apos
Member
While trying to grab a dead snail (more on that later, need advice if anyone has any), I had to move and turn over some LR and found this purple thing on the bottom. The picture isn't the best, since I have no macro lens atm. It's basically about the size of a small grape, and the base looks like coraline purple, but then there are all these pointy white protrusions coming out of it. They do not move: they are rigid, almost looking like tiny urchin spines, only more hairlike densitywise. There are a couple more places where the purple "pimples" are growing, but these do not have the same white spikes.
My LR also has grown thin white "trees" on it over time: they are too thin to picture well (always out of focus), but they are unlike this purple thing in that they have no obvious base, and are branching like a tree rather than single spikes like the picture. I've heard people ask about things like this before, but never getting an answer that fit (don't seem like worms medusas since they don't move: they look plantlike)
As for my snails, I've lost a chestnut (stopped moving or coming out of its shell and hermits eventually took a bite), a large margarita (didn't smell yet, but stopped moving for days and was half in, half out of shell with door open, did not respond to touch, etc.) and now a small margarita and an orange chestnut have shown the same symptoms, though both moved a little more recently when I moved them underwater to look at their bottoms. When I can see their feet, they are browner than normal and more wrinkled.
I have one last orange chestnut that seems okay (species is turban I think), two more marg (one happily gumming away on my LR, one I haven't seen in a day, but was fine last time I saw and is likely on the LR somewhere, they blend in pretty well), one very large zebra turbo snail (seems happy, pauses periodically and is still stuck to glass now), and one astrea (seems happily eating the algae film on my pvc return pipes). My clownfish and emerald crab seem happy and moving around as normal, and my hermits seem fine. My nar snails only come out at feeding time, but there was one that was resting on the glass that looked sort of odd, though it could have been that he was just covered in crud. It's possible that some have died and I can't tell (if they died under the substrate)
Two day old shot of the Zebra turbo, the now deceased marg and the still happy orange snail pictured below (shell of the now not moving one is peeking out there too):
Anyone have any suggestions?
My nitrate is fairly high: around 30ppm, and I figure that this is my best bet as to the problem I'm having. I've done two 10 gal changes in the last week (tank is a 55gal), but they don't seem to have gone down too much, and the tank has been running at around 20ppm-30ppm for a while now (about a month so far). I've checked my calcium and it seems right for snails (I use the Instant Ocean brand, which seems to get most everything right just in the mix). All other parameters are normal: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, alk and ph in the range, temperature at around 76. I have lots of LR, hitchhiking feather worms, and a crushed coral bed tats popping with pods and hair worms (there's one piece of LR with a hair or spaghetti worm that has a tentacle or two that's literally a foot long).
I use amquel+ treated tap water, unfortunately, so it's possible that I could have some sort of toxin that's making it through. I'm still trying to convince my SO to let me buy a RO/DI. However, this tank was run on treated tap water for years (in the same water district/city, cleveland) by its previous owner, so while that may be an easy excuse, I'm not sure I buy it. I'm pretty sure that copper meds were never used in this tank and it was always a reef tank...
My LR also has grown thin white "trees" on it over time: they are too thin to picture well (always out of focus), but they are unlike this purple thing in that they have no obvious base, and are branching like a tree rather than single spikes like the picture. I've heard people ask about things like this before, but never getting an answer that fit (don't seem like worms medusas since they don't move: they look plantlike)
As for my snails, I've lost a chestnut (stopped moving or coming out of its shell and hermits eventually took a bite), a large margarita (didn't smell yet, but stopped moving for days and was half in, half out of shell with door open, did not respond to touch, etc.) and now a small margarita and an orange chestnut have shown the same symptoms, though both moved a little more recently when I moved them underwater to look at their bottoms. When I can see their feet, they are browner than normal and more wrinkled.
I have one last orange chestnut that seems okay (species is turban I think), two more marg (one happily gumming away on my LR, one I haven't seen in a day, but was fine last time I saw and is likely on the LR somewhere, they blend in pretty well), one very large zebra turbo snail (seems happy, pauses periodically and is still stuck to glass now), and one astrea (seems happily eating the algae film on my pvc return pipes). My clownfish and emerald crab seem happy and moving around as normal, and my hermits seem fine. My nar snails only come out at feeding time, but there was one that was resting on the glass that looked sort of odd, though it could have been that he was just covered in crud. It's possible that some have died and I can't tell (if they died under the substrate)
Two day old shot of the Zebra turbo, the now deceased marg and the still happy orange snail pictured below (shell of the now not moving one is peeking out there too):
Anyone have any suggestions?
My nitrate is fairly high: around 30ppm, and I figure that this is my best bet as to the problem I'm having. I've done two 10 gal changes in the last week (tank is a 55gal), but they don't seem to have gone down too much, and the tank has been running at around 20ppm-30ppm for a while now (about a month so far). I've checked my calcium and it seems right for snails (I use the Instant Ocean brand, which seems to get most everything right just in the mix). All other parameters are normal: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, alk and ph in the range, temperature at around 76. I have lots of LR, hitchhiking feather worms, and a crushed coral bed tats popping with pods and hair worms (there's one piece of LR with a hair or spaghetti worm that has a tentacle or two that's literally a foot long).
I use amquel+ treated tap water, unfortunately, so it's possible that I could have some sort of toxin that's making it through. I'm still trying to convince my SO to let me buy a RO/DI. However, this tank was run on treated tap water for years (in the same water district/city, cleveland) by its previous owner, so while that may be an easy excuse, I'm not sure I buy it. I'm pretty sure that copper meds were never used in this tank and it was always a reef tank...
