please help-sideways clowns, surface film, AiptasiaX,

S

swiftwind

Reefing newb
I'm new to this, its my dad's tank not my own and I thought we were going to start up a reef tank over the course of months not buy an established tank- so now I'm playing catch up. I don't know if I have the start of a major problem on my hands or just some stressed fish and could really use some suggestions.

The problem: the two clown fish have started floating sideways up against the underside of the frogspawn, they occasionally straighten swim in a circle around the coral then go back to floating underneath it. There's also a film of a foggy white colour with a bunch of tiny bubbles stuck to it covering the surface of the water except where the filters are. Is this just a side effect of the aiptasiaX being added that will clear up and is likely unrelated to the clowns behaviour change or something else?

Background:
We have a 135gallon reef tank with a dozen fish and corals. It was moved to our place Saturday. Everything seemed to be relaxing again, the corals opened up and all the fish came out of hiding. There's a lot of aiptasia in the tank so we tried to dose some of it with aiptasia X sunday and yesterday. And yesterday a couple of tiny frags were added to the tank. The salinity reads 1.0215 on the hydrometer and the temp is 80degrees, so the adjusted value is 1.023. We were planning on slowly increasing the salinity by topping off with salt water to get it up to 1.024.

We were given a bunch of test kits that I'm currently trying to figure out how to use and will post more values if I can get them.

Thanks for any suggestions or help.
 
Hi and welcome :)
Yeah, everyone is going to want to see what your nitrates and ammonia, etc, are at. The tank was moved so the sand bed could have been stirred up and released some junk. You need to find out if you have a water chemistry issue and if some water changes are necessary. Make sure the kits you are using are not old and that they are the liquid kind.
You added some frags? How are they looking? Any anemones in the tank?
 
There is 0 ammonia if I tested it correctly. This is probably a dumb question but all the other test tubes have white spots of dried stuff on them, what do i clean them with that won't affect the test results-just tap water?

There are no anemones in the tank the person we bought it from says the clowns always lived in the frogspawn.

The frags are doing good except we only tried to glue one down so the fish occasionally send a frag tumbling down the rocks.

Their is one other fish not doing well but it got trapped in a rock while moving the tank and has done nothing but sit on the bottom of the tank under a rock.
 
I wouldn't glue any frags yet. Or have them up on rocks. They should sit on the bottom of the tank for a while to acclimate to the lights and you'll gradually move them around til you find a spot they seem to like. I left mine on the bottom about 10 days, then moved a few up a couple of inches.
Ok, no anemones, that's good. Those buggers dying off can take out a tank. How old is the test kit? You can check to see if it's expired by looking at the lot number on the box, i called the company and read the number to them and they gave me the expiration date. The thing about those test is, they are only good for a year or two (someone else will chime in, i may be a bit off) and then you can't trust the results. I'd see if you can pick up a new liquid test kit, like the one by API so you can have nice, fresh stuff that you know you can trust.
You can just clean the bottles in tap water, sure, just wipe them off and let them dry. No biggie. And your questions aren't dumb :).
 
How are the other fish doing? Swimming around ok? What are the other types of fish? What kind of fish is sitting on the bottom? You have a filter in there you said? What type? Most do not use filters on salt water systems as if they are not changed every few days they will cause a nitrate problem.
Geez, could i ask you any more questions, hee hee. Oops, there's another one!
I've heard people say that they lay a paper towel on the surface of the water for a minute and it collects all that film. I'm not sure if that is because of the treatment you've used...you may want to try that and see if it resolves the issue.
How deep is the sand bed, you think any of it got stirred up in the move?
 
trash that hydrometer and get a refractometer .... hydrometers are known for being very in accurate. The one i had was reading was off by 0.006!
 
Sarah has you covered. If you can, can you post a list of the other critters in the tank? Clowns swimming in their side in and of itself is nothing to worry about. Mine spend more time floating on the top of the water playing dead than they do swimming. Generally speaking clowns are just really odd fish. It sounds like yours are just hanging out in their nest, which is also called 'hosting'

Are the other fish in the tank acting odd? What do you have in the tank for inverts (crabs, snails, shrimp etc) and are they acting okay?

If ammonia is reading zero, it means you moved the tank and avoided started a mini cycle, which is a good thing.

The film on the water could be from the Apstaisa X, or it could be from frozen food that wasn't rinsed before getting put in the tank. What are you feeding and how often are you feeding it?

Does the tank have a protein skimmer? If so, it should help remove the film

Oh, and welcome to the site
 
Ammonia 0,
pH 7.8
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20-40
temp 80

none of the books or test kits tell me what level Nitrate is supposed to be at other than low, I'm guessing its too high?
I'm going to get the water tested by the fish store tonight to see if those values are accurate.

There is a yellow tang, foxface, 6 line rasp, dragonet, 3 shrimp, 2 fighting snails, a bunch of other snails and in scientific terms three pink guys who look like the rasp and a grey tang with a yellow spot on its tail.

There are a bunch of mushroom corals, frog spawn, inflated brain and a bunch i don't know the names of yet but they're all soft corals.

There's not as much flow through the tank as my dad would like yet but there's two protein skimmers hanging off the back of the tank-i'd give you the ratings but they're not labelled so that will have to wait until my dad gets back.

Everything except the clowns and the fish that got squished is active and looks to be healthy.
 
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Ideally you want to have your nitrates at 0. Mine are consistly at about 10. Other people have theirs at 10-20 with no issues. Shrimp and other inverts will not do well with high nitrates. If they are at 40 you will probably want to do a water change to get it down. Maybe try 10%? As long as you don't have any filters in there augmenting the problem this should bring them down.
 

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