I don’t know what’s happening to my Royal Gramma

[Beginnerreeftanker]

Hey everyone, recently I got some beautiful new corals, including a Kenya leather tree, a toadstool leather, a god of war paly colony, and some green mushrooms.  As soon as I got it all my royal gramma started to act strangely.  For the first time it nipped at my clownfish, which it has not had a problem whatsoever with for 3 weeks since I got my clown.  Then at nighttime when all lights were off it just started to swim sideways and upside down, eventually perching upside down or vertical on my gsp on the background of my tank.  Later, it went to the filter and just layed against it while swimming. My royal gramma looks to be breathing fine, and has been eating too.  It only seems to be doing this at nightime, and has nipped my clown 3 times.  I have a Biocube 16, last I checked my ph was at 8.1, my nitrite was at 0, my ammonia was at .1, and my nitrate was at 12 ppm.  I’ve also read up that when stressed out, a royal gramma with open it’s mouth wide to scare away pray when threatens and protecting its habitat, which has happened in the last few days too a couple times.  In an article it said that royal grammas naturally will swim vertical with the top of the water or sometimes sideways when stressed, so could this just be because of some stress obtained from the recent large amount of corals I put in my tank?  Could it be a parasite or something bad?  Please answer soon!  Thanks for the help, Nano reef has always been there to answer questions.  
 

Nate

[Tired]

Ammonia is toxic. You should have none of it. That's your problem, and I'm surprised your clownfish isn't acting sick. Do big water changes to get rid of it, and keep getting rid of it until it stops reappearing.

 

You need to figure out why there's ammonia. How long has the tank been set up, and how did you cycle it? Did you use live rock (meaning ocean rock, covered in life), bacteria-seeded rock, or dry rock? Has anything died recently? It might be coincidence that you added the corals about when this started, or something on one of their rocks might be rotting. I wonder if one of the corals itself might have a problem- do they all look okay? Nicely puffed out and extended and all.

[Tamberav]

Royal grammas are skiddish, he may very well be scared. They are also territorial and a 12g is pretty small. 

 

You shouldn't have ammonia. How long has the tank been up? What test kit do you use? I am not sure what reads down to 0.1 

[Beginnerreeftanker]

10 hours ago, Tired said:

Ammonia is toxic. You should have none of it. That's your problem, and I'm surprised your clownfish isn't acting sick. Do big water changes to get rid of it, and keep getting rid of it until it stops reappearing.

 

You need to figure out why there's ammonia. How long has the tank been set up, and how did you cycle it? Did you use live rock (meaning ocean rock, covered in life), bacteria-seeded rock, or dry rock? Has anything died recently? It might be coincidence that you added the corals about when this started, or something on one of their rocks might be rotting. I wonder if one of the corals itself might have a problem- do they all look okay? Nicely puffed out and extended and all.

I originally used live rock, and it has been 2 and three quarters months since I originally set up my tank.  Nothing has died that I know I’m of, but my ammonia does cycle up and down a bit.  All of my corals are doing great, they’re all fully extended and even I spot feed them they eat greedily.  I think I also moved my rock a little bit, could that be the cause of this?  I Did know that the royal gramma is territorial, and could she be upset that her hiding spot is gonna?  As for the water change, when you mean big do you mean a couple of 2 gallon water changes?  Or perhaps one 4 gallon water change?  Thanks.  

[Beginnerreeftanker]

9 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Royal grammas are skiddish, he may very well be scared. They are also territorial and a 12g is pretty small. 

 

You shouldn't have ammonia. How long has the tank been up? What test kit do you use? I am not sure what reads down to 0.1 

My tank has been up for 2 and 3/4 months, and it’s 16 gallons.  I use the saltwater master test kit, I’ll put a picture into the chat.  Right now in the daylight my royal gramma is doing fine too, swimming around and everything.  It only seems that she does this at nighttime when she is going to sleep or something.  

[paulsz]

since you're using the API test kit for ammonia, you may get a "false" reading of 0.1 (or between 0 and 0.25). Sometimes it will do that. Mine would always shows a colour just a little greener than the yellow. 

 

I don't think it's ammonia.

[Beginnerreeftanker]

I used the saltwater master test kit, pretty sure it’s for beginners or something.  

[Beginnerreeftanker]

I’ll send a pic with the results too.  

[Beginnerreeftanker]

There have also been a few times when my fish food drops to the bottom and the fish don’t see or eat it, could that be causing ammonia?

[paulsz]

13 minutes ago, Beginnerreeftanker said:

There have also been a few times when my fish food drops to the bottom and the fish don’t see or eat it, could that be causing ammonia?

No I don't think so. 

 

Like I had said, the ammonia of 0.1 could be a false reading. This happens a lot with API test kits for ammonia. Both API test kits i bought for my two tanks have done it like that. I don't think ammonia is anything to worry in this case. Just monitor the two fish for now. If you see it getting worse, or you see new behavior, let us know. 

[Beginnerreeftanker]

Ok great!  I also think I’ve been reading the results wrong, i haven’t been doing it in a well lit area.  Thanks a lot!  

[jambon]

It sounds like normal behaviour for the gramma.. they swim upside down under overhangs in nature.. the new corals could be confusing him/her. Looking for a comfortable safe place to hang out... and the clownfish is just another intruder.

The water quality may or may not play a part in the behaviour...

[Beginnerreeftanker]

One more question to everyone.  My tank has a little bit of nitrate in it, nothing the fish can’t handle mind you.  I was just curious if there was a certain Chemical that would help speed up the process of reducing nitrates. I have a pH buffer that works very well, and was wondering if there is anything like that for all of the other water perameters.  

[paulsz]

no there are no chemicals to reduce nitrates. You should just be doing water changes (10%) or so once a week or so. 

 

Regarding pH buffer - I would advise against using it. A lot of times it just raises the pH temporarily, and it comes back down in an hour or so. Meanwhile, it increases the alkalinity, which could end up hurting the corals. 

 

 

 

 

[Beginnerreeftanker]

Ok thanks for the feedback!  I’ll stop using that and let the tank do it’s thing

[Tired]

You want nitrates. Your corals will starve without nitrates and phosphates. 12 is slightly higher than some people keep their nitrates, but shouldn't be an issue for fish- I know some people on here have reef tanks with more like 25ppm nitrates. Don't chase parameters.

 

How big is the gramma? It's possible it's maturing, and nipped at the clown due to increased hormone levels.

[Tamberav]

4 hours ago, Beginnerreeftanker said:

One more question to everyone.  My tank has a little bit of nitrate in it, nothing the fish can’t handle mind you.  I was just curious if there was a certain Chemical that would help speed up the process of reducing nitrates. I have a pH buffer that works very well, and was wondering if there is anything like that for all of the other water perameters.  

You do not want to reduce nitrates, they are needed for corals health. Aim for 10-15 Nitrates and to reduce them past that, you do a water change. 

 

Do not use pH buffer, I don't even know why they sell that stuff for salt water. It will effect your alkalinity which is no good to have swinging around for corals. Eventually dosing this will bite you in the ass. I don't even test pH on my nano's. 

 

Basically pH changes because of the carbon dioxide in your house and chasing it with pH buffer is a never ending battle, the effect is only temporary (swing) and it increases alkalinity each time. 

[Beginnerreeftanker]

Ok thanks everyone.  I only used the ph buffer once after this because it was very low, but everything’s stable and I won’t use it again 

[TerraIncognita]

On 7/30/2020 at 9:57 AM, Tired said:

You want nitrates. Your corals will starve without nitrates and phosphates. 12 is slightly higher than some people keep their nitrates, but shouldn't be an issue for fish- I know some people on here have reef tanks with more like 25ppm nitrates. Don't chase parameters.

 

How big is the gramma? It's possible it's maturing, and nipped at the clown due to increased hormone levels.

Don't chase Parameters was a very good point here. It seems like everything else in your tank per you is doing fine. So the Gramma shouldn't be the sole fish dying and being weird if other things were amuck.

 

Of course normally one can say it starts with 1 fish or coral and then it is mass decimation, but I think if you really look you'll notice all kinds of tail tell signs of other organisms in your tank.

 

Just monitor the fish. Obviously with Nano's most of us never have QT's. It's a curse.

 

Lastly more frequent, and bigger water changes will save almost everything, all the time (unless it has a parasite) so if it seems like other stuff starts going down hill, start doing 10-20% water changes daily for 4-5 days, don't chase the params, just change the water, there's only so much you can do. And if it is a parasite, because you don't have a QT, also unlikely to fix it on your own. But based on the other posts it seems like he's fine.

 

I've never had a Gramma, so not sure of their normal behavior.