20L setup

[Crush]

Running into some early morning issues. I did a 2 gallon water change last night and cleaned my filter sponge, this morning our clownfish is stuck to my circulation pump. I turned the pump off and he swam free. I gave him a few minutes to recoup and turned the pump on again. Poor guy doesn't seem to have the strength so I turned it back off. I checked salinity and I'm just above 1.024, checked perameters and all seems well there PH=8 ammonia=.25 nitrite=0 nitrate=5. Water temp is around 80. Been feeding brine shrimp and thought I'd give him an early breakfast but he doesn't seem interested. With the pump off he is swimming but seems like a struggle. We added a candy cane coral earlier this week, I couldn't resist. Petco had a sale on their fish and coral so I took a chance. Coral seems fine and has his tentacles out. Feed it a brine shrimp that it seemed to swallow but this morning it had some slime comeing off of it. Not sure if that's the issue or not but I'm doing a 1 gallon water change. I'd do more than that but that's all the Rodi I have left. Also feed zooplankton to the coral as well, don't think that should make a difference. Any advice yall can give would be great.

[Crush]

Well we lost nemo today. I think I traced the problem to a faulty heater and me cheaping out on a proper thermometer. I stopped today and got a digital thermometer and with the heater set to 76 the thermometer is reading 81 and the heater was still trying to heat the water. I'm going to keep an eye on the temp a lot closer from now on

[Crush]

Hi my name is Ciara . �� and I have a Fire fish goby,clownfish,and a scooter blenny. I also have 3 corals 1 Branching hammer and 2 candy canes

[Crush]

I got my daughter to talk about her tank...lol

[Crush]

its Ciara and I got 2 new corals , 1is a zooanthid and the other is a brain coral frag..i have a fire fish and it likes to hide in a piece of my live rock

[Crush]

[Crush]

Well so far no ammonia spikes and the diatoms are comeing in nicely...lol. Noticed 3 tiny "sprigs" of green hair algae yesterday, 2 on the live rock and one on the glass. So much for phosban I guess, then again maybe it's exhausted. It's looking a slight tan color. My daughter and I picked up a few more inhabitants for her tank, mainly snails (a mix of Astraea, nassarius, nerite). Also got one emerald crab and a banded coral shrimp. I let her choose a maze coral frag and I just had to get a zoo frag. Tank has come togather nicely I think. I also picked up a Red Sea test kit, checked magnesium levels and they were pretty high according to the instructions but my calcium was low (something like 300). Can you use calcium carbonate to supplement?

[mredman]

Your tank is still very immature. If you are using a good grade of salt mix, I would not supplement with calcium. Diatoms are often problematic in new tanks but will go away normally once the tank stabilizes. Do not add too many snails because once the algae subsides, the lack of food often leads to death if you have too many snails. Be careful with fish additions also. An unstable tank can lead to an outbreak of oodinium and cryptocarion.

it is usually the second month the potential problems peak.

Mike

[Crush]

Roger that. Thanks mike

[Crush]

Got a pretty good clean on my daughters tank, it took up soo much time I didn't get to clean my tank. Such is life. I added purigen this time mainly cause I wanted to try it. Ordered up 2 koralia nano 240gph circulation pumps, petco had them for 14.99 online so I jumped on it. I don't think I need two of them but at that price I figure I could use a spare. My daughter wants a coral with long tentacles. I'm thinking frog spawn would fit nicely if I can find one. also thinking of adding a royal gramma basslet. We will see. So far her hammer coral has been doing great, it's extended its self further than it did in the store. All her current coral seems to be doing good now that I think of it.

[Crush]

Hey mike I wanted to get your input on this, I just finished testing water perams and it goes like this
ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate-0
ph-8-8.1
kh-12.4
magnesium-1480
calcium-200
to me it seems everything is good except my calcium is low. Last weekend I did a 5 gallon water change which didn't seem to bring my calcium up. I don't see how it would be precipitating if my magnesium is high. Is my sand bed kind of soaking it up?

[mredman]

My first suspect would be the calcium and magnesium test kits, especially when you just made a 25%+ water change.

Even with a heavy SPS load, I can't see how your ca and mg is so much out of balance.

In this case, seeing is not believing.

Mike

Hey mike I wanted to get your input on this, I just finished testing water perams and it goes like this
ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrate-0
ph-8-8.1
kh-12.4
magnesium-1480
calcium-200
to me it seems everything is good except my calcium is low. Last weekend I did a 5 gallon water change which didn't seem to bring my calcium up. I don't see how it would be precipitating if my magnesium is high. Is my sand bed kind of soaking it up?

[mredman]

Water parameters

What is your specific gravity?

Mike

[Crush]

Salinity is at 1.025. I did the water change last week. I'm trying to keep up a weekly water change cycle until I feel a little more confident in the systems stability. I'm using the Red Sea titration test kit for dkh, mg, and calcium. I did the calcium test twice to confirm. I also have the API test kit for calcium I used before, I assumed it wasn't accurate cause my decline in calcium seemed off. That's why I got the red sea kit.

[Crush]

Could the carbon be soaking up the calcium?