Failure to thrive

[msduncan]

Let's see if I can summarize my experiences here without writing a novel:

1. Set up initial tank in summer of 2006.
2. Made rookie mistake by adding a non-quarantined fish that came down with Ick and wiped out my clownfish with it.
3. Reintroduced fish slowly. Tank was good. Amphropods on rocks, copepods on glass. I had a Tomato clown, a brittle star, a fire shrimp. Eventually added a lawnmower blenny and a blue tang.
4. Mid to late 2007 - went on vacation. Person asked to add water to tank skipped a few visits and water level went low. SALINITY SPIKE! In the coming months I had massive algae bloom. Red Slime. Bubble Algae. Lost Lawnmower. Lost Blue Tang. Lost Frogspawn. Lost Xenia.
5. Battled algae for months and months.
6. Last month I rid the tank of algae by meticulously and gently scrubbing every live rock, replacing top layers of sand. etc. Took a week of work but it looks good and algae free again.

I noticed that there are no copepods in the tank. I further noticed the absence of amphropods. I do have spagetti worms, bristle worms, the clown is still alive, the shrip and the brittle as well. I also had star polyps that survived and have been thriving.

So over the last couple weeks I added:
Mini sand sifting starfish
Copepods
Amphropods
sand sifting clams
Xenia.

I haven't seen any copepods yet, but the amphropods are thriving now. The algae is at bay for the moment.

Here's my problem: My Xenia are not thriving. They are withering and not pulsating.

Here is my setup info:
55 gallon tank. Lots of liverock and live sand
Salinity right in the middle of acceptable range
PH 8.1
Nitrate 20ppm
Temp 78

Like I said, I have healthy populations of spagetti worms, bristle worms, and the stock that survivied the great dark ages in the tank (what I like to call the salinity spike followed by the algae battles for months).

Steps I've taken in the last week to get the Xenia to thrive:
Reducing temp to 77
Added Iodine suppliments
Changing out carbon (LFS advised that my star polyps might be putting off toxins)

Any ideas at all guys? I'm really trying hard to bring this thing back from the dead so to speak. It's been a struggle, but it's turning the corner. I just can't seem to solve the Xenia issue and I don't want to add anything else coral wise until I get this solved.

 

[Sk8r]

How are you on algae regrowth now? If you have too much phosphate (usually bound in algae so never shows on tests) that can depress coral growth.
That nitrate is still too high. S/b 0 if at all possible. Carbon should always be changed every 5 days.
Be sure and have an iodine test. Don't overdose.
Do weekly water changes for trace elements.

 

[msduncan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13211933#post13211933 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
How are you on algae regrowth now? If you have too much phosphate (usually bound in algae so never shows on tests) that can depress coral growth.
That nitrate is still too high. S/b 0 if at all possible. Carbon should always be changed every 5 days.
Be sure and have an iodine test. Don't overdose.
Do weekly water changes for trace elements.

Algae doesn't seem to be regrowing very fast. Perhaps one of the problems was that I wasn't changing that carbon nearly often enough. I'll do it once a week now.

How do I get that Nitrate down?

 

[otrlynn]

Re reducing the temp. to 77 degrees. Is there a reason you are taking this measure? I believe that is below the recommended temperature for a reef tank. Probably not dangerous, but I don't know that it would be helpful either.

 

[whoopper]

I was having a nitrate problem. I put cheato on my refugium and remove bio balls and it start to goin down. Also keep doing water changes it always help .

 

[msduncan]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13212312#post13212312 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by otrlynn
Re reducing the temp. to 77 degrees. Is there a reason you are taking this measure? I believe that is below the recommended temperature for a reef tank. Probably not dangerous, but I don't know that it would be helpful either.

See this was opposite of what I've been told. I was told to reduce the temp to 77 to get everything thriving again.

There seems to be a lot of innaccurate and conflicting information concerning reef tank keeping.

 

[otrlynn]

Below is a link to an article on Water parameters. It has lots of excellent information. I stand corrected in that 77 falls within the range of acceptable water temperatures--albeit at the lower end.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php