20G - both my clowns gone over night :(

[redbelly]

Your tank is far too young for a anemone.
The clowns will be fine without an anemone. If you want to watch them host in something try a lorch or a leather. I have seen clowns host in torch, leathers, zoanthids, gsp, wesophyllia brains...

[gvv]

I can add Grape Caulerpa to the list Pat provided

[NiTeC]

right on....i wasn't sure if they'd be ok

Pat can give me all the inside scoop when I go pick up my first corals ever

oh btw - remember the sea weed sheet you gave me?! the Emerald is eating it right off my hand - SOO COOL!!!!

he's just sitting on top of the rock and I take a piece and put it in front of him and hold it - for  the first few seconds he kinda moves away thinking i`m dangerous but as soon as he sees the green he just comes right up and grabs it...then holds on to it and munches on it....very exciting...

[Darth]

I can add Grape Caulerpa to the list Pat provided

and feather dusters

[NiTeC]

all right something strange was going on in the morning today...

I hadn't seen my emerald for a day or two so I started getting worried for him and started looking around today...

so I find him legs up and immediately thought he died...

grabbed a scoop and tried to get him out...

BUT something wierd was going on - it looks like there was 2 crabs on top of each other...and no it didn't look like sexy time - first off - I only have one emerald...second it looked like one was eating the other one or something really weird...

now that I think of it it sorta looked like he was shedding a skin or something so it looked like there was two of him - i counted something like 15 legs in there....ridiculous...I looked closer and the "crab" figure I could recognize looked good with no color deterioration or anything...

is it possible he was just shedding a skin of some kind?! it looked really freaky....

I left him in the tank although that might have been a mistake...

any info is appreciated..

[Agnate]

Hahaha, yeah, he was just molting, but the sounds of it.  It's pretty crazy how real their exoskeleton looks after it's been shed.    They also eat the exoskeleton to restore their level of calcium (as they consume a very large amount when they are recreating their exoskeleton), which is what you were observing. 

[NiTeC]

yeah i just did some reading on it....

holy freaky looking thing I swear....

so i`m guessing by the time i get back home today there will be a buffier crap chillin out - will he consume the whole skeleton or do I need to get rid of something?! is the skeleton bad for the tank or will it just be food for the rest of the dudes....

also noticed one Aiptasia again today - shrimps are going on a diet again - they`re not doing their job properly...

but as Redbelly pointed out - if somebody was serving you steak would you go out there and hunt for a cow?!

[barabe]

This thread is great!! I just got a 24 g bio cube and will follow just about the same pattern... Today, we must decide where to put it...

[NiTeC]

This thread is great!! I just got a 24 g bio cube and will follow just about the same pattern... Today, we must decide where to put it...

AWESOME!!! good luck!

[barabe]

I can try to answer some for you!

1. I would put a koralia in there, probably a #1, they give nice wide flow. And I dunno about a 20G, but I think you would be ok with A koralia and a maxijet.

2. You wont kill the live rock. Just make sure your SG and temp is good.

3. Put the rock in for a few days and measure ammonia and nitrates. Eventually Ammonia level will drop to zero, and at that point (someone correct me if i'm wrong) you can put in a CUC. I started mine with a bunch of blue legs and some scarlets.

What is "CUC"?

[Vallely4]

hmmm, this i'm surprised wasn't in one of the acronym lists.
CUC - Clean Up Crew (as in hermits and snails and the like... basicly detritus eaters)
(Less oftenly people will mention Cuc/CUC as in sea cucumber, ...look them up -lol )

[NiTeC]

oh man...

woke up today to find both my clowns dead....

WTH?!

everything is where it's supposed to be - Ammonia and Nitrite are both at 0, salinity is at 1.021, my pep shrimp, Kenya tree and mushrooms all seem peachy....

water has been changed as instructed - 10-20% every week....

the only thing I noticed recently was my pulsating xenia sorta getting smaller after the last water change - the kenya tree closed for a bit as well but its fully open right now...

when I went to bed last night they were swimming perfectly fine - no issues - woke up today and both were sideways on the sand.....what can cause this over-night?

any suggestions?!

[aumontmatthew]

salinity seems a bit low IMO...

[NiTeC]

yeah but its been in this range since I started the tank....that can't be the reason for last night's events 

[KLKelly]

I'm sorry.  I always heard that invertebrates would be the first to go with bad water.

Anything in there that can poison them?  Temperature okay?

[NiTeC]

i was told the shrimp would be the first one to die so I always look out for the shrimp....

nothing that has changed the water so drastically over night...

should I go ahead and change the water just in case!? any water conditioners I can add in there?

[dragkon1]

did you acclimatise the clowns before adding them? doing a drip line or such or just pop them in?

[ray]

Any other fish in the system?Did you have a cucumber,I've personally had one die and wipe out all the fish,yet the inverts/corals survived.Was the power out,most corals /inverts will survive a lot longer than fish w/o O2 exchange.Hi temps could also reduce O2 levels.Were the gills open or closed?How long had you had rhe fish?Many variables can result in fish loss.

[Cris6238]

Hmm...that seems really odd...

I personally have 2 clowns in a 20 gallon tank and they literally sleep on the sand, cleared out patch of sand (glass) or on my xenia blanket.

I freaked out one night when I woke up and had to turn the light on and my fish were missing...they slowly woke up and popped up from the rockwork as if they were drowsy....really odd fish these clowns..
I actually have to wait ~1 hour after i turn the main tank lights on so they "wake up"..otherwise they ignore mostof my food.

[NiTeC]

had those bad boys for more than 2 months now...

no cucumber...no power outs....

i changed some more water today....rechecked all parameters - everything seems fine...the blue legs, the shrimp, the tree and the pulsating xenia - all good...

weird weird stuff...

is there stuff I can put in the water to "condition" it?