Water test results and questions

[Teeb]

I had/have a problem with a chocolate chip star.. an arm was *injured* and I
had thought it got it caught in something in the tank. Someone mentioned
osmotic shock, which results from a spike in salt level, if I recall
correctly. It was in a 10 gallon tank, and while moving the star to a larger
tank where I knew the water parameters were fine, I found two of my 3 snails
dead as well, and have moved the live one to the larger tank too. Snail is
doing fine, star is in a floating *nursery* in the larger tank as I have
polyps I don't want it eating. I am having a hard time figuring out if the
star is healing up or getting worse, it looks like it's going both ways at
different times. I am listing the test readings for the 10 gallon tank, and
would like to know if any of it could have caused the problem with the star
and the death of the snails..

Ammonia, very slight trace, less than .25 on the chart, but some slight
color over the 0 indication

Nitrate, again, very slight. not 0 but not quite up to 2.5 on the chart

Nitrite, 0

Alk, normal (color lines up with the *normal* reading on the color chart
anyway)

Ph, 8.2 to 8.4 difficult to tell between the two

SG 1.022

The Ph seems high to me but I am used to freshwater tanks, and I see normal
Ph ranges for marine critters as 7.5 to 8.5, so I am assuming this is normal
also. Another water change will take care of the traces of ammonia and
nitrate, but is there something other than osmotic shock that could have
caused the problem with the star and with the snail deaths? I do not have a
protien skimmer in the 10 gallon tank. I just had the critters and some live
rock. Currently there is nothing but the crushed coral with tons of odd
looking bristle worms, I say odd because in the large tank I have the
typical pink and black looking ones.. the rock came out of that tank to the
small tank, and so did a bunch of the crushed coral.. the only bristle worms
around were the pink and black skinny ones, yet now in the small tank they
have turned into fat bloated looking pink ones.. not dead.. and some have
gotten more than an inch or two in length. I need to get the star back
into the other tank but am a bit afraid to just yet.. any ideas?

teeb

[Todd Nicholson]

Your Ph is fine at 8.2. You shouldn't have any trace of Ammonia or Nitrite.
Remember, as Ph rises, ammonia becomes that much more toxic, so even trace
amounts can cause problems in marine tanks. Your alkalinity should be
between 8-12Dkh. What is "normal?" Normal for a freshwater tank might be
5Dkh, but that's not normal for a marine tank. Your salinity seems quite
low. Most of the worlds oceans have a salinity level of 1.025. I'd
recommend slowly raising it. If you bought your star from your LFS and they
kept it in a tank with different parameters, then you threw it in your tank
without proper acclimation procedures, especially with ammonia present, it
could very well have stressed it to the point of loosing limbs.

-Todd

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