Why do my corals keep dying??!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

iwnabonbrdway

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
7
Hello =]
I've had my tank established for over a year and have had the same fish for probably around 8 months. Its a 29 biocube. No nitrates or ammonia, pH is 8.6 (a little high) salinity is .026. I've managed to kill a plate coral and a frag of some type of polyp. I have done research and am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong but cannot... I just put two frags in. One is frogspawn and the other is honestly something I cannot remember. Please excuse my ignorance as I am very new to coral and am trying to get it right. I have two percula clowns, a pink skunk clown, small hippo tang, four large turbo snails, peppermint shrimp, emerald and hermit crabs and a sand sifting star. So far the frogspawn looks good but the other one is pretty withered... Please help me keep it alive!!
 
How close are your corals? They're both somewhat aggressive and have sweeper tenticles which could inflict damage to eachother. What kind of lighting do you have? Waterflow? Have you tried moving the corals? Sometimes they like to be lower/higher in the tank. FYI: Im surprised you haven't heard from them yet, but I'm sure the tang police is going to get you for keeping a hippo tang in a 29g.
 
You really need to address the tang in a 29 gallon tank before you do anything else. LOL

What are you water parameters? Ammon, nitrite, nitrate, calcium and phosphates. Do you use tap water or ro/di water?

And I'm dead serious about the tang.
 
And I'm dead serious about the tang.

Says someone with a mandarin in a 29 :flowers:


But please answer her questions. We need to know all the water parameters as well as your LIGHTING!

Type of lights (T8/T5/CFL/MH/LED. etc.), make and model, how many watts each bulb/fixture produces. What is the spectrum or K value of the lights, what is your on/off time, how many hours per day are the lights on, how old are the bulbs....
 
Thank you for responding!! I will swap out the hippo tang. I have the lights that come with the biocube. I just replaced one of the bulbs. They are by coralife. One of them says 10,000k 36 watt and the other is an "actinic bluelight" compact fluorescent 36 watt. Both are 36 inches. When they turn off, 3 blue LEDs turn on. I have the lights on a timer so that they are on for seven hours. I'm assuming the waterflow is standard for a biocube because I don't know how to adjust it. If I put the coral directly infront of it, you can tell the flow is pretty strong. I am trying to post pictures of everything but am on my iPhone.
Nitrates, nitrites and ammonia all at 0.
Salinity is .026 and pH is 8.6 (a little high)
I'm not sure about phosphates as I haven't tested for that in a while but I have phoszorb in the filter.
 
Yeah, that tang needs to come out asap, not to be mean. I'm surprised its still doing ok but trust me he will grow like a monster. lol

I also have the same cube and the lighting should be fine for growing basic corals. Even some higher light ones if placed right. Do you have a powerhead also in there? Maybe you are getting too much flow?

also do you test for calcium? how do you get your water? do you buy it premixed or buy ro water? Or are you using tap water?
 
I don't have a powerhead... Haven't gotten it tested for calcium in a while but was just headed to a store so I will bring a sample with me to be tested. For water changes, I use salt water from a fish store. To replace water when it evaporates, I use tap water with prime.
 
Ahh that could be a problem with your corals. I woudl really suggest buying a 5g jug or so of RO/DI water for your top offs. And you might wanna invest in your own test kit, API liquid test kits are really pretty reliable. Would save you from having to go to the lfs. :)
 
Make a check on ur calcium.. Make sure its enough for them to survive.. It should be about 400ppm if i recall..
 
Your calcium can be low, they shouldn't be dieing from low calcium they just wont grow, if you have no calcium in the water that would be a problem, but I doubt that to be the case, I'm guessing it's the tap water that is the problem, and I heard before that with no powerhead corals can over inflate and blow themselves up, get some kind of flow in there. It's healthier for your fish as well. And read about light acclimation. Hope this helps
 
Oh yeah, many people will tell you to make your own saltwater as well, you don't know what the lfs is putting in there
 
What type of corals have you lost and are they dying in the same manner ("withering away").

Are they all hard corals or have you lost soft corals as well?

For the one's that you've lost how long did they survive in the tank (did they die a few days after you got them or months later)?
 
...I have done research and am trying to figure out what I am doing wrong but cannot... I just put two frags in. One is frogspawn and the other is honestly something I cannot remember. Please excuse my ignorance as I am very new to coral and am trying to get it right....So far the frogspawn looks good but the other one is pretty withered... Please help me keep it alive!!

Being new is fine... we were all new at some point. But if you can't tell us what the coral even is, then it's tough to give you suggestions on how to keep it alive! :) (Pictures might help - hint, hint.)

Lots of good questions from folks here for you regarding your tank, but I'm going to suggest even a bigger step backwards - know your coral before you buy it. Go and get this book - "Aquarium Corals" by Eric Borneman. Lots of really good information in there, and a good start to understanding the requirements of the hundreds of different corals available to us. Some corals need high light, others low light. Some want low flow, others high flow. Some don't even use light at all and need to be fed meaty foods to survive. Your corals dieing might not have anything really to do with your water or tank, it just might be that you're not giving it what it needs.
 
try starting with easy to care for softies at first, once you get everything else caught up and do a few water changes. figure out the needs of the corals before you get them will make it easier, and may save you a lot of time/hassle. (You should probably dose iodine with certain corals, if you dont want to stay away from them etc), by finding corals that wont demand more care than you want to deal with you will get better long term results. I stick with softies and LPS and stay away from leather corals for this reason, it just makes life easier than SPS and highly toxic corals I think that need constant monitoring.
 
I have feeling it was light 72 watts pc on a 29 gallon surely isn't enough. The plate coral most likely succumbed to this. Not sure what happened to the polyp though.
 
Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all your help!! I will not be using tap water anymore lol I just bought some RO water and got my calcium tested... It's 440 ppm
 
Ok I tested my pH a few days ago and apparently it was at 7.9... I put some buffer in there and now it's at 8.3. Could that be the reason my coral is dying?? Should I test for copper??
 
Back
Top Bottom