Dying snails and hermits

[jennwest]

Hey everyone,
I've been having some issues in my tank over the past few weeks. It started with hair algae slowly taking over my rocks. I think it was due to replacing the bulbs in my t5 setup. I did it slowly but I guess not slow enough! I've shortened my lighting schedule to 8 hours, 6 being with all the lights and 2 with just the blue. Now I am getting random dead hermits and snails. It started about 2 weeks ago with a dead snail and I've found about 3 more up to now. I also recently found one dead hermit. Also, over the past 3 days I've had a bloom of that brown algae with bubbles on the sand. My corals look good- some will close up for a bit if something has died but none have been damaged and they seem to be growing.
My temp and salinity are normal, and my nitrates have been normal. I have tiny ammonia spikes after I find a dead snail but a water change usually takes care of it. I've also found small amounts of nitrites (.25ppm) without any ammonia present. I don't test phosphates.
Could algae be causing the snail/hermit deaths?

 

[blk822822]

What are you using for water? Tap or RO/DI?????

 

[jennwest]

Right now I am using store bought ro/di. I just bought an ro/di unit but my apartment has lame faucets that don't have threading for an adapter so I'm trying to figure out another way to hook it up.

 

[TJL]

Beyond water nutrient issues it almost seems like excessive metal elements ie: Iron and or Copper that would be affecting inverts and contributing to algal growth. I would be curious to see what the Phosphate levels are. On a mature system it's very rare to have any detectable levels of Ammonia as they should be converting to Nitrite then Nitrate almost immediately.

Cheers, Todd

 

[jennwest]

Where would the iron or copper be coming from?

Beyond water nutrient issues it almost seems like excessive metal elements ie: Iron and or Copper that would be affecting inverts and contributing to algal growth. I would be curious to see what the Phosphate levels are. On a mature system it's very rare to have any detectable levels of Ammonia as they should be converting to Nitrite then Nitrate almost immediately.

Cheers, Todd

 

[TJL]

Where would the iron or copper be coming from?

Possibly from LR (Iron deposits), magnets on powerheads even submersible pumps and heaters (though this should be detectable with stray voltage) Most likely the issue is water quality in having readable levels of Ammonia and or Nitrites. BIG ? How old is system, total water volume, substrate type and what source of biological filtration is used ie: 75lbs of live rock or wet/dry sump setup ???

Cheers, Todd

 

[jennwest]

Its about 6 months old now. Every time I get a reading of ammonia or nitrites I do a water change. Its a 29 gallon tank with about 40lbs of live rock (some in back chamber). I have a skimmer and some filter floss. When you mentioned magnets I realized I currently have 2 of those glass cleaning things in the tank (I meant to take one out but forgot). I wonder it that has something to do with it.

Possibly from LR (Iron deposits), magnets on powerheads even submersible pumps and heaters (though this should be detectable with stray voltage) Most likely the issue is water quality in having readable levels of Ammonia and or Nitrites. BIG ? How old is system, total water volume, substrate type and what source of biological filtration is used ie: 75lbs of live rock or wet/dry sump setup ???

Cheers, Todd

 

[TJL]

At six months it is still relatively young and not fully stable yet. Probably not your cleaner magnet unless you can see rust on it, but take a good look at inside magnet on skimmer if it has one. In a 29 Bio (26g +- actual) would not take much of anything to adversely affect water quality. How often do you clean/replace filter floss/pad ? If you have so-called black sand it is often silica based and may contain ferrous pieces which can fuel algal growth as well. I'll look into your intro/build thread to see if there is anything else obvious to me.

Cheers, Todd