What's wrong with my live rock?

[shelzabel]

My live rock seems to be losing it's color, and is covered in sediment- I have to fan it off everyday with my hands! My fish are fine, but button polyps not opening and losing leather toadstool. Heres the stats on the tank: 26 gal. Tetratec PF300 filter with 4 filter cartriges and it has the rise/flow of water. A penguin bio-wheel (single) 1 powerhead, heater, and power compact lighting. i use R/O water. 5 fish-Maroon clown/sebae anemone, arabian dottyback, and 3 damsels. A few emerald crabs, turbos and a brittle star. All of my mushrooms shrunk. Nitrites/nitrates are a bit high as well. Oh yeah, and 2 of my 3 feather dusters jumped ship from there tubes. Anyone??? please???? Thanks.

[tendar]

Sounds like you need to do some water changes first off. I would do a 7 gall water change now and another one in 2 days then see how things look. You way want to do a third one in anohter 2 days depending on water tests.
NOw the problem. Powerfilters they only trap wastes but keep the waste in the system till you remove the filter to clean it or put in a new cartrige so the waste just sits there in your water degrading and bringing down you water quality. YOur best option would be to remove the large power filter, add another powerhead to replace lost water flow from it and get a good protien skimmer like a aquaC remora skimmer.

NOw I think that is your problem anyways. Can be hard to guess sometimes with out being there in person so see.

[ClownMan]

I agree with other poster... first thing to do when you start having any issues is do some water changes (not complete water change, but at least 20%), and do that every couple of days and see how things are going then. Check Nitrate & ammonia levels as well as salinity to make sure things are ok.

Also, long term as other poster pointed out, with the types of items you have in your tank (lots of coral, etc) it would be a VERY good idea to go with a high flow filtering solution that included a good protein skimmer.

Coral need fast moving water and fast filtering is best. Regular filters (power filters, canister filters, etc) are great for fish only tanks, but are not the best for coral, etc. From all of what I've learned, read, been told by experts, if you have coral, live rock, anything other then fish, protein skimmers are almost madatory. I noticed a HUGE difference shortly after adding mine. I didn't think it would do much, but within an hour of plugging it in I had to empty out the filter cup because there was so much stuff in it already! I had no idea where it all came from!

Other then that, check the basics... make sure temp is ok (not too hot, not too cold), salinity, Nitrate, Nitrite, ammonia, etc. Lighting (too much, too long, not enough, not long enough, etc). I had a problem with some of my coral a while back, turned out it was because I was keeping the lights on too long. I didn't realize they needed some down time as well. I forgot what they call it, but they basically recharge during night hours...

Anyway, you probably know all this already, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Hope things get better for you!

Best wishes,

[cheerncougar]

first, get your water checked for nitrate, nitrites, ammonia, Ph, Magnesium, and Calcium. If your rock is loosing color it could be do to lack of Magnesium and Calcium, as far as the m'rooms and feather dusters what are you feeding them they both are big filter feeders and are very dependent on phytoplankton and zooplankton. If your nitrates and ammonia are high i would reccomend several small water changes for example about 15% every other day for 5 days. (so three water changes)

[shelzabel]

Thanks everyone for your input- I believe it is the protein skimmer that I am lacking. So once I get one, I wont need my filter any longer? Should I opt for a skilter?

[brody98]

Go with what tendar said. Forget about the bio wheel/filter rigs they are just nitrate factories and a waste of money. Make sure you have plenty of water flow with adding a power head or two and get a good skimmer. Aqua-c makes excellent skimmers. Once you get a good skimmer your live rock and sand will do all the filtering for you. Good luck