Fish Poop

[newsalt]

Is there anything out there that will consume fish poop? I added a Coral Beauty Angel yesterday and it sure does poop. Will the blue leg hermits I have handle it. Please don't say snails. I have had the worst luck with snails. The last a week and then die.

Thanks.

 

[Tarasco]

Hermits and snails will handle it (even if you didn't want me to say snails). What kind of snails are you getting? What kind of water parameters do you have? Snails are pretty sensitive to changes in specific gravity, and you don't have a real big tank, so that may be a possibility.

Also, if the rock that you have is cycled, that'll take care of a lot of the issue (fish waste) as well. You may be pushing the limits with the amount of fish that you have in that tank.

 

[newsalt]

Tarasco, thanks for your reply. I've had several kinds of snails: Margarita's, Astrea's, Nassarius', Bumble bee's, Ive tried them all. Like I said, they last a week and then die. My water params are:

Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 30 ppm
pH: 8-ish
Temp: 77-78 deg. F
Salinity: 1.022

I know my salinity is a bit low, I'm in the process of raising it to maybe 1.024. I can't seem to lower the Nitrates. I do 2 gal. water changes every other week but it still won't go down. I'm thinking that's my problem.

 

[zy112]

i would bump water changes up to once a week, that would probably take care of the nitrates.

 

[cheeks69]

Are you using tap water or ro/di?? One possibility is copper in your tank either from the water you're adding or from another source. I have had salinity fluctuations and never had a problem with the snails although the swings were not big but in any case I didn't notice a problem HTH

 

[newsalt]

I was using tap and adding drops of dechlorinator. For the past two weeks, I have been using RO that I buy at my LFS.

 

[BoomerD]

If your home has copper piping, it's possible to pick up a bit of copper from there. Shouldn't be much, but many inverts are susceptable to minute amounts of copper, also, check with whoever supplies your home water. City, county whoever) They are required to provide a copy of their annual water testing. One way t find out if there's any copper in your tank, is to get some Poly-Bio Marine Polyfilters. They will turn blue-green if there is any copper passing thru them. A good copper test kit will also show any copper contamination.

 

[NaH2O]

Nice post BoomerD

 

[BoomerD]

By the way, I meant to add this little bit:

OMG!!! Your fish POOP in your tank? Haven't you got them potty trained by now??? You must be so-oooo embarrased!

 

[Curtswearing]

LOL!!!

 

[EdgeKrusher]

Isn't a Coral Beauty a little big for a 15 gallon especially with the clowns in there? I have a 12 gallon nano, with two fish, and various corals and never had a nitrate problem.
Good thing you changed over to RO water. Do a couple of 50% water changes to get the old water out. Copper and inverts don't mix at all.

Peace

EK

 

[newsalt]

Well, it might be. So far so good. By the spring (March or April), I will be switching over to a 29g or 37g (haven't decided yet).