Corals not doing well, HELP PLEASE

[sac10918]

hi,
I have a few corals in my tank that are not doing well at all, and several that are doing very well. All corals have been in the tank for several weeks. It is a 24 gallon with metal halides, levels are
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate less than 10
pH 8.2
Phosphates 0
SG 1.024
I do a 10% water change every week but I do not add any essentail elements or anything.
THe corals that seem to be doing poor are a green open brain (at bottom of the tank, has lost a lot of color recently), green star polyps (located in high flow but still not opening), and a frogspawn coral (half way up th tank, low flow). I feet marine snow every other day. I have another frogspawn located at the same height that is doing great, and xenia, mushrooms, and zoos doing well too. I have had this light bulb for about 4-5 months, is it time to replace it or are my corals not getting the requirements they need. PLEASE HELP!

 

[laddy]

What about water flow, KH, and CA.
Metal halides on a 24g appears to be a lot of light.

 

[pyro]

Yeah; I'd take a look at your alk/cal levels... they might be your problem. Also; anything that might have caused a unusually big temp swing? I personally don't think temp swings are very problematic, but too big of one in too short of a time could sure do it I would think.
Anything picking on it?
Could try spot feeding the brain/frogspawn something meaty like krill/silverside/squid to help it recover a bit. My frogspawn really has reacted well to squid/krill every other day - it's growth has just taken off, colors look much better, and it's opening up much better. Fun to watch them pull the food in too I think.

 

[sac10918]

I will do the KH and CA tests in a minute here. We have had a little temp swing, but nothing major. I am hooking up my new chiller tonight though. THe brain used to take in meaty foods, but now it never gets those sticky tentacles that hold on to the food anymore so I cant feed it. The frogspawn is soo shrunken in and retracted that it wont eat any meat either. Maybe I can get some pics here.

 

[pyro]

Sometimes if you dangle the food around it for a second it'll put out its feeders.
How long have they been closed for? GSPs close up for a couple days randomly and open back up real healthy.

 

[sac10918]

Okay, KH is 10
CA is 345 (a bit low) I will as some B ionic right now
Here are the pics...
You can see the frogspawn on the right is happy, but the one tucked in the back is not.

And here is a picture of my brain

 

[sac10918]

Okay,
I just added some CA. Does that have any negative effects on fish or cleaner shrimps?

 

[pyro]

Not really I wouldn't think, unless it was a really, really big swing.
I dunno - no changes whatsoever you can think of? It doesn't seem like bulbs going - thats a gradual thing, not sudden at all.

 

[sac10918]

Are there any additives other than calcium that I should be dosing the tank with?

 

[hagfish]

You mention a temperature swing. How much and how fast? What is the temp normally?
How much flow do you have?
How many watts is the MH and how long are they on?
I wouldn't feed the marine snow every other day. I'd do about twice a week, if that. You probably don't need any other additives since you are doing water changes. But you do of course need to keep the calcium above 400. With that, watch PH and ALK. Also, you may want to check PH after the lights have been out for a while.

 

[sac10918]

Hi hagfish,
I had a temp swing approximately 2 weeks ago. The tank is normally around 81 degrees, and it went up to 84 throughout the course of the day. I dont really know how much flow I have, I believe I have a maxijet 900 attached to a hydro flow nozel that spins the water in my tank and a smaller pump in the rear of the tank to get some cross-flow behind the rocks.
THe lights are 1x70w 14,000K PowerPaq HQI which runs for 12 hours a day.
Can you tell me how often I should be adding calcium? Do i need to test before I add it every day (kinda a hassle). Also, what is the ideal range for my alkalinity to be?

 

[sac10918]

Also, I just did some more tests....
Nitrates are about 20 which is higher than normal. I will change out the carbon media on my phosban reactor tomorrow to help get this back down.
I forgot to mention that I also have two feather dusters, which I have had for about a month. Last week, one stopped coming out all together and I have not seen it since and the other is looking pretty shabby (not opening up like it used to).

 

[hagfish]

Well you want at least 10 times tank volume for flow. Typically more is better. The idea is to keep waste suspended so it can be picked up by mechanical filtration. At least make sure there are as few dead flow areas as possible.
The nitrates at 20 could be your problem. Rather than changing your media to get this down I would just do a water change. Changing those media shouldn't have a huge effect on nitrates IMO.
A 3 degree change, especially up to 84 which is pretty high can be a little risky if it happens in a day. But it's probably not a huge problem if it just happened once. If it happens every day that might be a little too much stress.
I don't dose anything for calcium. Mine is always over 400. I use coralife salt which I've read tends to be high in calcium. Since I don't dose anything for calcium I won't comment on that much. Just make sure you don't overdose or do it too fast.
I think KH around 8 is OK.

 

[pyro]

I doubt the temp swing is your problem.
I'd also cut back on the snow... thats a good bit.
Your lights seem to be on for a long time - surprised you don't have an algae problem.
Flow might be a little low
Instead of adding calcium everyday, consider starting a kalk drip or similar. Just replenish your evaporation with it and kill two birds with one stone. The stuff is pretty dirty cheap ($10 jug goes a long way) too. Just look in the archives for it for some info to get you started.
I really don't know. Might want to consider moving them around a bit. Does it look like a disease? I doubt your trates are your problem - 20 isn't anything bad.

 

[sac10918]

Yes, I think the location could be the problem.
The frogspawn has been on an up and down rollercoaster for a few months but has recently looked shabby. The reason I feed the marine snow so often is that the frogspawn looks really good when I do. IT puts its little tentacles out and looks fuller and happy. THe brain is on the sand bottom, but I think that is where they prefer to be, no? And I just moved the star polyps up a lot higher in the tank and put the powerhead pointing towards them. I sure hope they come out although I have some doubts.
So, feeding marine snow two times a week would be sufficeint?
I don't have an algea problem as of yet. I do not have any other lights (like compacts) to run instead of the halide. Do you think I should shorten the amount of time the halides are on to 10 hours? IS that okay for my fish?
I think I will look into the Kalkwasser too,
Thanks to both Pyro and Hagfish for all the help!

 

[toonascott]

your brain looks bleached. My money is on too much light, even algae can be baked by too much light. Get some compacts, they are cheap. Get your calcium up without screwing up your ph and I bet you notice a big difference.

 

[hagfish]

The MH is only 70 watts. That isn't all that much light. I don't think it's even close to enough to be too much. Especially since temperature is typically under control. I used to run a 250 watt MH over a 20 gallon and it didn't cause problems.

 

[pyro]

I have not heard good things about marine snow, although I have no expirience with it. You might want to consider just some frozen squid or frozen foods from teh grocery store you grind up and freeze. I just set a chucnk on my frogspawn and it pulls it into its mouth - same with my candys and your brain will too I'm pretty sure. My frogspawn has looked really good since I started feeding it chunks of stuff. Also, my frogspawn hates flow - I put it in as low of flow as I can.
And on the GSP note, I'd leave them go. When moved to higher flow they take about 3-5 days to open up sometimes; but then they open up really nicely and look great. They do much better under high flow I've found.

 

[sac10918]

Okay, I noticed today that a little frag of acropora which I have had for about 2 moths is completely bleached today. Maybe I do have too much light or I leave the light on too long?
Everything still looks bad! Star polyps almost look like they have a thin layer of algea covering them.

 

[hagfish]

Originally Posted by sac10918
Okay, I noticed today that a little frag of acropora which I have had for about 2 moths is completely bleached today. Maybe I do have too much light or I leave the light on too long?
Everything still looks bad! Star polyps almost look like they have a thin layer of algea covering them.
70 watts is not enough to be to much on that tank.