Dying Candy Cane

[joeyswife]

I bought some candy cane frags last weekend. One is dying and the other isn't doing very well. I bought them at two different LFS. I also bought a couple of zoa frags that are doing well.

I have a 37gal with this light: HO T5 Aquarium Light Fixture: Coralife Lunar Aqualight HO T5 Aquarium Light Fixture that I bought in August. I have all of the corals 10 -12 inches from the light. That is the highest I can put them. I have a timer on my lights, the actinics are on for 10 hrs and HO for 8hrs. My glass hood is etched pretty bad and I will be buying a new one tomorrow.

I've been doing a lot of water changes for the past 3 months trying to get rid of cyano, about 8 gallons a week. I finally got rid of the cyano and started with these corals to change my FOWLR to a reef. I have 1 pajama fish, 10 nassarius snails, 1 fire shrimp, 4 peppermint shrimp, 7 hermit crabs, 1 pom pom crab, and 4 astra snails. I feed every other day.

My water parameters are: Nitrates <.5, calcium 380 (a bit low), phos 0, ph 8.0, alk low (my test kit is a Red Sea and only has low/norm/ high reading), salinity 1.024, temp 80. All my test kits are liquid. The corals are in a low flow area.

Any ideas to keep these corals alive. I've had this type of corals before in a different tank but that was a few years ago. I was trying to start off with some easier corals and gradually move my way up. Any advice would be great, right now I'm getting very discouraged with this whole aquarium thing. It seems like this tank was just fine with 1 fish, not very good lighting and minimal water changes. It seems the more I try to improve the looks or add fish everything dies

Thanks,
Jill

 

[joeyswife]

I bought some candy cane frags last weekend. One is dying and the other isn't doing very well. I bought them at two different LFS. I also bought a couple of zoa frags that are doing well.

I have a 37gal with this light: HO T5 Aquarium Light Fixture: Coralife Lunar Aqualight HO T5 Aquarium Light Fixture that I bought in August. I have all of the corals 10 -12 inches from the light. That is the highest I can put them. I have a timer on my lights, the actinics are on for 10 hrs and HO for 8hrs. My glass hood is etched pretty bad and I will be buying a new one tomorrow.

I've been doing a lot of water changes for the past 3 months trying to get rid of cyano, about 8 gallons a week. I finally got rid of the cyano and started with these corals to change my FOWLR to a reef. I have 1 pajama fish, 10 nassarius snails, 1 fire shrimp, 4 peppermint shrimp, 7 hermit crabs, 1 pom pom crab, and 4 astra snails. I feed every other day.

My water parameters are: Nitrates <.5, calcium 380 (a bit low), phos 0, ph 8.0, alk low (my test kit is a Red Sea and only has low/norm/ high reading), salinity 1.024, temp 80. All my test kits are liquid. The corals are in a low flow area.

Any ideas to keep these corals alive. I've had this type of corals before in a different tank but that was a few years ago. I was trying to start off with some easier corals and gradually move my way up. Any advice would be great, right now I'm getting very discouraged with this whole aquarium thing. It seems like this tank was just fine with 1 fish, not very good lighting and minimal water changes. It seems the more I try to improve the looks or add fish everything dies

Thanks,
Jill

 

[fort384]

Merged duplicate threads. Please don't post multiple threads on the same subject.

I am fairly new to the reef hobby, but I can tell you my LPS suffered drastically until I started getting my Alk up by dosing 2 part. I would want to know exactly what my alk was, especially since this kit is saying low. When I went from around 7dKH to maintaining 10dKH, the difference with drastic in my LPS health and growth.