my brain coral

AndynSarah

AndynSarah

Member
help me please!!!! My brain is dying I think. It is showing its skeleton, is there any way to save it? Can it be from too much light, too much flow? I am feeding phyto pheast, and mysis to the tank. I don't wanna lose this coral. Thanks
Andy
 
did a water test.
I have some ammonia, and some nitrates, and no nitrites. Did a calcium test and the calcium has plumetted to 200 from 420. The PH dropped from 8.3 to 8.0 and my salinity is down to 1.021 from 1.023. The ammonia and nitrates I am not so worried about b/c they have been that way ever since the tank cycled, no matter how much of a water change is done on the tank. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Andy
 
Brains can be tricky to get healthy from the get go. My only LFS brain purchase mealted within a week. All my other 5 brains came from fellow hobbiests selling them and had been healthy in captivity for awhile. Sorry yours isn't doing well. Is it showing skeleton all over (bad sign) or just in a small section like a injury? Put it in a low light low flow are to give it a chance to recover. This the brain you got from the swap? Don't feel bad, my superman monti lasted about 2 days, just long enouph for all the tissue to just fade away to nothingness :(. Everything else I got from the swap is doing good though.
 
Ohh, ammonia is always somethiong to worry about :( Are you sure you finished cycling? If you are doing large water changes you may have kept the tank from going through a compleat cycle . Its best to leave a tank alone with no water changes at all and let it stabalize itself to build its bio filter up properly. Any of the bad params listed could be the cause of the brain dying :(.
 
If you have ammonia, then I doubt that you are actually finished cycling, as Angela suggested. If you have recently added a bunch of fish at once or something the you may have caused yourself to re-cycle.

That low level of calcium is a serious issue. Brain corals will absolutely NOT survive in a tank with that low of a calcium level.

pH isn't something I worry about terribly. My pH stays on the low range and I have had very low spikes (for a short period of time due to a power outage) and everthing was fine. To me 8.0 is a fine pH, unless it dropped rapidly from 8.3 to 8.0. Are you measuring this with something electronic or with one of those color change test kit kind of things? Mine routinely fluctuates from about 7.7 late at night to about 8.1 during the day (like I said, in the low range).

But my SG is always above 1.023 (I try to keep it at 1.025 or 1.026). I also check this with a refractometer and not a swing arm SG meter.
 
There was a power outage about a week ago, for about 3 or 4 hours. The lights hadn't been on very long when I checked the PH, I am not sure why the sg is down so much b/c I normally keep it between 1.023 and 1.025 according to the swing arm thingy, my PH test is a color change test kit b/c we don't have the extra right now for an electric test, or a refractometer. I am adding calcium to the tank daily, could it be getting sucked up that fast or could my calcium test be that far off? The skeleton is only showing on a part of the brain. The torch coral is maybe close enough to sting it at night with its sweepers. Sorry to bug everyone with this just don't wanna lose a coral and kinda freakin out about it b/c it is the one I like the most in the tank right now. Was told by the store (Michaels Aquatic Den) that T5's are good enough lighting for it, but was told by Hawkeye (Crazy Larry) that I have to have MH's to keep this coral, are HO T5's with PC actinic enough to keep it. Until today the brain has been happy in the tank. That is why I am freakin out a little bit. If it is something other that params I wanna diagnos it so I can either get it out and into a QT or fix the problem. Thank you guys for all the input. I am taking everything into consideration.
Thanks again
Andy
P.S. Angela sorry to hear about your superman. Thought he was invincible or did you have kryptonite in your tank? LOL :) This is the brain I got at the swap.
 
Will putting an abundance of calcium in the tank at once fry the corals? I am asking before I do anything b/c I don't wanna kill anything off in my tank. This is my first coral I have lost other than a leather that I got from Crazy Larry.
 
thats what I have been doing, and am going to continue to do. I just know that I can't miss a day with adding calcium b/c the corals will soak it all up if I don't keep up with it. I also need to have someone else test my calcium to make sure that I am testing it right and to make sure that my test is accurate.
 
I'd also bet vthat if your calcium is that low, your alk is likely through the roof. Check your alkalinity. IMO, that is one of the most important parameters (can be a touchy parameter, anyway). Aside from the initial cycle, you have to figure out how to keep the alk/Ca balance straight. It's sometimes not the easiest to do without alot of work on the front end to figure out tank consumption.

In correcting either, do it slowly, as suggested.
 
I agree that alkalinity is really really important. When you raise your alkalinity too much it will drop your Ca like a rocket. So Gary is totally right that you have to strike a balance between the two.

My question is this: you have only a few corals in there, so why are you dosing calcium like crazy? Why not just water change each week and let that naturally regulate the calcium for a bit? I did that for years and it worked well. Then start back with the dosing but more slowly (with measurement of the calcium/alk levels to monitor how you are affecting the tank). I think that it's very unlikely that your few corals are sucking up all that calcium.

If you want to put your tank back into good parameters, water change. Before you seek any chemical solution...water change (unless your RO membranes could be bad...then that's a whole other issue).
 
Alkalinity is the single most important parameter in a reef tank, IMO. Alkalinity is increased by adding sodium bicarbonate or some variation thereof. Calcium is the next most important parameter, and increasing it is either done with calcium chloride or calcium hydroxide additions (kalkwasser). Calcium additions with kalkwasser are OK by themselves (the hydroxide ion doesn't upset the ionic balance, only raises the pH). Calcium additions with calcium chloride without alkalinity additions can lead to an increase in chloride ions, however, which is not good. If dosed in equilibrium, the sodium from one combines with the chloride from the other to form salt, the other two ions remain in solution. If, however, the balance gets too far off, the calcium can combine with part of the bicarbonate to form calcium carbonate which precipitates out and exasterbates the problem.

Bottom line, invest in an alkalinity test kit at a minimum! They are cheap and easy to use. I wouldn't dose anything "chemical" I couldn't test for. With one coral, your calcium demand isn't that high, and Mel's advice is spot on. Also, with any ammonia, your tank is not cycled and any coral will not be happy, so you should be doing very frequent water changes to keep the ammonia levels down until the cycling is complete.
 
I did a 5 gallon water change on our tank today and I am going to test the parameters once everything settles down in there. The brain is in QT right now low light, low flow. What is left of it seems to be happy. Hopefully it will survive. If not it is a live and learn situation.

Dave, for future reference what does it take to keep an acan lord. I noticed that under the sea corals says that all of his corals are under T5 lights, are those proper for acan lords? Just curious for down the road.

Andy
 
They tolerate a wide range of conditions. I have mine under PCs, as I find the MH tend to wash the colors out (non-Indo). However, like all corals, it depends on where they come from, esp. depth at collection. T5s are definately a good choice, as they have good PAR and can be mixed and matched for any color spectrum one wants.

Dave
 
A sponge filter will not remove calcium. I don't know about toxins but I would use carbon. If you do not use kalkwasser in your auto top off I would reccomend it. I have had great sucess keeping my PH high and my calc/alk high and stable. Good luck.
 
would the parts of my brain that were dying cause my amonia to raise? when we checked the amonia yesterday before QTing the brain there was only a little bit of amonia. Just something I thought of.
Andy
 
Update, the brain died on me. Live and learn I guess, we bought a coral book at McKays, and were reading that the leather and xenia mixed in the tank was probablly its demise, I was running a poly filter but was afraid that it would remove the good stuff from the water and it was time to change it anyway so Ipulled it and that is probablly when the brain started to go. Did that water change the other day, got a test kit today that tests Calcium, KH, Phosphate, and Nitrates. I tested the water and here are my params now Calcium - 440, KH - 10, or 179ppm (however you read it), Nitrates - 10, Phosphates - 0.00, Ammonia - between 0.00 and 0.25ppm (I can never tell with the water change kit if it is 0 or .25), and PH - 8.0. I am hoping to order a refractometer this weekend so that I can get an accurate SG reading instead of using the swing arm thingy as Mel calls it. lol. I guess in the future I will not put any leather in the tank I want a brain in, oh well gives me an excuse to set up another tank. lol.
Andy
 
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