Coral dying

[30gal4fish]

I have a 30 gal, 4 damssels, 5 turbo snails and 1 fire shrimp, 50 lb live rock, bio wheel 350.
i bought a rock that had soft coral (several of them were attached), after 5 days one of them start looking pale, and the next couple of days started dissapearing.
i turn on the light of the tank for probably 12 hours every day at night. During the day i leave the windows open, so there is plenty of light.
I've been checking the calcium every two days, and is between 400-450.
I added the zooplex from kent marine every two days.
I also notice that the rock that the coral was attached to, came with 3 invertebrates. two of them were snails like half of an inch size, and one of them look like a centipede.
I tested the water for salinity and it was 1.022 and amonia nitrate nitrite and ph, were almost excelent.
i dont know what is going on. One of the plants dissapeared also.
please help.

 

[puffer32]

Your salinity is to low, need to get it to 25/26 slowly though. What kind of lights do you have and how long has your tank been cycled? Whats your trates, trites and ammonia levels? Do you have power heads and skimmer?

 

[mrmaroon]

We need to know what the exact levels of ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite are. IMO, 4 damsels in a 30g with only a biowheel may be too many. Do you have any algea problems? Do you know what kind of corals you got?

 

[fishieness]

what type of lighting do you have?
how old is the tank?
do you have an ALK test?

 

[30gal4fish]

the tank is from august 3.
alk test, dont have
no algea problem
i dont know the name of the coral
how do i raise my salinity?
no power heads or skimmer
o nitrate
o nitrite
o ammonia
8.0 ph

 

[mrmaroon]

You could try putting some salt in to raise the salinity. But I keeo mine at 1.023-1.024 so I don't know if that is your problem. How often are you doing water changes? You really should not try corals unless you know what they are. Some will not make it in you tank without a lot of experience. If I were you, I would try getting a goof book before more corals.

 

[fishieness]

to raise your salinity, simply do wataer changes with water with a higher salinity. Dont jsut add salt. If the salt lands on anything it would burn it.
You still didnt say what lighting you have.
i see in the pic, on the sides of that rock it looks like some Xenia. Is the dieing coral the same thing as the other ones on the side? Xenia is basicaly a hit or miss in tanks. In some tanks it literaly grows out everywhere, and in others it doesnt grow at all. Even some relay established tanks that are supporting even some of the most difficult corals. The reason is pretty much unknown. So that oucld be your problem....If that is Xenia that died that is.

 

[puffer32]

Most corals like water movement, so you need power heads, also to remove dead spots in the water. I would alos recommend a skimmer and a good how to keep coral book

 

[chipmunk]

What kind of salt are you using??

 

[murph]

I have found the easiest way to raise your SG is to top off with water that is your target SG. I lose around a quarter gallon of water per day to evaporation so if I want to raise the SG say from 1.022 to 1.025 I simply top off with water that is mixed to 1.025.
This will slowly raise it over the course of days. When desired SG is attained go back to topping off with fresh. Make sure there is some sort of indicator line in your tank so you can see how much is being lost to evaporation and try to keep the water level in your tank consistent with top offs.
I don't keep corals myself due to the immaturity of my tank but from what I have read so far fluctuating SG is a no no.

 

[30gal4fish]

when shoul i add coral
any good books that you recommend
in fact the coral was xenia
about the light, i really dont know how to tell, it came w/ the tank, i trun the bulb around to see what kind was it, and there is no info on the bulb.
i wish i could tell you more, but i am ignorant at the subject, so ill wait more time b4 i kill more corals.
thanks a lot ppl, you are always helpful

 

[puffer32]

Xenia needs more light then the basic bulbs that come with a tank. I would hold off untill you can upgrade to at least PC lighting.

 

[fishieness]

Xenia is one of the corals that can do well under less light, but i agree that it does need more than you have to be able thrive.
But it could just be that it was xenia... like i said, it thrives in some tanks, and mysteriously crashes in others.

 

[mrmaroon]

:hilarious I was kidding about just "adding salt". Of course you should only add it when changing your water or topping off the tank.
As far as your lights, Do you have just one? And is it a single bulb, or two smaller bulbs combined. I assume that it just plugs into the wall and does not go through a large external box (the ballast). And it is not to heavy, which would be an internal ballast. If you bought it from the store as a kit, it is most likely a baisc 20 watt or so strip light. You can buy new lights or an upgrade kit that would get a single strip to 65 watts. That may be enought for things like star polyps, muchrooms, yellow polyps, torch, frogspawn, etc. Although you should probably wait on things like the torch and frogspawn until you have a little more experience. Star Polyps are VERY easy to keep, but can turn into a weed.