Help! I'm losing corals!

[EricksonHQI]

We have had our 29 gal biocube up and going for a few months now... And for some reason the last month we have had nothin but issues with our corals.

Our params are:
Salinity 1.025
Calcium. 460
Alk. 10dKH
Nitrates 0
Phosphates 0
pH 8.1

Our lighting is:
14k metal halide
Blue panorama pro led strip

Our flow:
Stock biocube pump
Koralia 425

Our livestock is:

1 clownfish
1 royal gramma
1 six line wrasse
1 flame angle

Corals

2 heads frogspawn
1 moon coral favite
1 frag of green mouth Palys
1 frag with 3 head of acan lord
1 frag of fruit loop zoas
1 blue tort
1 orange Florida ricordea
Candy cane
Small rock of pulsating Xenia
Mushrooms that hitched in on our live rock


With all that out of the way.....

We have been having the rolling issues lately and to be honest it is depressing and a little discouraging.

Our acan had 3 heads and a partial head when we got it, on 7/8
Within a couple weeks we had lost the partial head and it seemed like the others were going to make it..

Now it seems like there is even more recession from the two bigger heads and very little skeletal growth...
- I don't know what we can do to help it grow more...

Our new fruit loop zoas,
We're doing very well when we got them
We moved them up the rocks to get them more light and they did well for the first day and a half then started to close up after being open for only a few hours... So we moved them back to the sand where they continue to look like this


Tonight we noticed one of our mushrooms looks like it is shriveling bad...


Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated! I'm just sooooo lost!

 

[Mr bigolsworth]

Done any water changes? I'd suggest doing a 5 gallon water change if you haven't already.

 

[impur]

Are those the only 2 corals doing bad? They are both your newest corals?

 

[EricksonHQI]

I do weekly water changes of 2 gallons... Due for one tomorrow actually may do a little bigger one as we made a new 5 gal jug this week.

 

[EricksonHQI]

Our mushroom is actually our oldest, our Palys have been having major issues... Actually have a thread about it in the zoas section of this site...

Our most recent is our tort,
We've had our acan for a little over a month, and our zoas for about 3 weeks..

 

[impur]

Does your angel nip at any corals?

 

[EricksonHQI]

Does your angel nip at any corals?

*knock on wood* we have not had any issues with it nipping any corals. Only at asternia stars, and algae on our rocks.

 

[EricksonHQI]

Pics of our tank

Corals in added date
6/6/12



6/22/12


6/25/12


7/8


7/21


7/22


7/29

 

[EricksonHQI]

The sadness of our Palys from addition to our tank to now...

 

[3Twinklets]

You mentioned Asterina stars. How many and do you see them on your corals because they can eat them. Also, it looks to be a lot of light, maybe to much?
What is your water temperature?

 

[Troylee]

Did you start the reef fresh a couple months ago or use live rock??? What you got for filtration???

 

[Texasnano]

I'm thinking tank temp

 

[Ryan2112]

I know how you feel when I had my biocube 29 the first 6 months I had the same problems as your having with the same params as you. After the 6 month mark it was smooth I did a 5 gallon water change a week and dosed every 2-3 days. I Retro fit LEDs on dimmers in the hood removed all false doors sponges bio balls. Ran a skimmer in the first chamber A media basket in the 2nd with a heater replaced the stock pump with a Maxie jet 900 also removed the elbo on the return outlet. Tank ran at a cool 76-78 year long here in Florida. Best of luck with your reef

 

[catran]

I'm thinking tank temp

+1
I know my zoas hate it when it's too hot. What is your temp?


I love reefers...

 

[EricksonHQI]

Our tank temp stays between 77.2 - 78.6

Our start up was with 30lbs Fiji live rock that had already been curing for a few months,
20 lbs live sand,
And salt water that was similar to the water the rocks were curing in..


We use the carbon filters that are made for the biocubes, and we run a refugium with lettuce in the spot where the bioballs were originally at ( we never used bioballs).

 

[EricksonHQI]

You mentioned Asterina stars. How many and do you see them on your corals because they can eat them. Also, it looks to be a lot of light, maybe to much?
What is your water temperature?

We have about 5-10 of them, I tend to siphon them out when I do water changes. I have never seen them on any of our corals, mainly on glass and rocks.

We run our metal halide for 5 hours a day and our blues for 12 hours. With a total of 12 hours on and 12 hours lights off. We use the HQI mh that came with our tank and added the blue for viewing enjoyment.

Temp stays between 77-79

 

[3Twinklets]

Try taking the carbon out for a day or 2. I can not use carbon in my tank or my anemones close up. Just a thought.

 

[reef life]

I had a bio cube before and had no probs with carbon filters. I actually made my own filters using the plastic framework from a stock filter. Bought a sheet of carbon pad 12"x18" aprox and cut to fit in each square. What are you feeding corals?

 

[EricksonHQI]

As of right now we are feeding them San Francisco Bay brand Brine shrimp.

I'm not sure how often I should be feeding our acan.. I just fed the corals this morning, and have been doing it once a week... I heard that acans like frequent feeding, but I don't know how much would be too much or too little..


reef life, we were thinking about doing that but haven't gotten that far, it's easier just to buy the pre made ones right now.

 

[EricksonHQI]

This is the most that has opened today