sea urchine loosing needles and not moving around

[williampaul]

i got a halloween urchine on saterday and he isnt doing well i dont think. he dropped most of his needles today and hasnt moved around the tank much. any suggestions??
i dont want him to die/

 

[JetCat USA]

sounds like he's already dieing/dead sorry. what are your water parameters??

 

[williampaul]

ph-8.4
phos-.05
nitrite-0
nitrate-0
ammonia-0

dont tell me that. i dont know why he would have died

 

[JetCat USA]

they are usually fairly hardy IME if your tank is mature and those readings are correct I'd say it was in poor health when you got it and the acclimation to your tank was the demise of it or you have some unknowns in your system that caused the problem (copper being one consideration)

 

[williampaul]

wouldnt all my sealife be doing bad if it was copper? almost everything is doing well. i have a sebae that is doing bad also.
and clue on them i have a cupple pics of them in my gallery look at it and let me know what yout hink

 

[JetCat USA]

how long has the tank been up? and other then the anemone that isn't doing well either, what else is in the system as far as invert/coral??

 

[williampaul]

i got a frogspawn on saterday also and it seems to be doing well. i also have a condy and some fish that are fine too. the sebae was in poor health when i got him two weeks ago. he hasnt footed in yet. and my tank as been set up sence last december. so its doing well in my opinion. but im still new so any help i can get would be great. i just talked to the lfs that i got it off of and they said sometimes they will lose there needles. but his tenticles are not out either so i donno. this sucks .

 

[JetCat USA]

they sometimes loose one or two spines, when they shed all of them they are dying. on a cycled and healthy system food supply is usually the deciding factor if they thrive or not.

 

[williampaul]

there was plenty of algea to eat in my tank. as i said i called my lfs and told them what happend and all that and my wife said to move him to the QT tank. so i pulled him out. well he smelt like rot so i would imagine that he is dead. how should i presurve him till tomarrow?

 

[JetCat USA]

if all his spines fell off he's dead i don't care what the LFS tries to tell you.

 

[williampaul]

as he really is and they didnt give me any credit. it was like over night my nitrate went to 40ppm, and they checked it today. i checked it lasnight before i went to bed. i donno. i did test my tap water and it was infested with with phosphate. but no nitrate. i went to kroger and tested there drinking water and its nitrate and phosphate free so i bought 15 gallons and did a water change. hopfully my tank will start looking up. btw my phosphates didnt rise any from lastnight to this evening

 

[JetCat USA]

what size tank is this???

 

[williampaul]

75 with a 20gal sump

 

[JetCat USA]

then a dead urchin didn't push NO3 up 40ppm unless he was the size of a basketball.

 

[williampaul]

i dont know what did it. i havnt had anything else die and nothing has changed besides the water. and that was 10 gal between two days. what else could have caused it to spike?

 

[JetCat USA]

i doubt it did, it was prolly elevated to start with.

 

[williampaul]

i did a full panel on it the past 3 nights and its been ok untill today

 

[williampaul]

ill let you know how its going tomarrow if you would like. i need a second voice behind me letting me know how to combat this issue. so if you have any suggestions let me know. thanks for all your help and i hope it keeps coming.

 

[JetCat USA]

I'm guessing your test kit is in error, which brand did you use, and which brand did your LFS use? it's quiet difficult to keep a tank at zero NO3, i work very hard to keep my reef setups at near zero, they are very low nutrient systems and NO3 levels are 1-3 ppm consistently with a PinPoint NO3 monitor.

you stated you tested your tap water so I'm guessing you top off with tap too??? if so then RO/DI water will help allot with tank issues that often arise from using tap water. a PO4 reactor w/ GFO will do wonders for phosphate levels and help combat any nuisance algae growth as well as promote coralline growth, 0.05 is at a high enough level to stunt coral growth as well as coralline growth.

if your tank is at 40ppm NO3 now the best remedy is water changes with NO3 free water, that will drop the levels by the same percentage as the water change and if nutrient addition is limited on introduction to the tank those levels will stay down unless they are being produced inside the system by decomposing matter. also growing and harvesting macro algae in a fuge is a good ongoing way to export nutrients as well as keeping your skimmer cleaned regularly and having one of the proper size and Quality to start with

 

[Echidna09]

Test your water with your test kit and immediately take it to your LFS to test with theirs and that will show you if there is a difference between your test kits or not.