Inverts Climbing Out of the water/ Coralline algae questions

[Mord]

Hey, I am running a 15g FOWLR tank, and I have recently noticed that many of my inverts are hanging out at the top of the water, I never really worried about it before until today when I saw my Chocolate Chip Starfish doing the same thing. I see this a lot at fish stores and was wondering if it is anything to be coincerned about.

Specs are:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
SG: 1.027-1.028
Temp: 78 F
PH: 8.0

3 Nassarius Snails (These guys love the water level)
4 Blue leg reef hermits
3 Bumblebee Snails
1 Chocolate Chip Seastar


One other question. The Coralline algae on my live rock seems to be flaking off, and turning white in some places, and yet there are others where it is a vivid maroon color and definately spreading. And it is growing on my snails shells as well. Do i need to be concerned about the stuff that is flaking off? or is that just a reminant of the curing process.

Thanks

Luke

 

[Anonymous]

Your salinity is a little high.

Coraline will die off if your ALk/CA swing or are not in line.

Are you still curing the tank with snails and starfish?

 

[Mord]

It been set up for about a month now. The rock was definately uncured when i got it, but the tank seemed to cycle in about 2 weeks. Then I introduced a few hermits, and the snails about 4 days later. Its been sitting like that until i got the starfish 2 days ago. Im almost 100% positive that the rock is cured, since i was doing some pretty decent water changes on it, and cleaned it out really well when i got it.

I can work on bringing down the Salinity a little bit. Down to 1.025-1.026 work ok?

 

[Anonymous]

Some people keep it as low as 1.023-4

Edit: Change Salinity slowly!

 

[Meloco14]

Starfish are VERY sensitive to salinity changes. So if I were you I would bring your salinity down very, very gradually. Most coral keepers these days prefer a salinity of 1.025-1.026. Your parameters seem fine otherwise, and I don't see a reason for your inverts to want to get out of the water. The only other thing I can think of right now is maybe there is low oxygenation in the water and they are near the surface where 02 is higher. Do you have powerheads, filters, or skimmers going to aerate the water?

 

[WRASSER]

What is the water temp, too?

 

[Mord]

I have 2 powerheads running, one is an aquaclear 20 rated 127 gph

the other is made by zoomed, not sure the name, rotating powerhead pumps 180gph

And I have a Redsea Prizm Deluxe skimmer on it as well.

Temp is approx 78 during the day and about 76 at night

So am I looking at approximately 1 day per .02X that i change salinity? or just a few hours

 

[Meloco14]

Personally I would lower the salinity to 1.026 over the course of a couple weeks. The snails would be okay if you dropped the salinity a little quicker than that but I would worry about the starfish. Everything I have heard states that they are very sensitive to salinity changes. To the point where even if you don't keep up on your top off's they can die. Good luck with it.

 

[Anonymous]

My chocolate chip star hangs out at the water level to catch food floating on the surface, he is amazingly good at it. He usually finds a place with good flow and sits there half on the glass and half on the water surface with its feelers out and grabs any meaty food that floats by.

I don't think its anything to be concerned about.

 

[Anonymous]

Personally I would lower the salinity to 1.026 over the course of a couple weeks. The snails would be okay if you dropped the salinity a little quicker than that but I would worry about the starfish. Everything I have heard states that they are very sensitive to salinity changes. To the point where even if you don't keep up on your top off's they can die. Good luck with it.

All good advice. Just lower it slowly! Starfish can't handle sudden SG swings. You can do this my adding a little more freshwater (topoff water) than what normally evaporate out and gradually it will drop.

Also, what are you measruing SG with? Swingarm hydrometers are notoriously unreliable, and if you use one have another around to double check your readings. I prefer a refractometer myself, and since they have gotten cheaper in the past few years they are a good investment.

 

[Mord]

Im currently using a deep-six hydrometer, but i ordered a refractometer 3 days ago, so hopefully I should have it by the end of the week.

 

[Meloco14]

Good move, that is definitely something I should have thought to mention from the beginning. You may find that your salinity is actually 1.025. If everything seems to be doing okay in the tank I would just leave it until you get the refractometer and get a real reading.