Someone please help me!!!

[Natescorals]

I had a hammer coral that looked great but now all of a sudden it’s retracted and doesn’t look happy at all. It seems to just keep getting worse. I don’t know what to do. All my parameters are good. I just don’t understand what the cause could be

 

[Natescorals]

Before

 

[Natescorals]

Now

 

[artieg1]

Just pointing out that a lot more information will be needed about precise water parameters, lighting, age of tank, age of inhabitants (this coral in particular), etc. That's an unhappy coral but there could be many different interrelated issues going on. Hard to say from just a photo.

 

[steallife904]

does the clownfish hang around it a lot? it could be stressing it out. How old is the tank. If you had any fast swings in parameters that would do it. It could also be hungry. Do you use RODI water? More info is needed.

 

[Natescorals]

No not really. The clownfish hardly ever even goes near it. I have never seen the clowns even touch it. But when I feed it reef roids the shrimp will immediately jump on top of it and start picking off all of the reef roids and that really irritates it and makes it close up completely

 

[steallife904]

I no longer have shrimps in my tank because of this! not saying its your issue though

 

[OregonTechAquarist]

Like it has been said above, more information is needed. But the shrimp could be part of it. How would you feel if you were getting fed and a shrimp jumped on you and took the food from you? That may not be your problem and it could be a myriad of other things, but it is a place to start.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Hello, For us to help you we need to know a little more about your tank...Inhabitants, length of time its been operating, lighting and if you use RODI water and the following parameters:

Salinity
Nitrate
Alk
Calc
PO4

This will give us a base line to help us identify your issue. To me it just looks a bit irritated and or shrunken because the lights were off but further details are needed.

 

[Natescorals]

Salinity is 1.026
I only have the API test kit right now. And I’ve heard that they can be very inaccurate.
I test nitrates with salifert.
Nitrates are 5ppm.
I’m going to purchase more Salifert tests. What else is very important to test for?

 

[Natescorals]

Do I still need to test for alkalinity and calcium? All I have is a GSP, some Zoanthids, mushrooms, and that one hammer coral. My tank is 20 gallon long. Lights are the ocean revive t247b I also do weekly 15% water changes

 

[ahiggins]

Alkalinity, yes. Alk still plays a huge roll in reef tanks no matter what you keep
calcium, mag not so much because from what I can tell you’re not overloaded on the hard stony corals.

 

[Natescorals]

How do you keep alkalinity stable?

 

[ScottB]

How do you keep alkalinity stable?

With your PRESENT load of stony corals, your ALK will stay sufficiently high with just 20% WC every two weeks. Salifert ALK test is fine if you're placing an order. Too high ALK -- especially with low nutrient -- can cause trouble. Reading 7-9 should be fine for your present purposes, but stability is more important than the value.

A larger WC with a high ALK salt can cause volatility. What is your salt mix? (We will know what ALK it mixes to by name.)

Lastly, get a confirmation on your salinity reading. It would shock you how often a missed reading or calibration sends reefers into tailspins. Something so simple. But it happens.

 

[Natescorals]

I’m using the instant ocean regular salt. Why does high alkalinity cause trouble on tanks with low nitrates? And how can I double check my salinity? I’m just using a regular refractometer

 

[Natescorals]

Also how can I just maintain stable alkalinity?

 

[ScottB]

I’m using the instant ocean regular salt. Why does high alkalinity cause trouble on tanks with low nitrates? And how can I double check my salinity? I’m just using a regular refractometer

Ideally test it with another (LFS) refractometer. Even a hydrometer. If you have not calibrated it lately you can begin there.

 

[Dilan Patel]

i use api test kits and find them good enough fir a baseline. so if u have them for alk and calc please test and share results

 

[Hemmdog]

i use api test kits and find them good enough fir a baseline. so if u have them for alk and calc please test and share results

Api calcium gives me 380 while salifert gives me 440. That’s a very big difference.

 

[Dilan Patel]

i mean if its the only test kit he has its better than not testing...also many variables to be accounted for when comparing test kits such as human error. if the results are repeatable thats good enough for me as the key to a reef tank is stability. I have salifert and api and hannah and they all give me different results . thats why i use a bot now and it takes human error out of the equation