Please help my corals are dying

[Jeni2u]

So I have 120g with 40g sump w/reef octo skimmer. 8 T5s with new bulbs in march. Perams are all zero except nitrates are 20. I've done a 40% water change and my trates stayed at 20. Over the last 2weeks I've lost a purple torch with 4heads and a baby. Green torch is very sad, and half of my flowerpot had slime on half and within hours that half is completely white with no signs of life, and my Zoanthids are half closed. The fish all seem to be doing fine and the nems are happy and eating well. I'm buying a calcium test today. Other than that I have no idea what to do . Please any ideas???

 

[Gregcoyote]

Flower pots are hard to maintain in the best case, they like more turbid water than your reef has. Bad selection choice, sorry. I killed my fair share of them years ago. Every now and then somebody reports success with them.

The torches and others may be reacting to a coral dying. Keep up the water changes and make sure your flow is good.

Phosphates need to be under .5 ppm or even better for torches, under .05 ppm. Many test kits have trouble accurately reading phosphates at this low level. I tend to focus on phosphates as many troubles come from them being even a bit too high. Just IMO.

 

[Daniel Fishy]

If you buy a calcium test buy a alk also. Like to see the alk reading.

 

[Gregcoyote]

If you buy a calcium test buy a alk also. Like to see the alk reading.

+1 agreed, calcium is unlikely to cause this but alkalinity could.

 

[Animal-Chin]

I was going to chime in with alk too, it seems to effect corals the most. I had a die off once for no real reason. I lost a coupld of brain corals, a torch, a zoa colony and a couple of frags and and awesome red blasto colony. They all died within days and I FREAKED out. My alk was low, it was like 3-4 and I have since corrected it. NO idea if thats why, I think i may have brought some disease into the tank with a new coral (blastos) cause it all happened days after i put it in the tank...

 

[Jeni2u]

Thank you all so much I will check that today.