Mushrooms and zoas look sick

[robsfishtank]

Ive had my tank for about a year now and everything was doing great until lately. My mushrooms use to be dividing and huge. Now they are all drooping and the color seems off. The zoas have closed up and dont open anymore. Worst my pom pom crab's pom poms look almost non existent. Other then that everything else is doing fine. I have tons of pods crawling on everything and my filter feeders are thriving.

I may be wrong but I started mixing my water using RO/DI water when before i was just using tap water. Also the tank use to always overheat to around 83, but i got a/c and now its in the mid to high 70s. This is the only things I can think I am doing different. I thought I was making it better but its doing worse.

What should i test for? Ive never seen any but are there coral meds? Now that I got the temp down was it better off being too warm? I have a hospital tank but never thought I 'd put anything but fish in there so ive used fish only meds in it. Should i put my corals in there? This has been going on for a few weeks and water changes don't seem to help. Anyone have some salt water you want to give me to see if its my mix?


My tank:
10 gallon with 2 gallon refugium.
Live rock & sand.
Mushrooms
Zoas
Feather duster worms
Xenia
Highfin goby & red banded pistol shrimp
Pom pom crab
Emerald crab
2 dwarf zebra hermit crabs
Tailspot blenny (currently recovering in hospital tank from popeye. Could that be related?)
Tons of pods
Virgin nerite snails
Dwarf cerith snails

Quad t5 with two of each atinic and 10,000k

[detane]

Sup brotha.
For the most part, softies love dirty water. Soon as you start using RO/DI they will go into shock until they become used to the new conditions (acclimation). You may have to feed your shrooms and zoos a bit more and skim more to compensate for the extra feeding. Temp swings are by far the largest reason for coral death in nature. A slight change in (Temp / Salinity / parameters ) within a short period of time can cause serious shock to marine life. Try running a fan across the surface of the water and simply top off the evaporated water you will lose from the fan cooling method. Best bet is to run a chiller or have your homes AC on. Hope that answers your first question.

As for testing water, rule of thumb is test only for the things you add. I add and test for Mg, CA, ALK to make sure my levels are where I want them to be. But from what I read in your tank, best thing to do is a water change every other month since soft coral and L.P.S. like and thrive in dirty water.

[robsfishtank]

Thanks

You make complete sense! Not only did i start useing clean water but I also started doing more water changes because my blenny got sick. I was able to finaly catch the blenny and put it in the hospital tank, now its cured but I was like what happend to my tank.

So I started doing extra water changes which just made it worse. So would it be a bad idea to mix up a batch with tap water and do one last water change with that?

I did add a little clip on fan before I put the window a/c in so I think its doing too good of a job. Its on the same timer as my lights. I got the heater turned up so it won't drop down too low.

[robsfishtank]

Update:

I haven't done a water change since. Everything is doing awesome. I have been busy with other tanks and even expanded the number of tanks to 19 so I have been preoccupied. The tank is looking so good that I haven't been worried.

I love when the solution is do nothing.

[chefzilla]

Thats good Rob. The advice Detane gave you in spot on as far as clean to dirty water. And 19 tanks?? Dayummm