Ah, a disappointing day
I got home from my trip last night, and my wife hadn't been able to find "Minty" the Peppermint Shrimp for a couple days. I looked all over and went through the feeding routine (when he always comes out) and haven't been able to find him. No remains either, but I think it's gone. I've found one small crab and also some other little critter hiding in a rock that moves very fast - one of them could be the culprit? I need to set a crab trap and see if I can get it.
I also had a trochus snail die while I was gone (I saw it had fallen over and I turned it back over but it hadn't moved far from where I found it dead). A Nassarius had made a meal of it (there was pretty much nothing left). Having trouble finding one nerite and one cerith snail, but they could just be hiding out somewhere.
Anyway, my ammonia is registering a low reading now (between 0 and 0.25 ppm) - it had been 0 before.
Could those two (or more) dead critters have caused the ammonia spike? And could that have caused my algae bloom? Not too concerned, just trying to understand what may be going on. The algae bloom isn't as bad as i thought once I got to see it myself. But with the ammonia reading, I'll now hold off on getting my first fish at least a couple days
I'm noticing some new algae growth (of course), and I'm curious if this is a type of corraline (it's pretty red) or if it's something bad like red cyano or something?
On a separate note, my glass is suddenly covered with what I believe are tiny copepods? They look like white dots unless looking very very close:
Last, my protein skimmer looked like this last night before I cleaned it (thick dry foam):
...but after cleaning, it looked like this later today (wet bubbles not even getting to the top of the neck - even with the air valve all the way open).
Why can't I get the bubbles up farther in the neck? Did I clean the skimmer neck too well or is there maybe not as much for the skimmer to take out of the tank now? Thanks,
--Kyle