Critter die-off...?

M

Mavvy

New Member
Okay. Set up the new 2.5-gallon reef tank. Water salinity is perfect, no chlorine/chloramine, no ammonia, no nitrItes, no nitrAtes-in short all's right with the world. Put in about three pounds of cured liverock Tuesday.
Wednesday, notice tiny shrimp and bristleworms hanging out, seemingly doing whateveritis they 'do'. Great thing. :lol:
Thursday, all noticeable shrimp and bristles are lifeless on the substrate. :cry:

Is this 'normal' when starting up? :? Tell me if I just need to be patient.
 
djconn

djconn

New Member
Hi Mavvy and welcome to Nanotank :gh:
Sorry to hear you're having some problems with your 2.5 Hmm...sounds like you're testing your parameters and that all checks out okay. What brand of test kits are you using and have you used them on other tanks?

Did you do the initial water makeup with RO/DI water? The liverock was cured correct? Did you mail order it or buy from a LFS? Some dieoff is expected so just hang in there. At least you didn't throw in $200 worth of corals :lol:
 
M

Mavvy

New Member
Hey, there! Thanks for the warm welcome.

I got hold of a Redsea test kit, from my neighbor, when I began this project. (I've been having luck with nano-planted freshwater tanks, so I thought I'd give the mini-reef a go.) Yup, I used ro/di water (in fact, I'm staring at three jugs right now). I got the liverock from a mom-and-pop LFS...been watching how they treat THEIR tanks and stock, just to be sure. They're very 'caring'. I don't do large chain LFS's...we don't seem to get along. *LOL* I guess I just need to be patient. And I'll wait quite a while for the corals...I'm in NO hurry here. I want it to be 'right'.

Any suggestions for stocking after it's cycled completely? I want it to be purty...but not overdone, and I want the corals (and whatever else) to be proportionate to this little tank. Sorta like having a big tank shrunk to pocket-size.
 
I

incysor

New Member
Another big factor in a tank that small is temp swings. Do you have a heater to help keep the temp stable? My boss, had a 7gal bowfront at work and kept having problems with fish dying off. All his inverts and corals were fine, but every fish he put in it would last a few days and then die. He figured he had a large bristle worm that was killing things because he'd had that problem in a nano at his house. He spent 4hrs freshwater dipping all his LR one weekend, and did pull out several good sized BWs, but the next time he put in a fish, same thing happened. I was up there one weekend and called down to engineering to turn on the AC in my part of the building because it was so hot, and suddenly I wondered if that could be it. I asked him if he had a heater on it, and he didn't. He put one on and the next fish did just fine. It seemed that there was a big difference between the weekdays, (with AC), and the weekends, (no AC), and the swing was just too stressful even thought it really only amounted to about 5 degrees over several hours.
 
M

Mavvy

New Member
Well, it stays at a constant 76 degrees F in here, so I don't think that's a problem. All my other tanks seem ok. I'm gonna put it down to normal die-off. I've left the light off from the beginning (little Coralife 18W 50-50 that I've put on some sewing thread spools to act as 'legs' in order to allow air circulation). I'll just hafta be patient...*fidgeting* :roll:
 
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