cindy's cadlights 8g: on writing deadlines! :O

[cindyp]

how big of a chemipure elite did you switch to?

 

i got the smallest one for my 8g. mini, treats up to 10g.

 

i tested everything i test for, nitrates are good. phosphates

are good. so is ammonia. that's all i test for other than PH and

KH.

 

the salinity was good, but i wonder if my refractometer

needs to be reset. even then, it's not more than 1.026 i'm guessing.

[FlowerMama]

yeah, I know why ninja asks, we both had bad apples on a order of chemipure elite and it crashed many of our corals. I've used the smallest one on my 8 gallon before as well, twice and didn't have a problem. Got one for me 34 and not so good.

[cindyp]

They have deceptively small mouths. My citron clown goby can eat bigger pieces than the two spot.

 

Writing is going alright. I think I'm at the point where I need to just submit it & start the rejection march or else I'll never leave revision land.

 

Don't lost hope on the dendro yet--gaping mouths can close. Unless it starts receding really badly I think you still have a shot at saving it.

 

thanks. i think it's get a bit exposed like my plate

coral. maybe i don't have enough calcium? i don't know.

i change my water so often, also buying the expensive coral

water, i was hoping this would help with minerals needed.

 

i can't say i'm feeling hopeful with my dendro after what

happened to my blasto. it's all been Death Within 2 Days

and nothing wrong before then!

 

and yeah, sometimes you just have to suck it up and jump

in. good luck!

 

yeah, I know why ninja asks, we both had bad apples on a order of chemipure elite and it crashed many of our corals.

 

oh no! this is the third i've used, and without issue.

and the numbers i tested for were okay.

[FlowerMama]

Are you mixing your own water or are you buying prepared? it may never be quite right or different each time causing unrest.

[cindyp]

Are you mixing your own water or are you buying prepared? it may never be quite right or different each time causing unrest.

i'm paying $$ to buy from ASD.

 

my tank is so small, and i'm lazy. easier

for me to buy a gallon or two when i need

it every 7-10 days. i trust them to be pretty

consistent.

 

i'm still blaming the rainfordi maybe decomposing.

but i honestly have no idea. *sighs*

[cindyp]

now i'm wondering if my dendro coral should

have looked so gelationous? *points at sig foto*

 

i've never seen a dendro look like that. maybe

it wasn't happy? even though it was tentacles out

and eating? i honestly don't know.

[ninjamyst]

i'm still blaming the rainfordi maybe decomposing.

but i honestly have no idea. *sighs*

 

you never fond the rainfordi's body? hmmm...but it would have spiked your nitrate and phosphate if it's left decaying. any algae bloom?

[cindyp]

you never fond the rainfordi's body? hmmm...but it would have spiked your nitrate and phosphate if it's left decaying. any algae bloom?

 

i didn't. i saw it poking out of a rock one night (two weeks ago, maybe?)

and i was gonna fish it out with chopsticks and it scurried under a rock.

it never came back out. i removed its home rock to try and find the body

three days later. nada.

 

no algae blooms. params are good today.

i changed chemipure and 1g+ water last thursday.

 

who knows. maybe i'll just have a flower nem mushroom tank.

 

nevermind the sponges i need to kill off my gsp frag tonight.

 

aiiiiiiiiiii

[MrNanoReef]

i do love the color. can i ask how you dip? what do you use?

is it diluted iodine? will try to pick up some at LCS next i visit.

I got the bottle that said 10% Providone Iodine at walgreens. I use 2 drops per 1 cup of tank water, then just let it sit for 15min, rinse with clean tank water, then place back in the tank. I have recovered quite a few zoas this way that I noticed weren't doing very well, some with zoas pox or whatever.

 

Is your dendro doing ok? Mine has not opened fully but will eat, im going to try feeding it with my reef blend mysis this weekend.

[cindyp]

I got the bottle that said 10% Providone Iodine at walgreens. I use 2 drops per 1 cup of tank water, then just let it sit for 15min, rinse with clean tank water, then place back in the tank. I have recovered quite a few zoas this way that I noticed weren't doing very well, some with zoas pox or whatever.

 

Is your dendro doing ok? Mine has not opened fully but will eat, im going to try feeding it with my reef blend mysis this weekend.

 

no, if you look a few posts up, i think it might

be dying. i had Sudden Death with blasto this week.

within two days, retracted skirt, lost color, gaping mouth.

then its face fell off.

 

yesterday, noticed all the tentacles retracted on dendro

for a long time. like 12 hours +, then 24 hours. today i moved

it to shade. i tried to drop a pellet to encourage feeding, but

it had gaping mouth. no tentacles. the pellet is gone now, but

it could have been picked out by fish or shrimp or current.

 

wish me luck! my favia is receding too.

 

and thanks for tips!

[MrNanoReef]

oh no! I wish you good luck, i think the best is not to do anything drastic as any abrupt changes can cause them even more stress out. If all params are good, I'd do 20% wc every day until you see things getting better, that was what I did when I noticed my orange plate suddenly died and then the rock nem, the wc and iodine dipping any bad corals cured it. When you have something died in the tank, take it out immediately and do a 30-50% WC, it could foul the water from decomposing flesh and cause an ammonia spike if you didn't get to it in time.

[teenyreef]

Hang in there! My dendro sometimes closes up for a couple days. When I got him, he didn't open up for about a month and I thought he was a goner. But in your case, given the other problems you're having, there's definitely something going on in the tank that is stressing the corals. MrReefer81 gave great advice about not doing too much beyond aggressive water changes and dipping.

 

You want to focus in finding things that might have changed recently:

- Rainfordi is MIA, presumed dead, with no body recovered. So even if you didn't measure an ammonia spike, the balance of your nitrate cycle has almost certainly changed.

- New bag of Chemipure. As 1sttimereefer said, it could be a bad bag, or just too much chemical filtration too quickly if the old bag was exhausted. Excessive and sudden phosphate removal has been reported to shock corals and I've had it happen in my tank.

- New corals and fish. This increases the bioload which also could have affected your cycle. It also could create chemical warfare.

 

I'd dump out the Chemipure (just to eliminate a potential cause of the problem) and replace it with some good quality activated charcoal. You could even reuse the Chemipure bag. Use the calculator on Bulk Reef Supply to figure out how much you should be using in an 8g tank, but it's probably only about a tablespoon or so. Later when things stabilize, you can add a small amount of GFO or Phosguard, or go back to Chemipure if you think you need to control phosphates. I like personally like Chemipure but when you check how much charcoal and GFO you should use on the BRS calculator, you'll see that even the small bag of Chemipure is way more than they recommend. That's why I've gone with just basic carbon and GFO in my media bag - I know exactly what I'm putting in the tank and I know it's the right amount.

 

Dipping your corals, especially the ones that are stressed, is always a helpful step. Most folks use Lugols which is available at any LFS that sells reef stuff.

 

Finally, clean your sand bed as part of your water changes. If you are pulling out corals to do dips anyway, you might consider pulling out some of the rocks just long enough to siphon out the water right down by the sand to try to clean out the sand and hopefully get any spots that were affected by the MIA rainfordi. Concentrate on the spots where you think "bad stuff" might have happened because you don't want to disturb more than about 25% of the sand at a time. You could do a 50% water change or even more as long as your parameters haven't gotten way different from your source water.

[gena]

Ugh...sorry to hear about the troubles. What is your KH level?

[cindyp]

Ugh...sorry to hear about the troubles. What is your KH level?

 

thanks, gena. *sighs*

 

it's at 120 via API, and that is normal.

 

i've scrubbed off the invasive sponge on gsp.

hope it's not too angry with me.

 

 

Hang in there! My dendro sometimes closes up for a couple days. When I got him, he didn't open up for about a month and I thought he was a goner. But in your case, given the other problems you're having, there's definitely something going on in the tank that is stressing the corals. MrReefer81 gave great advice about not doing too much beyond aggressive water changes and dipping.

 

 

 

thanks so much for the great advice, j.

 

i did do a partial sand bed vac when i was checking for

rainfordi last week. will do another one this week.

 

i do wonder if my jelly dendro wasn't supposed to look

so jelly? from all my googling, i've never seen one look

like that. then i was reading an article that sort of suggested

if it got bloated like that, it was distressed?

 

 

oh no! I wish you good luck, i think the best is not to do anything drastic as any abrupt changes can cause them even more stress out. If all params are good, I'd do 20% wc every day until you see things getting better, that was what I did when I noticed my orange plate suddenly died and then the rock nem, the wc and iodine dipping any bad corals cured it. When you have something died in the tank, take it out immediately and do a 30-50% WC, it could foul the water from decomposing flesh and cause an ammonia spike if you didn't get to it in time.

 

 

 

thanks, p!

[gena]

 

thanks, gena. *sighs*

 

it's at 120 via API, and that is normal.

I'm not familiar with API's test for alkalinity. I know LPS can have issues when your alk is too low.

[cindyp]

I'm not familiar with API's test for alkalinity. I know LPS can have issues when your alk is too low.

 

i should grab a alk test kit too then. along with iodine!

[gena]

 

i should grab a alk test kit too then. along with iodine!

Oh, I thought KH was the alk test. What is your KH test???? I bet you the alk is low. Grab a magnesium while you're at it too. All this testing talk reminds me I need to test my params this week too .

[cindyp]

Oh, I thought KH was the alk test. What is your KH test???? I bet you the alk is low. Grab a magnesium while you're at it too. All this testing talk reminds me I need to test my params this week too .

 

i have the cheaty cheater one from API

that measures nitrates, nitrites, PH and KH

on one strip. it is confusing though, wish it's

measures were like the normal measuring.

[teenyreef]

KH is the alkalinity test as far as I know...

 

I have the alkalinity API titration test and also the Salifert. The Salifert is more precise but I've found the API always matches the Salifert quite well. You have to count drops, and I found that if a drop changes the color partially but not completely, it's a .5. In other words, if the 7th drop starts to change the color, and the 8th drop changes it completely, the alk is about 7.5 dKh.

 

The API has the advantage of being cheap and reasonably accurate. It's one of the few ones from API that is usually accurate.

 

I assume the test strip gave the results in ppm? If so, 120 is a little less than 7 dKh, which is definitely on the low side. You want to be between 8-11, preferably right around 9.

[gena]

I really like the Salifert test kits. Sounds like you need to start dosing a 2-part like B-ionic. I use that on my 8g RFA tank! Works great.

[cindyp]

thanks, j! i honestly would have had no idea.

for API results online, it said 120 to 180 is okay.

i usually skew 180, but today, it was definitely 120.

 

i have never dosed before.

thanks for the rec, gena!

[kimberbee]

i have never dosed before.

thanks for the rec, gena!

Me either! But I may have to start to soon...

[cindyp]

thank you, everyone, for your commiseration, sympathy

and advice yesterday. i'm doing a 1g water change today

and will then head in to LCS to pick up some goodies.

 

i saw a few tentacles peeking out of dendro and am

cautiously hopeful. the blenny continues to eat,

which i'm happy about.

[teenyreef]

Good luck!

[owenj]

Sorry about the tank woes! Hang in there.