the Watchman, the only other culprit would be the Bullseye Pistol who lives in the rocks, but he is so shy I almost never see him aside from at feeding time. he is about the same size as the Tiger, but just a tad bigger. I looked at him this evening when I fed and he has no signs similar to what the Tiger had.

I won’t do another water change until the weekend and then it will only be a 10-20%. Trust me, I would LOVE to not have to do water changes..... haha

I’ll also try to get the temp back down to the 78.9 it is usually at. Florida summers are HOT!! Even with air conditioning.

I blow a small fan across the surface of the water to both lower temp, and increase PH. Just that bit of air movement does wonders.

 

[Apollo7235]

Is it possible that the bullseye pistol fired a cavitation bubble at the tiger? Maybe the tiger went for a nighttime stroll?
This defensive action, travels at speeds exceeding 100kph and packs a huge impact at short range.
It would at least, fit the puzzle IMM.

It's very possible, but when I first added them to the tank they ran into each other and, aside from a few shots at one another, they both walked away unscathed. For some reason I was under the impression that pistols are more resistant to the shots than other animals, but I could be completely wrong about that because I can't seem to remember where I got that info.

 

[Apollo7235]

I blow a small fan across the surface of the water to both lower temp, and increase PH. Just that bit of air movement does wonders.

I have a dual chiller fan clipped on to my sump, it's just a bit noisy so I turned it off a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I need to turn it on again and just get used to it, haha.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Maybe the phytoplankton isn’t helping? In nature, too much can starve an area of nutrients, maybe that is happening.

 

[Apollo7235]

Update this morning:

Slight improvement. The pistol is still under the sponge filter, but he isn't floating around like he was yesterday. I tried to feed him last night but his interest was minimal. He could have eaten the mysis I gave him while I wasn't watching, though, so I'm not giving up hope. I will try to feed him again this morning and give another update then.

The iodine kit will be here tomorrow, so I will run those tests as soon as I get it in and dose accordingly. I'm not very optimistic that this will be the issue considering the other parameters were in line when I tested yesterday evening, but anything I can do to help this little guy, I will. Darla, his estranged Watchman, has been swimming around looking very dejected since I moved Pistol Pete (you guessed it, the Tiger Pistol) into quarantine. Hopefully he makes it through so they can continue on in their dysfunctional relationship.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Good to hear he is a bit better!
Hopefully he recovers soon!

 

[Apollo7235]

Maybe the phytoplankton isn’t helping? In nature, too much can starve an area of nutrients, maybe that is happening.

Well that sure is an interesting thought. I have been dosing the phyto because I have been adding pods just about every week. My husband is dying to get a Green Mandarin and I refuse to do it until I can literally see the pods crawling around in the sand bed, haha.

I also have been having GHA issues in my coral QT and O have a purple sea whip in there, so I have been dosing Vibrant twice a week and phyto every evening. I have also been dosing Vibrant once every two weeks in my display to prevent the GHA, but I just started that a month ago, so total 2 doses.

 

[Apollo7235]

Looks like he’s having difficulty in the molt process.
Ensure iodide is running 0.03-0.06ppm consistently.
The maintenance of iodide, (iodine) helps shrimps molt, leathers molt and Gorgonians.

DING DING DING

We have a winner!

My Salifert Iodine test kit came yesterday and I just tested my DT.

Would you believe that it tested a hard 0 on both the Iodide and Iodate tests? I even did them twice to make sure!

I had honestly thought I got dooped and bought a bad test kit or something, but I decided to test the QT I have the shrimp in (he’s doing much better, by the way. Not digging, but not floating around and erratically swimming anymore), and it tested ~0.06 on Iodide.

What the heck???? How could my display possibly be completely deficient?

I have the SeaChem Iodide on hand as recommended. Help on how to fix this properly?

Today is water change day, so once I finish that I will retest my display and see if it still comes back at 0. I will keep this thread updated.

Thank you all for helping me through this!