My corals aren't extending please help

G

Garrettgomez55

New member
My tank has been cycled for about 2 weeks now. I have one clown fish, a fire shrimp and two corals. Ones a hammer coral and the other is a small colony of zoanthids. I got my zoas a couple days ago and they opened up just fine now they stay closed most of the time beside one or two heads might be partially open. I also bought a hammer coral yesterday. It doesn't open all the way either. I tested my tank today and my PH is 8.2 my ammonia is 0 nitrites 0 and my nitrates are in between 10 and 20 ppm. Could that me a reason why my corals aren't opening fully? I know you want your nitrates at 0 to 2 ppm. Also I havent tested calcium or alk yet. I was planning on buying a tester from Red Sea this weekend and start dosing to keep my levels right. I got my water from my LFS it RO water with their pre mix salt. He told me my hammer coral should be fine for at least 2 weeks before I should start dosing. Any help would be great!!
 
Corals not extending

Corals not extending

Here a picture of my hammer
 

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Looks pretty good considering the tanks only two weeks wet. Your water quality is kind of a mystery right now, also lot of their happiness depends on the light they get
 
Yes, aim to bring your nitrates down and give it couple more weeks. My tanks usually take a couple months for LPS to start doing well and takes 6-8 months before SPS start taking off.

depending on how big your tank is, i wouldn't worry about ALK/CAL dosing just quite yet.
 
It may take a while before they fully acclimate and open up. Don't fret, don't move them around... just give them a little time. WC should help bring those nitrates down. I doubt you'll need to start dosing for quite a while (weeks if not months) with only two small frags. WC should be sufficient to replenish what they use. Test and keep a log of results; that way you'll be able to identify when WC aren't enough to keep up.
 
Your hammer looks fine to me; they take some time to get fully acclimatized. I wouldn't worry about other corals either; if your parameters are in line and you don't mess with them they'll start extending fully.
 
They look fine to me also.

I wouldn't worry about dosing anything just yet. I have a tank full of SPS corals and several soft corals (2 hammers, frogspawn, 2 octospawn, plate coral, open brain, candy cane, torch, duncan, xenia, gorgonian, etc, etc) and with just adding Kalkwasser to my top off, my parameters are perfect, so far.

FYI, don't add anything to your tank you can't test for.
 
Thanks for all the good advice. I bought the Red Sea foundation pro kit today. I'm going to test tonight to see where every thing is at. I also have a aquamaxx hob-1 hang on the back protein skimmer. I noticed it wasn't pulling out stuff like it should of been. I think I didn't have the collection cup down far enough. It seems to be working better now. With that and a water change this weekend Im hoping that takes care of my high nitrates.
 
rt67ghy said:
Your hammer looks fine to me; they take some time to get fully acclimatized. I wouldn't worry about other corals either; if your parameters are in line and you don't mess with them they'll start extending fully.
Click to expand...

Me too looks good... Acclimatized...awesome:eek1:

Those corals are easy and you can have big fluctuations without hurting them too much. Good to know what your calcium level is but they won't use much.

Flow and light are your variables here...

The hammer, less bothered by light , needs to gently sway in the current. Easiest coral I have.

The zoa...can be a major baby, mine is a total cranky B, low light and low flow is what I found, but these guys can vary. I suspect if it's closed up you may have too much current on it. But you will need to watch it for at least a week where it is...don't move it just yet.

Congrats on the corals they are very cool.
 
Nitrates are definitely not the issue. In fact, the hammer and zoas should do better with a little bit of nitrates. I would just give your tank some time, it's still very young.
 
Your alk is high and ca is hiiiiigh
I'd recheck following the directions carefully.

You didn't start dosing before you could test did you?
 
I did them twice followed the test exactly. Either the Red Sea test kit is bad or my level are really that high. I got my pre mix water from my LFS they mainly deal with corals it's isn't just a normal fish store. So I would think the water I got should be fine. Only thing I can think to do is bring a sample to them this weekend for them to test. Also I havening dosed anything. It's getting kinda stressful I'm new to this hobby and it not starting off good.
 
It's ok, you just moved a little fast in the beginning. A lot of people do.

Something that would be easy to do is call the store and ask them what ca and alk the water they sell is. They should be able to answer that for you easy, and it will be good info to decide what to do. It could just be that you got a bad batch of water or something, a couple water changes at the right levels should get you back on track. I would double check the advice they give you from now on, it would have been better if they set you up a little slower.

Both of your corals can get upset easy and close up, but neither is really easy to kill so once you get things steady I would think they'll recover.
 
I wonder if it has to do with my live aragonite sand and my reef saver rock I got for bulk reef supply. Could that cause the CA and KH be so high?
 
Your ca and alk are wayyy too high...get them down to 420-440 ca and 8-9 dkh

I'd find out what kind of salt they are using because if you aren't dosing, then they are concentrating the water significantly.

I'd consider a regimen of several water changes over the next few weeks to naturally lower the levels and then maintain them accordingly.
 
Well I think I found the problem. When I filled my tank I used my local reef store coral connection. It's about a 40 minute drive from my house. When I filled up the tank I didn't account for my hang on the back protein skimmer and was short a couple gallons. So instead of driving all the way back. I went to another LSF right down the street to get the remaining gallons to fill up the tank. He told me he was good friends with the other place I bought from and that he uses the same salt mix. I had about 3 gallons left over so I just tested it and the Calcium what about 590. So need less to say I most likely won't be going their anymore. So if I do 30% water changes will that be enough to fix the issues or should I do 50%?
 
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