How are we killing our critters?

[DevilDuck]

Here’s the supplemental blue lighting I used in my tank. It is sold from their own website and via eBay. https://www.21ledusa.com/aquarium_led_reefbar_actinic_blue_p/rb5730blwp.htm

 

Pick up the dimmer too, the manual one will do fine. You will be able to use the dimmer on either the stock light or the reefbar. I find that attaching the light to it to the stock lid with a lot of hot glue works fine. I used 2 reefbars in my setup that I feel one is more than adequate.  With 2 supplemental bars I had to dim the main light about 50%.

 

Personally, I think “ramping” up lights is over rated. For decades, all aquarium lights were just on and off and people still were able to keep nice tanks.

 

Second, I would give up on the idea of “schooling” fish in this tank. You cannot have true schooling fish in saltwater unless you have a multi-hundred gallon tank. I upgraded from the the Fluval to a 3 foot long tank and my fish options are still very limited. These animals evolved in a huge ocean and are not meant to be  in our small glass cages. Freshwater fish are different since they evolved to be in smaller streams and ponds. 

 

The fish in the fish store are all in temporary holding tanks and highly stressed. Do no take how they are acting in that environment that for their normal behavior in your tank.

 

Sounds like things are getting better! Keep us in the loop!

[seabass]

2 minutes ago, DevilDuck said:

Personally, I think “ramping” up lights is over rated. For decades, all aquarium lights were just on and off and people still were able to keep nice tanks.

I agree, with a few rare exceptions.  Certain Cowfish can get stressed with sudden bright lighting, releasing toxins and even killing fish.

[Jungle_vip]

I finally had the time to read through the entire post and get a grasp on your tank history. Judging by the pictures and  all the info you have provided (which has been very good including response times), your issues are all the additional additives/food/chemicals you have dosed, overly aggressive maintenance, to go along with inconsistent light schedule/intensity. I believe you acknowledged this as well so you know what to do. You are not far off. You’ve had some die off and a bit of GHA. The water changes, daily fish feedings, and consistent light schedule will get you sorted. The 2-part you’re using is prob necessary but  testing will determine that. I didn’t see a calcium test result? Can you test for that as well? When you do your water changes manually remove as much of the GHA as possible each time. Your CUC won’t touch it unless it’s short. Get that timer. Turn the whites and blues on. Set for 8 hours as suggested during your preferred viewing times. 12-8. 1-9. 2-10. 9-4. Whatever that allows to to enjoy it the most. 

 

set your heater to 79 if you can. If it has increments of 2 set it to 78 or 80. Whatever you decide just try to keep it as stable as possible. You don’t want it to drop too low. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t meant it can’t happen. Keep in mind as well heaters can vary because if the cheap internal parts. It can be set at 78 and actually run at 76 or 80. So you’ll have to monitor it. Set it and check it very hour for the first day. Then just a daily check is fine.

 

I know it’s tempting to add more fish but I strongly advise against that. 3 cardinals in a 13 is the max you want to be at. Adding the clown would be a territorial issue on top of the other  potential negatives. Other people do it but overstocking fish = more waste = more problems. Especially in a nano. This write up should help…..
 

Do you test for calcium? As @seabass covered Cal,Alk, and mag should be monitored and dosed accordingly. Along with nitrate and phosphate monitoring. Those five are the most important.

 

The salinity should be stable and not get to high either. I noticed your salinity is at 1.027. On your refractometer you want to be 34-35 ppt. If 1.026 is the number you want. Better to be a little low than high if you are shooting for 1.026. Maybe  next water change mix it at 1.025. Do you top of manually or have an ATO?
 

what brand of salt are you using? Do you buy water? Make your own?

 

[Bendegeit]

@sea bass My daughter had been feeding them (apparently every 1-2 days) Aqueon's Color Enhancing Tropical Flakes which, now that I look at the label, is a fare amount of fish meal, squid meal, and shrimp meal mixed with a good dose of wheat, corn, soy been, and, believe it or not, Paprika? Also lots of other things from Aztec Marigold extract and garlic to vitamin K and biotin.  Again LFS and a budget. 

 

Had to buy the Salifert Nitrate test from Amazon. (another rivet for the Blue Origin. I should use Paypal so I can help SpaceX, too!)

[seabass]

2 hours ago, Bendegeit said:

My daughter had been feeding them

How old is she; meaning, would she be observing if they actually eat (and not spit out) the food?  I strongly suggest getting some frozen mysis shrimp for your cardinalfish.  They can be extremely picky eaters (even when hungry).  They can sometimes go for a few weeks without food (thanks to being mouthbrooders); however, they should be fed at the very least once a day.

 

In case you're interested, here's a pic of some of the babies that I've raised to maturity:

[rough eye]

i used this to affix a actinic strip to the lid: 

https://www.itapestore.com/3M-DualLock

 

as far as food goes, i feed mostly rod's (frozen) food. once a week or so i'll give the spirulina loaded frozen brine shrimp. i sometimes also give a few flakes, and often give a few pellets to my clown, although my other fish doesn't go for the pellets.

[Bendegeit]

@DevilDuck  Thanks for the link and recommends. My daughter and I were discussing pooling resources for the AI 16 but if we get this blue light and that timer there will be more cash for better test kits and other stuff.

 

@seabass Those are good looking Cardinals. I didn't originally like the type much but they've grown on me. Especially with the current card survivor, which also survived from the first trio and the blue devil. To be fair, the blue devil ate the fins off of one of the cards and stress the other to death before we gave him to another aquarist. So I don't blame water balance issues for those deaths. 

 

To answer your question, my daughter is 17, about to turn 18, and loves fish and coral and snails and she does pay attention to thing like that. But we're newbies and uneducated and finding reliable info has been elusive before finding nano-reef.com. In fact, we got 3 cardinals because she understood from another 'source' that 'schooling fish' should be in groups of at least 3 or they can stress out. She's always been concerned about overstocking, too, but she's been counting snails and crabs as part of the load. @Igreen's very helpful guide (thank you Jungle_v_i_p. And love that pun, Igreen!) seems to only count fish. So are you saying a lone cardinal would be fine without needing other cards? But we still shouldn't have more than 3 finned creatures?

 

@Jungle_v_i_p our heater has a dual display set at 78 and 80 and a separate digital thermometer consistently reads between the temps I listed earlier. 

 

Ca 440 (API) after the last water change.

 

The blue line in our refractometer is just fuzzy enough to as easily be 1.026 as 1.027.

 

Also, we've never mixed water but only buy it from the same aquarium that sold us our Fluval Sea aquarium, live rocks, and frags. I don't really suspect the quality of their water as supplied as much as our mistakes after getting it home, though. 

 

[Bendegeit]

 

BTW, can anyone tell me what this light-green round growth is? And if we should be alarmed by it?

[Bendegeit]

Thought I posted this already but now I see that I hadn't. Did a partial (15% or so) water change the other night.

 

PH            -  (still don't have a test for this.)

KH (Alk)  7.5 (API)

Ca           440

Phos       0.1 (Hanna)

Nitrate    0  (API - Ordered a Salifert kit on line but it hasn't arrived yet.)

Salinity    1.026 - 1.027 (ATC Refractometer)

mag        1344 (Salifert)

temp       80.1

[seabass]

26 minutes ago, Bendegeit said:

So are you saying a lone cardinal would be fine without needing other cards? But we still shouldn't have more than 3 finned creatures?

The cardinalfish should be fine as a single.  Although my pair was typically out and about more than the singles that I've kept.  They tend to want to pair up.  However, the tank is a little small for a Banggai Cardinalfish, so I probably wouldn't add more.

 

What are your other two fish again?

 

4 minutes ago, Bendegeit said:

KH (Alk)  7.5 (API)

What's the alkalinity of new water (before you add it to your tank)?

[Murphs_Reef]

2 hours ago, Bendegeit said:

PH            -  (still don't have a test for this.)

Not required. Save your money for other items.

[Jungle_vip]

9 hours ago, Bendegeit said:

 

BTW, can anyone tell me what this light-green round growth is? And if we should be alarmed by it?

Sponge Bob! Where’s patrick? Lol. It a sponge and no alarm. Another link for ID in case you have something that pops up. 99 percent of things will be fairly common.

 

[Bendegeit]

Source water - premixed at Aquarium store:

 

KH (Alk)  6.5 (API - begins changing at 6 drops but doesn't fully change until 7)

Ca           420 (API)

Phos       0.02 (Hanna)

Nitrate    0  (API - still waiting for Salifert kit but very very yellow.)

Salinity    1.025 - 1.026 (ATC Refractometer)

mag        1270 (Salifert)

 

@Jungle_v_i_p Thanks for the link to the critter guide. Daughter is thrilled that we have a hitchhiker sponge.

 

Now we're wondering about this little beasty. We can't be certain but it looks a little like either the xenia we have in the other corner, or slightly like the aptasia or majano in the guide?

 

 

It's hard to get a good picture because it's so small and I can't upload video. It has a stalk and arms lined with little fingers. In color and general shape it reminds me of the xenia on the far wall except that is is far more 'frilly' than tiny shoots growing out of the xenia. 

[Bendegeit]

@seabass  At the moment this little cardinal is all alone in the tank. No other fish. The history of the tank is roughly this, if you're bored enough to read it:

 

When she started, my daughter put in two firefish goby, some snails, and the cleaner shrimp. We'd just started the tank and had done nothing to mature it. The firefish died relatively quickly, revealing the bristleworm hitchiker that came with our live rock. At the time we were certain the bristleworm was killing the fish but our aquarium guru convinced us it was not. Didn't give us a better idea of what did happen, though, and we went home frustrated.

 

After that daughter got the three cardinals and, a little later, we added a bright yellow and purple fish, don't know it's type, but it died very fast. Accepting that 'some fish just die,' we replaced it with a neon blue goby and, further deceived by screen savers (so many tropical fish together) and an LFS guy that literally will say anything, I decided the tank could handle a couple of Fiji Blue Devil 'schooling fish" which the LFS guy said were 'non-aggressive.' My daughter chewed me out for that but I trusted the LFS guy.

 

The goby disappeared shortly after that, one of the blue devils. This seemed relatively fast for 'some fish just die' so I went back to the aquarium store with questions. I showed him pictures of our tank and, seeing the blue devil, warned that we'd have problems with him. But then he turned our attention to salinity and evaporation. That was when I bought the refractometer and some distilled water to work on keeping that element balanced. We also changed our acliimatization process, moving the new fish to a plastic cup that floated on the surface and intermittently adding a bit of our water to what it came in over the next hour or two. In this way we added back another neon blue goby.

 

Interestingly enough, the tank at the LFS that held this guy had a severe GHA problem--where I now suspect our problem came from. The new goby was really cute, though, and while the remaining blue devil had become openly aggressive, the neon would stand up to it fiercely--and then run and hide. It also  liked to explore the tunnels of the live rock.

 

About that time we learned that the first neon wasn't dead but had hid in the filtration area to escape the blue devil. We fished him out and rethe just kept going back and later did die--probably from the stress of being hunted out of his new preferred dwelling area.  Not long after that my daughter found one of the carinals so chewed up that it was no longer able to keep itself upright. It was like a floating ball of cardinal, floating along in the stream. We tried to isolate it and help it upright, uncertain if it could even re-grow its fins, but it died a day later.

 

Then I notice another of the cards with a nip on his top fin and decided to be proactive. My daughter refused to 'through it out', and we wouldn't be able to visit the aquarium store for several days in which it could potentially kill one or more of the cardinals, so I caught it and put it in a plastic bowl floating on the top. The water flow jostled it enough to oxygenate the cup but the blue devil managed to escape--twice--and the little bugger learned, each time making it harder to catch anew. Finally the weekend arrived and we took him to our regular aquarium store, the owner of which gracefully accepted the blue devil and then casually tossed him into one of his coral tanks without any aclimatization. I haven't seen it since and wonder if it died.

 

We bought the red-banded snail, two turbos, and an emerald crab next. My daughter also complained that the corals weren't actually growing so about then is when I purchased the two-part from CoraLife.

 

Not long after that the second cardinal died (not the one with the top fin nipped) and, less than a week later, the neon goby, but everything else seemed to be doing fine. The shrimp had grown massive (we've never seen another cleaner shrimp as big as him).

 

Not wanting to push things, we bought two more cardinals so that this guy could have company. Then the GHA started, first in a small clump on the side of the right rock (in picture).

 

At first I was not properly alarmed because it was only in a small area but I did look for 'natural' solutions. Somewhere in there I bought and killed the flowerpot coral.

 

 

Looking at my photo of our nearly dead flowerpot, our aquarium guy (the same one who sold it to me in the first place) argued that it wasn't a flowerpot.  After that he was less friendly with me and, I think, he pretty much avoids me when I come in now.

 

So I went online and ordered an 'electric blue hermit' and three banded troica snails from an on-line source, all of which are supposed to love to dine on GHA. One of the troica died the next day and the hermit the day after that but the other two troica were doing great. I've even spotted super small trioca in there. Unfortunately, they just weren't eating any GHA, which I always pick at every time we do a water change and sometimes in-between. That's when I started trying the aggressive water changes and, when that didn't help, the Flux RX.

 

Since then the emerald crab, the red-banded turbo, and another troica have died.

[Bendegeit]

Update - Salifert test kit for Nitrate arrived.

between 10 and 25 mg/L

[Jungle_vip]

How long has your tank been up and running again? I think you mentioned but I can’t remember. Those flower pot corals can really be hit or miss. Some people have great success but many people watch them whither away after a few months even with the best husbandry practices designed specifically around that type of coral. I don’t have experience with Flux RX (fluconazole) but I do with a competing product claiming to have the same results (vibrant). I lost almost all my pods, some snails, many many micro brittle stars, mysis shrimp, and who knows what else. Being that both are used as an algicide I could see both having similar side effects. I stopped using the vibrant after three doses I believe because of the mass die off my inverts. I’ve just recently started to see the numbers rebound. I’d guess that was 3-4 months ago now.

 

i had a feeling you had some nitrate and phos because GHA feeds off of both. As do your corals. 
 

can you give a list of all your inhabitants now? Fish, inverts (including hitchhikers), coral.

 

alk is  low for fresh mixed salt water or maybe a bad reading from test kit. 6.5 seems off to me. You know what brand they use by chance? If not be a good question to ask

[rough eye]

a lot of stuff has happened in that tank. let me tell you my own story, for comparison. i set up the same tank you have at the beginning of December.

 

so i bought the tank, told LFS people i'd be back in 2 or 3 months for livestock. started with live rock and live sand. after one week i began testing for ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite ,and tested salinity with a refractometer daily. i was prepared to wait that long before adding livestock but turned out i didn't have to.

 

i didn't wait 2 months, after 3 weeks i added a blue leg hermit. a 2nd one snuck in as a hitchhiker, and i added a small clown fish but he died by morning. since that time i've done about 1.5 gallon water change weekly, and test salinity whenever i feed. On Dec 30 i added another clown and peppermint shrimp.

 

Middle of January i added one trochus snail. End of January i added one tailspot blenny. 

 

February I added one emerald crab and one mexican turbo snail.

 

March I added one astraea snail, a GSP frag and 2 ricordea.

 

May I added 1 toadstool leather coral.

 

at each step of the way i wanted to ensure both that anything in the tank had enough to eat, and that there was no strain of bio load on the biological filtration. I've had one hermit crab go missing but aside from that, haven't had anything die since that first clownfish. I also started researching everything i bought at least a month before adding them. Currently i'm waiting until the time is right, when I plan to add a few more coral specimens. No hurry.

[Bendegeit]

@rough eye You've definitely been wiser about this than we. More patience will be used in the future.

 

@Jungle_v_i_p This tank was a Christmas present for my daughter so it's been up since mid January.

 

I can't say which of my my more timid creatures currently live but this is my best guess:

 

Fish:

   Cardinal

 

Coral:

   three pods of zoas

   xenia

   hammer (or frogspawn?) which may be dead now

   duncan

   haven't figured out what the yellow puffy one is

   gsp

   something mysterious that might be coral or might be something else

 

Snails:

   two small snails--I think turbos

   one large turbo--maybe dead now

   One or more tiny baby trochus (have I been spelling it wrong? Also, haven't seen any recently so it/they might be dead now, too. Or not. They're smaller than a grain of rice.)

 

Sponge:

   green (hitchhiker)

   two red slimy looking things that look like they have tiny white spines sticking out of their centers (also hitchhikers)

 

other inverts:

   white emerald crab

   two tiny blue legged hermits (if they live--haven't seen one in days)

   one, maybe more, tiny brittle stars (one came as a hitchhiker a second one might have broken off but can't be sure now)

   up to two featherduster worms on the underside of the arch rock (that may be dead now. I haven't seen them in a while either.)

   at least one bristle worm (about 3 inches long) also a hitchhiker.)

   copopods - we added a bunch early on.

   lots of bugs living in the GHA.

 

Don't know if there is anything else I can't name.

 

Also, thinking back on it, kinda makes sense now that anything that poisons GHA risks poisoning the things that live on it. So snails and crabs--yeah.

 

[Bendegeit]

Also this little yellow worm.  Isthis a spaghetti worm? It's tentacles (that knot of yellow 1/4th down) seem to be on it's back, not at it's mouth.

said tentacles are also a different color -- yellow and green. Makes me think the worm has a hitchhiker of it's own.

 

At least as fast as a snail, it crossed the top of this rock in less than 5 minutes.

[seabass]

The pic isn't the best for identification.  If it looks like an image search of a spaghetti worm, then that's probably what it is.

 

Here's a site that might help: http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/hitchworms.html

[rough eye]

i wouldn't worry about green hair algae. but i would worry about anything large (like a mexican turbo) dead in the tank. if left too long it could foul the water. test for ammonia spikes.

 

as for the algae, it will run its course, i think possibly whether you try to do anything about it or not, from what i've read on this forum and elsewhere. mine was too tough to even be pulled off the rock, gradually got weaker, and now it is weak enough that it can be blown off with a turkey baster. i guess it's running out of fuel.

 

also i've avoided dosing anything so far, and i would advise you do the same - but i'm a novice when it comes to corals, so the coral experts here might have better advice.

[Bendegeit]

@seabass Yeah. Limitations of Android phones. I'll have to get one of those clip-on macro lens kits if I keep wanting to photo tiny critters.  Following your link to Chuck's Addiction (thank you for that!) looks like a cirratulid. The main body is a solid orangy-yellow, like the top left photo in the guide but the palps have spots/bands like all the photos on the second row. The "capable of burrowing through corals, shell or rock" part makes me nervous--particularly since this little beasty is certainly not laying in the sand. 2nd time I"ve seen it, too.

 

@rough eye Yeah. I picked it up and it had that little disk they sometimes make for protection, so I hope it isn't dead/dying. I'll check again tomorrow. Is there a test for amonia? I'm beginning to wonder if that's the underlying problem--having not sifted the sand in forever, have I now released a toxic dose of the stuff?

 

@seabass In your photo of your cardinals I saw a sticker about amonia. What was that?

[rough eye]

37 minutes ago, Bendegeit said:

Yeah. I picked it up and it had that little disk they sometimes make for protection, so I hope it isn't dead/dying. I'll check again tomorrow. Is there a test for amonia? I'm beginning to wonder if that's the underlying problem--having not sifted the sand in forever, have I now released a toxic dose of the stuff?

testing for ammonia might be the most important test you can do for a salt water tank, aside from salinity. ammonia messes up fishes' ability to breathe.

[seabass]

4 hours ago, Bendegeit said:

@seabass In your photo of your cardinals I saw a sticker about amonia. What was that?

That's a Seachem Ammonia Alert Badge.  It constantly monitors for free ammonia.  Once a tank has fully cycled (established its nitrogen cycle), we rarely have a problem with ammonia (unless something large dies or we add a bunch of livestock at the same time).

 

An Ammonia Alert Badge isn't a bad idea for a fish nursery, or any new tank for that matter.  Certainly checking for ammonia in a new tank (especially after a death or major disruption) is a good idea.  But once the cycle has become established, tests results should keep coming back with undetectable levels of ammonia; so then, most people eventually stop testing for it.

[Bendegeit]

11 hours ago, rough eye said:

also i've avoided dosing anything so far, and i would advise you do the same - but i'm a novice when it comes to corals, so the coral experts here might have better advice.

@rough eye The irony to this, of course, is that my decision to dose came from consulting someone I considered a 'coral expert.' The guy has a big operation with huge selection of corals from $25 all the way up to $3,000 or more and in sizes from tiny stone-coin rooted frags up to papaya fruit sized things.