why am i killing my hard corals

[old hermit]

well the only 2 hard corals i have bought was a hammer and open brain. the hammer died in 2 days and the open brain is going out slowely. i have 300 watts of vho lighting on my 29 gal and a dsb. water quality cal. 470 ammonia is 0 nitrites are 0 nitrates are 20ppm ph is 8.6 salinity is at 0.025. i have a 10 gal refugium going 24/7. but im not having much luck with calerpera either. all my fish inverts are great. my soft corals are spreading like crazy but the hard corals i cannot keep.

 

[m1rodrig]

are you adding any trace elements?These need to be replenished either by partial water changes or adding trace elements

 

[bradburycf]

At first glance I thought you might have too much light (10w/gal), but you said your softies were doing fine and they should be affected by too much (if not more so). How long did you acclimate the corals? Did you slowly add water from your tank until the salinity was = ? Could be just bad luck and they were doomed <img src="graemlins//dead.gif" border="0" alt="[dead]" /> when you puchased them <img src="graemlins//yell.gif" border="0" alt="[yell]" /> . Sorry about your trajedy, and I hope someone can help you solve this.

 

[demosthenes]

Originally posted by old hermit:
[QB] salinity is at 0.025. [QB]<hr></blockquote>
I'm going to assume that is an error. Well, I can't really help much, but what is the Kelvin and such of the bulbs? Maybe if they are older, and the spectrum and such is getting worse, it may be that the soft corals have slowly acclimated the lighting as the lighting changed, but it may have been a shock to the hard corals. I know it's a little far-fetched, but that's all I can think of. I don't understand why the softies would do well, but the hard corals not.
PS What is the Alk?

 

[striker]

Your ph and nitrates are a little high. Many inverts and corals can grow tolerant to higher levels. New additions, stressed by moving, will be more succeptable to parasites and sickness. They may also get damaged in shipping and when arrive in your tank. If the water is not perfect they would eventually wither and die. I had the same problem with a brain a few months ago that was a little damaged but never fully recovered.

 

[old hermit]

well i add, iodine, phytoplex, strontium, coral vite, liquid calcium, and just started with coral-vital last week. my vho bulbs are 2 months old. my open brain has been in there about a month or so. at first it was fine then i noticedit was receeding now it getting pretty bad. i dont know my alk. readings. i acclimated the corals for about 1 hr. thanks for the help.

 

[y2says]

Are there anything that can sting the corals. That could a possibility since you have them in a 10g. I know the hammer can extend quite a bit and sting other corals or get stung themselves.

 

[broomer5]

old hermit
Soft corals are somewhat more forgiving to water conditions than hard corals - somewhat.
You seem to be dosing a lot of different additives, most of which we can not test for easily.
Overdosing any additive can cause problems with water chemistry.
Trace elements are just that .... very small trace amounts. More is not always better with these additives.
pH seems a bit high as mentioned too.

 

[josh]

I would say broomer hit the nail on the head. Iodine is very tricky to dose, I would stop dosing it right away. You really don't need to dose anything besides alk and calc as needed. Are you using any 2 part addtives such as b-ionic. If so this will replace all of your trace elements along with frequent water changes.

 

[old hermit]

should i just add some calcium and phytoplex then. i have quit adding iodine for about 3 weeks before and my xenias quit pulsing until i put some iodine in there. i will just change my water more often and see how that does and stop with the trace elements. what kind of two part trace element are you talking about josh. should i look into getting this instead of using the things i am using? also i have them i a 29 gal. tank with a 10 gal. refugium. sorry for the confusion.

 

[josh]

hi, I use b-ionic. yesm keep using the phtoplex, that won't affect the water chemistry. Just dose it 3 or so times a week.