Help!!..please..i need advice for my corals

[jathan334]

ok i have a 20 Gallon tank. the equipment i have on this tank is:


Hardware:
Marineland Penguin 150
2 Hydor Koralias Nanos
96 watt T5 2-1800k 2-marine glow blue bulbs 2-moonlight LED's

Corals:
2-brown toadstools
1-blue stripped mushroom
1-brown blue dot mushroom
2-kenya trees
1-green Monti
1-frag of brown star polyp
1-frag of purple rim monti
1-colony of green candycane
1-completely covered rock of green star polyp

is this tank i also have crushed coral instead of sand...i have a Majestic Damsel,a Blue Damsel,a Clown,a Emerald crab,and about 20 very small hermit crabs to kill any algea...my problem is that all of a sudden one day...my tank was taken over by hair algea(the reason i have about 20 crabs now) and it was growing on my candycane and green star polps. my green star polyps just stopped opening and my candycane just stopped opening up and it appears that the whole colony is ALMOST dead but not quite..it is still green but just a little bit on every head,my toadstools wont open but u can see the dots on it...my mushrooms are open but not at their full...i talked to a pro that owns a shop and he told me to do a water change every day for a week and its almost up...most of all the hair algea is gone and the star polyps are opening up again...my candycanes look the same and my green monti is bleaching and my brown star polyps wont open...got water tested for EVERYTHING today and the owner wanted to buy some water from me because my water was "perfect"...but things are dying...can anyone tell me what is wrong?

 

[sdergar]

What are your water parameters? When and how did you cycle your tank? How long has it been running? What are your feeding patterns? What and how often? What is your lighting schedule? My first inclination is that you are overstocked. How much live rock do you have? Sump or reugium?

 

[abushr]

I agree...need more specific info. One reason I upgraded from a 30 to a 120 is because it doesnt take much to upset a sm tank & cause a crash. Are you using tap or RODI water? Have you added anything new before it acted up? Some softy corals (toadstools are one of them I think) when they are stressed exude chemicals which negatively affect hard corals. Make sure everyone is compatible. Keep doing your water changes. Do you have a skimmer? If not, invest in one. What are you testing?
Salinity
Ph
Phosphate
Nitrate
Amonia

 

[jathan334]

What are your water parameters? When and how did you cycle your tank? How long has it been running? What are your feeding patterns? What and how often? What is your lighting schedule? My first inclination is that you are overstocked. How much live rock do you have? Sump or reugium?

today was a GOOD day...almost all of my green star polyp was open by noon...and everything in my tank is "0" but i have .5 phosphates...thats it...it has been running about 14 months...my feeding patterns are horrible because i really dont feed them...i just feed my emerald crab with jumbo krill...they seem to b getting bigger off of algea that grows naturally...my lighting schedule is 13 hours on 11 hours off...and i have about 50 pounds of live rock...mabey a little less...and neither...it is a 20 gallon not drilled thats why i have the Marineland Penguin 150 hanging on the back

 

[jathan334]

I agree...need more specific info. One reason I upgraded from a 30 to a 120 is because it doesnt take much to upset a sm tank & cause a crash. Are you using tap or RODI water? Have you added anything new before it acted up? Some softy corals (toadstools are one of them I think) when they are stressed exude chemicals which negatively affect hard corals. Make sure everyone is compatible. Keep doing your water changes. Do you have a skimmer? If not, invest in one. What are you testing?
Salinity
Ph
Phosphate
Nitrate
Amonia

we are upgrading our tank size but just want to be stable b4 we do it...we r debating on the 180 that i have already purchased and a 400 gallon tank because we really want a black tip reef shark but anyway we are using regular RO water and we bought a rock with like 3 different corals on it and it was always releasing a slime into the tank and we took it out and back to the store (about 2 weeks ago) i took it back to the store along with a Green polyp toadstool because it just stopped opening too...i just got off of the phone with the pet store and they said that my toadstool is finally opening up but it was very irratated but he also said that it appears that it is changing colors from green to yellow and he remembers that it is the same GREEN toadstool that he sold me(weird) and we had a skimmer on teir but when the man from the aquarium shop came to look at the tank he told us to take the skimmer off because it was releasing bubbles into the water and it was bothering my paltes because millions of tiny bubbles were collecting on my corals and was irratating them and it was also too small for my 20 gallon and it was basicly making tea color waste instead of coffee color waste so he told us to do water changes more than once a week to just take the place of the skimmer...and yes i am testing for ALL of those..+ calcium,hardness and temp...which is also 78 degrees F

 

[melosu58]

FantasyReef Databases-Viewing item "10 Step Plan for Nuisance Algae Control"

 

[sdergar]

What kind of lighting is it? I think maybe right off the bat I would cut back on the lighting to about 10 hours on. I guess your live rock is doing its job but still think you have too much in there. Mike posted a really good link right above for Algae control.

Hope that helps. Steve

 

[abushr]

Sounds like your on the right track. Might be that one of the corals you returned started some chemical warfare (slimy corals are not good or happy corals). And of course when something goes wrong- it can take as little as 5min to go bad, but takes days/weeks to completely fix. A sm amount of Phosguard/Phosban will help pull the phosphates out. You can also put in new activated carbon to help clean up water (assuming you have canister filter- add in there same with phosban).
Curious about your skimmer..... Corals have to have a skimmer. Do not skimp on quality. Cheap ones just plain dont work.....which might be what was going on with yours. Keep your eyes open for a good quality used one if you're on a budget. If your upgrading to the big tank soon, get one for that size of tank.
Also, corals tend to eat up some essential elements. Mine started looking a little unhappy... I bought an essential element additive that i dose with every 2-3 weeks and they perked right up.

 

[mr_X]

i don't think a 400 gallon tank is a good size for a black tip reef shark. maybe a 4000 gallon tank. a similar situation would be putting a tang in your 20.
stick with the 180. it's a good footprint for a reef tank.
everything you need to sustain the corals you have is in your salt mix. i don't think any additives are necessary. if you are saying that water changes are helping the corals, i would think you have some parameter out of whack. it's definitely the water quality. whether it's a foreign substance that's gotten into the water, or excessive nutrients. the algae would lead me to the excessive nutrients. have you tested your alkalinity?

 

[rush]

your algae is from too much light! you are running 13 hours on, that is a long time mate. reduce this to about 10 and see if it makes a difference.

 

[melosu58]

your algae is from too much light!

Maybe some but not the only reason. What`s fueling the algea is excessive nutrients. It almost like fire, you have to have air and you have to have a fuel source. For algea you have to have a fuel source which is excessive nutrients and you need light. But it`s not only light.

 

[rush]

Maybe some but not the only reason. What`s fueling the algea is excessive nutrients. It almost like fire, you have to have air and you have to have a fuel source. For algea you have to have a fuel source which is excessive nutrients and you need light. But it`s not only light.

what he said

too much food and too much light = ALGAE