Back from travelling and my RBTA loocks awful!! Help!!

[PhilipOSU]

I just got back from traveling the last couple of days and here is what my RBTA is looking like. It has never looked like this before. His mouth seems to be gaping open and Is it dying?? Here a picture from a week ago and then 4 from today.

 

[garygb]

What are your water parameters: sg, temp., nitrates, etc. Even in the first pic it doesn't look too healthy. I would suspect water quality is the problem. Do you use RO/DI? What brand of salt? How often do you do partial water changes?

 

[9501gle]

Mine did the same thing after I developed some gold colored algee with bubbles in it. Getting better now that the algee is subsiding. From the first pic looks like you may have the same stuff.

 

[reefman13]

That BTA is on its way out for sure...I would take it out of there...

From what I can see, you don't have enough flow because there is detritus all over the place...which is probably building up your nitrates...

 

[PhilipOSU]

I stopped back to my office around six with 5 gallons for a water change. I am using Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt for my salt water. I have been doing 5 gallon water changes about every 2 to 3 weeks. Last week on Wednesday I performed a 10 gallon water change and scrubbed the algae off of most of my rock in separate saltwater.

The good news when I got to the office this evening (about 2 hours after my post) is the the RBTA looked much better. I had not fed my BTAs for about 8 or 9 days not so I gave each of them a small piece of raw shrimp which the RBTA accepted so I am hopeful.

I took my test kits with me and found the following:
SG: 1.020
PH: 7.9
Ammonia: 0 PPM
Nitrate: 10 PPM

Due to the SG being a little low I look out about 2.5 gallons and put in 5 gallons of fresh salt water. With my 1.25 gallon/day evaporation in 2 days the SG should be up a bit. I also am going to add some PH buffer over the weekend. These tests a week ago were 1.023 and 8.2. As far as flow is concerned the mag 9 I have should be pushing about 700 g/h through my 20 gallon zero edge.

Thanks for your help.
Phil

 

[reefman13]

SG needs to be 1.025
pH needs to be 8.2-8.4
Nitrates need to be as close to zero as possible.

 

[Newreeflady]

It wasn't healthy looking in the first pic. The tentacles were stubby; indicative of a starving nem.

-A

 

[garygb]

I'm glad to hear things are looking more hopeful. RBTA's are tough, so diligent attention to water changes and monitoring of water parameters should turn things around for you.

Could you post a full tank pic when you get a chance?

 

[PhilipOSU]

Here is a pic of my entire tank. I have been having issues with algae over the past couple of months, and the is what the brown is on the sand. I am going to swing by the office later this morning to check things out I will let you guys know what I find.

 

[reefman13]

That stuff all over the sand is detritus. I have to tell you, that in that tank setup, because of the design, and that putting a secondary power head into the tank takes away from the design, you have to be a VERY light feeder. Stuff settles rather quickly, and if you aren't careful, you could end up with some serious nitrates, and a lot of unhappy stuff.

I would say, get your self 10 Nassuris snails and a sea cucumber and you will be all set.

 

[garygb]

Cool aquarium. But like reefman said, it does seem to have some detritus issues--the 10 ppm nitrates indicate that things could be better. I'm assuming that you have a protein skimmer in the sump. A good one helps a lot. Also, can you have either a bunch of chaeto in the sump or a remote deep sand bed? Each of those go a long way toward absorbing nitrates from the tank--and, in the case of chaeto, phosphates are also removed. Regular, as in weekly, water changes of 15-20% of water volume would most likely help noticeably. Also, running activated carbon or chemipure would be helpful. If I were you, I would get a good carbon that doesn't leach phosphates, like Two Little Fishies brand, and use the recommended amount of carbon and change it out every two weeks. Between the water changes, and clean and efficiently running protein skimmer, either a remote deep sand bed or chaeto, and activated carbon, I think you should be able to get things looking fine in that tank in a month or two. You use Tropic Marin salt, so that's fine. You might test your phosphates and add some Phosban or Phosguard if they are elevated.

 

[PhilipOSU]

Dave - Any suggestions on which type of sea cucumber would work well in my relatively small tank? I notice that these have a toxin that they can give off has that ever been a problem for you or anyone else on here? I do have about 5 nassuris snails in the tank now, along with 3or 4 Astrea snails, 4 Cerith Snails, 5 red legged hermits and 5 blue legged hermits. I have been feeding substantially more prudently over the past 3 or 4 weeks. I have been feeding the clown pretty much directly from a dropper.

Gary - I have a 1" sand bed that is a mixture of live sand and refugium mud in my sump but can easily add some more live sand to make a deeper sand bed. I actually already have Cheato in my refugium. Currently, I do not have any active carbon in the tank, but can remedy that. I am skimming the tank with an AquaC Urchin.

I really appreciate your help guys.

Thanks,
Phil

 

[Newreeflady]

In my experience you will not be able to keep a cuke long term in that size of a tank unless there is no rock and all sandbed. I think that getting some of the super tongan nassarius is your best bet to keep the sand stirred, and, in the meantime you might want to scrape the top of the sand into a corner and remove it (there should be a coating which allows this to happen.)

I do not like hermits since they will kill your snails. I would just get a better selection of snails.

I don't like astrea since they cannot right themselves and will get stuck upside down somewhere that you can't see them and rot, or, hopefully, be eaten by other detrivores.

Cerith, strombus, turbos & nassarius would be a good selection for your aquarium.

I think you need to do plenty of water changes with RO/DI saltwater to remedy the nitrates, and, you may benefit from a phosphate remover.

Also, I was serious about that nem. I really do suggest you feed it 2x a week until you see an improvement in tentacle extention; that first picture looked like it had stubby tentacles. I had one that came like that when someone was starving it and after feeding it the nem came back full force.

Also, empty the skimmer cup every day and skim wet.

jmo, gl.
-A

 

[garygb]

Before adding a deep sand bed in your refugium, I would religiously do 15-20% weekly water changes using RO/DI. I would definitely begin to filter with activated carbon. I would want to clean the protein skimmer pump and make sure the skimmer is working as efficiently as possible. How much chaeto do you have? softball clump, basketball, etc? Does the chaeto grow quickly? It should be growing very fast considering your nitrates. If it's not, then you want to figure out the problem, e.g. not enough light, or not the correct spectrum. Chaeto can double in size in a week even with undetectable nitrates.

The nassarius snails and other advice should get that cool tanks inhabitants looking as sleek as it does in short-order.

 

[PhilipOSU]

Newreeflady - I have seen the same thing with both the Astrea snails getting rolled onto their backs and the hermits attacking the snails. I think it might be a good idea to remover the hermits to my 100G tank and add 8-10 tonga nassarius snails to get things back on track. It is no problem to get the BTA fed more often, it is fun watching them eat. I am using RODI water for both my water changes and my auto top off.

Gary - My cheato is somewhere between the size of a softball and basketball. However I have definitely not been seeing anywhere near that kind of growth. I am using a compact fluorescent flood light that I picked up from Home Depot. I have no idea what the spectrum of the light is.

I am going to do 5 gallon water, which is roughly 15% of the water column, changes every 3 days for the next week and a half. The skimmer has already been skimming pretty wet and was cleaned out last Monday so I will plan on cleaning it again on Wednesday or Thursday this week.

Thanks for the help,
Phil

 

[garygb]

Chaeto likes 6700K just fine. I imagine it would flourish on 5000K as well. The lower Kelvin daylight CFs are definitely preferable to say 10,000K or above. Your water change regimen sounds good. Getting the sg up to around 1.026 over the course of a few days would be ideal. I like to use a refractometer calibrated using Pinpoint solution for testing sg myself. Some of those cheap hydrometers are way off. Also a refractometer using purified water to calibrate is usually ~.003 off too.

 

[Newreeflady]

I have a conductivity meter from pinpoint that I really like for salinity measurements. Still, I always shoot for 1.025 for the tank to give myself a little buffer, although I have had it above 1.026 without any problems.

No CF bulbs at HD are higher than 10k.

You're gonna love the Tongan Nass... they are my favorite sand-sifters for a small tank! It's great to watch them come out as soon as food hits the water column... what a sense of smell!

Please post updates on the nem as you get it fed better. I believe you will see quite a difference in a matter of weeks!

Best,
Angela

 

[reefman13]

Just went back and reread some stuff I had said...#1 sorry if I came off a little less than friendly

I have a tiger tail cucumber and they are detritus LOVERS and are actually hardier than most people think. I have one in a BB tank w/ over 75x turn over, and really am not too worried about it getting caught in a pump. I would have to say though they are probably most vulnerable when first introduced to a new tank that has less than perfect water quality...that is where you may run into some problems. I would say though, that once this problem is sorted out it would be a good thing to have. Just FYI my "cuke" is over 6 years old...

IMO I have not fed my anem. in over 4 months and it is showing the best coloration ever. It gets a few mysis here and there, but that's about it.

I think that the biggest problem is flow. You need more of it, no number of sand sifters can really help you there. IMO/IME you need a fuge, and a good combination of flow and sand sifters...

I would look at taking the clown and anem out, stir up the sand, do a full display W/C and then wait 24hrs empty the skimmer, do a small 10g w/c then put everything back in. During that process have hooked up a fuge or put one in the sump, and upgraded your return...

 

[garygb]

I think 1.025 is fine, but on average, natural seawater has a salinity of 35ppt which is just over 1.026 specific gravity. If it happens to creep up to 1.027 or 1.028 that wouldn't hurt anything. The Red Sea has an average specific gravity of 1.028.