New Tank q's

[Abraham1907]

Ok, I have recently converted my 25g eclipse tank to saltwater from freshwater. I have 34lbs of LR in there, ammonia = 0, nitrite = 0, ph = 8.3, and my alkalinity is medium-high. I have a couple snails and blue leg hermits in there, they are fine.

Now the problem is that about a week or two ago i bought 2 pepermint shrimps, and they died over night. Then I figured that my alkalinity was low so i raised that. Then I got 2 more, and they lived for like 4 days and died. All of my water parameter are fine though, so i had no idea why they weren't living. I figured that it must just be that the tank didn't have enough microlife for them to feed off of.

So I bought a blue-green chromis for my tank yesterday and he seems to be doing great! The only thing is that he has some white areas on his sides, they aren't little spots, so I know it's not ich. It almost looks like he might have scratched himself on some LR. They don't stick out from his body, so I don't think that it's any sort of bacterial infection or anything, kind of just looks like he lost some scales or something.

I have some frozen plankton, so I fed him some of that today and he ate what he could. I was wondering what else he will eat, I will probably get some flakes for him, and maybe another kind of frozen or two.

So my main questions are what do you think the white splotches are, what else should I feed, and why wouldn't the shrimp live.

[kelrn98]

I'm not sure about the white spots on your fish. However, what is your specific gravity, or salinity? Inverts are intolerant of low sailinity.

[Abraham1907]

Oooops, I forgot that one, it's about 1.0235. Thats good right, the recommended range is 1.021-1.024 right?

[TekCat]

target you SG = 1.0265 - natural sea water salinity or 35ppt. And use refractometor in case you're using hydrometers.

[Abraham1907]

I'll look into a refractometer... What's the big difference? Oh, and the chromis in your avatar is beautiful, I hope mine will look like that. What do you feed yours?

[TekCat]

hydrometers tend to be quite inaccurate, especially swing arm type. I've had a lab grade hydrometer and after getting refractometer (calibrated unit qill give you highly accurate numbers) it turned out I was running 40ppt salinity tank ... a few ppt off from the Dead Sea

Thanks on the chromis pic. My wife takes pictures... she is good at it ... I feed mine: formula 2 flakes, mysis shrimp, and prime reef.

good luck and REEF ON!!!


--- edit ---

what are your nitrates and phosphates? Inverts are quite sensitive to NO3

[Abraham1907]

Well I guess tell your wife good job, I hope to be able to take pics like that once I get my new Cannon A340 for Christmas. Then maybe somebody can tell me whats up with my chromis. I will definately look at getting a refractometer, can you suggest a good place to buy one?

I haven't measured my nitrates or phosphates, but I'm assuming since my tank is so young and I never had many nitrites, my nitrates couldn't be very high. I do water changes every other week, so that should help keep them low.

[Wrench]

One of my chromis had that for a few days and even though he contiued to eat, he eventually died. Not sure what it was but it's sounds like what you've described. If you can, get him into a quarantine tankto treat him. I have a feeling that mine was injured somehow then ended up with some sort of infection.

[dannable]

I would check your nitrates just to be sure. If you are using tap water it could contain nitrates. The nitrates are over 10ppm in my city. Shrimp are also intolerant of nitrates.

[Tremolo]

i had a six line that lasted a week with the same problem. He looked great when i got him and after 3 days the white marks appeared...tested water everything looked good. he kinda looked like he scratched himself on the rocks or something. He was still swimming around and eating but after the 5th day i went to check on him in the tank and all i could find left of him a small part of his tail. I think the nassarius snails ate him up when he died at night.

[Abraham1907]

Thats no good, I don't want my first fish to die... to all of you people who had this, did it affect any of the other fish in your tanks?

[casingbill]

check nitrates......mine peaked at 40, even though ammonia and trites were at 0....its been over a month and the finally got down to 0 today.

[ReefWreak]

Just want to chime in and wish your chromis some extra holiday health!

Also, about the two shrimp, the big thing with inverts that are sensitive like shrimp, is that it's all about the acclimation period. My tank has had nitrates in the 50ish range, had low or high salinity, temp swings up into the mid 80s, and all the time my cleaner who is in the tank has been fine.

I did kill a cleaner shrimp before in my nano a couple of years ago. It made me feel horrible. The issue is only that I just didn't acclimate it for long enough. I used to just float the bags and slowly add water to them over time. Ever since then, I've always used IV bags to drip water into their containers, and at a 1-3 drips per second rate. I do it for everything now. No mortalities yet, nomatter salinity, pH, alk, nitrates, etc. Either way, I've learned the hard way that speed of acclimation is the most important factor in survival of transition between tanks. If you can't get an IV bag, you can always use a section of $1.50 airline tubing and a $0.50 set of twist airline valves to set the drip rate.

At least we all (hopefully) learn lessons by our mistakes!

[supertech3]

I try to keep several different types of flake foods and frozen to give them a varied food type, I have a refractometer also after using a swing arm style hydrometer, I needed it to do hyposalinity treatment and checked the swing arm big six and it was just slightly off, I would suggest you try your LFS if they have one that you could verify the numbers on yours for accuracy at least

[Abraham1907]

I got another chromis last night, b/c he seemed lonly, but the original one was dead when I looked in the tank this morning. The new one has found a home inside of a rock and isn't leaving. Isn't this wierd for a chromis, don't they usually swim in the open? The original one never went near the rocks unless he got scared by an arm reaching into the tank. I guess I will just give him time to get used to the new tank. It's kind of hard to tell, but I don't think the new one has any white spots.

[Wrench]

Originally posted by Abraham1907
... to all of you people who had this, did it affect any of the other fish in your tanks?

Nope.

When it happened my amm/ite/ate were all 0 and other parameters were near perfect.

[Abraham1907]

Well my new chromis survived for 3 days with no white spots, so I decided to buy some more fish today. I know it might be rushing it, but the tank was so boring since the chromis just hid in a hole in the back of a rock and would dart out every once in a while. I bought an ocellaris clown and a bicolor blenny today, the clown is the chromis's best bud, and they hang out over in the one corner together, and the blenny has his "home" hole over there too. The blenny tends to swim around more though. I think this is just because they are new and are a little scared to explore.

I really like the coloring of the clown (it's more reddish than usual and is kind of unique), but the blenny is like something I've never seen. They had a normal looking one, but this one had more character. Usually the front is blue, and the back is yellow. Well, the front is still blue, and the back is still yellow, but his underside is white, and he has a stripe down his side. Has anyone ever seen this before? I will try to get some pics and post them soon, just give me some time.

[TekCat]

That is kinda agressive stocking... Did you have your fish for observation in QT?

As far as ich goes, even that your Chromis doesn't have any white spots anymore, ich could have gone to next stage in their life cycle. Which is detaching from fish and reproducing on the substrate. You took a risk in getting new fish this fast, because ich still could be in your tank. I'll be praying to "Anti-Ich God" for you

best of luck.

[Abraham1907]

Nope, I don't have a qt tank. I don't have the space or money to have an extra tank to use once a month when I get a new fish. Also, I work at the store where I get my fish, so I know they are cared for well and I have time to observe them before I buy them so I know they aren't diseased.

Secondly, I never had ich. I don't know what it was, but the spots on my first chromis were too large to be ich, and there were only 2-3 of them. The other people who had the same thing said it didn't transfer to other fish, so i wasn't worried about it. This turned out to be true, because my second chromis never got it.

Thanks for praying for me though, I'm glad you want to help.

[Abraham1907]

So everyone seems to be happy in my tank so far. The only thing odd is my clown's behavior. First of all, he only uses one of his fins when he swims. The other one looks fine, but it just sits there at his side. Secondly, he likes to swim at the top of the tank in the high current about 1/4 inch below the water line. This seems odd that he would want to be up there away from the rocks and such. Also, when I fed them this morning he would just swim up to the flakes and either eat them and spit them out or just look at it and not even eat it. This kindof worried me. I was feeding omega one "marine flakes with garlic". I will try to feed him some plankton tonight and see if he likes that better. I have to pick up some mysis shrimp too, I have heard thats what most of you feed. My blenny also doesn't swim for the flakes, but I figured he just scavenges and eats algea and stuff so I wasn't worried about him.

[TekCat]

Good good. Sometimes a missing scale on a fish might look like a big white spot.... Anyways Clowns are notorious for their weird swimming behavior Mine also leaves his "space" and wonders about the tank, they are also doing funny "dances" - shaking and stuff. If he/she gets and grabs food is a good sign, the fact that it spits out is probably he/she just doesn't like it. Try mysis (like you're planning). Mine eats pretty much anything that can fit in his/her mouth. Formula2 flakes, small pellets, mysis, artemia, etc...

As far as blenny goes, I don't know much about them... I've had Lawnmower blenny, and it didn't eat prepared foods at all. At the time I had very little algae, so it starved and died.... no more blennys for me. But, others have very good success with these fish, so don't listen to my horror stories

reef ON!!!

[Abraham1907]

Thanks, I'm glad to know he isn't mental. Here are some pictures...







There are more in my gallery if you are interested.