something i have never seen before

[senji]

i went to a persons house today to get some rubble rock ane he has had his sw tank up for 1 year. the thing i noticed right away is he had no coraline at all. was still getting green alge on tank wals and cant support coral anybodys thoughts on this. my qt hat meen only set up for 3 mos and is compleetly encrsted in coraline on coralife 18inc pc bulbs!! he has lots of neet looking fish and seahorses just brown live rock weird. any thoughts?

 

[user 26995]

Well, my first thought was he was using, or the tank or rock had been exposed to copper.

 

[senji]

he did use to use tap water but changed that a while ago hmm ill add a copper test to the list of things im gunna do. but he keeps muliple seahorses copper would off them right?

 

[user 26995]

he did use to use tap water but changed that a while ago hmm ill add a copper test to the list of things im gunna do. but he keeps muliple seahorses copper would off them right?

I was thinking that too but not really sure.

Does he have snails and crabs or shrimp in his tank? They for sure wont live in copper either.

What brand of salt mix is he using? What level does he keep the salinity?

 

[senji]

oh yes he had lots of large hermits of all kinds. no snails really, 2 rose tips not so happy 2 leathers looked awful mad to me and the rest fish all healthy. i did bring a refractometer with me as he told me he was haveing some issues and he was at 1.022 almost hyposalinity. which i belive the cause for the leathers to be pissed with my experiance with them. just got into nems so dont know too much about them. other than add them first and wiat till ther happy. lol

 

[user 26995]

That would cause coral and then nem to not be happy. And I would think the lack of coraline.

 

[Derbird]

Did he start with dry rock? I read a write up on here about coraline (thanks Kirsh) and learned that you have to introduce it to you system. If he started with dry base rock and never put frags in with coriaine it may have never been there to grow.

This however would not explain the unhappy corals.

 

[senji]

thats on my list of things to bring him im gunn pull a heater from 1 of my tanks scrape off all the coralind and seed his tank and do a full battery of tests and raise salinity to start.

 

[smoknreefr]

what are the nitrates/nitrites like? what light is he running? is he dosing? need some info!!!!

 

[senji]

i will be testing water soon as for nitrites im shure ther at 0 because ok amount of fish and seahorses he had in his total water volume of 290 gallons. has tanks linked together and too 2 sumps filled with liverock and skimmers and such. also been running for a year typically in my tanks ive set up ammonia is presesent in the first week nitrites for 2nd and 3rd week and nitrates then on till 0 around 8 to 10 weeks from initial setup. this has been true for all 3 of my sw tanks.