Dead/Dying War coral and zoa oddities

[FishOrMan]

Hi R2R!

Setup:
JBJ 28g nanocube
intank media basket filter floss,carbon,chaeto and some live rock in chamber 3.
Kessil A160WE
Apex Controller
ESHOPPS skimmer
live rock/sand
only fish is a small firefish that never comes out of his hole unless its time to eat...he was the first fish in this tank
2 small oscellaris clown fish
2 gobies with a couple pistol shrimp
and a
lawnmower blenny.

My tank has been great...no problems at all. I have been steadily stocking it and I always dip corals, quarantine fish, etc..So no problems. Then I started to notice zoa pods not opening. Some would open but not with its usual vigor. Then I noticed my war coral getting sick..I thought maybe he was too high up and was getting too much light or flow, so I moved him to the bottom in partial shade. My zoas are still probably more than half closed and my war corals and blastos don't look great.

Specific Gravity 1.025 or around 35
ATO constantly
Small doses of Kalkwasser
refreshing water at least 10% a week then a gallon here and there.to make small adjustments
*today I moved my light up a few inches. It was fairly close to the tank, maybe 4 inches. Now it is closer to like 7ish. I also adjusted the light intensity down as well as the color spectrum. They get an hour or 2 now of higher intensity whiter colors...then gradually back down to the dark blue that we all love. The fish need a little bit of real light though...otherwise my YWG goes crazy and threatens to jump.

Side note: I just started treating my zoas by dipping in the seachem stuff and RODI. I noticed some improvement, so I will continue that for the next couple weeks. Make sure I get all them before they lay their eggs. I have/had a small green zoa with about 10 polyps..over 50% of them are closed. This is the one single coral I have that is glued to the live rock. How can I treat it if it is attached to LR?

My paramaters are usually in line with what a reef tank needs. I'm including a screenshot of what used to be a healthy war coral :'( I appreciate any help! I also grabbed some screens of different parameters.
Thanks!
FoM

 

[Hemmdog]

Why is your alk so high? And why is there detectable ammonia?

 

[FO_Reef]

I don’t have an apex so maybe It’s different units or something but 18 dkh is insanely high. Are you dosing kalkwasser based on alk testing?

 

[FO_Reef]

Oh wait that’s not apex, mb

 

[FishOrMan]

Thank you for the reply!
The alk was high during that test because I screwed up...I was killing some aptasia using concentrated kalkwasser..works great! Unfortunatly the feeder i was using broke and it dumped it all...so I got a huuuge alk spike...I'm going to test again tonight using the hanna dkh test. I killed the aptasia lol ...luckily none of my fish seemed to be affected at all, and I did an immediate water change to get it back down. I will test it again tonight to make sure. As for the ammonia. It is honestly very close to undetectable but the api test for it sucks and those little ammonia stickers never work...they always show no ammonia. I am going to get a more reliable kit...but I put a 1 there because it was definitely .5 or so. Rather safe than sorry I guess...I'm not sure why there is an even detectable amount though. I understand it should be zero...maybe i'll try doing more of a wet skimmate, hopefully that will change. What are you thinking the issue might be? Thanks again for the reply and assistance.

 

[FishOrMan]

Thank you for the reply!
The alk was high during that test because I screwed up...I was killing some aptasia using concentrated kalkwasser..works great! Unfortunatly the feeder i was using broke and it dumped it all...so I got a huuuge alk spike...I'm going to test again tonight using the hanna dkh test. I killed the aptasia lol ...luckily none of my fish seemed to be affected at all, and I did an immediate water change to get it back down. I will test it again tonight to make sure. As for the ammonia. It is honestly very close to undetectable but the api test for it sucks and those little ammonia stickers never work...they always show no ammonia. I am going to get a more reliable kit...but I put a 1 there because it was definitely .5 or so. Rather safe than sorry I guess...I'm not sure why there is an even detectable amount though. I understand it should be zero...maybe i'll try doing more of a wet skimmate, hopefully that will change.

 

[FishOrMan]

Any thoughts on the location? I have seen war coral and other LPS come back from worse than this. There is still some flesh and a white skeleton. I just need to know what to do to try and treat him..I haven't really had to treat war's very often. Please any help would really help me out. I'm still a pretty new reefer and hate watching animals die. Thank you.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Zoas like low light high in blue with moderate flow. try dipping in hydrogen peroxide if they still look unhappy. usually revives them

 

[FishOrMan]

Zoas like low light high in blue with moderate flow. try dipping in hydrogen peroxide if they still look unhappy. usually revives them

Thanks for the tip! I will keep on dipping. One of the zoa colonies is attached to the live rock....is there an in tank method of getting that one? i was thinking rodi or kalk mix and a turkey baster.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thanks for the tip! I will keep on dipping. One of the zoa colonies is attached to the live rock....is there an in tank method of getting that one? i was thinking rodi or kalk mix and a turkey baster.

Sometimes a gentle blast from turkey baster will help

 

[FishOrMan]

Perfect...I'll dip what I can and the one that is attached will just get a gentle rodi blast for a few days...then maaaaaybe kalk blast...if it works on nudis as well as it does on aiptasia I might have a chance...all the fish are happy though ...and some of the frags i dipped last week are finally opening...so thats a good sign. Any idea on what the heck is going on with that war coral? I've heard they can come back from almost anything....but i don't want to leave it in my tank if it will become a source of ammonia.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Perfect...I'll dip what I can and the one that is attached will just get a gentle rodi blast for a few days...then maaaaaybe kalk blast...if it works on nudis as well as it does on aiptasia I might have a chance...all the fish are happy though ...and some of the frags i dipped last week are finally opening...so thats a good sign. Any idea on what the heck is going on with that war coral? I've heard they can come back from almost anything....but i don't want to leave it in my tank if it will become a source of ammonia.

War is very responsive to too high/low Alk and ph levels. Don't chase but monitor them and adjust if needed . . S L O W L Y as nothing is fast in saltwater