Less Than Ideal

[wea747]

I've had my nano up for over a month now and my clove polyps were doing ok, but are now basically dead, many of my zoo's have been closed for most of this week, and my plate coral is not doing too well. All my levels are where the should be, anyone have any idea why stuff is not doing to great. I made a mini skimmer that has been working great, but is it true it may be removing too many nutrients? How do you tell if stuff is starved, or if I'm over feeding? Thanks

[drummereef]

What are your params?
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate
Temp
Alk
Calcium
Salinity
pH
etc....

[wea747]

Amm 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Temp 78-79
Alk 8
Calcium 460
ph 8.2

[dbraun15]

All those levels look in line, but make sure you check your salinity--preferrably with a refractometer for accuracy--you didn't list that--if your salinity is over 1.027 or below 1.018 you could have a problem--

[wea747]

1.025 via refractometer

[drummereef]

Hmmm. Something strange is going on here then. The params are right on. I doubt the skimmer is doing any harm. Have you doesed anything lately like iodine or something? What kind of lighting are you using?

[Matrexz]

How old are the bulbs as well for your system??

[wea747]

I literally put 1 drop, one, of iodine in early last week. The bulbs are brand new. Literally the light is like 1 month old. 9" coralite fixture 9w 10000k and a 9w forget what the other bulb is but it's 9 w one's blueish 1 is white. I added calcium and alkalinity supplements early last week too but thats cause they were both a little low, but are better now because of the addition as you can see from above

[rickh]

What Iodine did you use?? Is that the recomended concentration for the volumn of your tank?? I have to take 1 drop and dillute it in a small amount of wate rthen put some % of that in my tank for the corect conintration. Iodine can be nasty stuff. R

[wea747]

Yeah, I'm beginning to wonder if that might have been the problem, guess I should have done a bit more research, it's a Kent product.

[TimberTDI]

could it be the 18w of light?

[wea747]

Your suggesting I need more?

[wea747]

opps ^ you're

[wea747]

I want a metal halide, but I can't find a nice little one thats not gonna cost me an arm and leg

[MrMexReefer]

im thinking that too... thats a very low amount of light. Get a cheap flourescent fixture, at least those bulbs are 15 watt.. i had some on my softy tank before i upgraded to PCs and they did great...

[wea747]

mine are PC

[MrMexReefer]

is that small PC fixture from coral life? With the mini PC bulbs?

[Hobster]

You are skimming a 3.5 gal tank?
Why did you add iodine?

I would do a partial water change and remove the skimmer. JMO

[wea747]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8697709#post8697709 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MrMexReefer
is that small PC fixture from coral life? With the mini PC bulbs?

Yeah it's the only one I could find that would really fit my tank. Why?

[wea747]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8698844#post8698844 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Hobster
You are skimming a 3.5 gal tank?
Why did you add iodine?

I would do a partial water change and remove the skimmer. JMO

The total volume including the sump is more like 8 gal. I heard it was godd to add small amounts of Iodine, prob just didn't add a small enough portion

[GSMguy]

i wonder if its the lights some stuff struggles to survive under that light i have that much light on my .7gall fuge
what is an arm and a leg as far as metal halide there are some 70w retros that you could put into your coralife unit

[MrMexReefer]

Yeah... I just dont think that 18 watts of PC is enough... I have 120 watts on my 20, and I think its barely enough! You should look into that Viper Metal Halide light... it would be awesome on your tank. Check ebay, prolly find it cheap :)

[wea747]

Yeah I might order one

[supraeli]

i highly highly doubt that the light is causing problems.

this is my 6 gallon, with 30 watts of PC light (2x volume, 2x light wattage) -

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d71/supraeli/FTS101806.jpg

its also important to remember that corals that are deprived of adequate levels of light do NOT close up, as wea's zoos have. instead, they undergo morphological changes such as stalk extension and oral disk expansion, as well as increased zooxanthellae production in an effort to bolster more photon energy.

one also must remember that wattage per gallon is not a very accurate measure of total light energy being transmitted onto the coral surface, taking into the account of the inverse square law regarding decreasing light intensity over distance.

thus, the 120 watts of light over a 20 gallon may actually yield less usable light than 18 watts over 3 gallons, because of the increased distance that the light has from the coral! As an aside, imo 120 watts IS rather low light for a standard 20 gallon, given it's height.

i would suspect water conditions being the culprit here - remember, in nano and pico tanks, if one thing dies and causes an ammonia spike, it can easily cause a huge chain reaction of dying organisms, and subsequently released toxins. we all know that many stressed corals, especially zoanthids/palythoa/protopalys, have the ability to create extradinarily dangerous chemicals even to other corals in the tiny confines of our aquaria.

what type of tests are you using to test water conditions? check the expiration dates. especially calc and alk tests - these two parameters being off could easily yield the symptoms you have described.

possible scenario - adding too much iodine or calc/alk supplements last week may have caused a stresed or unhealthy coral individual to succumb releasing a cloud of toxins/organic chemicals that cascaded into a tank crash.

stray voltage in the tank may also cause symptoms described, as would the introduction of heavy metals such as copper. anyone drop a coin into your tank by accident? air freshener around? smoking cigarettes? all these types of aerosols can become bound in salt water and cause damage to your corals.

use a polyfilter in your filter and see what color it changes.

just a few ideas...

[wea747]

Thanks for the advice, yeah I'm realizing how much harder it is to get stability in such a small tank. I'll for sure be looking into/trying some of your suggestions. Appreciate the time you took. I'm new to the whole hobby so that kind of info is much appreciated. I do some more water changes in the next few days and see if that seems to help, as I had a very small golby which I haven't seen in quite some time, I.E may have died

[wea747]

How do you feel about skimmers for nano's?

[cyenna]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8717827#post8717827 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wea747
How do you feel about skimmers for nano's?


I think they're unnecessary but definitely a good back-up. They do prolong the time between water changes but a quick water change here and there isn't that big of a deal. I don't know much about skimmers - just from what I have experienced and researched on. BTW, any update on your tank?

[wea747]

meh... somethings seem to be doing a bit better some are still not doing the greatest. The plate coral is looking pretty brown, but I think thats cause my sexy shrimp are ****ing it off.

[wea747]

So I've discovered my refractometer was miscalibrated. I thought my salinity was 1.025 but it was really 1.020.

[Im SpSing]

So is it all better?

[wea747]

just got it back up where it should be this evening so I'm curious to see if stuff starts to get better