HELP! Brittles keep falling apart

dandsbernardo

dandsbernardo

Member
i have a relativly new tank, and the chemistry is a bit out of wack. i think tats the problem. but i acclimate the critter for about 3 hours or so using the drip method. i bought 2 from a cleaner pack along with cleaner clams that got eaten and the general janitors. i have one left that i can find, i rearranged the tank and could only find one. i bought the janitor pack almost a month now. the brittle that is left has 2 full arms and the others are stubs. he looks alright physically. maybe it was my salinity changing too quickly a while back. anybody have an idea of whats going on? (pardon the spelling errors.)
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Welcome to the site...you answered your own question,. sea stars are very sensitive to changes and so are shrimp.
 
dandsbernardo

dandsbernardo

Member
i thought those stations had tap water, thats safe to use then? makes partial changes easier than getting 10 2.5 gallon jusgs.
 
S

shrimpy brains

Guest
Chemistry is a bit out of whack? What are your parameters?
 
dandsbernardo

dandsbernardo

Member
Ph measures @ around 8 to 8.2
Nitrates @ 20ppm
Nitrites @ 0ppm
Ammonia @ 0ppm
so far the only thing thats bad is the nitrates,(just did the test about 2hours ago) and te ph is low. but for some reason the water around south carolina is low ph.... maybe its just the rains weve been getting.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
Your tap pH shouldn't effect your tank pH, the salt you're using should be buffering that.
20ppm of nitrate in a fairly new tank isn't terrible.
When you say that you had a salinity spike, how fast did it increase?
It actually sounds like your starfish are really stressed and that's what is causing them to die. You also mentioned that the rest of your cleaners died? What else is in this tank? How did you acclimate? How are you testing salinity?
 
dandsbernardo

dandsbernardo

Member
so far it spiked up to 20 ppm for the last month now. it spiked up about 5ppm per week until it leveled out at 20. i have a lion fish, a regal tang, pygmy angel, and a snowflake eel. various janitors like crabs and some snails. the salinity spike was probably around 1.022-1.025. over a period of one week. i drip acclimate about 2hrs for fish, over 3 hrs for starfish and sensitive inverts/fish. i test my salinity with a hydrometer. i cant remember the brand name. i use the same one to test my beer( wort specific gravity and final specific gravity)
 
dandsbernardo

dandsbernardo

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by dandsbernardo http:///forum/thread/385086/help-brittles-keep-falling-apart#post_3375943
so far it spiked up to 20 ppm for the last month now. it spiked up about 5ppm per week until it leveled out at 20. i have a lion fish, a regal tang, pygmy angel, and a snowflake eel. various janitors like crabs and some snails. the salinity spike was probably around 1.022-1.025. over a period of one week. i drip acclimate about 2hrs for fish, over 3 hrs for starfish and sensitive inverts/fish. i test my salinity with a hydrometer. i cant remember the brand name. i use the same one to test my beer( wort specific gravity and final specific gravity)
and i have a algae bloom. its brown in color. not really dusty, plus my lights went out for about a week and a half.
 
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