Dying snails? Coral not looking too great? What's the cause??

rideelement247 · 10/19/2012, 03:23 PM

So I have been finding a lot of snail shells recently, specifically the turbo snails. Nassarius snail population seems to be doing fine, but that's hard to confirm as you all know

. I have about 5-10 turbo's left (down from approx. 30 or so). I had about 5 mexican turbo's and cannot find any at the moment. It also seems that my halloween crab is not doing too hot and I have lost sight of a few red leg crabs. I did a snail shell clean up and found that the Mexicans were torn up/melted looking. The remaining snails seem sluggish, and about 1/2 of my scoly seems partially retracted into its skeleton for the past 3-4 days. Also an open brain and elegance coral are not opening up fully today.

Tank: 90 gal w/ 30 gal sump, UV sterilizer, protein skimmer, heater, LED lights.

Parameters:
8.3 pH
1.024 salinity (have not had any swings and top off with RODI religiously)
0 ammonia/nitrites/nitrates/phosphates
Temp 78
Copper: 0
16.8 dKh alk...which I just realized was high not too long ago. Turned off my auto dosers and did a 15 gal water change and it seems to have come down a bit (home test kit only reads to 14 but yesterday it was far from a color change and today I nearly got one)

These parameters were tested with my test kit and then confirmed at a LFS (who gave me the 16.8 dKh reading).

In all honesty, I haven't tested alk in about 2-3 weeks after finally dialing in my auto dosers. Once the alk comes down I will bring them back online at a lower dose.

No tankmates (besides possibly 2 emerald crabs) that I can think of doing this. I bought a tiger snapping shrimp from Liveaquaria a while back, way before I had any snail loss issue. I hear him popping at night occasionally but I don't think he'd be killing off snails?

Is this something that could be alk related? Or what? I introduced some new live rock 1-2 weeks ago and rearranged everything but my parameters were perfect before that as well...I'm completely stumped. Help please!!!

danil · 10/19/2012, 04:24 PM

I think it's your new rocks and dosers combo. 16.8dKh is really high... bring it down slowly to 8 and keep parameters stable for few week.

10/19/2012, 03:23 PM	#1
rideelement247 Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 117	Dying snails? Coral not looking too great? What's the cause?? So I have been finding a lot of snail shells recently, specifically the turbo snails. Nassarius snail population seems to be doing fine, but that's hard to confirm as you all know . I have about 5-10 turbo's left (down from approx. 30 or so). I had about 5 mexican turbo's and cannot find any at the moment. It also seems that my halloween crab is not doing too hot and I have lost sight of a few red leg crabs. I did a snail shell clean up and found that the Mexicans were torn up/melted looking. The remaining snails seem sluggish, and about 1/2 of my scoly seems partially retracted into its skeleton for the past 3-4 days. Also an open brain and elegance coral are not opening up fully today. Tank: 90 gal w/ 30 gal sump, UV sterilizer, protein skimmer, heater, LED lights. Parameters: 8.3 pH 1.024 salinity (have not had any swings and top off with RODI religiously) 0 ammonia/nitrites/nitrates/phosphates Temp 78 Copper: 0 16.8 dKh alk...which I just realized was high not too long ago. Turned off my auto dosers and did a 15 gal water change and it seems to have come down a bit (home test kit only reads to 14 but yesterday it was far from a color change and today I nearly got one) These parameters were tested with my test kit and then confirmed at a LFS (who gave me the 16.8 dKh reading). In all honesty, I haven't tested alk in about 2-3 weeks after finally dialing in my auto dosers. Once the alk comes down I will bring them back online at a lower dose. No tankmates (besides possibly 2 emerald crabs) that I can think of doing this. I bought a tiger snapping shrimp from Liveaquaria a while back, way before I had any snail loss issue. I hear him popping at night occasionally but I don't think he'd be killing off snails? Is this something that could be alk related? Or what? I introduced some new live rock 1-2 weeks ago and rearranged everything but my parameters were perfect before that as well...I'm completely stumped. Help please!!!

10/19/2012, 04:24 PM	#2
danil Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Concord, CA Posts: 935	I think it's your new rocks and dosers combo. 16.8dKh is really high... bring it down slowly to 8 and keep parameters stable for few week.