somthings wrong with my bta, please help me solve this!!

[TOURKID]

Ok. today....

Water change 10%, using gravel sweeper a little more egerly than usual.. when i got done, my salinity went from 1.025 to 1.027ish
I fixed this slowly

Fed the nem about 10 AM (silverslide)

added my normal nutrients

went to lfs. added 3 black footed trocus snails & two lettece nudibranches about 2:00

COMPLETEY cleaned out the skimmer (inside pump, etc) its working fine

fed the fish marine cusine about 6 pm

pulled out 1 dead black footed trocus (already? i acclimated)

about 7:00 pm the nem had a weird mouth and was kinda covering it with its tenicles. I thought it was from the fish food that breaks up into tiny pieces, thought it was eating all the tiny particles and it was taking a long time or somthing

but it was very reminicent of when i was having all my tank problems months ago)

a couple hermits started ganging up and i thought it was going to spit out its silverslide. (9 hours later!)

my moon light came on, and now the nem is acting COMPLETELY abnormal. im PRETTY sure its trying to uproot its foot...
its tenicles are pretty much all shrunken (theres a tiny bit of water in them)

i havent seen the silverslide come back out, but im betting it will at any moment.
my maroon female is tweeking out, trying really hard to push the nem back in,almost flailing and hitting it pretty hard with her tail. (unusual) and my juvi is staying out of the nem but kinda checking on it (weird agian)

oh heat.. its hot here in ohio!! it did rise in the tank 2 degrees higher than usual. (man does a 250mh make my HOUSE hotter lol)


oh. one more thing. i left my fan running all night (timer broke and ive been relying on myself)
so i came down stairs this morn and i bet it was about a gallon that had evaporated, maybe even a little more.

I tested my water a FEW minutes before lights out (so ph is a tad diff)

salinity was 1.026.. agian. so i added 1 1/2 cups of fresh water

ammonia - .50 (give or take, its a color chart. this isent normal. but i havent tested in a week. Im wondering if my stiring my sand/c. coral did this)

nitrate- 10 (normal for me)

phosphate - undetectable on a color chart

alkalinity- 4.0 meq-L (high i think. and i just did the water change today)

ph- between 8.2 and 8.4 on a color chart

thats all i tested for. my calcium should be about 380...

any ideas? its looking really bad now. (since i started typing, prob. twice as bad)

all critters are accounted for. fish are acting normal..


oh. 1 more thing. i usually only leave the moon light on till 8:30 pm.. but when i used to have trouble with the nem moving, it would always do it as sdoon as the light went off. so i havent turned it off yet..... plus i want to observe


please help me guys

these are ten minutes old. it looks worse now (usually its real big at night, but folds itself together to protect the fish)

maggie *bumming*

 

[TOURKID]

adding: forgot. all other corals are acting normal.

and.. its so shrunk now, and still no s. slide. i could have missed it earlier.. but i really dont think so. and no hermits are congregating

1 more thing. i bought dt's oyster eggs today. ans fed tank about 4:00 with them

 

[TOURKID]

ok.. so it lost its silverslide now. it doesent look like its going to move anymore. i turned the moon off. it hasent spit out its food in a long long time

It shouldent be expelling waste. its a pretty scheduled thing. I feed it on a very timly schedule....

 

[Buster4900]

I BTA is sensitive to me messing around in the tank, and a salinity change like you had surely saused some stress. My guess he is acting normal for the conditions. Keep everything stable and he will be fine.

 

[dantodd]

Not sure about lettuces but I know many nudibranchs can excrete some pretty noxious chemicals when stressed. This might be what's going on, I'd run some carbon (or freshen it if you are already running carbon.)

 

[TOURKID]

Ill do some more research. but i did some. they are reef safe, eat hair algea, really a cool animal!!! I dident look it up myself, but i did ask someone i trust about my nem and the last nudi, and the only thing getting hurt would be the nudi.

I have maybe 8 dime size patches. not to much. but I hear it grows fast.
Im moving so when I do ill just tooth brush it off...

side note. I was observing some more, and feebee kept throwing out the juvi. like he was better off out of the way while she flailed inside trying to get it to stay put.

 

[Ciarán]

All i can think of is nasty food perhaps? It may not be used to the oyster eggs? Heavy metals? That ammonia spike is odd, must of been the dead trochus, i cant imagine that it would begin decaying that soon though. Sounds strange. Could of been stressed inhabitants? Nudis, snails, the nem itself.

What did you clean the skimmer with? Did you use deodorant in the room (im serious!)? What colour was the bottom of your sand after you stirred? If it was a dark black and exhibiting an odour, hydrogen sulfide may have been released, prompting your anemone to retract. How deep is your sand bed?

 

[TOURKID]

I dident use anything to clean the skimmer with except water and paper towel

No deodorant, but i did have 409 in the room. I sprayed the paper towels in the next room over...

My sand is a dsb.. sorta. my maroon has glass showing in the middle (bottom) so its really deep around the sides.

bta looks better today. morning she wasent herself, and her mouth was open a lil. but as the day progressed she looks normal now.

Im putting my money on the sand. Im moving in a few weeks and I bought new sand for the move. Im only going to go 2 inches, and I wont have crushed coral anymore (yay!)

 

[55semireef]

I am betting on the sand too. You probably killed some anerobic bacteria off which will give a small amonia rise and a nasty odor in the water. Can we see a updated picture of it.

 

[TOURKID]

its sleeping now. but i guess that lastnights were at night too... so.. not much to see

 

[55semireef]

Can I see a picture of what it looked like before?

 

[TOURKID]

before like a week ago or somthing?