sea urchine loosing needles and not moving around

well the lfs that i bought the urchine from tested it and the levels were high. and i thought that my tests were bad so i came home and retested and i got the same thing they did. the problem with my tap water is its really high in phosphate. but the nitrate level in the tap water is o. but the nitrate level in my take was really high and the phosphate level was .05 so i dont understand why it was so high. i am not missing any fish and i just cleaned my skimmer like a week ago. i came home from work today and it seems to be looking up. i have not tested yet but the fish are swimming more and my frogspawn is looking really good. the sebae is also looking better. but my condy is not. i think that i might have really shocked him when i took my lids off. a piece of dried salt fell on him. he hasnt been the same sense. any input on that issue?
 
your skimmer should be cleaned (neck/riser/collection cup) daily, if you're NOT cleaning it for over a week as indicated it's not skimming efficiently and the stuff if Could be pulling out is left to decompose and become NO3.
 
it didn't spike, it either was or wasn't NO3 levels don't go up overnight and they don't come down overnight. something is astray with your testing.
 
i do it the same everytime. doesnt nutriance spike when you set up a new tank. im not saying that mine is new but it could happen right.
 
ok i figured out what caused the spike i think. thursday i unplugged my hob filter so that i could try to get my sebae to foot in. well it stayed unplugged all the way to sunday. could the spounges and shrimp in my filter died in those three days and when i plugged it back in it put all that dead dibrea in my tank? and that could have caused the spike?
 
A sponge will die very quickly with no water flow, if it has adapted to a constant current lifestyle. If you had sponges in your HOB, that can definately do it.

Many sponges also are very sensitive to bacterial load, and will start dying if the bacterioplankton gets too high.
 
i got it cleaned out and replaces the filter media in the hob and its fine now. all my levels are back to norm. so hopfully things are looking up. what would cause a phosphate test to turn cloudy
 
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