Coral keeps closing and dying.

[MACHO]

Hey guys I’ve been in the reef tank hoppy for a while now but I’ve been struggling with 1 thing. Coral every time i purchase a piece of coral it does great! Everything is opening and they look super good. Then what seems to happen is that it closes and stays closed. What could be the problem for that? Why would a coral go into the tank for a few weeks its great then something seems to happen and they close and never open again.
Parameters are linked with an icp test i did.

Salinity 1.026
Ph-8.1
All-9.3
Calcium 350
Magnesium-1300
Nitrates-6
Po4-.1
Ammonia-0

 

[Dom]

What kind of lighting are you using?
What are the dimensions of the tank, specifically, what is its depth?
How old is the tank?
Other than the return pump, are there any other power heads to add flow?

Full tank pictures would be helpful.

The test results you've posted are nice, but, we need to see test results such as:

Salinity
Ph
Alkalinity
Calcium
Nitrates
Phosphates
Ammonia

 

[MACHO]

What kind of lighting are you using?
What are the dimensions of the tank, specifically, what is its depth?
How old is the tank?
Other than the return pump, are there any other power heads to add flow?

Full tank pictures would be helpful.

The test results you've posted are nice, but, we need to see test results such as:

Salinity
Ph
Alkalinity
Calcium
Nitrates
Phosphates
Ammonia

Just added more info for you

 

[Duffer]

also you have tin in your tank, which is not good...somewhere there is metal in your tank, either leeching from something or some sort of other thing

 

[Lowell Lemon]

also you have tin in your tank, which is not good...somewhere there is metal in your tank, either leeching from something or some sort of other thing

I noticed the same thing. Maybe a bad pump, heater, or powerhead?

 

[MACHO]

also you have tin in your tank, which is not good...somewhere there is metal in your tank, either leeching from something or some sort of other thing

That’s another thing that is confusing to me. Because i have no metal every piece of metal has been removed or changed to titanium or stainless steel.

 

[MACHO]

I noticed the same thing. Maybe a bad pump, heater, or powerhead?

Would a refugium light be the cause?

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Would a refugium light be the cause?

Not likely unless you have water spray or drip that has created a salt track to the water.

 

[MACHO]

Not likely unless you have water spray or drip that has created a salt track to the water.

Well I’m waiting on a new one but all power heads are new i just changed 1 heater return pump is 3 years old. It’s the apex return pump.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

I would inspect your pumps and powerheads very carefully with special attention to cracks in the housing and focus on the impellers and the housing around them.

 

[Lavey29]

Water looks cloudy. Calcium is low. You need to use cuprasorb and remove the tin and identify the source.

 

[Dom]

Salinity 1.026
Ph-8.1
All-9.3
Calcium 350
Magnesium-1300
Nitrates-6
Po4-.1
Ammonia-0

Generally speaking, calcium is low. I run in the 400-440 range.

Alk is just a tad high. I run in the 8-8.5 range.

Your lighting... they look like Kessil A360s. Would you happen to know PAR readings at the bottom of the tank?

I would suggest that you use a frag rack to adjust coral position in relation to the lights. The tank looks to be 19-24 inches deep. Your lighting seems to be about 8 inches above the water line. That is a long way for light to travel.

 

[MACHO]

Water looks cloudy. Calcium is low. You need to use cuprasorb and remove the tin and identify the source.

Water is cloudy because feeding was done during the picture.
What about triton detox would that work?

 

[MACHO]

Generally speaking, calcium is low. I run in the 400-440 range.

Alk is just a tad high. I run in the 8-8.5 range.

Your lighting... they look like Kessil A360s. Would you happen to know PAR readings at the bottom of the tank?

I would suggest that you use a frag rack to adjust coral position in relation to the lights. The tank looks to be 19-24 inches deep. Your lighting seems to be about 8 inches above the water line. That is a long way for light to travel.

I currently get 250 top of the rocks and 140 middle rock and 120-90 bottom of the rocks to sand.

 

[MACHO]

Generally speaking, calcium is low. I run in the 400-440 range.

Alk is just a tad high. I run in the 8-8.5 range.

Your lighting... they look like Kessil A360s. Would you happen to know PAR readings at the bottom of the tank?

I would suggest that you use a frag rack to adjust coral position in relation to the lights. The tank looks to be 19-24 inches deep. Your lighting seems to be about 8 inches above the water line. That is a long way for light to travel.

I still dont understand the reason for getting a happy coral for a couple weeks then all the sudden they get unhappy.

 

[Lavey29]

Water is cloudy because feeding was done during the picture.
What about triton detox would that work?

Not familiar with it but there are different options to employ so just research it's effectiveness but as others mentioned there is a source leeching. I know you mentioned replacing equipment but even new stuff can fail. Check for small cracks in magnets, hairline cracks. Typically it's something like a powerhead or down in the sump. Some biomedia are also alleged to leech metal but not tin. Have you had issues with inverts? They would show effects to.

 

[Kasrift]

Another thing to note, your calcium is a little low. It would also be good to know what you are adding. I see too many people jumping straight to harder things like SPS or torch corals. Corals require very different things and can vary in difficulty. If you are adding GSP and it is dying, then yes the tin is the killer. If tin is newer on the ICP and you've tried corals other times in the past year, I'd take stock of what was added and what was done in keeping the coral before it's decline.

 

[Dom]

I still dont understand the reason for getting a happy coral for a couple weeks then all the sudden they get unhappy.

Because the environment in your tank isn't providing the coral frag with what it needs.

A person doesn't die of starvation after not eating for just 24 hours; it would take weeks. The same is true of your corals.

You are placing corals in an environment where they are being starved of the necessary, life-sustaining elements. Over time, this kills them.

 

[Lavey29]

I still dont understand the reason for getting a happy coral for a couple weeks then all the sudden they get unhappy.

Corals decline from the inside out. They can be under stress for weeks or months before the outward signs show and then rapid decline.

 

[MACHO]

Not familiar with it but there are different options to employ so just research it's effectiveness but as others mentioned there is a source leeching. I know you mentioned replacing equipment but even new stuff can fail. Check for small cracks in magnets, hairline cracks. Typically it's something like a powerhead or down in the sump. Some biomedia are also alleged to leech metal but not tin. Have you had issues with inverts? They would show effects to.

The tank honestly is too large to tell if there is any deaths due to tin i do see empty shells but there are many hermits and snails in the tank and sometimes a hermit will get to one of them. But i will have to look for that when i get home from work. But you can see some large snails on the glass in the picture. I haven’t seen any change in there behavior in terms of algae eating or movement.