In Need of Help LPS dying

[juice_1080]

I have a 26 Bowfront tank (21" tall) with 4x24w T5-HO Nova Sundial Lighting on it.
I have been having problems with my LPS corals. I have softies and leathers that are doing fine as well as a clam with no signs of problems.
I have candycanes, hammers, frogspawns, a plate, open brain, galaxia, favites, and blastos for LPS.
So these are the dead ones:
Favites
Galaxia
2/3 Frogspawn heads
2-Color Candycanes
On the verge of dead:
Neon Green Candycanes
Hammers
Starting to look bad:
Open Brain
Plate Coral
Doing Great:
Blastos
Every other coral I have is doing great (no sps) and so is the clam...
My specs over the past month:
SG 1.025-6
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 10-25
Calcium 460-500
Phosphates 0
Copper 0
pH 8.2
DKH 9
I do 2-4 gallon water changes weekly
Flow:
Penguin 350 HOB filter (rated for 75g worked great on 30g previously) removed bio-wheels (micro-bubble problem)
Koralia #1
Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is my first attempt at LPS as well but have had great success with softies and leathers in the past.

 

[jackri]

Could be the nitrates. Some corals can't handle nitrates very well. Another possibility is the leathers may be irritating them. Sorry I can't be of more help than that.

 

[juice_1080]

The leathers are on the opposite side of the tank though so that can't be the problem.
As for the nitrates, I am unsure what could even be causing the issue. As of now this is my stock list:
1 Sixline Wrasse
1 Royal Gramma
LPS, Softies, and Leathers
1 Sally Light Foot Crab
1 Porcelain Crab
1-2 dozen assorted snails
4-6 hermits
1 Clam
1 Peppermint Shrimp
With this little of a bio-load I don't understand the nitrate issue. It was present(and hasn't changed) before the addition of the Royal Gramma meaning that the only fish was a Sixline wrasse. I am very cautious on my feeding as well...
Any insight?

 

[juice_1080]

Didn't have a skimmer attached since all I have is a coralife super skimmer that is a bubble factory but I figured out a way to route the return into my hob filter so the bubbles don't make it into the tank.
I am hoping this will help with the nitrates. I always used to run a skimmer but when I downsized I traded with a guy and the coralife was all he had and the way I had it setup it wouldn't fit originally.

 

[d-man]

so if you do have water problems this may make them worse, get them under control first. I run my tank of lps by getting dieing ones and reviving them. the trick is to feed small chunks of shrimp like you would buy for your self form the supermarket.
the deal is you have to balance feeding the coral and not over feeding your tank. for your brains or anything you can cover take a plastic tub drill holes in it and cover your brain or whatever so it can eat with out you cuc taking it's food. if you have bone showing you can use a iodine dip to help stop the recession of flesh. your candy canes will eat too they are just a little harder to keep the food there while thy get their mouth around it

 

[cherylann]

I personally was never able to keep Sps long term, until I removed all my soft corals and devoted one tank to Sps and the other to LPS, and one to softies, mostly because the tanks are small 24 to 34. Lps and Sps are suject to the toxins released by soft corals, it's a chemical warfare created by nature to ensure the soft corals their place. In a large tank with good filtratiion skimmers, and mechanical filtration with speciality charbons and such it is possible keep soft and hard corals, in the small tank the toxins became to concentrated and eventually the hardcorals begin to dye away. In any case I still think you need larger filter and a skimmer with hard corals and a sump or refugium would go along way. These additions can be made to small tanks without alot of modifications. At any rate good luck with your tank and if you solve the problem please post it.

 

[juice_1080]

Did an Lugols (iodine) dip and a small water change. Nitrates are at 25ppm. I also have the skimmer up and running now too...

 

[juice_1080]

Well as far as I can tell all my LPS other than my blastos (which are rapidly growing) are toast. Plate is mostly skeleton and my brain coral is pretty deflated..... hammer and frogspawn are looking like they are going to let go of the skeleton..... Need to figure out what is going on as I would like to be able to keep LPS.....

 

[d-man]

did you try the iodine dip? feeding? I got my plate looking like this (got it cheep) now its now it's fat and happy from feeding. it will eat a piece of shrimp about half the size of a dime!!

 

[juice_1080]

Thats about what mine looks like right now... I did an Iodine dip. I am going to try to feed them all in a few minutes. ( I am wondering if that is it) I used to feed my LPS but then I started to see an increase in Nitrates and stopped feeding because of some advice. I am going to try feeding again I just need to make it a more controlled feeding I guess.

 

[juice_1080]

Brain Coral looks more bloated than normal (good sign?) I don't think there is any chance of survival for the plate on the other hand.... It looks pretty gone to me....

 

[mr.clownfish]

plate coral are hard to take care of. mine is not looking good either.

 

[juice_1080]

Moved my plate, a blasto frag, and some other frags to my QT since there are no fish in it right now and it has sufficient lighting. The plate (which I thought was beyond saving) is coming back strong. I moved my brain coral yesterday to see if it rebounds as well. Now I know I can keep them going in that tank, I need to figure out what they don't like about my DT and work on it so I can move them back up. Frogspawn and Hammer corals were both too far and didn't survive...

 

[juice_1080]

I believe this is a temperature issue. For some reason my heater is working but not disbursing the heat enough. I have a 250w Stealth and its set at 82, yet the tank is at about 70. I turned up the temp to see if it will come up, otherwise maybe this heater is just burning out and its time for a new one?

 

[juice_1080]

For anyone still watching this is was a heat issue. My heater burned out. I replaced it with a Rena heater and filtration. (Both 50% off and work together conveniently). Plus it has a temp warning light. It starts blinking if the temp is wrong... Corals are starting to come back to life and my tank its starting to look like it did before my heater went bad!!! Too bad I lost some corals in the process...