Lighting Upgrade

fenrir

fenrir

Member
Alright I have a basic 14g Biocube and I have had it up and running for a year now. I have had no crashes or anyhting and I am running a lr ls set up. I have been pretty succesful keeping thins alive and only losing 2 fish so far. One was my diamond goby who suddenly died from being eaten by my emerald for some reason. The second was a yellow clown goby who literaly disapeared while i was on vacation. I have unforutantly can not keep corals for the life of me. I have good coraline growth water is good(Will post atual perams tomorrow) but I can't keep any coral alive. I've tried Star polyps,Zoas, and recently a mushroom frag. All of which died within a week. So I think I narrowed it down to being a lighting issue. The store i get my supplies and corals is very nice and they keep everything under T5's and I think they die due to not having the same strength of light?

So what would be a basic upgrade that I could do to be able to atleast have mushrooms and other easy corals?
 
mudhauler

mudhauler

Member
I agree on the shrooms hard to kill. I do know that too clean water isn't nutrient rich enough for softies they can and will starve but not in a week. Something else is up me thinks.
 
paintballer768

paintballer768

Active Member
Im thinking about possibilities, either something toxic in the water that you arent testing for, a hitchhiker annihilating anything you put in the tank, or maybe one of your fish isnt reef compatible?
Only brainstorming here.
 
fenrir

fenrir

Member
I thought of that stuff. I figured if it was something in my water that was toxic it would of killed my other animals by now. My fish consist of a false perc which has been in there since I started my tank. I also have a Purple Fire fish which has been in there for a week. 1 Cleaner shrimp which has been in there since I started my tank. I also have the basic cleaner crew plus one huge evil blue leg hermit that killed my two tubos this past week!

I did notice before my turbos got killed they had about 7 little white snails hitchhiking on both of them. Harmful? Also if I take a flash light at night I will sometimes spot a purple like earth worm. Harmful? I also have a boat load of Amphipods in my tank.
 
fenrir

fenrir

Member
Alright here are my current water params:
Nitrie:.02
PH:8.4
ALk:1.0
Ammonia:0
Salinity:1.027
Temp: 78.7
I know I dont have a calcium reading because I don't have a test for that!
It's on my list of things to get this weekend.
 
oceansidefish

oceansidefish

Active Member
Is your alk 1 or 10???? Are you aclimating them or are you just throwing them in the water. What kind of water are you using and have you checked for Nitrite and Ammonia???
 
fenrir

fenrir

Member
Originally Posted by Oceansidefish
Is your alk 1 or 10???? Are you aclimating them or are you just throwing them in the water. What kind of water are you using and have you checked for Nitrite and Ammonia???
My Alk range for my tester is 0-1.6 is low, 1.7-2.8 in normal 2.9-3.6 is high. Refer to above for me Nitrite and Ammonia. I do a gallon water change with RO water every weekend. I drip acclimate everything that goes into my tank.
 
peef

peef

Active Member
Salinity is a bit high. Shoot for around 1.024. And is Nitrie, Nitrates or Nitrites? What kind of water do you use? Tap, Well, RO, or RO/DI? Is it the stock BC lighting? Low nutrients in the water would not be any reason the zoos, mushrooms, or stars would die. They live off of the zooxanthelia in them. They are also all low light corals and the stock BC lighting would be MORE than enough for those corals. How old is your actuall tank (not the time running but age of tank itself)? Also are you using dip strip testing? Or liquid?
 
fenrir

fenrir

Member
Originally Posted by peef
Salinity is a bit high. Shoot for around 1.024. And is Nitrie, Nitrates or Nitrites? What kind of water do you use? Tap, Well, RO, or RO/DI? Is it the stock BC lighting? Low nutrients in the water would not be any reason the zoos, mushrooms, or stars would die. They live off of the zooxanthelia in them. They are also all low light corals and the stock BC lighting would be MORE than enough for those corals. How old is your actuall tank (not the time running but age of tank itself)? Also are you using dip strip testing? Or liquid?
I was told to have a higher salinity for my inverts, I guess I could get it down to 1.025. It's Nitrites sorry for the typo. I use RO/DI and I do a gallon water change per week. It is also stock lighting that came with the Biocube. My tank is a little over a year old. I will post pics up tonight so I can show you that I have plenty of coraline growing.
 
paintballer768

paintballer768

Active Member
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/181286/marine-tank-hitchhikers
This is the hitchhiker database on SWF.com. Its in the helpful threads sticky of the New Hobbyist forum. Check for the snails and the purple worm. Is the worm round like an earth worm, or slightly flatter with some prickleys coming out of the sides? It could be a bristle worm from how common they appear, but check the other ones as well. Im going to try to ID the snails in a minute after I post this.
 
paintballer768

paintballer768

Active Member
I cant find an ID on the snail, but Im going to guess pyramid snails. Cant quite remember if theyre harmless or not.
I still think there might be something thats a coral eater in your tank. IMO Id take a flashlight, put some red saran (sp?) wrap over it and look into the tank tonite. Might help you out alot, cuz generally theres more hitchhikers in the tank than we know.
 
fenrir

fenrir

Member
Yeah they were definantly pyramid snails. The purple worm looked like a purple eath worm, I didn't see any bristles.
 
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