my leather finger coral is dyeing

[shawna]

I've put this post under reef as wel as here I have a finger leather decaying in my tank my amonia is throughhthe roof and the critter is sloughing as well as does he have a big black ring around his bodty at the base just below the base is hardened and from tips down sloughhing has started i moved him to clean the tank again (just did before he came home yesterday )the pet store guy said wedge him into a rock and so I did then found out that i should have acclimated him first on the bottom so that is wheere i put him last nite and today
i woke up to that brown ring and the slough as well as the amonia through the roof
how will i know if he is sick or just dead?
please advise as to wHAT i MIGHT BE ABLE TO D OTO SAVE HIM sorry the cap lock is funny (coffee spill)how can i save him?

 

[beth]

If you are getting ammonia because of the leather, than I would say that he is already dead.
Can you post a pic?

 

[shawna]

beth what would have taken him out so quickly? I did flush what was left of him

because I watched my cleaner shrimp graze on lr and then die I still can't find the purple/pink reef lobster but buster hides would thee be any long standing threat to my remaining inhabitants? my amonia with a 25 % who change went to 0 after the coral was taken to the sick tank of course rushing around and trying to save every one I broke all of my beakers so I have no reading on nitrates is the lobster delicate? like the cleaner I mean. alsao I need to know how to find a reputable chiller (one a person with experience would recomend) because that may have bien the cause my soon to be X left the lights on and the h2o was (i thought 88-90 how ever a careful look it wwas up to 96 way to hot! the only other posible option is that my soon to be X poured something into the tank wich he has threatened to do but I can't make that accusation unless I know for sure it seems weird that 3 days after a 25 % water change i would need to do another unless you think the heat? or crushed the coral? or sun burned the coral your input would be so helpful i'm going to wait a while before i try the corals again I still have star pollips if they made it maby they will spread . do you think a combo of kick ich and mlafix would have done harm the bottles were moved but little was missing , I tyhought enough for the q.t wich is only 7.5 gal I believe but they were both new and now opened (well I may be obsesing way too much on what could have gone wrong but I just don't want to make the same mistake x 2)
anyway any input that you could give as to a posible or likely would be great I would like to have corals but not atthe expense of killing them
thanks a million
shawna

 

[shawna]

I can't post a pic I gave my ccamera to my step kids to go to the shore with :nope: I sure wish I could have

 

[beth]

That high temp is likely what killed the coral. Why is the temp that high?

 

[shawna]

as near as I can tell it is the lights that I just bought how ever it is posible that the 99 degree day here didn't help

I don't know though when I was in bed the lights were off, and the coral was quite bad when I saw him in the morning(ie sloughing striated tissue showing and the deep brown / black ring running across the bottom 1/4 of the foot/ stemI am relatively sure that in the over nite hours with the lights off and the cooler weather at nite that the tank ws cooler , but not certain mind you. the lights were flipped on by my s.o in the am before he left for the day and it was the morningand deep afternoon hours that it had gotten so teribly warm here in pa. the tank had had a cooler feel to it earlier in the day before I left
I found buster the crab / crey fish looking guy alive and welll can you tell me a little about chillers? these lights are built to sit just on top of the tank not raised in a canopy so that might be my next piece of equipment to buy along with a uv sterilizer a left over mollie has ick and I just can not catch him he just hides in the rock work and seeems to know the net well
what is the lowest salinity I can safely lower the tank to and not mess up the lr or the star pollips (who havent come out at all today) are these shawna proof I'm a little worried about this one to maby for the sake of the fish creatures I'd better just give up! I went into nursing to heal and not hurt and I have hurt so many creatures ...........................
shawna

 

[beth]

Don't bother with lowering the salinity. For hyposalinity to work, it must be exact, which you can't do in the display.

 

[shawna]

beth what pointerx could you give on the chillers? I'm a lot less discouraged today as all levels are stable & buster is back (the reef lobster and I've hd a nite to get over the sad stuff and the mollie that was looking like ick is out ot the tank and the temp is normal avg 84 now
is t posible that I could have damaged to coral by putting it into the rock in the first place?it was a tight fit but it kept comming loose should I have glued it the guy at the pet store said no but I have seeen here that a person did glue theirs on to a rock I don't know if that is old fashioned thinking and in the books I have for referance only one mentions adhesion methods another speaks to "tucking" I have seen picture of your reef and they are beautiful what do you do? glue or tuck?
one other question is there any reason to fear the lobster in the tank with corals? he always comes out at feeding time grabs his lil pellet and runs for cover again to eat it but when the leather was in the tank and a day later he didn't
Beth I really apreciate you not giving up on me!
your words of wisdom mean alot!
shawna