HELP... Sinularia Leather Coral in pretty bad shape!

[jolmos_limon]

Hi everyone,
Las tuesday (Sept 22nd) I got a Sinularia Leather coral from my LFS. As you can see in the picture below, coral was looking great. Whe it arrived at home, I acclimated thorugh micro dirpping for about three hours. I just wanted to reduce the strees at the most.

Unfortunatelly, the coral began to decay and bysaturday looked in pretty bad shape. These are y water parameters:

Calcium: 480
Alkalinity: 11.8
Magnesium: 1830
Nitrtes are below 10ppm
Phosphates: 0.03 ppm

I can tell that the coral is not dead since there is no amonia present in the water and there is no rotten smell after I took it out for a second.

What can I do? Is it possible to recover?

 

[WIReefer]

Could possibly be from running that high Alk with your PO4 low.

 

[SaltISlife]

1839 magnesium is like off the charts.. thats too high. Did it cause this issue ? I dunno but thats 500 points higher than 99% of the reefs.

With calcium at 480 and alk at 11 and mag at 1800. I think your salinity is probably too high.. I bet the salinity is in the 1.031 or 1.032 range.. generally for every 0.001 increase magnesium can jump 50 points for salts ive used.. what are you using to check the salinity ?

 

[jolmos_limon]

1839 magnesium is like off the charts.. thats too high. Did it cause this issue ? I dunno but thats 500 points higher than 99% of the reefs.

With calcium at 480 and alk at 11 and mag at 1800. I think your salinity is probably too high.. I bet the salinity is in the 1.031 or 1.032 range.. generally for every 0.001 increase magnesium can jump 50 points for salts ive used.. what are you using to check the salinity ?

Salinity is Ok: 1025
I do recognize that Magnesium is way to high but it simply won't come down. I perform 10% water change on a weekly basis using Coral Pro Salt from Red Sea. I have other frags in the tank and they are doing OK.

 

[jolmos_limon]

1839 magnesium is like off the charts.. thats too high. Did it cause this issue ? I dunno but thats 500 points higher than 99% of the reefs.

With calcium at 480 and alk at 11 and mag at 1800. I think your salinity is probably too high.. I bet the salinity is in the 1.031 or 1.032 range.. generally for every 0.001 increase magnesium can jump 50 points for salts ive used.. what are you using to check the salinity ?

I have already contacted someone to help me ensure that I have the apporpiate levels... I will let you know!

 

[Silent]

Salinity is Ok: 1025
I do recognize that Magnesium is way to high but it simply won't come down. I perform 10% water change on a weekly basis using Coral Pro Salt from Red Sea. I have other frags in the tank and they are doing OK.

What are you checking salinity with? Is it calibrated properly? Seems suspect everything is high and water changes aren't bringing them down.

 

[jolmos_limon]

What are you checking salinity with? Is it calibrated properly? Seems suspect everything is high and water changes aren't bringing them down.

Make sense... I will have someone to come and perform full metrics. I use an hydrometer from Instant Ocean but it has been with me since 8 or 9 years ago.

 

[Jdubyo]

Make sense... I will have someone to come and perform full metrics. I use an hydrometer from Instant Ocean but it has been with me since 8 or 9 years ago.

Hydrometers are notorious for giving incorrect salinity readings. I am going to say +1 for this being the issue. I would highly advise investing in a refractometer and some calibration solution. Hope the Sinularia pulls through!

 

[jolmos_limon]

1839 magnesium is like off the charts.. thats too high. Did it cause this issue ? I dunno but thats 500 points higher than 99% of the reefs.

With calcium at 480 and alk at 11 and mag at 1800. I think your salinity is probably too high.. I bet the salinity is in the 1.031 or 1.032 range.. generally for every 0.001 increase magnesium can jump 50 points for salts ive used.. what are you using to check the salinity ?

Well, you my friend were completely right. I reach out for an expert, and he helped me realized that my hydrometer was comoletley useless since it was reading salinity @ 1025 and it actually was @ 1036.

Way off...

After two weeks, replacing 3 liters daily, I have managed to reduce salinty to 1026. I got a refractometer to make sure I had the right reading.

So hopefully, this will address all the issues I had. Just wanted to share with you. Maybe I can help other reefers if they share the same problem as me.

 

[jolmos_limon]

Hydrometers are notorious for giving incorrect salinity readings. I am going to say +1 for this being the issue. I would highly advise investing in a refractometer and some calibration solution. Hope the Sinularia pulls through!

Unfortinatelly, Sinularia didnt make it, but at least now I have identified the issue and we are on our way of fixing it. So in the future I will no longer harm any new additions to my tanks.

 

[SaltISlife]

Make sure you calibrate it as well. Preferavly with a calibration fluid like one from brs. But you can get away with distilled or RO

 

[jolmos_limon]

Yes... I have been very carefull with calibration. I bought Brightwell's Calibration Solution.

Thanks for your advise... Sometimes the slightest detail can be very imoortant.