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Help. At a loss.


Austintylerl

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Mysteriously my tank has taken a turn for the worse. My Xenia and now my colt coral has shrunken up and refused to open up for about a week and a half. At first I thought it was time for a water change but that didn't help. I did a 20% change. Days later nothing changed. My ammonia is 0. Nitrite 0. Nitrate 0 and ph 8.2 sg 1.25 temp 78. I have recently had what appears to be a diatom bloom. I'm tempted to do a water change but know that these corals like so called dirty water. What do you think please?

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Mysteriously my tank has taken a turn for the worse. My Xenia and now my colt coral has shrunken up and refused to open up for about a week and a half. At first I thought it was time for a water change but that didn't help. I did a 20% change. Days later nothing changed. My ammonia is 0. Nitrite 0. Nitrate 0 and ph 8.2 sg 1.25 temp 78. I have recently had what appears to be a diatom bloom. I'm tempted to do a water change but know that these corals like so called dirty water. What do you think please?

 

how old is the tank, how large. any new additions of any sort? daily WC until things improve should help rectify situations. vaccum out diatoms and sediment with water changes. turkey blast the rocks and stir stuff up when you do the WC as well.

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Haven't had any changes. It's an 8 gallon that's been set up for two years. Live rock and some corals had been in a tank for maybe 10 years. I'll try water changes but I thought I'd be killing the nutrient hungry Xenia which imntrying to save. Maybe my thought process is flawed. Let me know. Thank you again

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Water change never hurts... But honestly if you're registering 0 nitrates they're probably starving. It could also be lighting but I would only suspect that if you changed something with it recently. Have you added other corals? Xenia can sometimes not play so nice with other corals, may even be why the colt is also doing worse (in addition to the low nutrient issue). How long has it been shriveled? When I've had xenia I seem to recall that occasionally it would shrivel up for maybe a day or 2 and then go back to normal. Never was able to discover completely why though.

 

So do you think the nutrients could logically be a cause? Raising the nutrients in the tank isn't difficult, but it doesn't mean neglect the tank or over feed too much. It's important you understand why the nutrients are so low in your tank and if you're going to play the game of upping them make sure you have a plan.

 

Why don't you list your tank inhabitants, size, and post a pic. How much xenia are we talking here?

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Thanks all! The tank has about 8 small stalks of Kenya tree, and maybe ten or twelve small stalks of Xenia. Just a few shrooms. Bought a tiny pistol shrimp and hi fin shortly before this happened. It's an 8 gallon cube with an ai prime over it. Running it at about 40% on white and 80% on the uv bulb. Haven't changed it in a long time though.

 

So even though it is currently nutrient poor I should do a water change? I'll post a pic tonight

Thank you

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Do you have any algae growth? Reason I ask is if there are some algaes growing, you may not be seeing nutrients in the test results due to the aglae eating it up. Trying to get the whole story here.

 

Im thinking something is pissing off the xenia and causing it to go into stress mode which will release toxins. This will then in turn piss off the colt. Can you confirm that the xenia did indeed show signs of stress maybe a day or 2 before the colt? If this is indeed true, I would highly suggest a water change and addition of carbon. Do you run any chemical medias currently?

 

How do the shrooms look? Acting stressed at all or normal?

Also what was your water change schedule before you noticed issues?

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Try lowering your lights down to 20 for maybe a week see if they come back,40 and 80 seem like a lot for an 8 gallon. I lowered my lights after trying to figure out what was going on with my soft corals,amazing difference with lower lighting.

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Do you run carbon? A 25% water change will only remove 25% of any toxins present in the tank, so you may need more filtration if there's chemical warfare. What do you feed, and how often? If nutrient levels are genuinely low, too much light could stress the corals.

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I have had a increase in algae growth. I also some small bits of macro algae in the filter area. I have an AI Prime unit lighting it. Also running purigen which I intend to replace today. Should I remove the macro algae? I plan on a water change tonight, large or small you think?

 

I really appreciate all the assistance.

Thank you

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I have had a increase in algae growth. I also some small bits of macro algae in the filter area. I have an AI Prime unit lighting it. Also running purigen which I intend to replace today. Should I remove the macro algae? I plan on a water change tonight, large or small you think?

 

I really appreciate all the assistance.

Thank you

 

 

Purigen can remove organics from the water very quickly and efficiently, and allow light to penetrate further. It also doesn't quite replace carbon, so you may need to add a small amount (start with 1/8 of recommended dose). What levels are you running on the prime?

 

If corals are stressed, then a very large water change. Aim for 75%+?

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I'm Running it at about 40% on white and 80% on the uv bulb. Green and Red at 25%, blues and violets at 95%. Haven't changed it in a long time though. I don't run carbon, I guess I grab some too. The purigen I run is the full 100mg that comes in the small bag, too much?

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I'm Running it at about 40% on white and 80% on the uv bulb. Green and Red at 25%, blues and violets at 95%. Haven't changed it in a long time though. I don't run carbon, I guess I grab some too. The purigen I run is the full 100mg that comes in the small bag, too much?

 

 

 

Do you think the lights are too strong? If there aren't nutrients in the water, the corals won't be able to keep up with the lighting. Shrinking can be a way to decrease surface area and deal with too much light.

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chipmunkofdoom2

What are your alk/Mg/Ca levels? These aren't hard corals so they don't need perfect Ca and alk, but if these parameters are way off due to bad salt mix or something else, they could be irritating your corals.

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Could it be your newly added pistol shrimp and goby combo is stirring up the sand and pissing things off? Not only could it be just from sand irritating the coral it could be releasing lots of organics into the water column if you dont normally clean your sand bed.

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Small update, I've done a 40% water change, added carbon but I left the same purigen in there. I no longer hear the pistol shrimp that I havent seen since I bought it. I also decreased the light intensity considerably white at 25%, blues at 50-60% and UV down to 40%. I had these settings around the summer time and increased them when I advised when I was looking for growth which eventually happened, perhaps the xenia out grew the nutrients.

 

Ill update in a few days. Thanks again all!

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Here's about how it looks now...

And here it is a few months ago prior to the Xenia growth spurt

 

Can you get some close ups of the xenia? I can't see it in there.

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Any potential issues with stray current? Pumps, heaters, etc can go bad and slowly shock things. I noticed random tissue loss on monti's the one day I got mild shock when touching a piece of metal that was touching the surface of the water. I would suggest giving all your mechanical stuff a good cleaning and looking over. Salt water is really corrosive, you could have rust, loose wires, etc.

 

I may have missed it but what type of lighting are you using? If you haven't changed the lighting you probably don't need to adjust it at all. As far as 0 nutrients, they may like dirty water but I've have xenia go ape shit growing in ultra low nutrients so I'd be surprised if it's that.

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Pull the purigen and carbon out. The corals you have will grow in shit water and any light. just run some filter floss, and maybe a monthly WC. My 8 goes 3 months between WC's. Or try feed the tank a bit more daily.


Any potential issues with stray current? Pumps, heaters, etc can go bad and slowly shock things. I noticed random tissue loss on monti's the one day I got mild shock when touching a piece of metal that was touching the surface of the water. I would suggest giving all your mechanical stuff a good cleaning and looking over. Salt water is really corrosive, you could have rust, loose wires, etc.

 

I may have missed it but what type of lighting are you using? If you haven't changed the lighting you probably don't need to adjust it at all. As far as 0 nutrients, they may like dirty water but I've have xenia go ape shit growing in ultra low nutrients so I'd be surprised if it's that.

stick a volt meter in the water.

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Pull the purigen and carbon out. The corals you have will grow in shit water and any light. just run some filter floss, and maybe a monthly WC. My 8 goes 3 months between WC's. Or try feed the tank a bit more daily.

 

stick a volt meter in the water.

 

Removing the purigen is one thing as he says nutrients test 0. But this really sounds and looks like it could be a case of chemical warfare in which carbon will be his best bandaid until he can figurebout the root of the problem. At the very least the carbon will cause absolutely no further issues so he might as well leave it.

I dont think his issue is with lighting but it is possible. Just watch you coral for the next couple days and hope for the best. Youre being proavtive and thats great but I wouldnt change much more at this point. If you have a multimeter, you could do a simple test to rule out stray current as java suggested....that is always a possibility.

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Also im still interested to know what your water change schedule was prior to seeing issues to rule out lack of trace elements.

And how the shrooms are acting both b4 and after the recent water changes.

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bryantkalagian

The kenya tree can release toxins too. An algae bloom points to a nutrient spike as well. My guess would be that if there was a nutrient spike the algae is consuming the nutrients, thus you not registering them on a test. It could be masking its own problem. Something caused it though, a cycled tank theoretically shouldn't have a nutrient spike out of nowhere.

How old are your test kits and have you tested for phosphate? I know those corals don't require pristine water, but it's somewhat hard for me to believe that your water is clean enough to kill them (especially with algae present). Something in your setup has had to have changed or something got added to the water.

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Someone asked to see the Xenia. Here's a pic. Sorry it's so blue. The mushrooms look about the same.

My water change schedule until this dibacle was usually around t gallons every 2-3 weeks. If there was an algae bloom or something I might have made small change then.

 

When the trouble started I've done 3 changes over about three weeks. Nothing has changed. I just don't know. I'll check for electricity leaks. And wait. Is the popular vote to remove purigen and keep the carbon?

 

Thanks again

post-84491-0-81891000-1456410138_thumb.jpeg

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