I screwed up, help needed HELP HELP

[emilyolivia]

Thursday night I had had it with an obscene number of bristleworms. I had dipped the corals when I set up the tank, so they must have been hiding in the sand, or I didn't use enough coral X, so the second round, I tossed in much more of the Coral X. I did kill lots (probably ten huge ones, and many little ones). The next evening however, all the pulsating xenia were turning brown and clearly dying. The water was too cloudy and I realized the water quality was going down the tube in my 28g nano tank. I have done a 7 gallon emergency water change, but will need to do more, close to the same amount. Giving it an hour or so especially given the water is cold. I siphoned about 2.5 gallons of dead xenia off of the sand and scrapped off the dead xenia from the coral rock as best as I could in bucket. Too bad as it was a pretty dark purple. I can't think of much else to do, but do remember I'm real new to salt water tanks. I still haven't heard from Elite Reef on what the other SPS corals are in the tank, but don't want to lose everything. If you can provide assistance that would be helped by a phone call, please PM me, and I will provide my phone number,Emily, the mom.

 

[Wicked Color]

1-stop doing treatments on your tank, bristle worms are a part of the eco system you are trying to achieve
2-differing temp water changes are not good, especially when it is a large percent of the volume
3-what are the instructions on the coral X? did you follow them?
4-what water tests have you done?

 

[Mantid]

Who makes Coral X, isnt it a dip?

 

[hurrafreak]

1-stop doing treatments on your tank, bristle worms are a part of the eco system you are trying to achieve
2-differing temp water changes are not good, especially when it is a large percent of the volume
3-what are the instructions on the coral X? did you follow them?
4-what water tests have you done?

I'll agree with #1, bristles while some consider to be ugly are definitely a good inhabitant to have in your tank. Also agree with aaron about what tests have you done, hows your ammonia??

 

[emilyolivia]

I didn't do water tests. Thought about it, but it clearly wasn't a good idea to take the time to know that tank was in big distress. The huge amount of dead/dying xenia in the tank was affecting the water. The bristle worms were so numerous that the shrimp, snails, and crabs in the tank were being out-competed by the bristleworms. I will check the parametes of the tank, but it was a no brainer that the tank was way out of balance given the large amount of dead xenia and the increasing amount of cloudy water that was getting worse instead of better. And, no, I didn't measure the coral x. I initially measured, then added to be sure the second time the bristle worms would be killed. I rinsed the coral in a separate bucket of clean salt water before putting back in the tank, for a good 10-20 minutes, then swished the rock around again before putting back in the tank. I watched the bristle worms take food from the shrimp and clams for over a week. I didn't really feed the tank for that reason too. The arrowhead crab was not killing any of the bristleworms and again the bristleworms were taking any of the little amount of food I was putting in the tank. We're talking a huge infestation of these horrid worms.

 

[Wicked Color]

IDK, I would have still picked them out with tweezers.

 

[KhensuRa]

Get a sixline, he/she will eat them all in a matter of days.

They can seem to be super nasty when you have never dealt with them before but like everything in this hobby, the first thing to do is slow down or you might make a mistake and have several things at once to deal with. If I where I would take care of your water issue first and then you can deal with the worms later. At least they are eating all the waste in your tank at this time. If they bother you that much I would find a fish that will eat them (like a sixline) or take them out with .some tweezrs.

 

[Cake_Boss]

From your first response it seems like of you dosed the tank with coral rx, did you?
If you killed a bunch of bristle worms and didn't take them out, this is causing a huge ammonia spike in your tank.
For w/c get the salinity and temp correct in your mixing tub first. If you don't have an extra thermometer to spare, wash out a pot thoroughly with RO to get all the soap/food residue. Next fill the clean pot with RO water and heat it up. I do trial and error with how much water to heat up and how hot to heat it to. I usually do 2 cups to boiling, then add that to the cold saltwater in your mixing bucket.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[emilyolivia]

I removed the rock and dipped them, then put them in a second bucket of saltwater to rinse them. I did kill the xenia in the process which is the main problem. They were disintegrating in the tank to the point it was clear it was going to throw the water chemistry way off.

 

[Tripple T]

This is a funny counterintuitive hobby. Often the more work we put in, the more quickly we make a mess of things. I don't think Xenia decay would be enough to devastate a cycled tank. Doing massive water changes with cold water is potentially catastrophic. U won't get rid of bristle worms......ever. But the numbers of them you mention are disturbing. IMO you are feeding your tank to often. The hardest thing in this hobby is to just sit back and wait, unfourtnately it is an important skill to obtain. When you find yourself taking drastic measures, most often they will make things worse.

 

[Dan s mixed reef]

Other ways to control bristle worms starve your tank so the worms have less to feed from then they will thin out as they have less to eat. But you do want some bristle worms in your tank they eat alot of crap laying around. Buy some metal forceps in the reptile section of petco or petsmart feed your tank and pull out the big ones you can get to and dont over feed your tank. My heater went on the fritz once and killed a massive colony of xenia just did a few water changes and everything was fine the cloud of dead xenia is not as bad as it looks good luck

 

[emilyolivia]

I realize mistakes in my communications. I tested the water and calcium was low all along, so I've treated it. I didn't test the water right before I did the what 7-10 gallon water change as the water looked really bad and was getting worse. When I dipped the coral and rock I took them out tank, then rinsed them in a different bucket of salt water. The apastia and bristleworms were in the tank when I bought it used. Pretty infested I soon discovered. The bristleworms were coming out and grabbing the small amount of food I was putting in the tank so the crabs and blenny couldn't eat some. I got an arrowhead crab and peppermint shrimp to counter the bristleworms but he seemed to be clueless on going after them. I barely fed them so they'd eat the worms and apastia. I did hear back from the vendor either last night or this morning. I was also trying to scoop up the bristleworms when they came out to swipe the pellet food, but they were too fast.

 

[Ummfish]

First off, bristleworms are a good thing. If there are too many for you, siphon some out when you do a water change. (Feed the tank first, worms will come out, then start the siphon.) In fact, that is my main form of nutrient removal on a 10 gal. nano I have setup. The excess food gets bound up in the worms and then the worms get removed at WC time. I feed a _ton_ of food to that tank (for a 10 gal.) and the worms keep it all in check for me.

Second, stop messing with parameters for a while. If things are bad then get some water ready and do a 50-100% water change. That's the beauty of a nano. Then get some more water ready in case you need to do it again. But otherwise, leave it alone for a while.

Third, what were you feeding your clam? They eat phytoplankton. If you feed them other stuff, they will filter it out and spit it back into the tank, undigested, to foul the water and grow the worm population. If you weren't feeding it phyto then stop trying to feed it.

It sounds pretty likely to me that the dip you did killed off a lot of creatures in your tank and they are rotting in there. You need to switch a lot of water.

 

[Ummfish]

Oh, and were you trying to kill aiptasia with any of the pastes? If so, you may have gotten the pH way out of wack. It's one of the things that'll fix itself with big water changes so please plan for that.