Coral dying...

thesoulpatch · Feb 3, 2019

So I have several corals that are dying. I have tested the water and my nitrates are 60 and phospates are .12...

I know this is really high but I've not done anything different and all my fish are accounted for along with the snails. Nothing has been added and I've done my normal weekly water changes.

Other than changing about 10 gallons which I can't do till tomorrow due to time frame but any other ideas?! I've lost 2 torch head and a couple sps corals.

I did have a bacteria bloom randomly after a water change this past week so that may have had something to do with it. I feed a home made food but i've been feeding it for several months now and not had this issue until recently....so I have no idea what's going on.

It's a 40 nuvo

Brad Miller · Feb 3, 2019

Tell us a bit about your tank, ie...lighting used, types of coral in question...pics would be good but under white lights.

Could be several things, please post big 3 (calcium, alkalinity and magnesium test results too)

Geebs19 · Feb 3, 2019

Your phosphates are really high.

tupes · Feb 3, 2019

How often are you doing 10g water changes?

Need to see test for Ca, Mg, and Kh

Not often enough by the looks of it. That's extremely high for nitrates and just high for phosphate.

What are you putting in the homemade food and how often do you feed? This is likely the cause of it.

What fish do you have ?

tupes · Feb 3, 2019

BTW stop feeding that for a while and switch to a few pellets for the fish.

vetteguy53081 · Feb 4, 2019

Pics helpful. Also:
Age of tank
Parameters
Salinity
Water movement
Lighting and light schedule
Frequency and amount if feeding
Type of water used and tank temperature

thesoulpatch · Feb 5, 2019

I found out the big issue the tank was getting double fed. and my wife was feeding massive chunks thinking she was being helpful..... soooo massive water changes and blowing off the rocks to get rid of everything that was left over. So she is in time out and can't complain about me spending $$$ to replace the corals that were killed.

But I'm going to stop feeding the home made food for awhile and let the tank get back to normal before I try using it again.

tupes · Feb 5, 2019

Keep us updated.

vetteguy53081 · Feb 5, 2019

thesoulpatch said:
I found out the big issue the tank was getting double fed. and my wife was feeding massive chunks thinking she was being helpful..... soooo massive water changes and blowing off the rocks to get rid of everything that was left over. So she is in time out and can't complain about me spending $$$ to replace the corals that were killed.

But I'm going to stop feeding the home made food for awhile and let the tank get back to normal before I try using it again.

On my list, that was one of my suspects when I said " Frequency and amount of feeding"

thesoulpatch · Feb 5, 2019

vetteguy53081 said:
On my list, that was one of my suspects when I said " Frequency and amount of feeding"

Yeah I only feed a small section about the size of my finger nail...she was tossing pieces the size of a half dollar for 4 fish that are less than 3 inches each.....sigh