A noob with noobie questions

[aqualad]

Hello. I'm new to saltwater aquariums (and new to the forum).

Recently I have purchased a galaxia, zoanthid, bubble, and 2 hammer coral from Cartimar. After a putting them in my tank I have noticed that a couple of them where spewing out some mucus threads.

The next evening my flame scallop literally shriveled up and died. The shell was wide open and everything was drawn in it's shell and shrunken. Just a few hours earlier it looked as if it was doing fine. The tentacles were spreed out and even its (tongue?) was out moving around. Is it possible one of the mucus threads from the coral could have gotten swept in to its shell causing it to die?

The reason why I'm suspicious of the mucus is because my sponge (don't know the species) that once had a violet shade got covered in some of the mucus threads yesterday. It then started to turn brown in those areas where the mucus was attached. I pulled it out of the tank today and the flesh melted away exposing its skeleton.

Another problem I noticed is that one of the hammers is no longer looking good. It's shaped like and 'X' and three of of its extensions look as if they have melted. The flesh in those parts are turning brown and there is thin film of mucus covering it. I'm thinking that something stung it. My question though, is will those parts grow back to normal?

Here's a pic of the hammer coral.


And a pic to show what happened to the sponge.

[naivete]

how many months have you cycled your tank?

[aqualad]

Two days. I know people would say it should be longer but I went with what was posted here.


I got about 9kg of live rock and filled the tank with the saltwater from Cartimar which I'm assuming originally came from some natural body of saltwater.

[naivete]

[dartpro]

[acespino2000]

[aqualad]

Thanks for all of the advice.

I got all my water, live rock, and gravel from the same lady in Cartimar. Basically I just took one of her tanks home with me. Considering that I'm doubting the idea of an ammonia spike from to bacteria die off due to the transfer from her shop to my place. Though I would have to check on that and get back to you later to be sure.

After reading something on the net, I'm now blaming the sponge that I pulled out of my tank. When I pulled it out some of it dissolved and spread around the tank. I'm thinking too much of it got caught up by the scallop as it was filtering the water and it died.

As for the hammer coral, the three limbs look as if they are getting worse.


Could it be some type of disease? This is the coral that first started spewing out the mucus threads. When I brought it home I noticed that one of the limbs got a little damaged on the way home. It was a little slimy when I pulled it out of the bag, unlike the other corals. However, it was looking good at first.

My other coral seem to be doing ok now. I don't seem mucus floating around the tank anymore. So this now seems to be an isolated problem.

My other hammer in the tank seems to be doing well.


Here's a pic of one of my other corals and I think it is doing ok too.


I'll get back with the water parameters later.

[acespino2000]

yan ba yung sa mga nano ladies mo nabili ? sa new building ? hehehe

water change ka para makasure ka na lang , then mag test ka water para

[randiedonhito]

hi bro,welcome to rp, sorry to hear that, nabighani ka ng mga ladies dun,dun din bumili dati si darkstar e, dapat nagbasa ka muna ng mga thread dito sa forum bago ka bumili, anyways andyan na yan, malamang mamamatay lahat yan, i suggest wag ka munang bumili ng kahit na ano, cycle mo muna sya, buy ka ng test kits,hydrometer at thermometer and read,read,read.goodluck bro.

[aqualad]

[aqualad]

After following up on some of your advice I read up on the hammer and some of the common diseases. It seems like my hammer was affected by what they call the "brown jelly" disease. It's a common disease of LPS and is often brought on by trauma. The microbes responsible for the disease most likely were able to infect my hammer as a result of having its skeleton damaged on the way home from Cartimar. The disease can move fast and since mine is a non-branching hammer there's little hope of survival with this degree of damage. So, I decided just to toss it before it affects the whole tank.

The rest of my coral are looking good. So I guess that's it for now.
Thanks for the help!

[Flexi2009]