I did a water change last night, and it seems to have been a mistake.

Sarra

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Dec 8, 2007
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I woke up this morning to find the feathers on both of my large feather dusters to be destroyed. Just little stumps of feathers remained, then my larger duster extended out of it's tube completely. Now it's sitting on the sand, and I'm not sure if it'll make it. Neither of them dropped their crowns, which has me a little perplexed.

My smaller dusters were either fine, or had damaged crowns, most somewhere in between. I think I got a bad batch of salt, something went wrong with this. I did another 50% water change using real ocean water today, but the prognosis looks bad for me keeping this nano. To be honest, I'm starting to really think about selling anything I can back to the fish store, and converting the tank itself into a 10 gallon frog tank.
 
You used water from the actual ocean or you mixed salt to make the water? If you used ocean water, where do you get it from. Seems like it would be pretty risky using ocean water because of pollution.
 
You used water from the actual ocean or you mixed salt to make the water? If you used ocean water, where do you get it from. Seems like it would be pretty risky using ocean water because of pollution.

Well, first, I used a mix, and did a 5 gallon water change (10 gallon tank). That was last night. This morning, I woke up to dieing stuff in my tank (anenomies, feather dusters, mushroom). So, I bought some of the pre-mixed "real ocean" water from the pet store, and did another 5 gallon water change. The second water change seems to have stopped the effects of the first water change, IE, my anenomies are out again, and the mushroom is open again. It doesn't seem to have bothered my Watchman Goby or Pistol shrimp.
 
Check the tank for copper. I'd bet somehow you got some in there. Or some other unwanted chemical. I stopped trusting my regular RO/DI sources and purchased my one filtration system last week because of fears of this kind of thing and constant cyanobacteria issues.
 
If it were copper, the invertebrates would continue to die. I suspect something wasn't right when you mixed the salt. This could be any number of things, such as the wrong temperature, high pH, little to no oxygen (though that would affect your fish first, most likely), vastly different salinity, etc. I took care of such small tanks at the pet store I used to work at, and although 50% is a big change, it can be done and is what I did to keep the tanks show-quality. I never had an issue from it, so I assume something was off when you did mix yours.
 
It has to have been the mix.

The remaining large feather duster dropped what is left of it's crown, the one that jumped tube is just laying on the sand now. I'm tempted to try putting it back into it's tube, but I'll leave it alone for now.
 
sorry to hear. I hope all goes well.
 
If it were copper, the invertebrates would continue to die. I suspect something wasn't right when you mixed the salt. This could be any number of things, such as the wrong temperature, high pH, little to no oxygen (though that would affect your fish first, most likely), vastly different salinity, etc. I took care of such small tanks at the pet store I used to work at, and although 50% is a big change, it can be done and is what I did to keep the tanks show-quality. I never had an issue from it, so I assume something was off when you did mix yours.

that would also be my guess. Test a batch of your water. I've seen people get and have even gotten bad batches, but it is pretty rare...
 
I had a similar issue with my feather dusters and coco worms and found my ph had fallen. Also, don't try to put the worm back in it's tube. If it's going to recover, it will quickly build up a layer to protect itself. I have had one move into a rock, and eventually move back to it's old tube, which in my experience is rare.
 
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