What's going on with my tank??

[bizzygenius]

Ok, kinda long but descriptive.
I've been slowly adding things to my new setup (29 gallon) over the past 3 weeks. I started off adding cc and left it alone. Early last week I added ls and a few pieces of rr to it. Sat. I added one 10 lb piece of FL cultured lr with pretty purple and pink algae already on it. This past Tues. I bought:
1 Royal Gramma
1 Coral Banded Shrimp
12 Baby Blue Legged HC
Everyone had been doing fine, the gramma even came out and swam around Wed. for a while (although I did watch the shrimp keep heckling him out from under the rock. Now the big piece of lr has started growing some furry green algae and some very deep purple fuzzy (algae?) on it. It also has a lot of beige stringing things on it (don't appear to be coming out of the rock but weren't there before) what are they? Waste from the hermits, possibly?? Is this how it's supposed to look??

Also I noticed last night that the RG has a big white spot on it's nose. I thought I saw a couple of smaller white specks on his head, but when I saw them before, it wind up just being sand. I wasn't able to check him thoroughly this morning, (had to get to work). Could this be ick, or a scar from the shrimp's pincer, or from the rock or something?

Please any suggestions or advice would be great, thank you!

 

[lexluethar]

Congrats on the new setup. One question everyone will ask, was the tank cycled before the addition of living creatures?
To answer some of your questions:
1. Yes that is algae growing on your LR
2. Those stringy things (if they are what i think they are) are normal, i don't know what they are called, some type of plant growth or worm - not waste
3. I think your RG has ick, a picture would help out more on the diagnosis of this, if it is ick then your other fish probably ahve it too, you just can't see it. Since you already have inverts in the DT (display tank) this is my suggestion.
first move all of your fish into another tank (just a small 5 gallon tank) with established water from your DT and a couple handfulls of sand from your tank (although i don't think it will matter b/c it sounds like there hasn't been much of a cycle). Put a small HOB filter and a heater in the tank.
second treat those fish for ick - for your benefit / ease i would probably just use medication, you could use hyposalinity but i think it would be difficult for someone new at the hobby.
once the ick is gone (wait like a month to ensure it is gone) and slowly untreat the water (water changes with new/fresh saltwater) , then put the fish back into the dt.

 

[bizzygenius]

Thank you so much for all the advice.
No I didn't cycle it. My rock was precured, the lfs told me it have cycled (ammonia spike) in a day or so, and I could have missed it. Actually I just kept doing tests after I put the ls and rr in and all the numbers remained low. I test like every other day for the past week, no ammonia spike still..yet.
Will the shrimp and the hc need ick medicine too? Can they get ick? If so what about copper in medicines? I though invertabrete couldn't have those..

 

[lexluethar]

Inverts can't have copper medications - which is why i advised to move the fish to another tank before proceeding. As far as a i know inverts cannot get ick, because in a weird way ick is the same 'type of lifeform' (i know i'll get burned for this one). But essentiall ick is an invert, which is why treating it with copper will kill it. And inverts like shrimp, snails, hermits can't get it.
Post a picture if you can, i would hate for you to spend 75 bucks on all of this setup, and treat them if they really don't have ick.
As for the cycling, you may have missed the ammonia spike, but generally speaking cycling takes around 3 weeks to complete. Although it is possible there was enough established bacteria on the rocks to shorten the cycling process. Just monitor your parameters, 0 am, 0 ni, >0 na means you've cycled, or you've gone through some cycle.

 

[bizzygenius]

Oh ok thanks Lex! I'll post some pics tonight when I get home. Thanks a mil.
Oh yeah...what about that deep dark purple fuzzy algae on the big lr?? You can take a shot but I know I have to post pics to get a better insight..

 

[earlybird]

search for cyanobacteria or cyano or redslime

 

[bizzygenius]

Well, my Royal Gramma died on Sat.

he didn't have ick like I thought. I don't really know what was wrong with him. At one point I could have sworn he looked like he was choking and spitting out sand. Very bizarre..

I did all my water checks, they all were fine. I just bought him Tues. so I'm thinking he was sick in the first place. Plus I never saw him eat. I still have my Coral Banded Shrimp and the HC's.
I'm a little frustrated at this point cause I really don't know what went wrong. I went super slow at setting up everything. I'm feeling really discouraged about buying anymore fish, not to mention the fact that $15 bucks for one fish and not to have it a week, puts a bad vibe on the financial pockets. I don't want to keep buying fish every other week. I'm needing some advice on how to get through the frustrating time of getting an up and running well established sw tank.
Oh yeah..the lr is doing great (sorry couldn't ever upload any pics), but I see it's going through it's natural new tank die off phase. I've been seeing some very small what looks like little white fuzzy pipe cleaners coming out of it. Are those copods??