Recommended ph for 33 gallon tank

[damselz]

What is the recommended ph for a 33 gallon tank. I have the following:
20 lbs live rock
40 lbs live sand
aquaclear 110 hang on filter
2 ocellaris clowns
1 blue damsel
1 blue yellow tailed damsel
1 small hippo tang
1 velvet damsel
1 blood shrimp
5 snails
started with 7 hermits, they keep dying, down to 4 (reason why I am sking this question)
I also have a brown algae growing on my sand.
ph is around 7.8 and chlorine was at 0.5
Any ideas why hermits are dying and shrimp molted 1 day after he was in tank.

 

[mopar9012]

how long has your tank been set up? pH should be around 8.2 for SWF tanks.
That hippo tang isnt going to last long in that tank, even though its small it still needs a lot more swimming space than a 33 gallon tank.
That brown algae on the sand could be diatoms, are you using tap water?

 

[damselz]

Yeah it is tap water, tank is a little over a month old. Why would the Tang not last long, I've seen them in tanks that were the same size as mine.

 

[mopar9012]

you might be just coming out of a cycle that could be why you have diatoms or it could be the tap water. It sounds like you added fish to early and too fast.
Tangs need lots of swimming, lots of people say they need 6ft of swimming room. Where did you see the tangs that were in the same size tank?

 

[travis89]

Also what is your salinity, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate? Inverts are very sensitive to high or low salinity levels. Also i agree about the tang needing a bigger tank, the bare minimum I would say is ok is a 55 gal, but 6 ft. is really a lot better because there is more LR.

 

[damselz]

My salinity is at 1.019-1.020. My tank is 4 feet long, my LFS has a disply tank with a Tang in it and it is a 33 long. He said it's been very happy in there. Mine seems happy too except for her being shy and hiding when the tank is approached. I will test for nitrates and ammonia tomorow, where should those be? I thought it was a little fast but I have added shots of bacteria and some of the fish were, adopted/rescued by me fronm a friend who was not very good aat this. They were all QT and they seem healthy now.

 

[nereef]

ammonia should be 0, and nitrates should be as low as you can get them (under 5).
hippo tangs get 8-10 inches long. how wide is this tank?

 

[damselz]

Nitrates were at zero, no signs of ammonia, now ph seems to be at 8.4, think I need a better tester than the little stick thing.

 

[saltn00b]

wow man you need to slow down. this hobby is all about baby steps, taking your time to research as much as you can before you make any change.
if you'r LFS will take back the tang def. return it, unless you have a 90g+ tank to move him to...
your Salinity is too low for inverts, you should get it up to at least the range of 1.022-1.025. that is likely why your snails are dying. snails die sometimes for no obvious reason, and are killed by hermits for the shells.
stop using tap water and switch over to RO/DI.
you could be introducing harsh metals like copper into your tank that even very minute ammounts could kill all of your inverts.

 

[damselz]

Salinity has since been raised to 1.021 since first post. Snails are definitley more mobile than before and feather dusters in LR are coming out everywhere. only one snail died but I did see hermits on him in my tank so there goes that mystery. I didn't make any changes to the tank, I just misinterpreted the ph stick tester thing. All fish are happy and healthy, as for the hermits, they have been appearing here and there, they spend a lot of time in the LR, nobody is eating the damn diatom algae though.

 

[saltn00b]

diatoms, if in fact that is what you have, will dissapear in there own time.
i would still aim to raise sal to 1.025