New Setup - possibly dying Zoa and yellow green flower pot

[Omri]

Hi Everyone, Ive just updated my profile on my new IM Nuvo 38 - Please help! My yellow green flower pot has some limbs that are going from neon yellow color to a light beige. some parts are losing the iridescent yellow. Besides those two, everything else seems to be doing well thus far. Tank has been up for exactly three weeks. I added 32 lbs of live rock immediately and used RO/DI water with Tropic Marin salt from the start. For the first two weeks, I monitored nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, and pH to make sure everything was in line to add some fish and corals. fish and corals have been in for about 8 days thus far.

Also i definitely see on polyp dead on my orange zoa. it also looks like there are another 10 or 15 polyps near it that are losing their color, but i can't be sure quite yet.

checked my water about 5 times in the past week as it is a new setup. it took me forever to figure out how to use the Red Sea test kit and get accurate results, but i think I've figured it out.

currently:
Salinity: just under 1.024
pH: 8.2-8.3 (API)
Nitrate: undetectable (API)
Nitrite: undetectable (API)
Ammonia: 0 (API)
Ca: 390-400 (Red Sea)
Mg: 1440 (Red Sea)
dKH: 12.0, meq/L 4.3 (what does that meq/L 4.3 really mean?)


Livestock:
-32 Lbs man-made of Reef Rock
-XL Blue Mushroom
-Orange Zoanthias
-Pink Zoanthias
-Frogspawn Branch
-Purple Xenia
-Yellow Green Flowerpot Coral - Looo
-Superblue Maxima Clam

-2 Chromis
-1 Royal Gramma
-3 Electric Blue Hermit Crabs

 

[albano]

My yellow green flower pot has some limbs that are going from neon yellow color to a light beige. some parts are losing the iridescent yellow.

-Yellow Green Flowerpot Coral - Looo

IMO...you're stocking WAY too much/too soon...tank is 3 weeks old!...
if you're talking about a gonipora coral...your chances (like most other people) of success are near zero...the clam may also have a problem

 

[JimmyR1rider]

IMO...you're stocking WAY too much/too soon...tank is 3 weeks old!...
if you're talking about a gonipora coral...your chances (like most other people) of success are near zero...the clam may also have a problem

+11111111111

Also, you're salinity is a tad lower than most keep it, including the store you bought them from most likely, and you're calcium is also a bit low and your DKH is high. All of these things have to be in balance for corals to thrive. The less sensitive ones may not show signs of stress with slight imbalances but the more tempermental ones absolutely will. API I wouldn't rely on for many things other than ammonia. Did you ever see the cycle happen?

3 weeks is way soon to have gone through a cycle using conventional live rock. If you didn't see your cycle happen through daily testing I wouldn't have added a thing.

 

[akma]

Should wait at least a month, before you add anything. You ordered the reef rock from LA? There's always dieoff during shipping.

 

[Omri]

oh no - you are all making me very nervous now. the rock cam from ocean gallery in NJ. although it did take me a day to get everything set up, so there was surely some die-off. as for cycling, i gave it a couple of weeks with a trigger in the tank. the place i went to recommended do so, and only after reading quite a bit more on MR, i realized it wasn't the best environment for the trigger. Although i was told that because i had live rock in there, it should not be a problem.

as for my levels, low salinity, low calcium, and high dKH... how should i go about correcting this without traumatizing everything i have in there? salinity seems like a simple solution. maybe just add a drop of salt? my salinity the other day was btwn 1.025 and 1.026, and i thought that was high based on what the Red Sea test kit recommended (1.024), so i topped off a little extra with plain RO/DI water.
Should i put in any additives for calcium? if so, which brand would you recommend and how should i go about adding it. Same question of dKH.

thanks for your advice, and should i worry about all the corals or is it more likely that if i level everything out over the next few days i should be ok.

I WONT ADD ANYTHING ELSE, I PROMISE!!

 

[JimmyR1rider]

oh no - you are all making me very nervous now. the rock cam from ocean gallery in NJ. although it did take me a day to get everything set up, so there was surely some die-off. as for cycling, i gave it a couple of weeks with a trigger in the tank. the place i went to recommended do so, and only after reading quite a bit more on MR, i realized it wasn't the best environment for the trigger. Although i was told that because i had live rock in there, it should not be a problem.

as for my levels, low salinity, low calcium, and high dKH... how should i go about correcting this without traumatizing everything i have in there? salinity seems like a simple solution. maybe just add a drop of salt? my salinity the other day was btwn 1.025 and 1.026, and i thought that was high based on what the Red Sea test kit recommended (1.024), so i topped off a little extra with plain RO/DI water.
Should i put in any additives for calcium? if so, which brand would you recommend and how should i go about adding it. Same question of dKH.

thanks for your advice, and should i worry about all the corals or is it more likely that if i level everything out over the next few days i should be ok.

I WONT ADD ANYTHING ELSE, I PROMISE!!

Don't get nervous, learn from this is all.

You can mix a batch of fresh saltwater, test your levels and ad R/O water to it to get the salinity at 1.026 (just using that number because it's what a lot of us, myself included keep ours at) the calcium at around 420 and your DKH at around 9. Then you can do small water changes each day- a gallon or 2 so you're adding the water with the levels at what you want them to be slowly and your levels will fall into place.

No never add salt to the tank to raise it if there's already life in there, you have no way of knowing if you added too much until it's disolved, just doesnt make sense.

If you were cycling it with no livestock in there you could add the salt to the tank and let the flow dissolve it since nothing would get shocked, but that's not the case here.

They gave you really bad advice on cycling a tank. You should NEVER use a fish to cycle a tank, the ammonia and nitrite as they spike will harm their gills.

What you should do and should have done is:

test daily for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and record your readings each day on the same piece of paper.

Dose the tank as per instructions on whatever bacteria you went with(microbacter 7, nutrafin cycle, etc.)

Once you see your ammonia start to rise it will spike(reach high levels), then once the one type of bacterias eat the ammonia they release nitrite- you'll see nitrite start to rise and your ammonia will start to drop- then your nitrite will reach it's highest reading(spike) and your nitrates will climb because the bacteria that feeds on the nitrite will release nitrate.

Once you have nitrates with 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite your cycle is completed and you can do a heavy water change to lower your nitrates to a respectable level and be ready for your clean up crew, then fish, then finally corals.

Hope this helps and good luck with the tank from now on

 

[skene]

Unfortunately,you will start to go through a cycle shortly. What you want to do is remove as much as you can because most of your coral and critters will not survive a large ammonia spike. Especially the clam as they are very sensitive to water chemistry and should never have been added to a new tank.

 

[James]

If I would you I would restart and do it right. Here is what I would do: take your livestock (corals and fish and any inverts you have) and let a friend take care of them for a month. Throw a few large cocktail shrimp in your tank, turn off everything but the heater and a powerhead and let that thing sit for a solid month testing every week. Change the water (make sure you get the shrimp if they didn't decay all the way), insert the animals. Have a tank that will be successful. An ounce of prevention = pound of cure man.

 

[Omri]

Don't get nervous, learn from this is all.

You can mix a batch of fresh saltwater, test your levels and ad R/O water to it to get the salinity at 1.026 (just using that number because it's what a lot of us, myself included keep ours at) the calcium at around 420 and your DKH at around 9. Then you can do small water changes each day- a gallon or 2 so you're adding the water with the levels at what you want them to be slowly and your levels will fall into place.

No never add salt to the tank to raise it if there's already life in there, you have no way of knowing if you added too much until it's disolved, just doesnt make sense.

If you were cycling it with no livestock in there you could add the salt to the tank and let the flow dissolve it since nothing would get shocked, but that's not the case here.

They gave you really bad advice on cycling a tank. You should NEVER use a fish to cycle a tank, the ammonia and nitrite as they spike will harm their gills.

What you should do and should have done is:

test daily for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate and record your readings each day on the same piece of paper.

Dose the tank as per instructions on whatever bacteria you went with(microbacter 7, nutrafin cycle, etc.)

Once you see your ammonia start to rise it will spike(reach high levels), then once the one type of bacterias eat the ammonia they release nitrite- you'll see nitrite start to rise and your ammonia will start to drop- then your nitrite will reach it's highest reading(spike) and your nitrates will climb because the bacteria that feeds on the nitrite will release nitrate.

Once you have nitrates with 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite your cycle is completed and you can do a heavy water change to lower your nitrates to a respectable level and be ready for your clean up crew, then fish, then finally corals.

Hope this helps and good luck with the tank from now on

thanks very much for your advice. i will follow it to the T.

As for my tank cycling, is it possible it has already cycled? i was away in italy for work for the first week and a half it was running with the trigger inside. I had someone keeping an eye on the tank and feeding the fish. When i returned i checked ammonia, nitrates and nitrite everyday. everything seemed good. it is possible the tank cycled from the live rock and the fish that was in there originally?

so far, ive mixed a new batch of RO/DI freshwater with my tropic marin salt. first thing i did was made sure salinity was 1.026 and i have just test for Mg (1520 - still high), Ca was 450, and KH was 13.7. what do i do if the levels of my new water are off? do i amend that water? is it possible tropic marin is not the right brand of salt to use for the area i live in?

should a fresh batch of RO/DI saltwater be expected to have perfect levels?

as for temp, does this affect any of these levels because the temp was not 77 degress.

 

[Omri]

If I would you I would restart and do it right. Here is what I would do: take your livestock (corals and fish and any inverts you have) and let a friend take care of them for a month. Throw a few large cocktail shrimp in your tank, turn off everything but the heater and a powerhead and let that thing sit for a solid month testing every week. Change the water (make sure you get the shrimp if they didn't decay all the way), insert the animals. Have a tank that will be successful. An ounce of prevention = pound of cure man.

its something i would really consider, however, i don't know anyone who has a reef tank. these crazy endeavors are inspired by you guys. not something i have actually seen in person, lol. i'm most worried about the clam. as for the goniopora - just bagged it and i'm taking it back to the store it came from. i just hope he will take it back, because it has already started dying in my tank, so it is guaranteed not to survive. i wonder if maybe the goniopora was the cause of some die-off on my zoa. i saw it letting out this slime in the water when i moved it out this morning.

 

[greybolt03]

All info given above is very good and should help you out
As for the clam I would not add a clam to a tank that is less then a year old as clams are very sensitive creatures..
And what are you using to measure your salinity? If it is a hydrometer they are not very accurate also temps will affect the readings of your salinity if I were you I would invest in a
Refractometer to get an accurate reading....
Good luck

 

[Imbarrie]

What LFS is giving you this really bad advice? Petco?
I would never trust them again. Ever.

 

[Omri]

just an update on the problems. the goniopora was really doing poorly so i rushed back to the store where i got it and was able to return it. phew.

as for levels, did awater change and was able to balance out levels a bit more. calcium has been steady at about 430, KH is still consistently high at 12.9. Mg is at 1400. pH is 8.2, salinity is 1.025. As for nitrates and nitrite.... well theyre starting to rise. no ammonia but i checked nitrites yesterday and today - they are on this rise. i dont have the exact numbers in front of me but they are not very high yet. also, i just had an algae outbreak in the tank yesterday. i saw on new york steelos youtube videos that its a sign of the cylcling coming to an end? im hopeful. also, should i keep doing water changes to reduce nitrates and nitrites or should i let the cycle complete?

 

[nyguardian21]

At least you posted a thread for help before everything went downhill, alot of people including myself learned the hard way of doing things all because we didnt ask.
I personally let my tank running for two months with just live rock and live sand to let all the equipment break in and the system be balanced. Gonna look plain and empty, but the future results will be worth it. Good Luck.

 

[JimmyR1rider]

Sounds like your tank is finally cycling- you may not see ammonia at this point but if you see nitrite it means either your test kit was off or you missed the beginning of the cycle and it's in the 2nd stage of it.


Since you have the trigger in there you can do small water changes to keep nitrites at a lower level and once they go away don't do any changes for a couple of weeks and if they hold at 0 you're cycle is complete.

Yes if you have diatoms(looks like brown algae) and/or the start of a covering of green algae it's a good sign that the tank is starting to mature through its cycle.

Good luck.