Why do some corals thrive while others wither?

[stanleo]

Tank is a year old, fairly stable (I am working on that), 120 gallons with a sump and fuge. Light is 2 Red Sea LED 90's ramp up to 100% on blue and white for an hour starting at 8am and ramp down starts at 6pm. Flow is two Hydor Korelia 2450 gph on a wave maker that goes in 15 min intervals.

Last tests today

Temp 78F
Salinity 35 ppt
pH 8.1 API
Alkalinity 10.1 dKH Red Sea
Calcium 420 ppm Red Sea
Magnesium 1440 ppm Red Sea
Phosphate .1 ppm Salifert
Nitrate 2 ppm Salifert
Tests for PO4 and NO3 are very consistent. I have charts that show weekly results for all tests for the last 4 months if that helps.

Corals that grow and do well: Hammer, GSP, Xenia, Kenya tree, Torch, birdsnest, purple whip gorg, green hairy mushroom, plating monti and a BTA (I know not a coral but it does well).

Corals that don't grow/fully open or are withering away: Leather toadstool, acan, and zoas.

I have been feeding Reef Roids and Reef Chili a couple times a week and Reef Energy A and B once a week. Feed the fish one cube of frozen food every morning and a 2"sq sheet of nori with flakes every evening.

Fish: Yellow tang, clown, ruby fin wrasse, azure damsel, glass cardinal, 5 pj cardinals. Recently lost my tiger watchman goby, no idea why.

Inverts: hermits, astrea snails, nassarius snails, black long spine urchin, skunk cleaner shrimp, 2 conchs, 2 emerald crabs, sand sifting starfish. I do have a few asterina starfish but have never seen them on any coral. I have all kinds of pods and mysis shrimp in the fuge along with acoel flatworms but they aren't near plague numbers. Digitate hydroids and vermitid snails but they aren't near the corals that are doing poorly.

The toadstool leather has never opened fully in 9 months. The acan has slowly lost it's outside flesh. And the zoas just don't open hardly and haven't grown at all in the month I have had them.

I know there are probably a hundred other factors but does anyone have any ideas? I am stupid and didn't do any coral dipping.

 

[dank reefer]

I can't speak about the Acan, but it looks like your Zoa is not getting enough light. I would move the Zoa up a bit and observe it for a couple of weeks and see if it opens up. Also if it's getting direct flow area, it might be a problem as well.

 

[Sailfin11]

I think that location is very important. Some of my corals have done poorly in one spot and thrived just a few inches over. It's all about it the coral is happy with the amount of flow and light it recieves

 

[Heart of Dixie]

Did you start with just dry rock? If so read Mike Paletta’s article “Revisiting my Elos tank after 18 months”

 

[Zos4me]

I have found that I move my zoas every couple of days till they find a spot they open and leave them there.i had 3 frags that it took me a while to find a spot in the tank where now they are open all the time

 

[Mical]

Do you run carbon and GFO? Carbon is great to "fend off" coral warfare (leathers tend to give off toxics that effect everything) & GFO can strip out to many nutrients from water column. I run carbon only and use Hikari pellets instead of flake food - everything seems happier.

 

[stanleo]

I think that location is very important. Some of my corals have done poorly in one spot and thrived just a few inches over. It's all about it the coral is happy with the amount of flow and light it recieves

I agree. This is the placements of the zoa (yellow) and acan (red). Not direct flow. The zoa may be too low for light? And the acan might get too much flow right there?

Did you start with just dry rock? If so read Mike Paletta’s article “Revisiting my Elos tank after 18 months”

Started with half dry, half live rock. Also four inch sand bed of live sand.

I have found that I move my zoas every couple of days till they find a spot they open and leave them there.i had 3 frags that it took me a while to find a spot in the tank where now they are open all the time

I put them in that spot and they were open for three weeks and now they look like the first picture. I can try to move them higher for light but I worry that they will get too much flow then.

Do you run carbon and GFO? Carbon is great to "fend off" coral warfare (leathers tend to give off toxics that effect everything) & GFO can strip out to many nutrients from water column. I run carbon only and use Hikari pellets instead of flake food - everything seems happier.

I run carbon and no GFO. Haven't needed to do anything about phosphates at all in this tank. Or nitrates for that matter. I wonder if the leather is just not happy and giving off toxins that the zoa and acan don't like? In the full tank shot it is directly behind the whip gorg. I got tired of looking at it so I just stuck it back there months ago. I hoped it would like the spot but at that point I didn't care anymore. Got tired of moving it every month trying to find somewhere it likes. I kind of figure my nutrients are too low for it to be happy?