All my corals dying

[elcapitan1993]

So no matter what I do most of my corals are slowly dying all except my 2 hammer corals, it’s my softies like clove polyps and purple anthelia that are dying first my purple anthelia was the first to go and the rest are still hanging on, my tank parameters are, ammonia 0, nitrates 5-10 , ph 8.2, alk 190 ppm , phosphate 00.25, calcium 420

 

[BranchingHammer]

How old is the tank? Often younger tanks have a lot more trouble supporting corals. Do you use RODI water for the tank?

 

[elcapitan1993]

I forgot to add salinity witch is 01.26

 

[elcapitan1993]

How old is the tank? Often younger tanks have a lot more trouble supporting corals. Do you use RODI water for the tank?

The tank is about 4 months old, yes I do use ro/di water at 0 tds, I have done a lot of research and am following all the advice I can get, I feed reef roids and brs reef chili as well

 

[BranchingHammer]

What are you using to test the water? How long did the tank take to cycle?

#reefsquad

 

[Jamesmost]

What lights , intensity, distance from the water ?

 

[elcapitan1993]

What are you using to test the water? How long did the tank take to cycle?

#reefsquad

I use the api master reef kit to test everything except my alk and salinity, I use the Hanna checker to test my alk and the Milwaukee MA887 for the salinity, I let the tank cycle for a month before adding fish and I just started adding corals, I have had no fish deaths either

 

[elcapitan1993]

What lights , intensity, distance from the water ?

I’m using 2 wills hanging light it goes up to 800 par but am running them at 3 out of 10, they are about 10-11 inches above the aquarium

 

[Mono]

It's very hard to diagnose from afar.

Some general considerations. Check for broken equipment, for example, cracked heater or magnet casings.

Are you calibrating your refractometer? Check out Randy-Holmes Farley's articles on DIY calibration fluid.

Are you doing weekly/biweekly water changes? It helps mitigate problems in water chemistry which we are mostly unaware of.

While it's a little expensive it might be worthwhile in the beginning to consider an ATI or a Triton water test. Test all of your parameters at the same time you send off your sample this can give you a check on the accuracy of your testing. I think ATI throws in a few extra tests for free such as a check of your RODI water.

You don't mention anything about lighting but if you haven't watch some of the BRS videos on lighting. Probably not the case for the corals you are keeping but it's worth mentioning. I think they give some excellent primers. I know in my case in the beginning I had my lights way to close to the tank. I didn't realize the importance of spread. I thought corals were more like house plants. It took me a while to get it. I'm kind of thick.

 

[kartrsu]

Something also to consider but did you reuse any LFS water when you added fish? I have come across stores that keep fish in copper to prevent ich. Without knowing, if you dumped the fish right in with the water, you will have copper in your system. Check for copper just in case.

 

[elcapitan1993]

It's very hard to diagnose from afar.

Some general considerations. Check for broken equipment, for example, cracked heater or magnet casings.

Are you calibrating your refractometer? Check out Randy-Holmes Farley's articles on DIY calibration fluid.

Are you doing weekly/biweekly water changes? It helps mitigate problems in water chemistry which we are mostly unaware of.

While it's a little expensive it might be worthwhile in the beginning to consider an ATI or a Triton water test. Test all of your parameters at the same time you send off your sample this can give you a check on the accuracy of your testing. I think ATI throws in a few extra tests for free such as a check of your RODI water.

You don't mention anything about lighting but if you haven't watch some of the BRS videos on lighting. Probably not the case for the corals you are keeping but it's worth mentioning. I think they give some excellent primers. I know in my case in the beginning I had my lights way to close to the tank. I didn't realize the importance of spread. I thought corals were more like house plants. It took me a while to get it. I'm kind of thick.

Yeah I have been wanting to do a triton test for awhile, I calibrate it using distilled water as specified in the manual, everything comes out as it’s supposed to, it could be that my lights might be to close I will bring them up to exactly 12 inches from the tank like the manual for my lights state but that always seemed to far up for me lol

 

[elcapitan1993]

Something also to consider but did you reuse any LFS water when you added fish? I have come across stores that keep fish in copper to prevent ich. Without knowing, if you dumped the fish right in with the water, you will have copper in your system. Check for copper just in case.

I have used water from a bag like that maybe twice but it’s worth a check, I do have a copper test kit so I might as well just make sure just in case

 

[Mono]

Yeah I have been wanting to do a triton test for awhile, I calibrate it using distilled water as specified in the manual, everything comes out as it’s supposed to, it could be that my lights might be to close I will bring them up to exactly 12 inches from the tank like the manual for my lights state but that always seemed to far up for me lol

It's worth testing your refractometer with a standard solution at 1.026. Your Milwaukee MA887 is probably accurate but you definitely want to double-check.

If you use a standard solution at 1.026, what does your Milwaukee MA887 read?

Trust is great. Verification is better.

 

[nereefpat]

I’m using 2 wills hanging light it goes up to 800 par but am running them at 3 out of 10, they are about 10-11 inches above the aquarium

Is it possible those black box lights are turned up too high and cooking your corals? Most of those are low light corals.

 

[Mono]

Is it possible those black box lights are turned up too high and cooking your corals? Most of those are low light corals.

BRS has a good video on Black Boxes. It's worth the time to watch it.

 

[elcapitan1993]

It's worth testing your refractometer with a standard solution at 1.026. Your Milwaukee MA887 is probably accurate but you definitely want to double-check.

If you use a standard solution at 1.026, what does your Milwaukee MA887 read?

Trust is great. Verification is better.

I do not have any verification fluid, the one it comes with is off and I double checked it with another device so it’s not the digital refractometer it’s just the solution they have terrible quality control with it and it’s all over the internet that the verification fluid is always off, isn’t using distilled water and it come if to 1.00 sg verification?

 

[elcapitan1993]

Is it possible those black box lights are turned up too high and cooking your corals? Most of those are low light corals.

That’s possible I have been trying to keep it at 2 lately but I’m going to raise them higher up and keep it at 2 and see if that helps, I thought all corals could adjust to higher light?

 

[Joeg]

My money is on the lighting. A lot of black boxes seem to be lasers of focused light and don't diffuse very well which as @nereefpat suggested , may be frying the corals.

 

[ReeferWarrant]

I agree with @nereefpat you are probably cooking your corals. When you took the photo's did you dial the white lights up for the picture or is that how its running? If you didnt touch it I think your whites are too bright, I cooked some monti's that way when I started to try SPS. I've found that I keep the White's low and the others I dial in.

 

[DaveC]

My $.25 is on copper. Did you see the downturn after adding fish?