Soft corals not opening dying

[BKRJIM]

Hi,
help!! My soft corals , torches, hammers, frogspawn, zoos, star polyps etc. Are not opening up like they should be. The mushrooms are dying off quickly, turning into slime balls. I don't know what is going on. All my water parameters are excellent except for the nitrates which are about 80. The nitrates have been high for years, and i have had these corals for years in this water. O ammonia, 0 nitrite, phos.25, ph 8.2, tempe 76. Dk is in range, salinity 0.26 . Nothing has changed, and this started all of a sudden. My huge kenya trees will not open. I did a water change about two weeks prior to today, and everything was fine. This started two days ago. ALL THE FISH ARE FINE, AND THE HARD CORALS SEEM OK FOR NOW. What am i missing? All help appreciated please.....125 gal swim/reef tank.

 

[Daniel62]

Pos seems high. is that the right #, what about mag? what about cal? are all your test kits up to date ?what is alk? any temp swings? when was the last time you calibrated your refractometer, you do mean 1.026 right an not 1.26. Could something have been put in the tank? maybe by kids. do you use ro/di what are tds? just throwing possible things out there. stray voltage maybe somehow.

 

[BKRJIM]

I even had the water tested at a lfs. I know they tested everything, as the usual stuff was all good, less the nitrates allittle high. And i was told it was all good. Calcium was alittle high, 525, but has always been like that.yes the salinity is 1.026. No temp changes. The phosphates are 0.25. I don't have kids, nothing in put in tank except a small dose of algaefix. Also have a black algae bloom starting. I use ro/di water also. Thanks

 

[BKRJIM]

Well, i don't know what happened, but My corals are coming back and looking alot better. I lost alot of mushrooms and a large leather. Not too bad. I did not change any water, i just "let it ride". The water quality is still exactly the same. I don't and probably will never know, what happened iN the tank. Any thoughts from anyone appreciated.

 

[justthewife]

Do you run carbon?

 

[BKRJIM]

Yes i do.

 

[Rilelen]

Any possible outside contamination? Did you have your hands in the tank or did anyone clean near the tank lately? I once made the mistake of hosing myself down with bug repellant on the porch and not washing before sticking my hands in the tank....thankfully, everything recovered, but it was a similar "blip".

 

[northernreefe]

What kind of mushrooms? I lost a ricordia garden to a bacterial infection which irritated some of my other coral but they all bounced back.

 

[BKRJIM]

I did a water change about two weeks earlier. That was about it. I wash my hands with water before i put them in the tank.

The mushrooms were all in tight seperate colonies. About 20 bright red, about 10 kryptonite green, 5 blue, and about 30-40 mottled turquois and brown. My large 10" elephant ear shrunk in size, and i lost about 8 ricordia in the colony. The acans also shrunk to nothing.

Since, my corals have all come back, and the remaining mushrooms , minus the blues, are starting to get big again. Too late for a cure, but now im "gun shy" to add anything else to the tank. It happened so fast, and do not know why. Also, no voltage. I have a ground wire in the tank.

 

[hub81]

I have noticed that every month when I do my water change my Hammer corals retract and shrivel for some reason, then in a couple weeks they bounce back. All the hard Coral and clams are just fine, it is just the hammers. I have Calc. reactor on mine but everything is steady across the board. I only do about a 15% water change may be 20 max. I am thinking about not doing a water change and seeing what happens.

 

[Tzwizzle]

Since they all closed up at the same time I'd suspect contaminants. Check for a broken heater/ power head or something rusted. Something fell in your tank perhaps?

 

[Mikefromaz]

BKR.....I noticed a couple of posts back that you said your phosphates measured .25? If so thats huge for phos. number. If true that would suggest chronic over feeding. Anywsy...thought I would run that by you.

 

[Ethan789987]

try adding some mag.