Bah, my fault, but I'm not sure what to do to fix it.
Okay: Had a 6 month old (ish?) 20 long barebottom tank, below a window, didn't get much light for the tree outside, so I figured it wouldn't do anything negative. Had. . . 5-6# of rock? Not sure, I got it a few pieces here or there, most was live, a couple pieces were dry, and I can't tell those from the other pieces now since they've gone brown as the rest of it. With a firefish, gramma, a little native blenny, and a rainford's goby. Was doing well. About two months ago, one of the LFS I like gave me a native pipefish that came in with their shrimp, and would likely have starved or gone off as a feeder fish. Well, I didn't have the pods for it, and a mix-up with my order at my usual LFS left me without them long enough that he starved anyway (poor guy :( ) Came home to see him being eaten by my rock flower, and since he was mostly gone, I just let the 'nem have him. About a week later, my water started to get cloudy. Figured it was ammonia from the pipefish, started doing more water changes. About five gallons a week versus every other with ten every third or so.
Tank didn't get any less cloudy, was that way for about a month. I couldn't see more than a few inches into it, none of the fish seemed very stressed, nor did any of the coral, the snails were/are doing fine. I added a few more pounds of rock from Petco since they had had it in their system for MONTHS, and had a lot on clearance, also added some chaeto, and pulled out the little castle decoration that I had in the tank for the blenny to hide in, since I wasn't always getting all of the gunk out of it in water changes.
Saturday I finally broke down, put my old 29 gallon biocube back up, did a 150-ish% water change, and put my rock, coral, and three of my fish (rainford's, gramma, firefish-blenny went back to the LFS since I never saw her) into the cube with all new water. The only old water that went in was whatever didn't drip off of the rocks/chaeto when I tossed it all into the cube. Rinsed off the rocks in old tank water (which was brownish, if that helps at all?) I also bought a fluval sea mini, though I haven't figured out the settings to get it up out of the water enough, so it's currently not running.
Tank is currently 29 gallons barebottom with the powerhead that came with it, a nano korelia, a nano tunze, 8-10# of rock? a rainford's goby, firefish, royal gramma, a half dozen ceriths, a couple of astreas, some chaeto in the back, randomly assorted corals (oh geez, probably a dozen frag size pieces and a plume gorgonian that's about 6-8" tall?) and my rock flower. The only corals which seem to being doing poorly are my monti cap, which is a bit pale/browning, not rotting, and a little gold hammer coral which has NEVER opened properly. The green one I've got opens, though it is a bit wimpy looking. I WAS planning to get a third to see if it was just those two (bargain rack corals) or if it is something in my tank that hammers just don't like, but since the tank has been off, I figured I shouldn't try. Also, the little hammer has a hitchhiking clam of some sort or another which seems to be fine-opens and closes on its own, isn't touching the lip of the coral to aggravate it.
Tank is getting cloudy again. *sighs* Right now I can see about halfway back, though I can also see the black of the background. Fish still seem to not be bothered. Other than the hammers and the monti cap none of the corals seem to be bothered by it, and the hammers at least were not caused by the cloudy water, the cap I'm not sure if it is because of water quality, or because of limited light. The LPS are extending feeders as well/better than ever, and even my bargain bin lobo has started to recently, though I'd never seen it doing so before. API liquid kits say there's no ammonia/nitrite/nitrate in the water (mine and the LFS's), though if it's bacteria, there's the chance that it's using up all of it before it can register. I don't use supplements, so I doubt it's that I screwed up with calcium, and my new water is IO ~1.025 spg according to my refractometer(which reads 0 with RO/DI), and came from the LFS, which stores it in barrels, so I don't THINK it's that? I've got less bioload in the tank and more rock than when it was doing well before, and since I rinsed it before I put it in, I'd assume that it's not that something has died in there and was just stuck in the rockwork? Heck, I haven't even FED the tank in about three weeks.
Any ideas?
