Clam lying sideways, mantis dead... possible bad batch of IO salt?

duijver · Apr 25, 2009

Hey guys,

I'm falling into some bad times with my tanks and I wanted to get some opinions.

Yesterday, my Mantis totally died in my 15g tank. It's not totally surprising since I think he may have had some shell rot and it was probably a bad molt. After I removed him I did a 4gal WC and this morning the fish in the tank didn't look so great. Hermits, corals, etc all looked fine.

In the main DT (47+5g or so sump) the GPS and mushrooms have been decreasing in size and everything has been getting a copper looking color to it. I threw it off as another diatom bloom, but it's going on about a month and 1/2 strait and will not come off even after though toothbrush scrubbing. Anyway, last week I did my normal 20% or so WC and things started looking a bit worse, I have a little bit more algae growth, the tank inhabitants are getting more feisty and now my clam is tipped over sideways. This morning he was 3/4 of the way down and didn't look so great. I've had him for about 4-5 months now. Plus, the two clowns I just picked up are getting darker and darker, I suspect from black ich. Although, I don't see spots.. they are just getting really dark black in color. It's always great going from one parasite to another.

Any chance that the 5g bucket of IO salt is bad? I mixed it up really really well since it has been in my garage since December. I'm really anal about not intermixing items I use between tanks so it's unlikely that there was any cross-contaimination. In the mean time, I put some PhosBan (real stuff) and a wisper carbon filter in the tank's overflow to see if that might help.

Thanks guys!

beerfish · Apr 25, 2009

I have a hard time believing that the salt would cause all of this, but it's not impossible.

Have you checked your levels? Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates?

When did you last change your bulbs?

Are you using RO/DI water?

beerfish · Apr 25, 2009

Also, was the salt bucket completely closed? If it was in the garage and got some sort of rust in it...

duijver · Apr 25, 2009

I tested ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, PH, cal, alk and PH4 and everything was within reason. But, the tank is prodementaly sofies, so the different types of xenia's are probably eating up the Phosphates to give me a false reading.

I am using RO/DI water and the filters are still from Sept/Oct. The main filter could use a replacement, but I have not gotten around to it yet.

Tek light, and bulbs are basically brand new. I purchased them during the PA group buy.

The smaller 15g tank only has a Homedepot fixture with a 13 or 25w CF attached to it. Mantis actually do worse off with powerful light.

I did dose the tank with API proper Ph 8.2 last Saturday, but I would have expected something sooner from that? Plus, that's supposed to be safe??

vangvace · Apr 25, 2009

How much did you dose?

What test kits did you use?

With softies you have to watch for chem warfare. Are you running carbon?

duijver · Apr 25, 2009

The packing says 1 scoop per 10 gals for new, existing and WC's. I was a little apprehensive about using it so I only used 2 scoops.

Seifiet

The DT has pom-pom xenia(lots) and blue xenia (good amount of growing extremely quickly), kenya tree (1 big stalk), mushrooms (red, green, mixed colors), GSP (2 types). Smaller tank has pom-pom xenia, kenya (small) and some other type of softie.

The only chem warfare I have seen is between the GPS and Xenia. The Xenia closest to the GPS has some white tips, but the same stalk on the other side is fine. At first, I thought it was something else, but it has to be that.

I've never run carbon, but I did buy some at this group buy. Unfortunately, that has no come yet, so I put in a whisper EX20 filter cartage in my overflow in hopes if scrubbing the water. But, it's probably not powerful enough.

beerfish · Apr 26, 2009

I've had really good luck with poly pads in the past. They'll also change color and give you an indication of what may be in the water.

duijver · Apr 28, 2009

Well the clam has decided to move around a bit, and disappeared behind the rockwork. In the end, I moved it towards the bottom of the tank and a few minutes later it opened up ever so slightly.

I did a 5gal WC last night and I'm making another 25g's or so. I did some tests and PO4 was actually on the charts tonight. Not sure why. I feed so little my cleaner shrimp got eaten by my red serpent star.... I've been checking once a week for a few weeks now (not the best with testing...) and there was no problems. So, after I add the Phosban it shows up... anyway it looks like PH4 is somewhere between .30 or 0.1.

ALK was at 2.29 and Mg was 1290.

I'm really really surprised that the number has increased. Although, I haven't cleaned my algae scrubber in a few weeks so it may be that. Calp and other macro's are growing strong and need to be pruned back again as well. Seems like they filled back in completely after about 2-3 weeks.