taking the plunge... maybe? or not?

[jessey]

my so-called clean up crew has yet to impress me. i have some brown algae on the front of the tank, and my little turbo snail has wandered around about but not done much with the algae yet. and my reef hermit hasn't done much, either. should i be concerned?

and as for the shrimp, i haven't decided if i'm going to go for the fire shrimp yet or not. mainly because i read that they hide a lot during daylight hours, and for being a relatively expensive little guy, i wanna see lots of him! i may go with a cleaner shrimp instead.

 

[Lotus]

The brown algae will disappear on its own in a while, it's all part of the maturing process in the tank. One day, you'll come home and it will all be gone.

 

[jessey]

suicidal turbo snail?

i went to turn on the lights this morning, and my turbo snail is completely out of his shell! he's laying against the live rock... i assume he is dead, not that i know what a dead snail looks like.

any ideas what might have caused this? i have not ran any tests in the last few days, i will certainly have to later on today... my hermit seems fine, i saw his little legs movin around this morning.

and lotus, i hope you are right because the brown algae is oog-ly.

 

[Lotus]

The water parameters might give a clue on the snail.

If he's not moving at all, I guess he's dead. Sometimes hermits will kill snails, but they usually eat them afterwards. And sometimes snails fall off the rock, and it takes them a while to get back upright (some kinds of snail can't turn themselves over easily or at all).

 

[jessey]

agh...

i tested my water param's. pH was low, so i dosed buffer again. nitrates were at or near zero. i almost didn't test for ammonia and nitrite, because the tank was cycled (or i obviously wouldn't have added creatures!!), but it's a good thing i did.. i was very unpleasantly surprised to find that i had 0.25 ammonia and 0.25 nitrite!! looks like my tank is going through another mini cycle of sorts...

of course, now the question is, did the ammonia cause the dead snail, or did the dead snail cause the ammonia?

it also looks like a there's a tiny chip off of my hermit's shell. i hope something in the water's not causing it to erode or something?? and i really hope i got the whole snail out... it was hard to get into the net and i think it might've broken into more than one piece. *ick.. tries not to gag* i did leave the shell in there for now though, that should be ok, yes?

 

[jessey]

todays water paramaters:

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate <5
pH 7.8-8.0

i'm having some difficulty distinguishing between 0 and 0.25 on my ammonia. the 2 colors are too similar. but i have to assume that it is 0; my nitrite is back down to 0 (and that one is very easy to read.. bright blue vs. dull purple). i'm still having some trouble getting & keeping the pH up. 7.8 is the pH out of the tap, and when i dose with buffer it seems to help only very temporarily.

my hermit is still alive but not very active. i want to go get another snail, but i am going to wait at least until friday morning to make sure my levels stay stable. i don't mind being patient, but does it sound like i'm doing anything wrong?

 

[jessey]

humm well not much life to this here thread, but here's my lil update:

even though i said i was going to wait til friday, i got out of class early yesterday so i went to the lfs. i told the guy there my whole story, about my suicidal turbo snail, and lazy scarlett reef hermit.. he picked out a few zebra hermits for me, and an olive snail. i've googled these guys and they seem pretty neat... they burrow in the sand bed, stir the sand, eat some bad stuff. i also went back today and picked up another turbo snail (with a pretty orange shell ). so hopefully, my tank will be looking good pretty soon!

 

[CoolWaters]

humm well not much life to this here thread, but here's my lil update:

even though i said i was going to wait til friday, i got out of class early yesterday so i went to the lfs. i told the guy there my whole story, about my suicidal turbo snail, and lazy scarlett reef hermit.. he picked out a few zebra hermits for me, and an olive snail. i've googled these guys and they seem pretty neat... they burrow in the sand bed, stir the sand, eat some bad stuff. i also went back today and picked up another turbo snail (with a pretty orange shell ). so hopefully, my tank will be looking good pretty soon!

yeah i like the sand sifting snails. at my LFS they had a DS (deepsandbed) and when he dropped a cube of mysis (just to show me wat they look like. nice guy) in like 2 seconds hundreds of them just pop up like zombies *laughingc going crazy over the food. mine kinda does that but theres just too much food in my sand XD

 

[jessey]

teeny tiny white "worms"?

well i still have lots of brown algae which i'm waiting to see clear up.. but today when i went to look at the tank, i noticed what looked like very little white "worms" on the front wall. i might not have even noticed them, except that they were moving. are these just part of my cycle (though, the tank is really already cycled, so that wouldn't really make sense...), or are they something i should worry about?

i'm also wondering if me not properly acclimating my snails properly are part of the reason i'm having trouble with them. i have a turbo snail in there right now, who has attached himself to the wall.. and not really moved much in a day or two. he's not dead, i've seen him move a little, but with all the algae in the tank, you would think he would be having a feast! i read that they're very sensitive to pH changes though, and i didn't acclimate him very slowly.. could that be part of my problem?

any input would be greatly appreciated

EDITED to add: they actually look less like worms and more like little white bugs...