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[engja123]

Thank you for reviewing my scenario. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Tank - 36 gallon nano. (with the water fall in the back, open top)

Lighting - Wave Runner - 4 T-5's (96w I believe)

Things I test for and results -

Ammonia - 0

Nitrate - 0

Nitrite - 0

PH - 8.4

Phosphate - .25

Calcium - 540-560

Carbonate-Water Hardness - 8

I do 5 gallon water changes every week at a min and during some periods 10 gallons every 10 days or so.

Fish - 2 percs/1 very small blue hippo

Redline Skimmer - 100 g

Dose - I dose with Coral Accel - 1 cap full every 2 days - Carbonate to Raise Akal - 1 cap full every 2 days.

Feeding - cyclopeeze - pellet - mysis - (I feed all 3 for variety )

Problem - I have had the tank for 7 months. About 6 weeks ago I began having problems with my zoanthids. In short, they closed up and began to look worse and worse. I looked for any sort of crawlers or anything that could be bothering them but found nothing. I tried excessive water changes, etc... All of my other existing corals were fine and unaffected it seemed.

During the past 4 weeks I have had addtl problems. I tried placing new soft corals in the tank with very poor results. What confuses me is that many of the corals I tried placing in the tank were species that I already had in the tank and that were doing very well. To be exact - I tried placing a 6 headed Blasto in the tank, while the coral is still alive in the tank today, it does not open up fully. I have tried moving the piece, feeding, etc.. I put a bubble tip anemome in the tank and within 2 days it was dead. This past week after a 2 week waiting period and numerous water changes, I tried a wellso brain and a sun polyp. Within one day the wellso had lost off of it's flesh down to the skeleton and the sun polyp looks bad as well.

Here is my confusion, I currently have at least 10 open brain corals in the tank that are doing very well and have been in the tank for months. ( as well as a large acan piece, tube anemone, LT anemone, candy canes, etc..... etc...) All of the pieces that were placed in the tank prior to about Oct 10th are doing great....... anything new seems to die right away.

My question is this - Can anybody tell me if there is something I am not testing the water for that I should be testing for? Certainly there has to be a reason for the recent deaths of new pieces while the old pieces thrive. (I use the word thrive because the other corals are open, large, inflating, happy, etc..)

I will post a couple of pics following this post.

Edited November 26, 2010 by engja123

[engja123]

I do understand the hippo will need to placed in a larger tank very shortly - in the full shot, this was taken late at night right before the light was about to go out and a handful of items are not as open as they were hours before, but I thought the front elevation shot of the tank may help provide insight into my problems.

[+etannert]

What salt mix are you using for your water changes and are you using RO water? What size bottle cap on the Coral Accel (gallon size cap or smaller bottle)? Any chance that you started using a new bottle of something you dose, or a new bag of salt, around the time you started having problems?

Edit: Also, how are you acclimating new corals?

Edited November 26, 2010 by etannert

[+Melissa]

What is your salinity level at? And when you top off are you topping off with, RO/DI or saltwater?

[teg]

Check for alkalinity swing. I've notice that some zoa and denro are sensitive to all swing (especially the newly added one). The zoa polyps looks like they're melted and the dendri wouldn't open. It could also be lighting shock, compare the lighting from the place you got it to your lighting. Make sure you use good test kits when testing the parameters.

[engja123]

Thank you for everyone's input.

To answer the questions asked:

I don't mix the salt myself, I use the marin premium reef salt water from RCA

I only use the RO water from RCA to top off. I do top off about 1/2 a gallon per day from evap.

I acclimate the corals differently depending on the coral, but typically I float them for 20-25 minutes.

I am not certain how to test for salinity but certainly can research on how to do so if you think this could be an issue.

The coral accell bottle I used is a 16oz bottle. The cap is about the size of 2 liter coke bottle cap.

I do purchase the corals from a different store in Austin other than RCA and have always had success up until the last 6 weeks. It seems something is very different about the water they are coming from at the store in comparison to my water.

Regarding light shock, I don't think this is the issue, as most of these zoanthids for open for a few months before the problems occurred. That being said, they were previously under MH at the store. (as were all of the corals purchased by myself)

[engja123]

I should also mention that whatever is causing the problem, it doesn't appear to be affecting the fish, as I have had no recent deaths or signs of stress that I see.

The water temp is 82 on the high side and 77-78 on the low side.

Edited November 27, 2010 by engja123

[Derekreefer]

Ideally you want to test for salinity using Refractomer. You can get one from BRS for under $40. I used to use a hydrometer which you can pick up at any pet store, they usually run around $10-$15. I have noticed that pre mixed water from the LFS can vary from 1.022 to 1.024. I prefer to keep my at 1.025-1.026.

That calcium level is pretty high. Which test kit are you using? If API the CA level could actually be much higher as that is the limit of how high it can test.

[+etannert]

You should be acclimating corals for more than just temp. Do you do a drip acclimation as well? And you definitely need to test for salinity, a refractometer is a must! If you are getting corals that are being kept at the store in (for instance) 1.021 salinity, and your tank's salinity is at 1.026, placing the coral directly from the store's water into your water could be lethal. The corals in your tank will be fine because they have experienced any potential change in salinity gradually, though if your salinity is trending too high or too low or just generally unstable maybe this explains your zoa problem. Doing a lot of large water changes (as you mentioned you had done) could have contributed to unstable salinity if the salinity in your tank did not match the salinity of the water you were using for the water change. You should always test to verify that salinity is the same from tank water to new water.

I also question the CA test results because the Tropic Marin salt mix is actually very low in calcium and you didn't mention dosing calcium. Is there something you're doing to keep those levels up?

[+Hydro]

How old are your light bulbs? My MH lights were only 6 months old and I was starting to see problems with some of my corals, I just replaced them and things are starting to color back up.

For the zoas are you able to dip them? I had this same problem recently with a few different colonies of zoas, not sure why. You can dip them in diluted peroxide for about 10 mins and then freshwater for a minute. This was the only thing that seemed to work, and that only saved about 1/2 of them.

[engja123]

Thank you for everyone's replies and help. They are sincerely appreciated.

I picked up a refractometer over the weekend and received a 1.036 reading. Since that time, I have been working to resolve the issue and get this down to 1.024 over the course of the week. This does appear to the problem and I appreciate the help everyone provided on this issue.

[offroadodge]

did u calibrate the refractometer with RO/DI water? If not u should, make sure its set to zero with ro/di. then recheck salinity

[+etannert]

Yay for happy endings!

[jestep]

I'm actually surprised that anything is alive in the tank less the fish. 1.036 is ~ 47.7ppt while 1.026 is about 34.5ppt. That's almost 50% more salt than 1.026. I've seen coral dissolve in about 30 minutes going from 1.02... to 1.03...

Awesome that everything survived.

[NonSequitur]

How are things looking now that you've addressed the salinity issue? Any more deaths/declines, or are things turning around?

[Derekreefer]

Glad you resolved the problem. Happy Reefing