my frag tank crashed. my xenia is melting and it looks like some might make it. i put it in my 25 but now my mother colonie is looking like shit. what do i do. ive done a small water change but it still looks like poop. ill be changing the carbon soon. should i kick the xenia or do u think it will servive.
carbon and a big water change are a good start…what have to done to you tank lately that would have caused this “crash”?
so sorry to hear this. i have no advice to offer, but good luck.
there has always been matter at the bottom. i sold some alge and my cyno got worse. then i noticed my finger coral was rotting. i switched everthing over and im soure my xenia is rotting. im going to throw the xenia into the clean frag tank and i guss let it dye there.
How long did you have the tank up prior to noticing this. Could it be possible that you did not have the tank cycled enough prior to noticing this?
the frag tank has been up for a few months. i was never able to get the debre because the tank was on the bottom of my stand. i used cycled water. what i stated above was what i think happened and im probably right
parameters?
no idea
Eek, hope it turns out well! Check all your #s, I’m not familiar enough with your setup to give you any advice.
If you can’t clean a small frag tank like that because of the way you set it up you may want to forget about running it. Try to find a different place to put it or figure out a different way to keep it clean. Xenia can come back from practically nothing, so I wouldn’t give up on it. Just might take it a long time to rebuild.
Run carbon, small water changes, check your parameters.(mostly salinity and temp)
Jon
it dead and now the 25 is crashing. going to do another change. the xenia is in the 20 galon frag with about 5 gallons of water,heater,and light. no water movement though. the mother coloie is starting to shrivle up and im affraid it will soon die
should i do a 25% water change or a few couple gallon water changes
how often should i change the carbon? put in fresh carbon this moring and then switched it at about 2:30.
No need to switch the carbon after a couple of hours but it wouldn’t hurt to have it in a couple of locations. I large water change will have more effect then 10 smaller ones.
This crash could be caused by a spike in levels due to die off or something that was recently added to the tank. Due to this some corals may look rough but are just stressed not dieing. Moving them may stress them more and they may die.
If you tell us everything that has change recently we might be able to better help.
If nothing has changed my best guess is that it could be a case of chemical warfare. Corals are mean and will kill if an invading coral comes too close. This chemical warfare in the ocean kills corals that are close but dissipates due to the large water volume. In your tank it can only leave through carbon and water changes.
Don’t make a bad situation worse
In your zest to get quick water changes remember to make sure any water change saltwater is up to par. Nothing will crash a tank faster then too cold/hot water or improperly mixed salt. (IMO) The temp should be no more then 1 degree either way. Also add water through the sump not directly over the corals and fish. I prefer to age the water to allow for complete dissolution of salt calcium and other minerals. This is not always possible but test temp, pH at a minimum. Did you ever do a water change and see swirls and a weird effect when you added water? Its hard to explain until you see it but this is caused by temp or not allowing the minerals to dissolve fully.
See this could start as a small coral war but if you add sub par change water to the tank it may kill off additional livestock and just get a whole lot worse.
First off take things slow. Keep track of everything you are doing and all of your parameters on some sort of note pad. As Al was saying doing water changes with cloudy white, cold unmixed water can crash a well established healthy tank.
I have never heard of anyone putting in too much carbon. Stick in some extra bags of carbon in high flow areas.
If you plan on keeping the sick xenia in stagnant water for more then two more minutes you might as well give up on it. Water movement is as important or more important then salinity and temp and everything else.
Why do you think the 25 is crashing? What are its parameters? Type in it’s salinity, temp, Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate. If you have a cloudy tank doing fast large water changes are just going to add fuel to the fire. You need to break out the test kits and type out exact what you have currently and what you have done and post them.
i dont have a sump. i have been making sour the water is good and the temp and salt are up to par. i have done about 3 3+ gallon water changes. i will soon do a larger one about 8 gallons. i have also added about 2 cups of carbon via sox. i also changed filter pad. lets hope this works
after reading jons post
ive tested all day. zero on all. i dont recall ph. the xenia crashed in the frag tak and i thought i could bring it back to health in hte 25. no dice. it crashed the 25. the water in the 25 is clody. ill be putting another hob on with more carbon. my tank was sparkling clean with pristen water. the xenia released somrthing nasty. i should mention that i had 15+ heads die. where did the extra 13 come from, well i bought the rock at premium for 66$. no it’s complete disaster.
I really don’t think 15 heads of xenia is going to crash a tank - 25g is a lot of water compared to to small amount of chemicals contained in the xenia.
When was the last water change before you started having problems? How big of a rock was it on? What was the temp in the frag tank that started it all?
Most importantly, are all of your fish accounted for?
the xenia rock is about 6x4. it had 13 pluse heads. then i had 2 more xenia on a rock. yesterday everthing was fine. today it was fine until about 11/12. i top off everday and do a water changes all the time. im soure that shrooms also had a part to play. shrooms were slimy shrivled and ready to puke. i have all fish still. tommrow ill be doing a 10 gallon water change. the water is aging as we speak or type. the xenia looked really crappy. my 25 was ready for a monti cap but after this i dont know. the mother xenia’s stalk are 1/4 an inch wide and the stalk is wilting over. it looks bad but i think that it could make it. i know the stuff from the frag is gone. the frag tank xenia would melt and if u poked it blood would ooze out. pretty nasty but i wanted to see what ws going on.
Actually Xenia has a very potent toxin. I would think it could
[quote=“a1amap, post:19, topic:1095”]
Actually Xenia has a very potent toxin. I would think it could[/quote]
But to crash an entire system that quicky, doesn’t sound right.
Apparently the toxin isn’t strong enough - I added a few nice heads of xenia a couple weeks ago and something found them to be quite the delicasy. Note I have found no dead fish…little bastards.