lps coral dieing, suggestions please

[iretthepirate]

anyone else have any probs with hammer coral? 2 of my hammer corals have died and my frogspawn. tested for a couple things today nitrate was 10pmm (little higher then usual, usually around 0-5 might be from the coral decaying?) ph was a tad low added buffer and my calcium was fine.

 

[Aquaph8]

How long have you had them? What kind of flow, lighting are they under?

 

[dnov99]

What level is your ALK at?? Usually when a hardy coral such as hammers and frogspawn are dying its ALK related.

 

[iretthepirate]

How long have you had them? What kind of flow, lighting are they under?

yikes hmm not sure i believe i had them for about 3-4 months. they r in medium flow on the placement is bottom and we have t5 lighting

 

[iretthepirate]

What level is your ALK at?? Usually when a hardy coral such as hammers and frogspawn are dying its ALK related.

good to know, didnt know that i havent tested it in awhile cause we werent getting good reading with our kit was always saying it was very high. took it to store around 4 months ago had them test it and they said it was just a little over

 

[mallorieGgator]

You say your pH is low which means you alk is probably low too.

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[smadascott]

+1 to what gator said. Your kH is what buffers your pH. Also, your corals consume kH buffer at almost the same rate as Ca so you should always be adding both. Low kH leads to stunted growth and big pH fluctuations which would **** off even a hardy lps in no time. Furthermore, check your PO4 levels. A lot of sps and lps are more sensitive to PO4

 

[goldenboy]

If all your parameters are perfect then In my experience any frog spawn or hammer coral like medium to high light and very low flow to almost no flow. If you have recession keep them away from high flow areas and and heaters also check your ph. good luck

 

[pumarjr]

Alk is directly related to PH levels, also, 10ppm is not that great. Adding buffers only mask an issue. what type of salt mix are you using? are you phosphates high?temp?sal? In my experience, hammers are fairly hardy and will only decay with poor water quality. make sure that the tests your using are not expired as well.

 

[iretthepirate]

Alk is directly related to PH levels, also, 10ppm is not that great. Adding buffers only mask an issue. what type of salt mix are you using? are you phosphates high?temp?sal? In my experience, hammers are fairly hardy and will only decay with poor water quality. make sure that the tests your using are not expired as well.

using ocean water, phos could be a little lower, temp 78-80, sal 1.025ish . seems like we can never get the right alk reading with our test kit it was always saying it was high and ph always a little on the lower side. but the store said it was just slightly high and ph was ok, that was a couple months ago however. im gettin fed up with these differnt test results. we do water changes weekly so i dont know why our ph and alk are always off. we use ro always when we add fresh water. we use a liquid ph buffer but it barley works, the powder seemed to work better for us so i think we r gonna switch back to that. im sure it probably has to do with the ph and alk. also do u feed yer meaty food directly? we never had success getting our to take it directly into its mouth so that might be why also

 

[iretthepirate]

If all your parameters are perfect then In my experience any frog spawn or hammer coral like medium to high light and very low flow to almost no flow. If you have recession keep them away from high flow areas and and heaters also check your ph. good luck

everything i have read says they like medium water flow