Corals closing up! Please help!

[senorsancho]

So yesterday I added in two frags of frogspawn and some nuclear green palys. My tank is still pretty new, I would say around like 3-4 weeks old and has some corals in there like some softies, some the frospawns, and couple sps like birdsnest and monti cap. Today just a little while ago, each coral started closing up for some reason like one after the other each time I kept checking. The only things I really did today that would be different from the other days was just reaching into my HOB filter to grab the filter sponge and the chemi pure blue bag which I just washed up in some ro/di water. Other than that, all I did was just have my hands in the tank to reglue the frogspawn frags that a snail had knocked down.

Again, my tank is still really new and has been going through a brown algae/diatom bloom this past week. I did do a water change this past Monday. I also have a single clownfish in there, along with a hermit and two snails, nothing is dead.

I checked ammonia and it's reading 0 right now and tempature and salinity are fine. I don't really test for any other parameters like alkalinity/magnesium/etc. since I never did that with my last nano reef and saw success with that one. Could there be any reason for this? What should I do to help out a situation like this? Some of the corals have opened up like mainly zoas, palys, and one frogspawn (not one of the new ones) are all opening up again, but other frags like duncans, tree coral, and the polyps on the birdsnest are closed up right now.

ANY help would be great!

 

[zotospss]

I'd definitely test the water for nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates if you're worried. Could you post some pictures of your corals that are closed up? Sometimes corals closing up for a little bit is normal, but if there is any polyp bailout or loss in flesh on any of your corals that'd be a definite cause for concern. Also might be helpful to test those trace elements just in case, but I wouldn't worry about that until you get readings on everything else, IMHO.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

I have a few corals that ALWAYS close up on me when my hands go in the tank. Doesn’t matter if it’s for 1 sec or 10 min. They close right up. They eventually open back up. I wouldn’t stress too much. If they stay closed for days on end and seem to be suffering, then start looking hard at parameters. Other than that, give them a little time and see what they look like tomorrow w

 

[senorsancho]

I have a few corals that ALWAYS close up on me when my hands go in the tank. Doesn’t matter if it’s for 1 sec or 10 min. They close right up. They eventually open back up. I wouldn’t stress too much. If they stay closed for days on end and seem to be suffering, then start looking hard at parameters. Other than that, give them a little time and see what they look like tomorrow w

Well I've had my hands in the tank before and these corals have never closed up but I did clean my filter sponge and chemi pure bag which I haven't done with livestock in there yet and some stuff did come out and start circulating in the tank, so maybe it hit them and they didn't like that or something! I'll wait it out like you said though and hope that they open up normally tomorrow! Its just worrisome that it was almost all of my corals that closed up (even the GSP!), but fingers crossed!

 

[Dempsey941]

Some corals will release a mucus in the water when they get upset. This mucus can cause other corals to close up. Also our hands are incredibly dirty and covered in all sorts of oils that can cause corals to close up. I would give it a day or two for what ever to make its way out of your system.

 

[senorsancho]

Some corals will release a mucus in the water when they get upset. This mucus can cause other corals to close up. Also our hands are incredibly dirty and covered in all sorts of oils that can cause corals to close up. I would give it a day or two for what ever to make its way out of your system.

Oh okay yeah that might be why. The tank got swarmed by some stuff that fell out from the chemi pure blue bag and the filter sponge too and it was all just floating around the tank so maybe that could have happened, but yeah a couple frags fell today thanks to a snail so I had to adjust those and maybe all of that caused it. I will update it tomorrow if its still closed up and attach more pictures as well.

 

[Mrtakeoff53]

Unless I see flesh loss, rapid bleaching or closed for days, I usually don’t worry too much anymore. I just lost of my my fav LPS corals. It was growing like a weed and then one day I saw a little flesh loss. Everyday it was more and more until it was gone. Everything else is doing great. Literally nothing I could do. Sometimes they just go on you. But I’ll bet they look better after an hour after lights on tomorrow.

 

[senorsancho]

Unless I see flesh loss, rapid bleaching or closed for days, I usually don’t worry too much anymore. I just lost of my my fav LPS corals. It was growing like a weed and then one day I saw a little flesh loss. Everyday it was more and more until it was gone. Everything else is doing great. Literally nothing I could do. Sometimes they just go on you. But I’ll bet they look better after an hour after lights on tomorrow.

Yeah no I mean it just happened like around mid-day today so hasn't even been more than 6 hours since they were closed so probably just nothing to worry about really. Thank you for the help though, i'll let you know if they get better and open up tomorrow!

 

[senorsancho]

Unless I see flesh loss, rapid bleaching or closed for days, I usually don’t worry too much anymore. I just lost of my my fav LPS corals. It was growing like a weed and then one day I saw a little flesh loss. Everyday it was more and more until it was gone. Everything else is doing great. Literally nothing I could do. Sometimes they just go on you. But I’ll bet they look better after an hour after lights on tomorrow.

Lights haven't come on yet, but my clownfish died and my birdsnest bleached out :/ I literally have no idea what the cause of this would be since everything was doing fine before messing with the tank yesterday going to do a water change soon though

 

[Copingwithpods]

What's your temperature Salinity and Alkalinity at?

 

[senorsancho]

What's your temperature Salinity and Alkalinity at?

Temp = 78
Salinity = 1.026
I don't have an alkalinity test kid. Tank is pretty new too like almost a month old

 

[Copingwithpods]

Without knowing

NO3
PO4
CAL
MAG
ALK
PH
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate

Best anyone can do is a guess as to why corals are stressed. My suggestion is you pick up some test kits so you have a complete picture of your tanks chemistry. Or take a sample to an lfs and have them test it (usually free) and see what comes up.

 

[senorsancho]

Without knowing

NO3
PO4
CAL
MAG
ALK
PH
Ammonia
Nitrite
Nitrate

Best anyone can do is a guess as to why corals are stressed. My suggestion is you pick up some test kits so you have a complete picture of your tanks chemistry. Or take a sample to an lfs and have them test it (usually free) and see what comes up.

Are there any test kits you recommend personally? I need to get some ASAP then to prevent this. I suspect it to be something with some kind of parameter shift or something especially since my tank is so new still (2 days till a month) and just needs to stabilize out first and maybe I needed more time for my rocks to cure and just for everything to stabilize.

 

[Copingwithpods]

For ammonia and nitrite the API test kits suffice. For alk mag and cal I use red sea pro (salifert is a very good option too) and for NO3 PO4 I use nyos and Hanna . Brstv has an episode on test kits I think you'll find very informative.

 

[senorsancho]

For ammonia and nitrite the API test kits suffice. For alk mag and cal I use red sea pro (salifert is a very good option too) and for NO3 PO4 I use nyos and Hanna . Brstv has an episode on test kits I think you'll find very informative.

Okay cool gonna pick up some salifert test kits like how I had back then. If I were to find something wrong like alkalinity is not in the desirable range, what would you suggest to do to fix this? It seems like my corals are starting to open up again though. Zoas are slowlyyyy opening up along with gsp, duncans, and frogspawns. Paly's are still closed but I would expect them to open like the zoas soon