My first attempt at hard coral is failing!

nina&noah

nina&noah

Member
I bought a pink birdsnest coral about 2 weeks ago. It was so beautiful, that I couldn't resist trying. As of this past weekend, I noticed it was starting to bleach. Today it looks really bad. Is there anything I can do to save any of it? Please help me figure out what I did wrong so I can learn.
My tank is 90 gallons and is 2 years old. I have MH lighting. Here are my test results....
salinity 1.027 (I used a refractometer to get this reading)
ammonia 0
nitrate 5 (less than the bottom number of 10, but not 0)
phosphate also just above 0
nitrite 0
calcium 390 (I dosed the tank right after I got this reading)
The calcium was a little low, but would that really kill the coral? Here are some pics...


This one is to show you the placement of the coral in my tank. I do have other corals, but you can't see them because they are on the opposite side of the tank. I also have a rose anemone, but it hasn't come anywhere near the coral.
 
kingsmith

kingsmith

Member
I think you need to place it a lot higher if its bleaching now, but my experience with corals is quite limited so I am guessing
 
nycbob

nycbob

Active Member
its dying. sorry, but its beyond saving. making the jump from mushrooms to sps is hard especially if u dont hv much experience. i dont see much liverocks at all. perhaps u want to add a bit more to stabilze the water paramaters. i believe people should try lps b4 adding sps. lps is a bit like sps but a little hardier. was ur sps wild caught or aquacultured? also, what kind of flow was it getting?
 
nina&noah

nina&noah

Member
I don't only have mushrooms. That picture is only half of my tank. Not pictured are my xenia, frogspawn, green star polyps, and tongue coral. It was getting very good flow. Should I take it out and trash it?
Or leave it and let it die a slow death. I'm so disappointed. I really thought I was ready. Do you think it was too low? I thought I had enough light because my clam and anenome are doing so well.

Can you recommend a good lps for me to try?
 
nina&noah

nina&noah

Member
This is embarrassing to admit, but I actually don't know how much live rock I have. It's a long story, but it was just put there by the people who installed the tank. Here is a full tank shot...

This was taken a little while ago, but it lets you see how much live rock I have. Unfortunatly, I don't think I could add more without having an avalanche (spelling?) It is pretty unstable as it is.
 
cedarreef

cedarreef

Member
It does look rather unstable as you stated. I would add more live rock and take the chance to re-aquascape the tank to make it more stable.
 
nina&noah

nina&noah

Member
Originally Posted by CedarReef
http:///forum/post/3019719
It does look rather unstable as you stated. I would add more live rock and take the chance to re-aquascape the tank to make it more stable.
The tank is extremely thin and is 2 sided. That is the problem. It can't touch the glass. Do you think it needs more LR because the coral needs to be higher, or because it will help with the water quality?
 
windlasher

windlasher

Member
Originally Posted by nina&noah
http:///forum/post/3019739
The tank is extremely thin and is 2 sided. That is the problem. It can't touch the glass. Do you think it needs more LR because the coral needs to be higher, or because it will help with the water quality?
You can try and frag a piece where it is not bleached and maybe start over with frags. this probably wont help if your tank isn't ready for it. more rock will help the biology but you can only hope. Do you have sump to put more rock in?
 
S

shmaz

Guest
How much flow do you have going in the tank? How many GPH? per the pictures I don't see anything moving water except for the return.
 
salt210

salt210

Active Member
the returns dont look like they are causing enough flow within the tank. try some PHs to add flow. you said that you have halides, but what wattage are they and how old?
 
goinbroke

goinbroke

Member
i moved my green birdnest up high in my 90. about 6 inches below yhr top of the water, in really good flow....
came home from work 24 hours later and half of it was bleached out! i imiddeatly moved it to the sand bed and it had not gotton any worse. been about a week.
i dont understand. everyone says put them up high in good flow. almost killed mine! i'm new to sps myself. it's all part of the reef learning curve, i guess!
 
jackri

jackri

Active Member
I can't see the pics but SPS really aren't that tough to keep.
First of all if your piece is bleaching... all you really can do is try to frag off a portion that has NO BLEACHING whatsoever on it -- I had several sps corals awhile back and one started bleaching one day with no explanation -- which is also the only coral I ever lost and it went quick (sometimes I guess they can just die off -- I made the mistake of not trying to frag it though).
Salinity of 1.027 is probably a bit high, calcium of 390 is fine... I just checked mine in my main tank and was down to 280 with 3 clams and 35 different types of corals (they leached it out faster than I was replacing with 2 part). Calcium is up to 320 and still slowly bringing it up but pH was stable at 8.3 and dKH was steady at 10. Those numbers play a part of the balance as well. Constant temp somewhere in the 76-82 range is also pretty acceptable but keep it constant.
Another thing is you don't want any phosphates or nitrates -- this is where I recommend a macro algae in a sump like cheato. Also a quality protein skimmer is highly recommended.
Lighting is another factor -- you said halides, how many watts? how old are the bulbs? what kelvin rating?
What type of water do you top off with? I would only recommend RO/DI for keeping a reef and keep up on your tds readings as this easy step can make life so much easier.
These are just generalizations but very important. Calcium of 390 is just fine -- doesn't need to be 450 but somewhere in the 380-450 range although higher calcium will promote better growth -- but then make sure you know your pH, alk and mag levels as they are all linked together.
Then there are times a coral just decides to bleach out IMO for no apparent reason when everything else is healthy. You obviously have other corals that seemingly do fine. As far as placement, I've had many sps in my sandbed as frags and even a green slimer acro that was shaded by my toadstool that quadrupled in size over a few months.
Just my .02 though :)
Flow is important but you don't want your corals blasted. Your tank should have good overall flow throughout.
 
sbaumann14

sbaumann14

Member
i've never seen a 90 that tall before...custom made? my 180 tall is 29" tall using 250 watt MH to illuminate it and i still would like to go to 400 watt.
 
oceansidefish

oceansidefish

Active Member
It looks as though flow and light penetration are your two biggest problems... I would agree that the limited amount of LR in there may not help in the event that you ever add more fish.
 
salt210

salt210

Active Member
for the LR to be stackable people have used rods to hold them together. you can make a base so that the rocks arent leaning on the glass
 
nina&noah

nina&noah

Member
Wow, first I have to thank everyone for their input! Here are the answers to the questions that were asked.
Yes my PITA tank is very tall and very thin. It is 13 inches wide and 2 ft 10 inches tall. The coral is 1 ft 9 inches from the lights which are 150 watts 14 K.
I did measure for PH, I just forgot to include the readings which were about 8.2. I do not have tests for mag or alk. I wasn't aware I needed to. Now I do and I will go buy the tests this week.
Flow is definatly not a problem. I actually have parts in my tank with too much flow. I've had to move my xenias because they were being blown around too much.
The LR in the sump is a good idea, but does LR need light? It wouldn't get any in the sump.
I only use RO water for top offs and I use natural sea water for water changes. I change 20 gallons biweekly.
I think that addresses all of the points. Thanks again for all of your input. Do you think it was just this coral, or do you think my tank is not cut out for sps?
 
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