Hi- I have a 100 gallon tank and have had it for about 4 years now. I don't have a ton of corals in there (frogspawn, zoas, mini maxi, orange monti and plate coral). Over the last month all of a sudden all my soft corals seem to be dying/not opening up. I lost my mini maxi, my 2 zoa small colonies haven't been out for weeks and now have a brown color to them, lost my plate coral and the frogspawns are barely opening up. I haven't changed anything, I have had all these corals for about a year and my water tests have all come back fine. Thinking I was wrong with my tests I took water samples to two different LFS and they tested them, everything was fine except Iodine was a little low and SG was a little on the low side (1.021). I have AI LEDS, a refugium and a skimmer running. All my fish are fine and the inverts are fine as well. I don't know what to do. I have done water changes, tried dosing a little Iodine the past week but nothing is changing. I have been trying to do research online but most everything is from people who have new corals and as I said mine are almost all a year old, maybe even a little older. Can anyone help give me some suggestions? The Orange Monti I have is ok I think, Bright orange and looks as if it has little polyps on it.
HELP! Soft Corals Dying
- Thread starter kim5kaiser
- Start date
I'd get your salinity up...you can increase it by .001 daily without too much concern. Also try running some carbon in your tank and keep replenishing it every few days until you see some improvement...then maybe weekly after that. If you lost a nem and some zoas, there is a good chance you have toxins in the tank that are effecting other corals.
HELP! Soft Corals Dying
Have you stirred up any sand bed recently, especially in the refugium? I also suspect toxins of some kind. Like jahmic said, get your salinity back up with water changes maybe do a big change right away? (I'd do 5 gal daily, both to raise salinity slowly and combat the toxins) And run carbon.
Have you stirred up any sand bed recently, especially in the refugium? I also suspect toxins of some kind. Like jahmic said, get your salinity back up with water changes maybe do a big change right away? (I'd do 5 gal daily, both to raise salinity slowly and combat the toxins) And run carbon.
Also...this calculator might help take some of the guess work out of how much water to change and how to mix your salt up so you can increase the salinity. You will end up having to make water with a higher SG than your target to get your salinity up faster...especially with that ~100gal water volume.
http://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/TargetSalinity.php
http://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/TargetSalinity.php
I put in a carbon media bag last night. I just put it where the water falls over into my sump. I hope that is ok. How long do you think it would take until I noticed if that is helping or not? Also, how long should I leave the bag full of carbon in there? Some people have said a few days but the LFS said a month or more?
As a part of regular maintenance in my tanks, I change carbon monthly...I think that's pretty common. But...if you have toxins in the tank and corals that have died, it's better to change it every few days since the carbon will be exhausted faster as it removes whatever is floating around in your tank.
It's hard to say how long it will be before you notice any difference...safest bet is to just get the salinity in range and keep changing the carbon every 3-5 days. I think once your salinity is where it needs to be you will probably stop losing corals. Some of the corals in there that are looking bad may be too far gone to save, so there's no telling if things will bounce back or if instead you will just stop seeing corals decline in health. I'd just get the salinity back up and keep changing carbon until the tank looks healthy again, then switch to changing the carbon every month instead of every few days.
To put things in perspective, when I first started my tank I almost lost some zoas and had an acan die on me rather quickly. Turned out my refractometer wasn't calibrated correctly and my SG was 1.021. I got that calibrated, raised my salinity, and my zoas bounced back...haven't had similar issues since then.
It's hard to say how long it will be before you notice any difference...safest bet is to just get the salinity in range and keep changing the carbon every 3-5 days. I think once your salinity is where it needs to be you will probably stop losing corals. Some of the corals in there that are looking bad may be too far gone to save, so there's no telling if things will bounce back or if instead you will just stop seeing corals decline in health. I'd just get the salinity back up and keep changing carbon until the tank looks healthy again, then switch to changing the carbon every month instead of every few days.
To put things in perspective, when I first started my tank I almost lost some zoas and had an acan die on me rather quickly. Turned out my refractometer wasn't calibrated correctly and my SG was 1.021. I got that calibrated, raised my salinity, and my zoas bounced back...haven't had similar issues since then.