Tag: sick jellyfish

5 Things That Can Cause Your Jellyfish to Disintegrate & Look Sad

by sunsetmarinelabs, posted in Keeping a Healthy Tank, Sick Jellyfish?
Do your jellyfish look like this? 

sadjelly3          sadjelly2        sadjelly1     

If they do, I’m sorry to hear that, but don’t despair just yet.  Once you determine the problem & fix it, the jellies can bounce back and repair themselves in no time!  Here are the top 5 reasons jellyfish will start to fall apart…

1. Improper filtration and/or incomplete cycling of your filters.
2. Ammonia spike.
3. Not Acclimating your Jellyfish Properly
4. Improperly making up your saltwater
5. Heavy metal contamination.
1. Improper filtration and/or incomplete cycling of your filters.

If you haven’t properly cycled your tank, then you most likely have toxic levels of ammonia and/or nitrite in your water.  This can happen when you initially set up an aquarium and add jellyfish (or any life forms, for that matter…this is not a jellyfish specific issue, but a standard fish or coral tank issue. You must take the time to properly cycle your aquarium no matter what animals you choose to keep in it). Once jellyfish are added to the tank, they begin to produce ammonia.  Once ammonia starts to build up, you need to have a way to eliminate it. This is why proper filtration is important.  A properly filtered aquarium will have a biological filter in place, which will remove the toxic ammonia and nitrite by way of the beneficial bacteria that populate the filter media (i.e. bio balls). If you do not have beneficial bacteria actively removing the ammonia and nitrite, then the water becomes toxic and the jellyfish will soon begin (within 2 days) to disintegrate like the pictures demonstrate.

Toxic Water Quality
Ammonia & Nitrite levels demonstrating the middle of a nitrification cycle. This is a very toxic situation. Jellyfish will fall apart if subjected to these levels of toxicity.
2.  Ammonia spike.

Why are you having an ammonia spike even after you’ve already cycled your tank?  An ammonia spike can occur if you stopped feeding your tank for any reason.  Sometimes folks let the aquarium go down, or let it run without any animals in it for awhile like if they go on vacation or take some time away from keeping jellyfish, or they don’t have jellies in it for several days for whatever reason. This leads to an ammonia spike because your beneficial bacteria in you filter box didn’t receive any ammonia to eat—your system wasn’t creating any ammonia because you had no jellyfish in it & subsequently weren’t feeding  any jellyfish. This means the beneficial bacteria went with out food (ammonia) and starved to death.  So, if you then add jellyfish to the tank when you get back from vacation (or whatever), there is no beneficial bacteria  available in the filter box to eliminate the toxic ammonia & you experience an ammonia spike and shredded jellyfish as the pictures show.

If you do go on vacation, or take more than 3 days away from having jellyfish in your tank, you can alway place a small, 1/4″ piece of raw fish or shrimp in the filter box to continue to decompose and create ammonia for the beneficial bacteria to feed on while you’re away.  When you return, always take an ammonia reading and remove the piece of raw fish or shrimp before adding new jellyfish to the tank.  Make sure your ammonia and nitrite levels are at zero before acclimating any new jellyfish into your tank.

An ammonia spike can also happen if you interrupted the cycling process by cleaning the tank, changing any mechanical or chemical filters, or conducted any water changes prior to the tank completely finishing its cycling process. Do not interrupt the cycling process. I know it’s tempting to want to get the sides & bottom of the tank clean. The algae growth can be unsightly, but remember, you are creating a living environment from a static one. Life can be messy! Let nature take it’s course and be patient– I know it’s hard, but it is necessary.  You can clean the tank all you want after the cycling process is over! If you interrupt the cycle, it can take almost 3 times as long to get it back on track an in a non-toxic state.  Be patient. It’s worth the wait!

3. Not Acclimating your Jellyfish Properly

You are receiving jellyfish that are coming from a pristine environment.  When you receive a shipment of jellyfish, the water quality parameters are most likely different from yours.  You must take the time to acclimate the jellyfish in the shipping bag to the temperature of  your system.  After 10-15 minutes of floating the bag so the temperatures equalize between the bag and your tank water,  acclimate them to your water quality (pH, salinity), by conducting small water changes in the bag over 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Don’t take all night doing this step.  The jellies need to get out of the bag and into a moving environment.  Acclimation shouldn’t take more than 1.5 hours from start to finish.  If it is taking longer than that, then there is another problem at hand that needs to be addressed.

4. Improperly making up your saltwater

If you are making up your saltwater with tap water, your jellyfish will fall apart.  Tap water has heavy metals in it that the jellyfish cannot tolerate. You must make up your saltwater with RO, RO/DI, or distilled water for it to be safe for jellyfish, much like a reef tank.

If you are not aerating your saltwater for at least 24 hours in a bucket with a small submersible pump, then you most likely are adding undissolved salts to your tank.  The jellies don’t do well with undissolved salts.  Please read our blog post that covers this topic in depth: “Problem with Your Jellyfish? Undissolved Salts Could be the Culprit” 

5. Heavy metal contamination.

Do not use metal utensils or tools with your saltwater jellyfish aquarium.  Only use plastic tools.  Always wash your hands before dealing with your jellyfish or handling the jellyfish food.  Zinc, brass, lead & petroleum products (sometimes found in soaps and lotions) will add heavy metals to your system.  The jellyfish will fall apart if you introduce them into the water.  Also, I should mention that aquarium heaters can get old– moreover, their seals  can get old and crack. This can allow water to leak into them where the metal heating coil is located and other metal parts.  If you have an old heater, check it for any visual signs of rust on the heating coil.  If you see rust, throw it away and purchase a new one.

Send us your problem jellyfish pictures and we’ll diagnose the problem and tell you how to fix it. We’ll also write a new blog post about it so we can inform and help others that may be experiencing the same problem!

Send your pics to moonjellyfish.com@gmail.com

•••

Have you had an unusually long cycling process?  Are your new jellyfish shrinking fast even after the tank finally cycled?? Please read our blog post next week for answers.

5 Things That Can Cause Your Jellyfish to Shrink

by sunsetmarinelabs, posted in Sick Jellyfish?
Large Moon Jellyfish
Large 10″ diameter Moon Jellyfish– This jellyfish has been raised in one of our customers tanks from 3″ diameter to 10″ diameter solely on our Frozen Jellyfish Food (feeding once a day).

Are your jellyfish shrinking, getting thin and flattening out???

Here are 5 reasons why that might be…..

1. Feeding Non-nutritious food

One of the most common problems when keeping jellyfish is keeping them properly fed. Without a consistent supply of nutritious food, they will become weak and thin. Malnutrition causes listlessness and infrequent belling or pulsing, leaving you with inactive jellyfish that just float around the tank like pieces of tissue paper.  Not pretty. Not elegant. Not fun! Your solution is to feed them jellyfish food that is nutritious & to feed them the proper amount.  There are a lot of feeds on the market for fish and corals and you may think that they will work for jellyfish.  Not the case.  Reef Nutrition has some amazing feeds for filter feeders and some of what they have to offer are good supplements for jellyfish, but not strictly meant for a main food source.

2. You Are Not feeding Enough Food (of the nutritious kind)

Jellyfish are not goldfish & you cannot simply sprinkle some food in every other day or so. They need to eat each day and they need to get a good amount into their systems with each feeding.  See our blog post Knowing How Much to Feed Your Jellyfish for guidelines & pictures of what a well fed jellyfish looks like. Without enough good food to eat each day, they will become thin and lazy.

3. Your Flow is too High—or Too Low.

If your jellyfish aquarium has adjustable flow, you may need to fine tune it.  If the flow is too high, the jellyfish may not be able to keep the food on their tentacles as they whiz around the tank and this means they are not ingesting the food. This leads to underfed jellyfish, which leads to lazy and shrinking jellyfish.  The same goes for low flow.  If the flow in your tank is  so low that the jellyfish cannot properly bell and keep themselves suspended, then they will not feed properly.  Again, this leads to malnutrition and shrinking jellyfish.  Jellyfish need to bell efficiently in order to move fluids and food into and throughout their system.

4. Your Jellyfish Aquarium is Not Cycled

If your aquarium is not biologically cycled then your water quality is toxic (you have ammonia and/or nitrite levels above zero) and the jellies will be stressed because of it.  Jellyfish are 96% water, so if your water quality is suffering, so are your jellyfish.  They will not eat much, if at all, and this leads to shrinking jellyfish.

5. Your Salinity is Too High

When your salinity is too high, the jellyfish will cease to eat.  Keep your salinity in check–everyday if necessary–so your jellyfish can feed properly without the stress of spiking salinity levels.  If you haven’t yet read our blog post about hydrometers and the inaccurate readings they can give….read it now.  The plastic hydrometers on the market tend to have variable readings.  Have your hydrometer tested at your local fish store to be certain that yours is giving you accurate readings.  Again, if your jellyfish are not getting enough food each day, they will shrink.

 And a word about vacations, weekends & days off from feeding….

If your jellyfish are healthy and being fed normally and on a regular basis with nutritional jellyfish food, then you can safely get out of town for the weekend.  They will be fine given they have full stomachs 5 days out of 7.

Problem with Your Jellyfish? Undissolved Salts Could Be the Culprit

by sunsetmarinelabs, posted in Sick Jellyfish?

5174628.jpeg

Another common problem concerning salt levels in your jellyfish aquarium, besides inaccurate hydrometers giving a false reading, is how the saltwater is made.  Undissolved salts can also give you an inaccurate reading which is a problem since jellies are very sensitive to salinity changes & high salinity levels can also impede their movement, eating and overall cellular activity. It is important to know what your salinity is and how it changes over time.

 

The point I need to make here is about how you make up your saltwater with distilled or RO water.

Always prepare the saltwater at least 24 hours ahead of time.  Adding undissolved salts to your jellyfish aquarium will damage the jellies tissue and can cause them to be very still and not bell or pulse much…their bell can curl under and they will fully retract their tentacles and not eat because of the tentacle retraction. They will look and be sad….sad jellies.  Also a dusty film of white on the interior of your tank will form, which can make the tank look cloudy.

Properly aerating saltwater involves a small submersible pump called a powerhead,  and a bucket.  A simple “bubble wand” or “bubbler” will not degauss and dissolve the salts completely.  I know the words “aeration” and “bubbler” tend to go hand in hand, but in this case it’s just not the right tool for the job.  You need more mixing power in the water which a powerhead can give you.  Once you add the desired amount of salt, vigorously mix for a minute or two with your hand or 2 foot length of PVC pipe as a stir stick.  After that, you can let the powerhead pump ( in this scenario a Lifegard 800 is perfect!) do the rest.  See diagram above to see how to set this up in a 5 gallon bucket.  It could be any size bucket as long as you position the powerhead pump at the water level allowing it to pull in air as it mixes.  You want the water and air to be churning vigorously.

If you have some residual stuff still swirling around the bottom of the bucket after 24 hours don’t worry about it.  Just leave it there and don’t try and mix it into the water you will be using for a water change.  You can rinse that out and get rid of it before making another batch of saltwater.  It’s just undissolved minerals and is totally normal.

Important Side Note!! 

Never use tap water to make up your saltwater–not even if you use some sort of water conditioner that removes chlorine.  There are heavy metals, pesticides and ever more increasing levels of pharmaceuticals in city tap water supplies.  No sort of chemical conditioner will eliminate these things from the water. You must use distilled or RO (reverse osmosis) water.  Do not use “spring water” or “mineral water” or “drinking water” — it must say “Distilled” or if you are purchasing from a water store, it must be RO or RO/DI.

When Your Jellyfish Takes a “Personal Day”

by sunsetmarinelabs, posted in Sick Jellyfish?

plasticwrap2

As you populate your eon jellyfish tank with jellies, you may sometimes notice a jelly acting differently; belling oddly or sometimes infrequently.  Is that jelly sick?  Should you take some action to make it better?  Not necessarily.  First of all, jellies don’t get sick, per say; however, they can plateau in their development.

Take a look at your other jellies.  Are they behaving in the same fashion as the jelly in question?  Take some water quality readings and see if they are in range or not.  Correct any levels that are off and wait a day or two. The jellies are 96% water. So, if your water quality checks out A-OK, then your jelly in question could be taking a personal day—having personal issues.  This does not mean you need to take action on your whole system.  If your water parameters are in range, be patient and keeping observing.

We have noticed over the years that sometimes a jelly will sort of plateau and change behaviors for up to two weeks and then get back to normal.  Some jellies grow quick and fast and are always in action, but then their growth rate slows down and they can plateau.  Some don’t grow at first and then take off later in life. Be patient with your jellies as they settle into your system and with your maintenance practices.  It’s good to be on the ball observing their health and wellbeing; however, think about your tank as a system–an aquatic system. Don’t be quick to judge one or two “off” days with a jelly here or there.  And do not go the route of forcing more food into the equation thinking that is the answer.  Let nature do its thing and just maintain good water quality and maintenance practices.  These guys are resilient and given the chance, they can rebound nicely in a well-kept environment.

Another thing to consider is that you are observing animals in a closed system and natural selection is taking place in front of your eyes!   The stronger jellyfish will bell more, eat more food and grow faster and bigger.  While, at the same time,  the weaker jellies will grow more slowly and the very weak jellies will stay the same size as when you first introduced them, or will shrink.  This is completely normal.  We liken it to the “varsity”, “junior varsity”, and “bench warmers” of the jellyfish world. It is to be expected. In very rare cases will all the jellyfish remain the same size in a closed system.

P.s.

…in some cases they take a personal day for the rest of their lives and there isn’t anything to be done.  They can still eat and live and be just fine.  Embrace the existentialists!!!