Snails, crabs, and Xenia dying

Hi,

This past Friday I noticed a large bunch of my Xenia looked a little
"wilty". Kind of blue-grey and flopped over. Didn't think too much of it
because sometimes it does that.

Saturday, it looked worse. Took out one of the rocks that it is a
attached to and it smelled terrible. Definately dying. So, I weeded out
all the dying pieces and checked Nitrates and Ammonia. Ammonia was
undetectable and Nitrates were around 5.

Sunday morning, a bunch of astrea snails are on their backs in the sand.
Not dead but kind of stunned and my tree coral looks almost as bad as
the Xenia did. Flipped the snails over, threw some carbon in the sump,
cleaned the skimmer and checked the water again. Nitrates and Ammonia
are fine. Ph was 8.4, alk 3.4, SG 1.026.

Monday morning the Xenia on the other side of the tank is turning a bit
blue. Tree coral still looks crappy. A few snails are dead.

This morning, Xenia and tree coral unchanged. A few more dead snails and
now some blue leg hermits are dead also. Checked the water again.
Ammonia might be a little elevated. Nitrates still hanging around 5.
Other parameters unchanged. Skimmer isn't putting out excessive amounts
but more than normal.

Now I'm getting water ready to do a large change. Approx 50%.

Its a 75 gallon tank, about 70 lbs of live rock. It's been up for a
little over a year now. Nothing new added in the past 3 weeks. But I did
add some new snails and mushrooms last month. The mushrooms look fine,
star polyps fine, two plate corals are also fine. Fish look fine. Not
sure what else to do other than the water change. Any ideas? Suggestions
to help keep everything from going south?

Thanks,

Andy

Andy,
I have a few questions for you...

What brand of salt are you using?
How do you measure Sg?
What is your temperature? Are you sure you are not having temp swings now
that the weather is getting warmer?

Your Alk is WAY low. Do a search on raising it to determine the best method
for you.

Do you have any other test kits?
I'm curious to see where your other paremeters are such as Ca, Mg, PO4. I'm
not saying you need to buy these if you dont have them (not yet anyway) but
if you do have them, use 'em! =)

Any other problems like brown algea or green hair algea blooms?

~Mort



"Andy Black" wrote in message
...
Hi,

This past Friday I noticed a large bunch of my Xenia looked a little
"wilty". Kind of blue-grey and flopped over. Didn't think too much of it
because sometimes it does that.

Saturday, it looked worse. Took out one of the rocks that it is a
attached to and it smelled terrible. Definately dying. So, I weeded out
all the dying pieces and checked Nitrates and Ammonia. Ammonia was
undetectable and Nitrates were around 5.

Sunday morning, a bunch of astrea snails are on their backs in the sand.
Not dead but kind of stunned and my tree coral looks almost as bad as
the Xenia did. Flipped the snails over, threw some carbon in the sump,
cleaned the skimmer and checked the water again. Nitrates and Ammonia
are fine. Ph was 8.4, alk 3.4, SG 1.026.

Monday morning the Xenia on the other side of the tank is turning a bit
blue. Tree coral still looks crappy. A few snails are dead.

This morning, Xenia and tree coral unchanged. A few more dead snails and
now some blue leg hermits are dead also. Checked the water again.
Ammonia might be a little elevated. Nitrates still hanging around 5.
Other parameters unchanged. Skimmer isn't putting out excessive amounts
but more than normal.

Now I'm getting water ready to do a large change. Approx 50%.

Its a 75 gallon tank, about 70 lbs of live rock. It's been up for a
little over a year now. Nothing new added in the past 3 weeks. But I did
add some new snails and mushrooms last month. The mushrooms look fine,
star polyps fine, two plate corals are also fine. Fish look fine. Not
sure what else to do other than the water change. Any ideas? Suggestions
to help keep everything from going south?

Thanks,

Andy

"Mort" wrote in message m...
Your Alk is WAY low.
Do a search on raising it to determine the best method for you.

Wait with this advice... if these were "meq" units, it is all right.

"Pszemol" wrote in message
...
"Mort" wrote in message
m...
Your Alk is WAY low.
Do a search on raising it to determine the best method for you.

Wait with this advice... if these were "meq" units, it is all right.

Ah, good point! Sorry guys.

~Mort

Hi,

-Salt is from Kent marine
-SG measured with a refractometer
-Temp is always 82. Sometimes will get up to 84 as the weather gets
warmer.
-Alk is in mEq. So, 3.4 is OK. If that was dKa, then, yeah it would suck.
-Ca right around 500 (I'm working on getting it lowered)
-No PO4 or Mg test kit available.
-No weird algae blooms. I'm having some problems with bubble algae, but
has been there for a while. Have some hair algae but nothing out of the
ordinary for my tank. Just don't have enough crabs to take care of it.


In article ,
"Mort" wrote:

Andy,
I have a few questions for you...

What brand of salt are you using?
How do you measure Sg?
What is your temperature? Are you sure you are not having temp swings now
that the weather is getting warmer?

Your Alk is WAY low. Do a search on raising it to determine the best method
for you.

Do you have any other test kits?
I'm curious to see where your other paremeters are such as Ca, Mg, PO4. I'm
not saying you need to buy these if you dont have them (not yet anyway) but
if you do have them, use 'em! =)

Any other problems like brown algea or green hair algea blooms?

~Mort



"Andy Black" wrote in message
...
Hi,

This past Friday I noticed a large bunch of my Xenia looked a little
"wilty". Kind of blue-grey and flopped over. Didn't think too much of it
because sometimes it does that.

Saturday, it looked worse. Took out one of the rocks that it is a
attached to and it smelled terrible. Definately dying. So, I weeded out
all the dying pieces and checked Nitrates and Ammonia. Ammonia was
undetectable and Nitrates were around 5.

Sunday morning, a bunch of astrea snails are on their backs in the sand.
Not dead but kind of stunned and my tree coral looks almost as bad as
the Xenia did. Flipped the snails over, threw some carbon in the sump,
cleaned the skimmer and checked the water again. Nitrates and Ammonia
are fine. Ph was 8.4, alk 3.4, SG 1.026.

Monday morning the Xenia on the other side of the tank is turning a bit
blue. Tree coral still looks crappy. A few snails are dead.

This morning, Xenia and tree coral unchanged. A few more dead snails and
now some blue leg hermits are dead also. Checked the water again.
Ammonia might be a little elevated. Nitrates still hanging around 5.
Other parameters unchanged. Skimmer isn't putting out excessive amounts
but more than normal.

Now I'm getting water ready to do a large change. Approx 50%.

Its a 75 gallon tank, about 70 lbs of live rock. It's been up for a
little over a year now. Nothing new added in the past 3 weeks. But I did
add some new snails and mushrooms last month. The mushrooms look fine,
star polyps fine, two plate corals are also fine. Fish look fine. Not
sure what else to do other than the water change. Any ideas? Suggestions
to help keep everything from going south?

Thanks,

Andy