help some of my corals are not looking good

J

jenniferroman

AC Members
Aug 15, 2009
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i am having a really big problem with some of my corals. i have so many corals in my tank. and they are all doing perfect except my pink finger leather coral, red acan, xenia. my pink finger leather coral has been looking bad for a couple of months now. it has shrunk and the polyps don't come out and it's not so pink anymore. this coral did fall of the top though were it was and go scraped. but i am hopping it will come back. my acan been looking bad the last couple of days. now some of his flesh it's not flesh anymore and it's white. my xenia has not been looking good for the past week now. the don't pulse anymore, they shrunk and they look like they are melting. i still have hope with all my sick corals that maybe one day i will wake up and they will all be healthy again. any advice will be greatly appreciated

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all my parameters are fine except my nitrate are between 20-40 ppm. my nitrates has always been at least 20 ppm. my tank is 8 months old. my newest coral has been in the tank for two months. i have also green candy cane, hammer coral, torch, zoas, mushrooms. i also have a tridacna crocea clam that is doing perfect
 
Do you use RO? Anything over 20 is cutting it close man
 
i use a di filter for marine aquariums. one time i tested the nitrate on my freshly made salt water before i added it in my tank and nitrates were 0. so i know it is not my filter. i do 10% water change once every week. i did one yesterday to drop down my nitrates so that made this week a 20% water change
 
i took out my finger leather coral right now and it has a big hole on the bottom and it is the finger leather is falling apart in my hand like dust in the wind. would you say it is dead
 
the finger leather is still kinda pink and stiff. it's fingers are all up so i figured i would leave it in the tank since it is still alive
 
Any tissue on the leather that is not firm (as in crumbling or mushy) is dead / decaying. It is very possible that as that tissue is dieing it is releasing toxins into the water (the toxins leather corals use in chemical warfare). The decay of the leather coral (and of any other corals that are not doing well) could be a cause for your nitrates going up. The toxins and/or climbing nitrate levels could be the reason some of your other corals are not doing well.

I would run some fresh carbon, asap. While it won't reduce the nitrates, it should help remove any organic toxins the leather coral has released.

Doing 10% water changes to reduce nitrate levels as high as 40 ppm is going to be an endless stalemate...
10% reduction of 40 ppm = 36 ppm
10% reduction of 36 ppm = 32 ppm
10% reduction of 32 ppm = 29 ppm
10% reduction of 29 ppm = 26 ppm
10% reduction of 26 ppm = 23 ppm
10% reduction of 23 ppm = 21 ppm
10% reduction of 21 ppm = 19 ppm
And, it only happens like that if there's no additional sources of nitrate going into the water (no feeding, no fish poo, nothing dieing, nothing decaying, etc.). If you need to reduce nitrates by a substancial amount, a much larger, single water change will be more effective (40 - 50%, being sure to match temperature and SpG to that of the tank).
 
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