My Invertes are slowly dying

[csryan309]

Hello All!

I have a 12 gallon JBJ nano cube tank for 7 months and during this time, I have had several invertebrates randomly die. Also, it appears some of my coral aren't doing as well as they should. :sad2:

Some background info:
-JBJ 12 Gallon Nano Cube DX
-Upgraded pump to Maxi-Jet 900 and added rotating deflector
-I added a Hydor 425g powerhead, but have removed it and now waiting for my new 240g to arrive (Should be Monday)
-About 12 pounds of live rock and 10 pounds of live sand
-I removed the components in the back and have only bio balls and chemi-pure elite
-I perform weekly 20% water changes with water bought from LFS
-Lighting Cycle was 8 hours on, 16 off, but recently changed to 10 hours on, 14 off
-Temperature remains in between 78 and 82 degrees
-Nitrate: 0, Nitrite: 0, Phosphate: 0-.1, Ammonia: 0-.25, Alkalinity: 10, pH: 8.2, Specific Gravity: 1.023, Calcium: 500
-Sources of Food: Frozen Mysis, Azox Coral Macro Diet, New Era Marine Flakes, New Life Spectrum Marine Fish Formula Pellets

Currently in my tank:
-Ricordea, Hammer Coral, Walking Dendro Coral, Green Star Polyps, Duncan Coral, Frogspawn, Torch
-1 Mocha Clownfish
-7 Red/Blue Hermit Crabs, 1 Mexican Turbo Snail, 1 Nassarius Snail, 3 Nerite Snails, 15 Dwarf Florida Ceriths


Now onto the death list:
-6 Red/Blue Hermit Crabs
-1 Emerald Crab
-1 Halloween Hermit Crab
-1 Mexican Turbo Snail
-1 Super Tongan Nassarius Snail
-1 Fire Red Shrimp

These all died individually and occurred at least a month after being in the tank.

Here are some pictures of my setup:

Thank you in advance! :thumbsup:

 

[Psychomantix]

Wow you have a lot of inverts for a 12 gallon. How much are you feeding them? Maybe they're starving to death.

 

[SeaCucumberFan]

Inverts are very sensitive to water quality and a few mistakes can kill them. Have you used any copper lately?

 

[SeaCucumberFan]

Wow you have a lot of inverts for a 12 gallon. How much are you feeding them? Maybe they're starving to death.

yes, I agree, that is a lot of inverts for only 12 gallons. Si maybe starvation is the answer.

 

[fcmatt]

+1 on too many inverts and not enough food sources. That rock looks awful clean. I would not add anything and just wait and see if the creatures in the tank reach equilibrium and live longer.

 

[Sk8r]

Plus they need a steady salinity of 1.024. It may not be the only answer, but that and alkalinity are where I would look first. Pellet food on the sandbed should suffice.

 

[SeaCucumberFan]

+1 Rock is way to clean

 

[jam.jo]

82 degrees is too warm. I would bring it down to 77-79. Any major pH fluctuations? How much are you feeding? They could be starving as stated above. Also bring the salinity up to 1.025. 1.023 is a little bit low. Do you feed any algae sources or is there enough algae as food source in the tank?

 

[mattyg18]

I've lost a few inverts in the past couple of weeks also. Pretty sure its due to starvation though. When I set up my CUC i'm pretty sure the LFS sold me way too many snails. I didn't know so just took them. Someone else I spoke to at another LFS store told me that some of them die off so its normal. I'm almost 4 months in now. Lost 4 snails and 2 conches so far. The rest of the crew is doing great. If that helps at all.

 

[csryan309]

Wow you have a lot of inverts for a 12 gallon. How much are you feeding them? Maybe they're starving to death.

I was thinking this might be the problem. I feed them daily and I switch between different types of food.

Inverts are very sensitive to water quality and a few mistakes can kill them. Have you used any copper lately?

Nope, no copper is used.

Plus they need a steady salinity of 1.024. It may not be the only answer, but that and alkalinity are where I would look first. Pellet food on the sandbed should suffice.

Thank you for the advice, I will try to raise my salinity level.

82 degrees is too warm. I would bring it down to 77-79. Any major pH fluctuations? How much are you feeding? They could be starving as stated above. Also bring the salinity up to 1.025. 1.023 is a little bit low. Do you feed any algae sources or is there enough algae as food source in the tank?

Thanks for the info. I will crank on the A/C in my place to hopefully bring the temperature down in my tank to high 70s.

I haven't noticed any major pH fluctuations. I feed daily and tend to overfeed because I feel as if my pump has high enough GPH, that it can filter out any excess food.

I don't have any algae food sources, was thinking about getting some. Could you recommend a high-quality brand?




Thank you all for your responses. It seems I have too many invertes and starvation may be the problem. I will not be adding anymore, although I do miss having an emerald and cleaner shrimp.

Any ideas for my coral not thriving like they should? For example, my frogspawn hasn't looked the same since I bought it from the LFS. It was much more plump and inflated than now.

 

[CrayolaViolence]

Where did you get your rock and are you sure it has never been used in a tank where the contents were dosed with copper. If the rock was ever in a fish tank where fish were treated with copper medications it will absorb into the rock then slowly leach out into the water killing your inverts.

 

[Psychomantix]

You have mostly lps, which also benefits from dirtier water and supplemental feeding, as would your inverts. The problem is you will run into a ton of other problems if you overfeed, especially in a 12G. And can you elaborate on the point regarding the high GPH and filtering out excess food? I don't quite understand that.

Also, Clowns are greedy bastards and will likely snatch up any food before snails or crabs can get to them. The only invert that has any chance of beating out a clown for food are cleaner shrimp imo.

 

[csryan309]

Where did you get your rock and are you sure it has never been used in a tank where the contents were dosed with copper. If the rock was ever in a fish tank where fish were treated with copper medications it will absorb into the rock then slowly leach out into the water killing your inverts.

I bought the wet live rock from LFS and the live rock was in a tank without any fish, so I don't think it contained any copper?

You have mostly lps, which also benefits from dirtier water and supplemental feeding, as would your inverts. The problem is you will run into a ton of other problems if you overfeed, especially in a 12G. And can you elaborate on the point regarding the high GPH and filtering out excess food? I don't quite understand that.

Also, Clowns are greedy bastards and will likely snatch up any food before snails or crabs can get to them. The only invert that has any chance of beating out a clown for food are cleaner shrimp imo.

I'm still a novice to this great hobby, so my apologies for not explaining properly. From what I was reading, you should cycle your water 10-20 times your tank size. With the new upgraded pump and power head, I was achieving about 50x per hour. With this high turnover rate, I thought I might be able to get away with feeding a little more than I should. Is that not a good idea? I've always been concerned that my invertes/coral/fish aren't getting enough food.

My clown is definitely aggressive and also picky. She only likes certain small pieces of mysis, and my coral macro diet. I've been trying to get her to eat pellets and flakes, but has no interest.