ID and Issue? Novice please help

[yagesz]

I have 3 corals. They have been in my tank for a month and a half. for the first month they looked gorgeous. Were in full bloom no issues. The last week and a half they have started to deflate and stay deflated. I also have an RTA but has never been close to any of them?

Also I am not 100% sure what species I have.

Tank Mates include:
Copperband Butterfly
Yellow Tang
2 Oce Clowns
Yellowtail Blue Damsel
Scarlet Skunk Shrimp

Parameters
Salt: 1.027-8
Temp: 79-80 degrees
pH: 8.3
Ammonia, Nitrite, Phosphate: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 6 ppm
Ca: 440 ppm
kH: 178 ppm

I have a LED Light that when they were introduced loved and looked better in my tank than at the store.

This tank is also 85 Gallons and half full with dead rock/live rock. Its a mix.

Thanks.

 

[Mr. Bill]

Copperband butterflies feed on corals and anemones in the wild. That's why they're not reef-safe, and usually short-lived in FO tanks without their natural food source. Whether or not you've seen him nipping is irrelevant; odds are you just haven't yet caught him at it.

 

[yagesz]

I have had a go pro watching the tank for the past week. It taks a picture every second. I look at themwhen I get home. He hasnt been near them. He does eat at my algae though.

 

[yagesz]

So came home and my Copperband is to blame. He finally was caught and he went to town on the coral and Anemone. Im super sad. My anemone is missing a good chunk of tentacles but is looking ok where they are still. THe CBB is out of the tank. I was fortunate i was prepping a filter for a week in the back of the tank to get him out of there. Damn im sad.

 

[organism]

Also your salinity is a bit high, how are you measuring it?

 

[yagesz]

Measured With Refractometer. And Calibrated every time i goto measure with distilled water. I dont have an auto top off but it normally chills at 1.027.

Also Can someone please identify my guesses are

Zoanthids
Blastomis
Leather Coral

Are these close or not?

 

[yagesz]

Also what Can I do to help there recovery? I have a large piece of algae in there for the tang. I feed 3 times daily for all the others.

I moved everything to the bottom with low light and moderate flow. Except the RTA cause he just does his own thing.

The Copperband is sitting in a 20gallon with some rock.

 

[organism]

Measured With Refractometer. And Calibrated every time i goto measure with distilled water. I dont have an auto top off but it normally chills at 1.027.

1.026 is as high as you want to go, and for future reference calibrating with distilled/ro water can nuke your tank, you need to use a calibration solution

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1963296

 

[Mr. Bill]

Corals and anemones are fairly resilient; if there's any live tissue left, they should recover. Just maintain high water quality and stable parameters.

 

[yagesz]

Im not using RO to calibrate the refracto. But actual distilled water.

Thanks Bill. My parameters have been really stable thus far. And I will start to lower the tank salinity over the next few days.

 

[mtcoins123]

Bottom one looks like it may be a zenia the middle one is def. a blastomis wellsi I think and the top one is hard to see the size of but looks zoanthidy

 

[organism]

Im not using RO to calibrate the refracto. But actual distilled water.

ok, your post said you're a novice so you've still got tons to learn since there's a lot to this hobby and no one can learn it overnight. The best thing to do as a new hobbyist is to be open minded when you hear things that are the opposite of what you're doing because it's probably good advice, you can start by stopping your calibration of your refractometer with distilled water and reading the link.

There's a lot of chemistry experts who have chimed in on this one, so... read the link.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1963296

 

[yagesz]

My bad my bad. I wasn't trying to be angry. I just read it as RO/DI from the filter. I use a different distilled is all. I did read through the links before i chimed in. Just a little stressed. Military life ain't always the easiest. I am grateful though to the help from everyone.

Tank is now at 1.026. My corals are starting to spurt some life back. Not like before but looking promising. I also added a smaller coral I got for free from LFS.