My Paired Clowns aren’t eating

[JBJ28LED]

Yesterday i cleaned the hell of my 28 gal JBJ and went to feed my animals flakes today and noticed that the male and female clown didn't eat one flake. does anyone have any idea why.i’ve had them since may and never seen this behavior. let me know if you have any input thanks

 

[ReefLogic]

do you use Garlic Extreme? or have you? if not try it. Also, are there any other fish showing any signs of not eating? Have you tested your water lately? If so what are your parameters?

 

[Krish]

Were all of your parameters the same after you "Cleaned the hell out of your tank" as you put it?? Temp, ph, salinty etc all matched back up or was a water change not involved? Maybe disturbing the tank so much put them a bit on edge I'm thinking?? They are hardy fish so give them the day to settle and let us know how they respond to feeding later on this evening. If nothing, I can move the thread over to Lee's forum to see if he can help.

 

[Top Water]

You may have stressed them and the system . Sometimes over cleaning is worse than a dirty tank.
System might have to rebalance itself. Don't over feed . They can go a few days w/ out food so just try again.

 

[BCT182]

You may have stressed them and the system . Sometimes over cleaning is worse than a dirty tank.
System might have to rebalance itself. Don't over feed . They can go a few days w/ out food so just try again.

+1

Give them a couple days. Don't go nuts with garlic either. I think that can sometime create problems in smaller systems.

 

[Airphotog]

I did a huge clean job and removed some gravel on my 75 planted tank and woke up the next morning an 3 out of 4 of my mated angels were dead. I did some research and found out by disturbing the gravel so much I created an amomia spike so I would check and make sure everything is inline.

 

[WABlonde]

We moved around some rocks which created a spike in our nitrates. We lost our 6 line wrasse from it. Lesson learned. Now we clean one section at a time to not stress out the system and the fish.

 

[BackwerdsMan]

We moved around some rocks which created a spike in our nitrates. We lost our 6 line wrasse from it. Lesson learned. Now we clean one section at a time to not stress out the system and the fish.

I blow off my rocks with a turkey baster a couple times a week as to not allow large quantities of detritus to build up in crevices.

 

[WABlonde]

I blow off my rocks with a turkey baster a couple times a week as to not allow large quantities of detritus to build up in crevices.

We do that from time to time as well.. but only because our turbo snails leave behind SO MUCH ****!!! I swear they **** more than a 5-month-old child!

 

[JBJ28LED]

yep it was the ammonia spike cuz im trying to change the sand in my tank to finer white sand what is the safest way of doing this?

 

[mojoreef]

Yea you have to remember that your sandbeds become an eco system unto themselves. The top layer will be areobic (oxygenated) but below that you are going to be hitting the anerobic (devoid of oxygen) area, with it that you have all sorts of nasties that will kill on contact. Your sand bed is basically an nitrogen recyler, where ammonia enters on the top layer and then is cycled through the nitrogen cycle until it produces ammonium and then it recycles the same way all over again. If you are attempting to clean up the sand stick to the the very top 1/2 inch or so, that way you are in the areobic zone and wont be releasing any toxins

hope it helps

Mojo

 

[JBJ28LED]

what if you want to change the sand how can i do this safely

 

[mojoreef]

You want to change out the whole sand bed?? or just add to it??

Mojo

 

[mojoreef]

If you want to completely remove the sand bed and then replace it this is what I would do.

>drain the tank about half way, then put that water into a temp bucket and put your livestock in their. Add a heater and a power head for water movement. then drain the balance of the tank into other buckets. Now just take a shop vac and suck it out and clean the bottom. Then add your new sand and put the water back in. It will be a dust storm so you would want to keep the live stock out for the night, then test it the next day and add the livestock back if its good

>If you want to just add the sand on top, one way I have done it is to get a 1 1/2 peice of PVC pipe and the put one end on the bed and start slowly pouring the sand in the other while moving the pipe over the bed to spread out the sand evenly. I would suggest only doing about a 1/2 inch at a time, then wait a few days and do it again. This way it should stress out the critters to much

Hope it helps

Mojo

 

[JBJ28LED]

damn you know alot i have a ten gallon i can put everything in so that should work great thanks for the help and wish me luck