guys..my zoanthus or how ever u spell it has an issue..im sure of it. when i got it at first the rock was almost covered in em..and now...they are like...disappearing..and shrinkin..getiin smaller and alot of them have just gone completely...i tested my water and just realized my ph is down...could dat be it? ooooorrr can it be dat my coral beauty is nippin at em? even tho i have never seen em...please help..this is my first coral..also can my hermit crabs be eating em? i see em on the coral allll the time.help please

Most likely a nudibranch is eating them, Try a Lugols dip.

as far as i know, angel fish are not reef safe, b4 i added corals to my tank, i had a lemon peel angel and i had to get rid of him because he picked my liverock clean. he even ate the sponge on the rocks. how off was your PH?

7.6 is not terribly low and the only thing affected by this ph level will be a slower calcification rate in stony coral, ie. SPS, LPS and Coraline and clam and snail shells.

Don't try to buffer your PH with bottled buffers. You will end up constantly chasing it and what will actually happen is you will drive the alkalinity way up. The best way to keep PH up and constant is dripping Limewater(kalkwasser) and/or better aeration of the water. High levels of co2 keep PH down.

Alk buffers have a short term affect in raising PH but it is really just short term, like a few hours.

A tightly sealed house with higher than normal co2 in the air will also cause low PH level in your tank. Try opening a few windows for a few hours and you will most likely see your PH rise quite a bit. Some people, like myself pipe in outside air to the air inlet of the skimmer for this very reason.

Also, PH test kits are horrible. If you really want to know what the PH is, get an electronic PH meter like a Milwaukee or Pinpoint and first calibrate it with 7.0 and 10.0 PH solution.

For keeping coral and especially stony corals, the most important thing to test and maintain at a constant level is alkalinity. Calcium is important for growth and Magnesium is important for maintaining calcium and alkalinity.

PH can be 7.6-8.6 and not do any harm and corals can handle big swings in PH but what they can't handle well is big swings in alkalinity.

Too many people who are somewhat new to the hobby get way too concerned with PH and the store are more than willing to sell them a bunch of buffers and other crap to deal with it but neglect to tell them that these "PH" buffers are nothing more than alk buffers so most will overdose on the alk trying to get PH up. Don't worry about it.

Just keep your Ca in the 380-450 range, Alk in Dkh at 7-11 and Magnesium at about 1300.

Cool man, glad you like it. There are other skimmers out there the work better but, for the price, you can't beat Reef Octopus and ASM.