Coral dying

Saltybumfuzzle · Dec 21, 2016

okay so I bought my first "expensive coral" and a piece of live rock that was supposedly cured, but my water was near perfect except for my nitrates were at 5 ppm, but the same day I added the piece of rock and coral my nitrates went super high by that night, my coral was acting weird the first night which is usual but after the second day it didn't look like the normal stressed from being put in a new tank so I tested my water, and my ammonia was up to a .25 ppm nitrites were also .25 and my nitrates were ridiculously up to 80 ppm. I went and talked to the guy that owns the store and all he said was the coral is just stressed and it just meant it was time for a water change. Which obviously he was totally wrong because now my big finger leather looks like a deflated balloon and it's probably gonna die since I have no other tank to put it in, and I can't put it in an empty one because I used my last 5 gallons of saltwater to do a 5 gallon water change in my 20g tank. I was just wondering if there's anything I'd be able to do to hopefully save this piece of coral because I don't have any money to spend on this and that's why I'm really upset about losing the coral and the 45 dollars I spent on it

the only other coral I have is a small colony of zoanthids and some of them haven't been open since this rock either but they don't look like they're gonna die. Sorry if that was long but I'm just really upset that I spent 21 dollars on a rock that screwed up my tank and probably killed my 45 dollar coral

:mad:

MaiReef · Dec 21, 2016

That leather will bounce back. Mine looked worse when I got it in a trade. give it time, gentle flow and light.

Saltybumfuzzle · Dec 21, 2016

MaiReef said:
That leather will bounce back. Mine looked worse when I got it in a trade. give it time, gentle flow and light.

I hope so, it looked like this the first day I put it in my tank, (first picture) but each day it open up for a little bit and then close back up and each time it opened it got worse and worse, and it started to get a hole at the bottom of it and the stalk feels way softer than when I first got it and there are also wrinkles that weren't there (second picture) you can see the hole at the bottom left and the discoloration and where flesh looks to be flaking off

MaiReef · Dec 21, 2016

Mine went through a similar progression. Now if it is a Nepthea or Sinularia(which I believe mine is now), I think a light to moderate indirect flow and a bit of light will bring it back. Mine seems to have gone back up and has some growth.

Saltybumfuzzle · Dec 21, 2016

MaiReef said:
Mine went through a similar progression. Now if it is a Nepthea or Sinularia(which I believe mine is now), I think a light to moderate indirect flow and a bit of light will bring it back. Mine seems to have gone back up and has some growth.

Yeahh that's about exactly where I have mine, it's out a little past my powerhead so the flow goes out of the powerhead at the top of the tank and then bounces of the opposite side and comes back across the bottom of the tank where the coral is. Ohh and it's a sinularia, a green finger leather, and the I have it in the sand where the light isn't as strong as the top of the tank, but it's in the direct light, not being shaded by anything

MaiReef · Dec 21, 2016

You can try more flow and light in a few days if it doesn't change

Saltybumfuzzle · Dec 21, 2016

MaiReef said:
You can try more flow and light in a few days if it doesn't change

Okay thankss I'll try that

WetWhistle · Dec 21, 2016

I would not worry to much. The tissue doesn't look like it is breaking down, it is maintaining pressure within the tissue so it is able to stand upright or it is not getting rot. It will probably just take a few days to accumulate.

Saltybumfuzzle · Dec 21, 2016

WetWhistle said:
I would not worry to much. The tissue doesn't look like it is breaking down, it is maintaining pressure within the tissue so it is able to stand upright or it is not getting rot. It will probably just take a few days to accumulate.

The polyps are still open also, although it isn't really standing too upright, I don't really know what it is but there is some tissue that looks like it's coming off like when you get sunburn haha

WetWhistle · Dec 22, 2016

What is the flow like where it is? Does it sweep from left to right? Possibly causing it to fold over. Do you have another spot with higher random flow? (Don't move it as of yet if you do, give it a few days unless it gets worse) The flaking to me just looks like the waxy stuff soft corals shed in order to get rid of algae build up and it is not flopped over to bad. When it is bad it looks like it is lying on the substrate. Do you have any fragrant fine food to add a little into the water? To coax the polyps out. Or even the juice from frozen brine shrimp.

If it is still like this in another week or gets worse then you have cause for concern. You would then want to move it. I would leave it put for now as moving it will just prolong things. Unless it gets worse. I would do a small water change as well and run carbon as a precaution. Some leather corals will exude toxic compounds when stressed as a defense mechanism so you will want to remove it.

Kungpaoshizi · Dec 22, 2016

If you're seeing ammonia do more water changes over time instead of a big one once a week.
I've seen some softies are almost more tempermental than some acro's... The high nitrates and ammonia is probably the big problem with that one. Give it time.

Saltybumfuzzle · Dec 22, 2016

WetWhistle said:
What is the flow like where it is? Does it sweep from left to right? Possibly causing it to fold over. Do you have another spot with higher random flow? (Don't move it as of yet if you do, give it a few days unless it gets worse) The flaking to me just looks like the waxy stuff soft corals shed in order to get rid of algae build up and it is not flopped over to bad. When it is bad it looks like it is lying on the substrate. Do you have any fragrant fine food to add a little into the water? To coax the polyps out. Or even the juice from frozen brine shrimp.

If it is still like this in another week or gets worse then you have cause for concern. You would then want to move it. I would leave it put for now as moving it will just prolong things. Unless it gets worse. I would do a small water change as well and run carbon as a precaution. Some leather corals will exude toxic compounds when stressed as a defense mechanism so you will want to remove it.

I have an hob filter, it's not right over top of it but it gets a tiny bit of the flow from that coming out plus from the power head, so it's a pretty random flow, instead of just one straight directional flow all the time and for a while it was laying on the substrate but the polyps were all still open but now today it's not quite as bad looking, it's a little more upright than it was and the polyps were still open. But I don't have any kind of food for the coral really, and I always do have a bag of carbon in my filter

Saltybumfuzzle · Dec 22, 2016

Kungpaoshizi said:
If you're seeing ammonia do more water changes over time instead of a big one once a week.
I've seen some softies are almost more tempermental than some acro's... The high nitrates and ammonia is probably the big problem with that one. Give it time.

I did that 5 gallon water change and everything went down to 0 ppm yesterday but now I just tested again and my nitrates were back to 20 ppm but the rest were good. I'll try what you said because for some reason i can't figure out where they're coming from so fast and so much. The only thing I can think of is that rock because where I got it the whole tank was just all filled with that one kind of rock and it looked super dirty. Im honestly not sure why I bought it after I knew how dirty that tank looked

Donovan Joannes · Dec 29, 2016

Not enough light probably. What lighting are you running?

Frop · Dec 30, 2016

When you bought the live rock was it in a tank with flowing water?

Saltybumfuzzle · Jan 17, 2017

Frop said:
When you bought the live rock was it in a tank with flowing water?

Kind of, it was in about a 40g with the penguin bio wheel but that's it

Saltybumfuzzle · Jan 17, 2017

Donovan Joannes said:
Not enough light probably. What lighting are you running?

I really don't know the name, I took it off another hood and made something for it to sit over the tank with but this picture is how much light it gets, well actually after I uploaded the picture there's actually a lot more light in the tank than it looks from the picture.

Donovan Joannes · Jan 17, 2017

Saltybumfuzzle said:
I really don't know the name, I took it off another hood and made something for it to sit over the tank with but this picture is how much light it gets, well actually after I uploaded the picture there's actually a lot more light in the tank than it looks from the picture.

If it is bright, than it could be due to wrong spectrum. Mind to share what light is that?