sugarbaker
New member
The background... I have a 5 month old 20L with about 15lbs live sand, and 30lbs live rock. Lighting is 2x65 watt PC (coralife fixture with moon lighting). I have a sump/RPS that has Kent marine substrate and some live rock rubble (but no macro algae, as I'm waiting patiently for my LFS to get some more Chateo in. I use an AquaC remora skimmer that routinely gets emptied and cleaned. There is a variety of powerheads in the tank for circulation. Clean Up crew consists of ~10 margarita snails, 4 crown top snails, 10 blue leg hermits, 2 scarlet hermits, 1 serpant star, and one emerald crab (that I haven't seen recently).
A recent addition was my two small fire corals (about 1 inch in diameter each). Then there is my yellow watchman goby and a pair of Ocellaris clowns (about an inch each, but one has shown dominance since a few days after I put them in, so I assume she is the female).
My parameters are
pH 8.3
salinity 1.024
temp 77.0 ~ 78.0
ammonia ~ 0
nitrite ~ 0
nitrate <5 ppm
phosphates <1
alkalinity ~ 3 meq/L
calcium is high at about 560 ppm (which I can't seem to get down, even after weeks of regular water changes...?)
The history of the tank is that the chems stay in check as I do weekly 5 gallon water changes with RO/DI water, but I have been battling hair and other nuicance algaes since I got the tank established. I feed small portions once a day of formula 1 food (for the fish).
So my concern is that my male Clown stopped taking food yesterday. Until this point, he has been eager to eat off the fork I use, or little bits that float off. But now he won't even swim up to the fork, and won't take food suspended in water (I turn off my powerheads and pump to feed). He has been staying relatively inactive, and today I noticed that the black coloring on his tail has started to fade. I'd appriciate any advice as to if this is normal, or if I need to consider some kind of medication. The other clown is fine. I haven't seen any white spots that would lead me to believe it was ich.
Thanks for any help you can offer. Please let me know if there is anymore info I can provide.
Stephen
A recent addition was my two small fire corals (about 1 inch in diameter each). Then there is my yellow watchman goby and a pair of Ocellaris clowns (about an inch each, but one has shown dominance since a few days after I put them in, so I assume she is the female).
My parameters are
pH 8.3
salinity 1.024
temp 77.0 ~ 78.0
ammonia ~ 0
nitrite ~ 0
nitrate <5 ppm
phosphates <1
alkalinity ~ 3 meq/L
calcium is high at about 560 ppm (which I can't seem to get down, even after weeks of regular water changes...?)
The history of the tank is that the chems stay in check as I do weekly 5 gallon water changes with RO/DI water, but I have been battling hair and other nuicance algaes since I got the tank established. I feed small portions once a day of formula 1 food (for the fish).
So my concern is that my male Clown stopped taking food yesterday. Until this point, he has been eager to eat off the fork I use, or little bits that float off. But now he won't even swim up to the fork, and won't take food suspended in water (I turn off my powerheads and pump to feed). He has been staying relatively inactive, and today I noticed that the black coloring on his tail has started to fade. I'd appriciate any advice as to if this is normal, or if I need to consider some kind of medication. The other clown is fine. I haven't seen any white spots that would lead me to believe it was ich.
Thanks for any help you can offer. Please let me know if there is anymore info I can provide.
Stephen
