Sick looking tank

by **graniteguy** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 1:09 pm

Our new tank is doing well so far. However, recently, the tank looks "Sick". It appears thick looking. Our bubble anenome seems unhappy and lately has been staying shriveled most often. Our levels are fine, but our frog coral is doing the same shrinking. Our curly cue is doing fine, so are the fish. Our electric blue hermit has started eating snails, but we expected this. Also the tips of our chocolate chip star are turning blue.

Any thoughts?
Thanks to all....

by **schigara** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 5:12 pm

How about some specifics about the tank.

1 Size
2 Sump or no sump
3 Skimmer or none
4 Substrate
5 Lighting
6 Temperature
7 Type of water used....tap, ro, ro/di, water from fish store?
8 Type of salt
9 Salinity
10 Water circulation, ie. pumps
11Which test kits and what kind
12 Ammonia
13 Nitrite
14 Nitrate
15 Calcium
16 Alkalinity
17 PH
18 Temp and PH swings through the day and night
19 How old is the setup
20 How was the cycle started and did it totally finish cycling before adding livestock

This is just a basic run down to figure out what might be going on with your tank.
Try to answer as many of the 20 questions in the list as you can.

by **graniteguy** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:32 pm

30 gallon, no sump, skimmer yes, crushed coral and ocean sand for substrate, temp steady 76-78, salinity is balls on perfect, , bio filter, 5 mos set up, cylced completely before adding life. Live rock. Our levels are usually on the perfect or within range. Cylce was started with live rock and sand first. Thanks

by **saltwaterpimp** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:17 pm

i think if you are more spicific( we can help out more) on what kind of skimmer, depth of sand...lbs of rock,,the level of salinity. personaly i would raise the temp. also mixing of crushed coral and sand is not good to do .

by **schigara** » Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:33 pm

When you say the tank looks "thick", do you mean the water is cloudy? Any cyano bacteria or diatom algae?

Are you using a hydrometer to check salinity? What is the salinity.

It helps if you give actual numbers from the water tests.

by **saltwaterpimp** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 12:17 am

also a chocolate chip stars are not reef safe in most or all cases...

by **Snowboss4492** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 1:31 am

not for nothing but my tank just went through some crazy stuff as well.......I'm 5 months into it also....I had been fighting the brown diatom crap for about 6 weeks.....just that brown crud coating on everything every day....then out of no where the water looked like smoke rolling around in there....couldn't see 5 inches into the water...parameters were right on the money....water changes didn't affect it, ....it went on for about a week, and to be honest I was preping to start up a 10 gallon nurse tank so i could crash the 20 and start over again ...then one day it was gone....i mean gone...look at my profile...the water is clearer now if thats possable and 4 days ago you couldn't see your hand on the inside of the glass.....weird ...very weird...but it may just be an algae bloom that you have to just wait out.....good luck man, it sucks but the other end is like heaven I promise.........Snowboss

by **graniteguy** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:57 pm

Ok Think we figured it out. Just like snowboss it pretty much cleared on it's own. Crystal clear now...but...too cool, our bubble tip split and now there are two. I think that is what was happening. seems great now. Loving it....

Thanks to all...Graniteguy

by **Snowboss4492** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 11:00 pm

very cool...glad to hear success

Sick looking tank

9 posts