When it rains, it pours...

Stephany

Stephany

New member
This morning my pH was down to 7.8. My nitrates were up to 30 before my small water change yesterday. The thing is, I have to keep feeding in order for a couple of my corals that are doing poorly to survive.
My encrusting hydno with a hole in it looked like crap today. I've put it in better light and have been target feeding it with the cyclopeeze mash... ugh. I'm disgusted.

Something is going on, and I'm very worried. I think I'm going to have a lfs come over and help me take the dsb out of my sump, as well as take some of the sand out of my main display out. I can't do it myself, I'd be up all night and get no calculus done. My shallow sand bed.... needs to be shallower.
"On the positive side..." the fish seem to be okay, and my mushrooms are doing faaaabulous.. :rolleyes:
 
I had hoped so.... but he's not picking up. At the very least maybe he can help hold some stuff for me.
Do you happen to know his cell #?
 
No I don't have his cell number but I think Sherry34 does. I know she's at school right now but may be home soon.

I can hold some stuff for you if you need to. Corals I could put right in my tank under mh and vho's. I have a 29g QT tank that I could put your fish in if you need me to. Let me know. Its empty now but I can transfer water from my main tank into it.

Carrie
 
Just got ahold of him. He took a bunch of info on what's going on, and he said he has to get back to me with a time of when he can get over.

Carrie: Thanks for the support, I very much appreciate it. I will let you know after I go home tonight. Thank you...
 
Corals live mainly from the algae within their own tissue using the artificial sunlight to manufacture nutrients in such abundance that the corals share it: ie, they live and grow simply off sunlight because plants are part of their own substance. If you're having overfeeding issues the first thing I'd do is move the corals to a stable environment; the second, get your tank stable, and the third, when you move them back in, try them without feeding at all for a while and see what they actually require. They certainly won't starve as long as the light is good. I don't feed my corals at all, except for having abundant fish and inverts living in the tank (I do feed the fish), and they're growing quite well.
 
Stephany,

This sucks. Can I do anything to help? I would be happy to come help you with the sand bed if necessary. Let me know what I can do.
 
I may have to take you up on that Jamie... Kurt charges $25 an hour, and I doubt I could pay him in frags. heh
 
Another suggestion.. why don't you just suck out the sand as you do water changes. That way, you won't disturb the sand bed as much as your nitrates shouldn't increase. You can remove all the sand from your sump at once.

Carrie
 
I would say cut back on the feedings If everything in the tank looks good don't start doing drastic things. Take your time and plan out what you want if you want to go bare bottom then make shure you have everything set up to do It like fresh aged saltwater ect.....
 
I've tried that, maybe I'm missing something... lol
Because I'm sucking out the water from my sump, which is underneath my stand... it has to go in a bucket, which is taller and higher than 3" above the floor where my sump is.
If I try to use a pump, I imagine I would probably break it... fast. I have a ball valve on the overflow, as well as the return pipe... so I do have the ability of servicing my sump without destroying my main tank water...
Am I missing something? heh
 
Gary:
Everything but the following corals looks "okay"
Encrusting hydnophora - I posted pictures of it having some holes in it a few weeks ago, this morning pieces of the flesh were missing entirely around the outside perimter.
Fungia Plate coral - there's a thread about this too
Goniopora - hungry, but better than it was..
I actually don't want to go barebottom, except in my sump. In my main tank, I just want to take some of the sand out... as it is too much for a shallow sand bed.
I really appreciate any advice & suggestions... Thanks you guys.
 
Hey...
Encrusting Hydnophora= gone
Fungia plate = still declining daily, can't get it to eat.
My fairy wrasse didn't wake up yesterday. I picked up the branching hydnophora that I got from you (he sleeps there) and he swam away in the rockwork, but he didn't come *out* to swim. I hope that clown still isn't the problem. What's been happening is that the clown will chase him, but only when he crosses over on the left side of the tank. Which he did anyway...so I figured he wasn't that uncomfortable.

Kurt didn't call me back at all yesterday. I tried calling the store twice today, and nobody picked up.
....
I'm going to try and leave work early today if he'll let me. akjfal;skj
 
I went home last night to take a nap, I'm sick and ended up sleeping until 9:30 this morning. I feel a little better today, I'm hoping it's a quick bug.
Azra's sick too, that's why I feel bad to have anyone over. She tossed her cookies yesterday morning.
pH last night was 7.9, nitrates 40.
Didn't get my water change done.
 
What a bummer. Sick too on top of that! Caleb and Katie woke up sick today too. No vomiting yet, knock on wood.

If you need some help, let me know. It would probably ahve to be after Brian gets off work so I can leave the munckins home with him.

I would be happy to house some fish and corals until you get it stabelized if you need it.

I think Kurt's is closed today.

Hope you get to feeling better.
 
Yeah, I've been doing large water changes about every other day. I've kinda figured out what happened...

On top of my feeding the goniopora, my skimmer is not performing. I think that's why my nitrates were up.

My water level isn't going up high enough to the neck, and i've cleaned out the intake on the maxi 1200. It's still too low, even without bubbles. Gary told me yesterday that I should hook up something to control how much flow comes out. But the outflow of my skimmer is rectangular shaped. I can't like, hook up a gate valve mod to it, you know?
Sooooo... I stuffed a bunch of paper towels up it, to slow down the flow that way.... and even coming out as a trickle... it still sucked.
I tried my $30 skimmer fixer-upper and it sucked.
It's painful... but I think I'm ready to look for a nicer one.
 
Good luck and nice to see you're on the right track. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

Carrie
 
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