CORALS in DISTRESS!

[penguin87]

my xenia looks like crap. it's like half the size it used to be, the polyps have apparently lossed their ability to close themselves, and the mushroom is all shriveled up too.

i have plenty of flow for the xenia, and plenty of lack of flow for the mushroom. i acclimated them properly to my csl 32w retro over my minibow 7, so lighting is not an issue. i also see no evidence that my snails or crabs have trampled all over them.

i do see a problem with ammonia, it must be like 3.5, which i know is really bad, so i added a bunch of prime yesterday and today (it detoxifies ammonia, nitrite [which is 0], and nitrate [which is also 0]). the ammonia must have gotten bad from overfeeding (whenever i feed my clowfish, he misses some of the food that goes by him, even if i feed him one pellet at a time, then i can't find the pellets when they hit the bottom of the tank).

another problem would be that the corals have nothing to eat, because the only dosing that they're getting is from my instant ocean salt after my weekly water change of 1 gallon.

should i start doing daily 1 gallon water changes until ammonia goes away (if that's what's killing them) and/or should i keep adding Prime, and/or should i get some food for filter feeding inverts in which case what type and brand of food do you all recommend?

PLEASE respond because i don't want to lose $70 worth of corals.
thanks, and sorry for the long post

[slojmn]

I would definitely do some water changes over the next week or two. Maybe 10% every other day. I am not familiar with the product you added to neutrilize the ammonia...did it work? what is your ammonia reading now?Nitrites will be the next thing to go up given ammonia readings so water changes are a definite must. 7g mini reef setups are notoriously difficult to keep...lots of fluctuation in a rapid amount of time due to size. Consider really slowing down your feeding. I feed very sparingly in my 7g mini...I have a yellow watchman goby in my mini reef and he rarely gets food...maybe once every three to four days. It sounds terrible but he is fat and happy. He eats goodies in the sand bed and I have no idea how he stays healthy and fat. You would think he would deplete whatever population is in the tank. I see him grabbing at stuff often in the sand bed and in the rocks. For a clownfish it would be more difficult...consider feeeding a very small amount of a meaty, yummy fish food...I make my own mixture from stuff at the local fish market and then add supplements to it like Selcon and Marine ZOE. If you plop in one small piece at a time you can make sure he eats every bit.

[penguin87]

this is the product: http://www.petsmart.com/fish/shopping/chemicals/products/product%5F35824.shtml

and i will also definately get to work on those water changes. thanks for the help

[ratziel]

You will still get a positive am reading when using Prime,as it does not remove am but converts it to a form that is not harmful to animals.

[penguin87]

oh.........so, then will this form of ammonia still cause nitrites? and, should i find another supplement to remove the ammonia, or will water changes take care of it?

[ratziel]

Prime claims to detoxify all components of the nitrogen cycle,which are ammonia,nitrite and nitrates without interupting the cycle.Ammonia is not only caused by overfeeding,it is also produced by the fishes poop,but mostly it is caused by the respiration of the fish,meaning they breathe out ammonia like we breathe out carbon dioxide.I would suggest taking the clown back to the store as the best route to save your corals and maybe later after your system equalizes get something smaller like a clown goby or neon goby.JMO

[penguin87]

interesting....too bad my lfs doesn't accept returns or refunds. i guess the corals will have to duke it out with the ammonia spike, until the water changes take care of it.

[Der Goetz]

I had the same problem twice in the last 14 months.

Took the water to the LFS, they did 30 minutes!!!! of water testing, only to find that I have perfect water (quote: It's rare that we have customers with such a perfect water quality) but still...my anenomes and polyps were ALL closed up...for days and weeks. Water changes helped somehwat, but what really got everybody happy again was dropping salinity down to 1.023 and ADDING CARBON.
Two little fishies carbon worked fine for me and within 12 hours everybody started opening up again.

My guess is that something, don't ask me who or what, released poison or something else that irritates filter feeders into the tank. Only carbon was able to help me.

Hope this helps!!

Good luck!!!

Seeing the tank in pain causes pain :)

[geonator]

lol.... i use prime in my 7 mini bow. im happy with it

[rleechb]

any live rock in that tank?