Closed Zoa's and upside down snails HELP!

[wingdestiny]

Hi, Everyone I am new to salt water and I have done a lot of research on this hobby. I've cycled a 5 gallon tank with live rock and live sand till my ammonia levels are 0, nitrite at 0 - 0.1, nitrate at 0. My salinity is at 1.023 from the reading I got from my floating hydrometer. PH is at 8.3 and KH at 14dkh. Yesterday I got a really nice looking Zoa with a pair of snails. At the LFS the Zoa frag was all opened up and very beautiful. The two turbo snails were also active. I drip acclimated both snails and the Zoa and put them in the tank yesterday night. As expected the Zoa's were not opened when I placed them in the tank, however the snails were active. That was until this morning, when I turned on the tank light this morning I found the two snails flipped over and hiding in their shells and the Zoa's seemed to responsed to light a couple of them were half open. About 7 hours from this morning after I got home from work the Zoa's were hiding again and the snails in the same place as before upsidedown. What is wrong with my tank?

[VacavilleFC3S]

your salinity is low, you need to raise it to 1.026

what is your temp???

also your ALK is through the roof, definately part of the problem

[wingdestiny]

My temp is 80c and isn't 1.023 a good salinity for reef? I was lead to think it was good after so many people keep it at that level. Maybe I am wrong, but 1.023 is a really common salinity. I am really confused here. I use Instant Ocean brand for salt mixes.

[wingdestiny]

Ok, I just checked my RO water supply and it has a really low ALK and PH, for some reason Instant Ocean turns the ALK really high. Any recommendations on what I should do or what brand to buy for lower ALK.

[lancer99]

Wing, a couple of thoughts....

You might want to get a refractometer. They are fairly cheap ($50), and far more accurate than either floating (unless they are very expensive) or the "swing-arm" type hydrometers.

Even though the salinity in the ocean is a fairly constant 1.026, the received wisdom used to be that a lower salinity would be less stressful to fish. That has never been proven, and most reefkeepers keep their tanks at 1.026.

Test kits don't work for R/O water. Saltwater test kits are designed for saltwater...any small amount of impurities in R/O water will give you crazy numbers, so those results are meaningless.

I'm surprised that Instant Ocean would give you such a high alk. It might be worth getting another test kit and comparing the numbers. Most inexpensive test kits are surprisingly inaccurate!

I don't think that either a low salinity or high alk would cause the problems you're seeing. The Zoas may just be adjusting to new tank conditions, so I would give them a week or so and see how they do. And keep in mind that "turbo" snails are often not reef snails, but rather from Baja California, where they live on sandy bottoms, and haven't developed the ability to turn themselves over. They may have simply "fallen and can't get up"....I would turn them over and see if they do better.

HTH,
-R

[wingdestiny]

I've actually done that with the snails and the funny thing is that they are staying hidden still. Its really weird I think something is up with the water.