Trumpet coral dying?

[sindee]

1. I have a 47 gallon bowed reef tank for 2 years now . I have a Trumpet coral that I've had for 5 months that seems to be dying from the bottom up. Since I've started my tank I haven't had any problems with my corals dying most of them have grown or stayed the same.
I'm think maybe it needs more light and I need to move it to the top. Can trumpet coral come back after it starts to die? Do I need to dose my tank? And if so what do use? Iodine? Sometimes I add calcium but that's all I've ever added to my tank.

2. Lighting: Current USA Orbit Marine Aquarium LED Light 36 inch

3. Nitrate: 15

4. Calcium: 430

5. Phosphate: .25

6. Alkalinity: 14.32

7. pH: 8.1

8. Salinity: 0.025

9. Temperature: 80

10. Liquid or strip test kits: liquid test API

11. Location in tank: I have it sitting on the bottom of my tank.

12. Current amount of flow: medium flow

13. Current tank dosing regimen: I'm not dosing at this time but I do add calcium every once in a while.

14. Nearby coral: mushroom coral

 

[Sniperhank]

I don't see anything wrong with that trumpet.
What I would suggest is that if you are dosing calcium that you ensure you are testing to make sure you should do that. Throwing parameters out of whack can be detrimental. Weekly water changes should be fine when it comes to keeping your parameters in check.

 

[54seaweed]

1. I have a 47 gallon bowed reef tank for 2 years now . I have a Trumpet coral that I've had for 5 months that seems to be dying from the bottom up. Since I've started my tank I haven't had any problems with my corals dying most of them have grown or stayed the same.
I'm think maybe it needs more light and I need to move it to the top. Can trumpet coral come back after it starts to die? Do I need to dose my tank? And if so what do use? Iodine? Sometimes I add calcium but that's all I've ever added to my tank.

2. Lighting: Current USA Orbit Marine Aquarium LED Light 36 inch

3. Nitrate: 15

4. Calcium: 430

5. Phosphate: .25

6. Alkalinity: 14.32

7. pH: 8.1

8. Salinity: 0.025

9. Temperature: 80

10. Liquid or strip test kits: liquid test API

11. Location in tank: I have it sitting on the bottom of my tank.

12. Current amount of flow: medium flow

13. Current tank dosing regimen: I'm not dosing at this time but I do add calcium every once in a while.

14. Nearby coral: mushroom coral View attachment 295517View attachment 295518

I see 3 things that jump out

1) nitrate 15ppm , even though some may say 0 to 20 ppm in a reef is ok you must remember not all corals will react the same . my suggestion is aim for 0 to 10 ppm with 0 being your goal or at least the closest you can get, many corals don't tolerate high nitrate levels well.

2) phosphate .25 , I'm detecting a false reading here and I'll tell you why .
nitrate and phosphate fall hand in hand , just looking at your 2 photo's I see lots of algae build up , all that build up is masking your true phosphate levels as those phosphates are fueling that build up .

3) alkalinity What I see is a tad high at 14 I would aim more in lines of 8 to 12 with 10 being your happy medium .

all 3 of these that popped out can be fixed very easily . large water changes why is this , large water changes will drop your nitrate levels which in turn will do the same for your phosphate levels , now theirs a reason why both your phosphate and nitrate levels went up to start with , first thing I would look at is your feeding regimen , than anything your adding that may add to the fire .

your alkalinity will also go down with your water changes , something to keep in mind if you have a sealed top with no real breathable intakes your alkalinity will go up now with a open top it will go down as the tank can breath, another thing to look at summer time your alkalinity levels will go down as you open windows in your home , winter time those levels will go up since your closing all those windows .

I see no true reason you really need to be dosing anything unless you are heavily stocked with SPS ,

the salt you use has everything your tank needs to thrive , so long as you do regular scheduled water changes things should be grand
this will also help keep your calcium levels stable which aren't bad or concerning to begin with

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[sindee]

I see 3 things that jump out

1) nitrate 15ppm , even though some may say 0 to 20 ppm in a reef is ok you must remember not all corals will react the same . my suggestion is aim for 0 to 10 ppm with 0 being your goal or at least the closest you can get, many corals don't tolerate high nitrate levels well.

2) phosphate .25 , I'm detecting a false reading here and I'll tell you why .
nitrate and phosphate fall hand in hand , just looking at your 2 photo's I see lots of algae build up , all that build up is masking your true phosphate levels as those phosphates are fueling that build up .

3) alkalinity What I see is a tad high at 14 I would aim more in lines of 8 to 12 with 10 being your happy medium .

all 3 of these that popped out can be fixed very easily . large water changes why is this , large water changes will drop your nitrate levels which in turn will do the same for your phosphate levels , now theirs a reason why both your phosphate and nitrate levels went up to start with , first thing I would look at is your feeding regimen , than anything your adding that may add to the fire .

your alkalinity will also go down with your water changes , something to keep in mind if you have a sealed top with no real breathable intakes your alkalinity will go up now with a open top it will go down as the tank can breath, another thing to look at summer time your alkalinity levels will go down as you open windows in your home , winter time those levels will go up since your closing all those windows .

I see no true reason you really need to be dosing anything unless you are heavily stocked with SPS ,

the salt you use has everything your tank needs to thrive , so long as you do regular scheduled water changes things should be grand
this will also improve your calcium levels which aren't to bad or concerning

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Thank you for your help. You are right about a issue my phosphates. The picture I sent of the whole tank was from a few weeks ago. During my last water change my turn off valve didn't get fully opened back up so the circulation was about half it usually is. Since I opened it up the green algae started to disappear.
I also recently started using Red Sea salt. My nitrates never seem to get down to 0. I do 20 gal water changes about every 2 weeks. I will start doing them weekly and see if I can get them down.
Towards the bottom of my Trumpet coral is were I noticed the green starting to move up. Do you think if I get my water quality better it will start to come back?
This is a picture from today. The green algae is almost gone.

 

[Sniperhank]

Well, your nitrates won't go down with water changes like that.
Just assume that your nitrates are currently at 100. A 20% water change will bring them down to 80. It will then have 2 weeks to rise, putting them at 180. Another 20% water change would put another small dent in and then rise again.
So, if you were to do a 50% water change on the same 100, you would end up at 50. That in addition to the usual 20% water change would then put them at 25.
This is why we normally recommend a large water change to bring levels down to manageable levels on top of what you are already doing with your weekly maintenance and why a weekly 10% will be more beneficial that a bi-weekly 20% when it comes to working the magic of numbers.

 

[sindee]

Well, your nitrates won't go down with water changes like that.
Just assume that your nitrates are currently at 100. A 20% water change will bring them down to 80. It will then have 2 weeks to rise, putting them at 180. Another 20% water change would put another small dent in and then rise again.
So, if you were to do a 50% water change on the same 100, you would end up at 50. That in addition to the usual 20% water change would then put them at 25.
This is why we normally recommend a large water change to bring levels down to manageable levels on top of what you are already doing with your weekly maintenance and why a weekly 10% will be more beneficial that a bi-weekly 20% when it comes to working the magic of numbers.

Thank you. I will take your advise and do another large water change and then start doing weekly changes.