Hey, I'm new to the nano-reef forums and have a question or 2. I have had a salt water aquarium set up for about half a year. As of today my tank has 2 shrimp, a coral beauty angle, a royal grama, an enganeer goby, a 6 line wrass, and a black ocellaris clown. About a month ago my coals started to shrink up and would barily open at all each day. After a while I had to move them to another tank, in which they are do ing fine now. Can anyone give me any insure on why they don't like my tank? Could it be the water quality?

Have you checked your parameters? Please post these.

Using anything for nutrient export? RO/DI?

I echo what was said above, especially what's your salinity and how are you testing it.

I have not checked my nitrate levels or ph buy my salinity is about 1.024 and I use a hydrometer to test it. Thank you!

Do you have reliable test kits at home? If not, you can bring a sample of your water to your LFS and have them test for you until you can get a good kit.

You need to know your nitrates, PH, alk, calcium (what types of corals do you have in there?), and I'm sure others will jump in here.

Are you running a skimmer? Carbon? Chaeto? What lights do you have, and how old are the bulbs? How much/often are your water changes? The more info you can give about your system, the more easily people can help you.

Many people believe hydrometers aren't reliable, and strongly recommend refractometers, but there are some very skilled reefers on here who believe hydrometers are fine. Your water source is very important either way.

Hydrometers are fine as long as you have it calibrated to an accurate refractometer.
I tested my water at 1.019 and brought a sample to my LFS where they tested it with a refractometer at 1.023. So I know that my hydrometer is off .004.

I f I can think later I will chime in.

I do not have a test kit at home but I will look into it. The corals I had were zinnias, button polyps, mushrooms, and leather trees. I am running a skimmer, and have polyester filling. I do a 5 gallon water change every week, and have an actinic bulb and a 10,000k bulb (the standard bulbs that come with the 29 gallon biocube).

Seems like a pretty hefty bioload for a 29 gallon. (But not obscenely overstocked...) Nitrates maybe? Definitely should have your LFS check your water.

Also, I still don't think you've told us what you're using for a water source.

yea I would think some leavls are high when have you done a media change last. With the water changes you keep up on but for your media, has it been changed in a while chemi pure,purigen,phosban and so onn i change every 3-4 months but good luck im sure you will get to the bottom of it

Hey!

first when was the last time you did a water change?? do you check your parameters and are they okay?? did you dip your hand in when it had like loation or soap on it or something that would make them upset?? do you dose it at all?? if so are you overdosing or under or irregularly dosing?? only use one type of salt for waterchanges... and umm. if its not one of those then you may have a really bad problem... oh do you have adequate light?

oh also if your lights have been on the tank for a half a year or however you have had them on for they are deff out of spectrum... most lights are good for about 5-6 months give or take how long you have them on for each day...

I do a 5 gallon water change every week. I checked my nitrate level and it was about 2.5, not a problem and my ph was 8.2, also not a problem. I changed my lights a few months ago and they are working fine. Maybe I got some soap in the tank but I doubt it. I get my RO water from my LFS.

A week or two after my corals started acting up I put a protein skimmer in my tank. I waited a week to see if it would help but it did not. I moved my corals to another tank. Today after I did a water change and found out that my ph and nitrates were good I put a few button polyps back in my tank. If they d good I will slowly put my other corals back in.

It's best to remove the engineer goby. They get very large at a foot in adult length.