Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

for some reason i havent been able to keep a tank since i got rid of my 75... i do 20% water changes every other day. (no skimmer) i have a carbon pack in my hob pump i clean the pump filter daily. my glass stays clean never a need to clean the front glass maybe every week and a half i could scrape it if i want to. my lights come on for 1hr when i get up for work 5am-6am then they are off untill 10am,then on untill 9pm... i dont check anything with the water changes the peramiters dont realy change. had a water test done last week everything was great except alittle ammonia. i just need a schedule so i can for sure keep soft corals...

The ammonia is your problem. Is this in your 10 gal?

yea my amonia was high last week thats when i started changing the water every 2 days. 2/10gal

I went to move some rock around and i found both of my brittle stars one had half his legs left with no spikes and the other had no spikes at all he couldnt even hold onto the rock...?? and i have white cenitpede looking worms in my rock.... why cant i just keep a tank up long enough to enjoy it.

The legs will grow back.

The smaller the tank the faster things go to hell. Did you let this thing cycle for 3-4 weeks before dropping stuff in? Is this the tank that you have a MH over? If so what are the tanks temps when the light is on and how far does that temp drop when the lights go off? When doing a large (20%) water change in this tank if things aren't exact you are going to stress stuff out, ie major swings in ph, salinity, temp.

this post is 3 months old. lol it ended up being salt. .029 i couldnt keep a tank because i ither half way did things or over did them. tank is great purple and pink all over and has perfect water.

Was having the same sorts of problems with the exact same cause years ago. It was caused by a miscalibrated refractometer. The brittle/serpent star ailments are often a serious giveaway to a salinity issue--either in the improper range or too much of a fluctuation.