Are my corals going to die?

[cmcimino]

I have a 28 gallon nanocube. I was out of town for a day and while I was gone my roommate sprayed Febreze in the room my tank is in, and when I got back my torch frag was shriveled up and the tissue seems to be sloughing off the skeleton. My acan lord is also looks awful. I'm currently running carbon, and will be doing water changes tonight. All other parameters seem okay.

 

[Tahoe61]

Running carbon and water changes are the most appropriate interventions. Did your roommate do top off in your absence?

 

[cmcimino]

I have an ATO

 

[aaron23]

kick your roommate out and stick that febreeze up you know where! good luck the carbon / water changes are the best you can do for now.

my gf is a clean fanatic and i bought natural cleaner/spray no chlorox or anything near the tank.

 

[cmcimino]

kick your roommate out and stick that febreeze up you know where! good luck the carbon / water changes are the best you can do for now

Fortunately I only have the two frags. He's offered to reimburse me, but I am going to try and save the ones I have. Is there such thing as doing too much of a water change? I have an unlimited supply of filtered sea water from the local university so I can change 5 gallons out at a time. Just have to get it up to temp.

 

[aaron23]

there isnt very much bacteria in the water so if you get the parameters in check with your tank, large amounts of water change wont hurt the tank

 

[Tahoe61]

As long as you match parameter as much as able I do not see a down side to changing out half the volume. I used to do it all the time with my 28 gallon nanocube.

 

[cmcimino]

I've uploaded some pictures for visual purposes. I just got both of the corals Saturday and Monday night they already looked better than they did at the LFS. Here are pictures of both of them on Monday. The torch was slowly making its way out.

Now they look so pitiful :(.

It looks like the tissue is releasing from the skeleton, not sure if this will recover.

 

[Tahoe61]

They certainly do not look beyond hope to me. ;)

 

[CarolinaReefs]

Actually in the last pic it looks like the tentacles are out on that acan. That's good.

 

[cmcimino]

Actually in the last pic it looks like the tentacles are out on that acan. That's good.

I don't think its tentacles, maybe bone structure? I'm not too familiar with their anatomy.

 

[cmcimino]

So I have done 2, 5 gallon water changes tonight, and dimmed down the lights some. I have also unplugged my power head to keep the flow more moderate around the torch. While doing water changes I did find a dead snail. Could have this caused a slight ammonia spike and messed with my corals? Fish/inverts seemed fine.

 

[cmcimino]

I'm thinking my acan is done for. There is a lot of exposed skeleton, and hardly any tissue left.

The torch still looks the same, no real improvement.

 

[ahiggins]

I had an acan that was about as exposed as yours. I started feeding it reef roids every other day-no flow, right on top of the mouth. Its now super fluffy. Took about a month to get it back to where the skeleton wasnt showing.
Your torch looks ok, I dont think its a goner

 

[cmcimino]

Current Parameters

Temp: 78 F (Digital Probe)
pH: 8.0 (Digital Probe)
Calcium: 400 ppm (Redsea Kit)
Mg: 1280 ppm (Redsea Kit)
Alk: 7.4 dKH (Hanna Kit)
Phosphates: .08 ppm (Hanna ULR)
Nitrate: 0-5ppm (API Test Kit)
Ammonia: 0 ppm (API Test Kit)
Nitrite: 0 ppm (API Test Kit)

I know my calcium, alk, and Mg are in the lower range, but I did do a 50% water change yesterday. How much longer should I run the carbon for? Currently using Purigen, and Chemi-Pure in the filter section.

 

[Whipples]

If you can, try to pick up a better test for nitrate like Salifert as the API test kit is notorious for being inaccurate at the low-range. For example, salifert can go as low as .2 ppm which can be very helpful in this situation assuming you are a color expert :). You can keep running carbon but run lower than the recommended amount. Purigen+Chemipure+carbon may be stripping the water a bit too much but the phosphate reading seems ok. Nitrates you would want 1-2ppm and alkalinity you will want around 8, calcium a little higher in the 420-440 range. I think magnesium you will also want 1300+. My torches don't necessarily like alk below 7.5 so I try to maintain mine right around 8.

PH at 8 isn't necessarily a problem but if you can get it to 8.3ish you may have better success. Any idea what the parameters were on the tank you got it from? They can take a week or so to adjust depending on how big the swing in parameters are.

 

[cmcimino]

If you can, try to pick up a better test for nitrate like Salifert as the API test kit is notorious for being inaccurate at the low-range. For example, salifert can go as low as .2 ppm which can be very helpful in this situation assuming you are a color expert :). You can keep running carbon but run lower than the recommended amount. Purigen+Chemipure+carbon may be stripping the water a bit too much but the phosphate reading seems ok. Nitrates you would want 1-2ppm and alkalinity you will want around 8, calcium a little higher in the 420-440 range. I think magnesium you will also want 1300+. My torches don't necessarily like alk below 7.5 so I try to maintain mine right around 8.

PH at 8 isn't necessarily a problem but if you can get it to 8.3ish you may have better success. Any idea what the parameters were on the tank you got it from? They can take a week or so to adjust depending on how big the swing in parameters are.

What is the best way to raise my alk/ph/calcium? I do dose 1/2 tsp of kalk per gallon of top off water (RO/DI water). I use filtered sea water for my water changes. It's usually right at the typical ocean surface values. I'm not sure what the LFS's tanks parameters are at, but I could definitely ask. Should I keep my lights down at this point? Right now I'm running an AI prime 20,000K at 35% power.

 

[Whipples]

I would lower intensity/photo period as a retracted torch in too much light will stay compact, versus not enough light they will extend even further, usually. Is your torch in direct light or towards the edge of the lighted area? LEDs can create "hot spots" directly underneath them that torches generally don't like. I had a torch almost directly under my a160we (rookie mistake), moved it literally 2 inches to the side and it became a whole new coral :)

If you are dosing kalkwasser via ATO, it sounds as if your ATO is either not consistent day to day in terms of evaporation or the dose in the water isn't quite sufficient to satisfy alkalinity uptake. Alkalinity is a little unique in that the lower it gets, the faster it goes down until 5-6 which is where you don't want to be. My euphyllias do not like alkalinity below 7.5 and show noticeable improvement when I am above 8. The safest way to raise your alkalinity is a little every day, and as long as you space out the doses and do not increase more than .75-1dkh per day it should be safe to raise.

My LPS dominated tank currently consumes about .2-.25 dkh per day so when I do want to raise it up I have to factor in the daily consumption, and usually add a .5dkh dose to cover the current day's consumption and my target for tomorrow morning. For what it is worth, I try to maintain about 8-8.3dKH with torches, frogs, hammers, and octos as they responded better to that range and a dKH of >8 acts as a stronger buffer to pH swings.

You mentioned the natural seawater parameters, which are fine to use but most folks chasing those levels are typically following either the Balling method via Tropic Marin/AquaForest or Zeovit, which supplements the nutrients that they have stripped out for more control. Depending on how old your tank is and any other additives you may be dosing, you might want to consider keeping detectable nitrate in excess of detectable phosphate, but not crazy high. For .08ppm phosphate you can increase nitrate to 1ppm and observe. Do you dose anything like Vibrant, carbon, nopox?

 

[cmcimino]

I would lower intensity/photo period as a retracted torch in too much light will stay compact, versus not enough light they will extend even further, usually. Is your torch in direct light or towards the edge of the lighted area? LEDs can create "hot spots" directly underneath them that torches generally don't like. I had a torch almost directly under my a160we (rookie mistake), moved it literally 2 inches to the side and it became a whole new coral :)

The torch is towards the front of tank so I don't think it would be in a hotspot. I have aimed the light more towards the rear of the tank, so it's going to get even less light.

If you are dosing kalkwasser via ATO, it sounds as if your ATO is either not consistent day to day in terms of evaporation or the dose in the water isn't quite sufficient to satisfy alkalinity uptake. Alkalinity is a little unique in that the lower it gets, the faster it goes down until 5-6 which is where you don't want to be. My euphyllias do not like alkalinity below 7.5 and show noticeable improvement when I am above 8. The safest way to raise your alkalinity is a little every day, and as long as you space out the doses and do not increase more than .75-1dkh per day it should be safe to raise.

My LPS dominated tank currently consumes about .2-.25 dkh per day so when I do want to raise it up I have to factor in the daily consumption, and usually add a .5dkh dose to cover the current day's consumption and my target for tomorrow morning. For what it is worth, I try to maintain about 8-8.3dKH with torches, frogs, hammers, and octos as they responded better to that range and a dKH of >8 acts as a stronger buffer to pH swings.

I feel as if my ATO is pretty consistent, I am adding a very little amount of kalk to the RO/DI water so maybe slowly increasing that may help? Maybe I'll try .75 tsp per gallon, measure, and increase if need to be.

You mentioned the natural seawater parameters, which are fine to use but most folks chasing those levels are typically following either the Balling method via Tropic Marin/AquaForest or Zeovit, which supplements the nutrients that they have stripped out for more control. Depending on how old your tank is and any other additives you may be dosing, you might want to consider keeping detectable nitrate in excess of detectable phosphate, but not crazy high. For .08ppm phosphate you can increase nitrate to 1ppm and observe. Do you dose anything like Vibrant, carbon, nopox?

I'm not sure of the exact amount of nitrate in the tank, I'm sure there is some in there because I have algae covering the rocks, the API test is just awful and hard to read. I'll purchase a new kit in the next day or so and get a better measurement. Right now I am not currently dosing anything else.

 

[Whipples]

I would suggest before bumping your kalk dose is getting the water up to the level you want. When you do water changes, the water in the tank takes the weighted average of the parameters of the water you are putting back and existing water in so if you are using NSW you will have to make additions to it prior to adding it or just after to maintain alkalinity. I would suggest increasing alkalinity before adding the mixed saltwater as to not spike the tank on accident by having it go down only to go back up. After you've gotten alkalinity where you want it in the tank, observe if your kalk mix is no longer able to keep it. This goes back to the bit I mentioned before about alkalinity going down faster the lower it goes. You may have the right dose in your ATO but your current alkalinity level is just not high enough to stay stable. Keep us posted!