Down to one last stony coral:(

[thax]

Over the last 6 months I have lost all my spa and lps corals. Frist it frist it was the sps then my flava started losing heads till nothing was left, then my canday cane started srinking and lost all its heads, then my acans did the same thing now my last lps a torch coral is doing the same thing. The heads are shrinking, nothing bleached or lost color before they die they just slowly die off.

This has been going on for 6 months I have tried adding more flow, reducing the flow, increasing and decreasing the flow and now I'm doing 5g a day water changes with my awc on a 55g tank for the last month hoping that would help it hasn't.

My water parameters are
10.5 alk
420ca
Unknown mag
Nitrate 5ish
Phosphate unknown

So what could be going on? Btw my rbta is doing amazing and is huge when I allways had trouble keeping them and never had problems with coral before.

 

[rt67ghy]

We'll probably never know what started the death process but it sounds like a case of allelopathy. Did you run fresh GAC when you noticed the first coral dying?

 

[thax]

I never ran gac in any of my sw tanks. The only corals I have left is the torch a lot of pulsating zena that growing like a weed and some green palys that came on my live rock thats doing good.

Should I start using gac?

 

[Reef Bass]

I'd for sure get a handle on your mag. When keeping stony corals, alk, ca and mag are critical.

Personally, I prefer my alk around 8. Bad things have happpened in my tank when alk got much over 9. Some people do run around 10 though.

 

[rt67ghy]

I never ran gac in any of my sw tanks. The only corals I have left is the torch a lot of pulsating zena that growing like a weed and some green palys that came on my live rock thats doing good.

Should I start using gac?

I'd run GAC. It gets rid of all kinds of organics and chemicals/toxins released by corals. Normally corals such as GSP and anthelia release toxins which harm neighbouring corals as they flourish. The telltale sign of this would be if a neighbouring coral appears to shrink and you stop seeing PE.

On another note, if you need to trim your xenia or palys, I'd certainly do so outside the tank since certain palys have a very dangerous toxin.

 

[thax]

That sounds like what going on. And come to think of it 6 month's ago the xenia was about 1/4 the size and only on 1 rock now the crap all over every thing

How do I trim them if they are on my main rock work which has my 9in bta on it? will it **** off my bta if its out the water for a few minutes?


Nothing eats it does it?

 

[rt67ghy]

The bta will be stressed if it's out of the water for a few minutes; whether it'll die? I don't know. If you could get it to move off onto another rock that'll be ideal. I would put a small rock right next to it so it's touching the bta and it'll move away to avoid the irritation. I'd keep on moving the rock following the bta until it's totally off the rock.

If you trim the xenia it'll grow back and probably cover more rock than before. If you're not too fond of the xenia you could sell/give it to someone who wants it.

If you decide to just trim it, use a sharp knife and scrape it off but make sure to thoroughly rinse the rock with tank water before putting it back. Then run a lot of GAC (more than recommended for your water volume) for maybe a week to absorb the toxins released by the injured/dying xenia. I'd put the GAC into the sump preferably in a reactor before I put the rock with the trimmed xenia back in because it'll be releasing toxins as it goes into the tank.

Once xenia/anthelia/green star polyps start flourishing in your tank they can overtake your tank and become tough to remove.

GL and let us know how it goes.

 

[rt67ghy]

I'm not sure if anything eats xenia but I wouldn't be surprised if certain fish which have a taste for soft corals will eat a little once in a while but not enough to remove it totally.