Whoops...Salinity @ 1.022

[agruetz]

Ok. So I have never done this before. My refractometer must have gotten knocked off calibration when we moved. I noticed my snails were dieing and an alarming rate and that some were just flat falling off the glass.

I checked all my parameters and everything was good except my Ca, it was high 540 and the Salinity was way low at 1.022.

I am assuming it is the salinity that is messing with my snails. Does anyone know if Ca does the same thing as Mg does too?

I figure I it has probably been out of whack like this for a month or more. Everything generally looks fine but it might explain the slow death march of my Bird Nest and now my "Cats Paw" is only at about half extension compared to normal.

Either way I have started a slow march of water changes to correct the issue now that I have recalibrated my refractometer. It is back up to 1.024 and Ca is falling slowly.

I am thinking take about a week to get it back to normal around 1.026? Anyone else have any experience with something like this and can offer some advice?

 

[Dmorty217]

Salinity of 1.022 isn't low at all. Anywhere between 1.021-1.026 is considered acceptable for inverts/corals. 1.021 being toward the lowest end of what you want.... I would suspect something else causing the snails to die

 

[agruetz]

Salinity of 1.022 isn't low at all. Anywhere between 1.021-1.026 is considered acceptable for inverts/corals. 1.021 being toward the lowest end of what you want.... I would suspect something else causing the snails to die

I have never had the tank at 1.022 it has always been at 1.026. However at after about a week of waiting watching testing. I do believe I agree with you. While I am not sure what sparked it, but I think my tank started going thru a mini cycle. When I tested nitrites they were some were around .12ppm. I it is odd that the ammonia did not test above 0, but then again I do not have a very accurate ammonia test. It is only a basic API one. Everything else is Hanna or Red Sea.

I think it might have been the fact that I ran out of water when I was on vacation and had the fish sitter use some of that boxed water for 2 or 3 water changes.

Anyway they have fallen significantly with about 5 gallon daily water changes and some emergency use of prime. I have started dosing some Stability to help rebuild the bacteria, stopped dosing the prime and will slowly increase the time between water changes.

Tank still looks terrible. I hope everything recovers, fingers crossed, so far the only things that have been lost are the clean up crew. Hopefully my Konch and two turbo snails pull thru. The nitrite seems to affect those type of invertebrates the most.

 

[agruetz]

Sigh, well that is probably it pretty sure a tank crash is imminent. No idea what kicked this off, but I am pretty sure the fact my MP10 slid down the side of the tank into the sand while running and caused a giant snow storm and disturbed all the sand is going to finish it off.

So basically I have I no idea what caused the initial nitrite spike. I never saw any ammonia spike until today when all the sand got blown around and the nitrates have been near zero or zero since the tank finished cycling.

Sigh, I blew all the sand off the corals and threw in a poly filter + 2 doses of prime and a dos of stability. Pretty sure I have lost 1 coral and all my snails/invertebrates at this point. Rest of the coral is closed and looks like they are on a slow death march. Even the Zoa colonies are in a 2 - 3 day closed state. Only think in the tank still kicking around happily is my Starry Blenny. Might be time to just throw in the towel this pretty much the second one in 3 years. One was due to a move gone bad and now this unknown one.