Aquarium Troubleshooting - Dying Inverts

iamchemicals · Feb 24, 2022

I run an 8.6 liter nano (~2 gallon) with ~6 gallons of water in a refugium sump. It had been cycling for a couple months, with Ulva intestinalis, Gracilaria hayi, and a few Littorina littoria (periwinkles), along with a couple blue legged hermits and Asterina sp. Water chemistry has been consistent: 36 ppt salinity, pH 8.2-8.4 (arduino with dfrobot gravity sheild and atlas scientific pH probe), carbonate ~180 ppm, alk ~160ppm, <5ppm nitrate, <1ppm nitrite, and I admittedly have no way to check magnesium or really any trace elements.
Seems pretty good, with lots of copepods and beautiful growth of the macro.

The issue arises when starfish and snails start dying and coral isn't happy.
I've performed water changes using filtered seawater and filtered through carbon, but no change has been observed. My green clown goby, blue leg hermits, and fan worms seem unfazed.
Recent tank history:

2 weeks ago - added new dry rock to the system and moved cultured rock to fuge, as I wanted a different look to the system.

Sunday - Obtained green clown goby, orange nerites, and two pieces of live rock from Petco that had fan worms, a non-ID isopod that I've enjoyed before, and some short filamentous algae that I'm more than happy to have spreading over the rock.

Monday - Green clown goby not eating, so I obtained some fresh shrimp from the grocery store and fed small pieces to them. A few pieces were happy devoured by the goby, and the rest were eaten by hermits.

Tuesday - moved asterina starfish, caulerpa, and hermits from my 1.5 liter aquarium vase (has been going strong since last summer), and observed odd behavior in starfish about 30 minutes after acclimation and transfer. They would rest in one spot with their arms pulled up from the surface, and wouldn't move much.

Wednesday - Snails partially retracted in their shells. I received a frag of anthelia that I had ordered last week, and out of concern for the inverts immediately rushed to my LFS to grab some imagitarium filtered seawater, checked its params, adjusted pH with sodium bicarbonate, and then performed a 50% water change. Observing no change, I took a snail out and placed it in a cup of the imagitarium water. It bounced back like nothing had happened, as is the usual reaction when I replace water with imagitarium water. I then did another 50% water change, and after a few hours nothing had changed still. I then set up a couple bottles of carbon inline with my overflow tubes, and left it overnight.

Today - Snails will sometimes move around if I deliberately move them somewhere, but will curl up after a short time. Goby is underfed but not showing signs of poor health (if anyone has feeding tips for these guys, let me know. I was hoping to get a good population of amphipods going for it, but that takes time and money to accomplish), hermits are fine, fan worms are happy, but starfish are dead and snails are unhappy. I'm grasping at straws here.

Coral in shipping container, then yesterday evening, then this morning:

Happy hermit

The 8.6L

blaxsun · Feb 24, 2022

Starfish are very hard to keep in general. So the snails have enough to eat? That would be the first thing i'd probably look at.

Tamberav · Feb 24, 2022

Hmm even though the rock is 2 weeks old... it looks shockingly clean... too clean!!

That coral does ship poorly so thats something to be aware of.

iamchemicals · Feb 24, 2022

Tamberav said:
Hmm even though the rock is 2 weeks old... it looks shockingly clean... too clean!!

That coral does ship poorly so thats something to be aware of.

This has been a minor concern of mine. A lot of the rock I have obtained recently hasn't seen any significant colonization. I was hoping to observe some kind of biofilm by now, even if it mostly consisted of cyanobacteria, because that biofilm would serve as an anchor point for more desirable algal species.

vetteguy53081 · Feb 24, 2022

Snails need good acclimation. Where they acclimated including salinity match ?
What is calcium and nitrate levels and what test kits are you using ?
Additionally, Temp above 79 makes them miserable

iamchemicals · Feb 24, 2022

blaxsun said:
Starfish are very hard to keep in general. So the snails have enough to eat? That would be the first thing i'd probably look at.

These asterina stars have been fine in my vases for more than 6 months now. They've been able to handle a wide range of salinities (34-40ppt) without any changes in behavior and eat practically anything, which unfortunately happens to include the Gracilaria hayi after they eat all of the diatoms and cyanobacteria. They also have been fine at a decent range of pH, as I've had the pH in one vase dip down to 7.8 for about a week without observing any differences.
As for food supply, there is plenty of algal coverage on the cultured live rock. Perhaps these aren't species favored by the nerites, but I'd suspect a chemical culprit given the ultra hardy stars started dying at the same time the snails began acting stressed.

iamchemicals · Feb 24, 2022

vetteguy53081 said:
Snails need good acclimation. Where they acclimated including salinity match ?
What is calcium and nitrate levels and what test kits are you using ?
Additionally, Temp above 79 makes them miserable

At the moment I only have JNW test strips, which have worked well enough for the vases. Unfortunately, that means I lack significant accuracy for alk and carb. However nitrates are undetectable, and the strips do show nitrate and nitrite with decent accuracy in past experience. I lack the ability to test calcium, though. I was hoping to obtain a salifert test kit this weekend.
As for acclimation, I used a drip acclimation over the course of 15 minutes when I fist got them. salinity was checked with my refractometer and my aquarium water was at 36 ppt, with Petco's water at 35 ppt. I dripped for 15 mins, checked salinity, and it read 36 ppt prior to moving to the tank.
Temp I keep at 72 F.

iamchemicals · Feb 24, 2022

Tamberav said:
Hmm even though the rock is 2 weeks old... it looks shockingly clean... too clean!!

That coral does ship poorly so thats something to be aware of.

I will take note of the anthelia shipping issue. Thus far I have kept only zoanthids.

Fishingandreefing · Feb 24, 2022

Check your salinity and have it tested by lfs or someone. I found out my salinity was at about 1.028 and I had a lot of snails died. Not sure that was the cause but since I lowered it and now the most recently added snails are about 90% survival rate vs back than 20%.

yes, I do acclimate them

vetteguy53081 · Feb 24, 2022

iamchemicals said:
At the moment I only have JNW test strips, which have worked well enough for the vases. Unfortunately, that means I lack significant accuracy for alk and carb. However nitrates are undetectable, and the strips do show nitrate and nitrite with decent accuracy in past experience. I lack the ability to test calcium, though. I was hoping to obtain a salifert test kit this weekend.
As for acclimation, I used a drip acclimation over the course of 15 minutes when I fist got them. salinity was checked with my refractometer and my aquarium water was at 36 ppt, with Petco's water at 35 ppt. I dripped for 15 mins, checked salinity, and it read 36 ppt prior to moving to the tank.
Temp I keep at 72 F.

Raise temp to at least 75 and the acclimation was too short. Should been at least an hour+