Coral and Anenome Decline

[flanque]

Hello,

As the topic says I have a golf-ball coral and anenome decline, however not on all of them. In fact I have a frogspawn coral which is going great guns, and another anenome (with a fluro pink stem) that is going okay as well (see side note below about this).

My levels are:
Amonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: < 5 (very slight pink colour)
CA: 390 (i have buffered this and will test daily until 450)
KH: 130 (i have buffered tihs and will test daily until 200)
Temp: 25
Salinity: 1.025
PH: Untested this week, but is generally at 8.3

The golfball sort of comes out, but then will sometimes quickly go away. The baby anenomes in the rock have been closed for some times now (maybe a week).

The only thing I can see other than the low CA and KH above is that the lights are almost 12 months old (white one), and 6 months (blue one).

Any tips on what might be causing this problem? I have done two water changes, two weeks apart of around 50L. I provide liquid coral and anenome feed every second day.

The tank capacity is 180L with around 45KG of rock. The tank has been running nicely for about 12 months. I have as fish: 2 oscellaris clowsn, 2 fire gobys, 1 annularis angel, 1 red blenny and an orange star fish.

I changed the pre-filter pad about 3 weeks ago, and haven't had activated carbon in there for a while.. when I did have activated carbon in there it seemed like the tank went much better than it has without it.

Any tips would be great.

 

[WarOrks15]

lighting? what do you have on the tank?

 

[flanque]

Today I changed them because both globes were old. One twelve months, the other about six months. Now I have:

1 x ZooMed 25w Actinic 420 [described as Coral-Sun]
1 x Power-Glo 30w 18000 Kalven (135Lux) [described as high intensity for corals]

I realise I have to add a third one, but surely with the corals right near the top of the water (maybe 20cm from touching it) the light should reach at least that deep?

I also noticed that I quoted PH as being 8.3. I re-checked my records and it is almost always on 8.5 give or take a bit for reading error on the chart.

Any tips?

 

[flanque]

I just opened the filter and the pre-filter wool had a bad stench to it. It had not be changed for about three weeks or so. I replaced that with fresh filter wool, and added some activated carbon.

Any ideas? I am starting to think that perhaps there was something nasty in the water caused by the death of some invertibrate, and now that I have removed the dead filter wool and added some activated carbon the problem _should_ start to rectify itself.

Agreed?

 

[saberry]

Today I changed them because both globes were old. One twelve months, the other about six months. Now I have:

1 x ZooMed 25w Actinic 420 [described as Coral-Sun]
1 x Power-Glo 30w 18000 Kalven (135Lux) [described as high intensity for corals]

I realise I have to add a third one, but surely with the corals right near the top of the water (maybe 20cm from touching it) the light should reach at least that deep?

I also noticed that I quoted PH as being 8.3. I re-checked my records and it is almost always on 8.5 give or take a bit for reading error on the chart.

Any tips?

Is this on your 44 gal? If so, that's not much light - 1.25 watts per gallon. You may want to look into some PC.

 

[flanque]

What are they? My lights are fluerescent tubes.

 

[flanque]

What's the ideal lighting per gallon?

 

[Atari]

It depends on the requirements of the inhabitants.

Most anemones need a lot of light.

IMO you should have atleast 1 watt/L if you're using normal fluorescents.

 

[saberry]

What's the ideal lighting per gallon?

It's just a guideline - not a hard rule; but it will help to get you in the ballpark. Other factors like type of light, and tank depth are more important.

Here's a brief article to help get you started deciphering what type of lighting you need. Click Here.

HTH.

 

[flanque]

Okay, I'll read that article. In the meantime, what could be causing my coral to close up like this?