Hi I'm new here... but to make a long story short, I've got tons of experience with freshwater tanks & have a wonderful planted tank with happy discus and small community fish... but I've always wanted a saltwater tank. Over the weekend, we went to an estate sale and got a 20 gallon high complete set up for a steal of a deal! Even though I'm new to saltwater, I could tell that this little tank needed a pretty good overhaul. It appears as though the inverts aren't doing too well, there are fish that (from what I'm reading) don't appear to be able to coexist happily together, and some of the corals and such look so bad I'm having a hard time even identifying them.
I wanted to see if anyone could help me ID these guys so I can make an intelligent decision on what should stay or go... ultimately I'm wanting to create a nano-reef tank (with time of course).
Thanks so much for any help!
Pic of full tank
This is of something that I originally thought was dead, but I think it is dying... any chance of saving it???
I can't even come close to figuring out what this is supposed to be... but I'm fairly certain it shouldn't look anything like this. This poor guy looks like he's melting.
I have no clue what this guy and the guy in the middle right of the first photo are... but they are the only two from what I can tell that don't look like they are completely dying.
Another sad looking something that I can't really ID because it looks so bad
These are palythoas...they are hardy and with improved conditions will be fine. These green ones are commonly called Button Polyps.
It looks like a finger leather coral. With improved conditions it should make a recovery. If the tissue in the center is still dying, you might consider cutting the "fingers" off from around it and put them in some rubble or small pieces of rock to reattach.
The green one is a green nepthia. The brown one on the top right looks to be a cabbage leather.
I can't really tell on this one. Perhaps if you can get a clearer photo that is closer.
In general, I would say everything that is still alive is pretty hardy (obviously). And if you can improve their water quality and provide ample flow and lighting they should recover.
Here's a few more pics of the last one (hopefully they look a little better).
And while I'm at it, this is another guy who's been hiding behind a rock... I was thinking some kind of cucumber??? This is the best pic I can get of him without trying to move him. He's been hiding behind this rock for a few days, but considering all of the stress I don't want to try to move him or anything.
Still not 100% sure...looks like a stony coral. Perhaps a pavona or lithophylon.
The coral on the left is a duncan.
That's a sea apple. They typically do poorly in captivity. It'd be interesting to know how long it has made it in that tank. I'd keep an eye on it, if it starts to disintegrate you'll want to get it out right away to avoid causing more problems with water quality.
I think Jim is spot on with his assessment. That last pic he had questions on might just be mushrooms. If that IS a sea apple, you'd do well just giving it to a LFS. Were he to go south in a tank that small he could easily poison everything in the tank. The pic isn't real clear - before he said sea apple, I was thinking nudibranch. You might google images of both to get a better idea. And note, there are tons of varieties of nudibranchs...
looks like you scored yourself a nice starter project. the brown coral that is encrusting spiratically is a pavona. the ones to the left of it are duncans and i'll have to agree with jim. definitely looks like a sea apple. good luck turning everything around. it's definitely doable.
Personally, I never seen a sea apple die. I was out doing some maintenance with my boss at the time and we had to clean out a tank that didn't survive a power outage. A lunar wrasse, domino damsel, ocellaris clownfish, and a yellow tang all died. The only thing that lived through it all was a sea apple. Just personal experience. But I would still recommend feeding zooplankton and phytoplankton to make sure it stays healthy.
Is the finger leather upside by any chance? Kinda looks like it is.
It looks like this tank wasn't taken care of that well, but you can fix it all up. What I suggest is that you first get rid of that damsel (black and white fish) because I got one with my setup and it is very aggressive and killed some of my fish. Next I would take the live rock out and scrub off all that algae with a wire brush or something like that because that algae is the worst and a little bit can spread to a ton. But the biggest factor is checking your water parameters with a small $15 test kit and fixing your levels from there.
First thing you need to do is a water change, if you keep the nutrients and other parameters in check the corals will recover and then algae will go away on it's own. You can manually remove the algae if you want by pulling it off. You can dip the palys in a solution of peroxide and rodi water to kill that algae that is smothering them.
What am I??? Multi specimen version :)
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