Reef Help Needed

[KrazyTurbo]

First Question:

Last night my green chormis started swimming verticle and hideing over by the filter. He had a very long poop? hanging out for hours. I could not get to him to help him because of his location. After a water test I found nothing wrong. PH 8.3, temp 78, nitrates 0, ammonia 0, copper 0, salinity in the green area of my floating meter. It has been days seince i've dosed my tank with anything, added any chemicals, or even opend the lid for other than feeding and topoff. I've even tested my RO water and all was good.

My clown is doing perfect, my hermit is doing perfect.

The chormis was near death this morning, floating sideways and verticle near the top not moving (even if you touched him) yet his gills were moving. I removed him from the tank and retested the water all was fine.

Do you happen to know what caused this??

I get my paycheck today and I wanted to go to the LFS today but im a bit scared about that. I will do a 3rd test and wait for response on what the cause my be.

Second question:

I need a better clean up crew, I have a 12gal DX. I have a good ammount of the red hard algae on the glass and a good ammount of brown in my sand that need to be cleaned up, what do you reccomend?

Also, I wanted to buy 2 new fish and maybe a coral today. What is your reccomendation on that? I want hardy fish like my clown that are little troopers that keep on going and going.

Thanks for your time!

-Sean

In this post "you" is referring to any experianced reef tank owners.

 

[sianeds]

Firstly I am real sorry you lost your Chromis.

It sounds like it may have had some sort of internal parasire or bacterial infection. Keep a very close eye on your other fish. Do you have any other chromis?? I'm hoping that with this being a 12g tank you don't. If not then it's possible that the stress of being kept by itself may have gone some way to causing the infection.

Chromis are shoaling fish and really do much better in groups. Unfortunately a 12g will not give them enough room to swim or to be kept in appropriate numbers.

Now for your second question...

The "red hard algea" on your glass is probably the beginning Coralline algae. This is a friendly algea, you can either scrape it off or leave it be. Personally I leave it to grow on my back glass and only scrape off the sides and front. It is personal choice really.

The brown on your sand could be a couple of things. How long has your tank been set up?? If it's a fairly new tank or if you have done some major re-scaping etc, it could well be diatoms. Pretty much all snails and hermit crabs will eat diatoms. Even if the tank has been running for a good while you can still get diatoms on your sand. This, like all algea blooms, is usually caused by excess nutrients and low flowrate.

I would definately recommend finding some Nassarius snails. These will dig into your sand and you will rarely see them. They keep your substrate healthy and eat the detritus that can accumulate. Other than that a few of whatever snails you can get hold of, Astrea or trochus would be best, try to stay away from Turbo's as they can get big. Don't overstock your tank with snails as they can quickly starve. Add a couple at a time over a few months. Slowly is always the best way with marine.

Your tank is a little on the small side for shrimps. Maybe one cleaner shrimp to keep your fish healthy and one peppermint to eat any nasty Aiptasia which pop up. Also a couple of hermits will be fine. I would stay away from other types of crab in such a small tank and DON'T but a coral banded shrimp AKA boxer shrimp if you value the lives of it's tankmates.


You say you want to buy 2 more fish?? I would think that 12gals is a bit on the small side for 3 fish. I assume you only have the clown in there now.

Damsels are small and hardy and can be really pretty. However they can also be really agressive and in such a small space you would be asking for trouble IMO. I would probably go with a goby, possibly a Citrinis or clown goby. Personally I wouldn't want more than 2 fish in your sized tank. A firefish would also be ok size wise with the clown as long as you have a lid as they are notoriously good at jumping.

Anyway..I am rambling now.... HTH

 

[steelhealr]

If your fish are dying, why do you want to add coral??? How old is your tank? Do you see my reasoning here? Death...adding corals? SH

 

[arif_93]

First Question:

Last night my green chormis started swimming verticle and hideing over by the filter. He had a very long poop? hanging out for hours. I could not get to him to help him because of his location. After a water test I found nothing wrong. PH 8.3, temp 78, nitrates 0, ammonia 0, copper 0, salinity in the green area of my floating meter. It has been days seince i've dosed my tank with anything, added any chemicals, or even opend the lid for other than feeding and topoff. I've even tested my RO water and all was good.

My clown is doing perfect, my hermit is doing perfect.

The chormis was near death this morning, floating sideways and verticle near the top not moving (even if you touched him) yet his gills were moving. I removed him from the tank and retested the water all was fine.

Do you happen to know what caused this??

I get my paycheck today and I wanted to go to the LFS today but im a bit scared about that. I will do a 3rd test and wait for response on what the cause my be.

Second question:

I need a better clean up crew, I have a 12gal DX. I have a good ammount of the red hard algae on the glass and a good ammount of brown in my sand that need to be cleaned up, what do you reccomend?

Also, I wanted to buy 2 new fish and maybe a coral today. What is your reccomendation on that? I want hardy fish like my clown that are little troopers that keep on going and going.

Thanks for your time!

-Sean

In this post "you" is referring to any experianced reef tank owners.

get a firefish and also a goby get an anemone for ur clownfish

 

[leo77]

SH is right... it doesnt make up. Rather then getting new fish and coral just let it run for a month and see how things go.

 

[KrazyTurbo]

No problem, I'll do that.

SkiFletch answered my PM with really good reasoning. We think my chormis may have had a disease so my clown's going to be lonely for a while.

 

[leecara]

get an anemone for ur clownfish

-clownfish do not need a anemone they are happy without 1 anyway a anemone will out grow a 12gallon pretty soon. if you want a clown to host in anything try corals what are look-a-likes
.as they can be fooled as many people have had sucees with corals such as torch corals
just thought il give some advice

 

[Ehudd]

i dont think they are fooled by the look, the mucus covering has some what got to be sillilar to the anemome.
An Elegance coral is similar.

 

[AndyS]

get an anemone for ur clownfish

-clownfish do not need a anemone they are happy without 1 anyway a anemone will out grow a 12gallon pretty soon. if you want a clown to host in anything try corals what are look-a-likes
.as they can be fooled as many people have had sucees with corals such as torch corals
just thought il give some advice

Agreed, an anenome is a bad idea for a tank that size, should it die you will probably loose all of your livestock along with it. Also a torch coral isnt a beginners coral, i would wait until you have test results from your LFS but if everything is fine then start with mushrooms, or other easy to care for soft corals.

Andy

 

[steelhealr]

Anemones do not belong in a nano tank. Clownfish do not need anemones to survive. They host quite well in other corals. SH