paris617
New Member
I have had my reef tank for roughly 5 years now. My previous experience was with freshwater tanks only but my local aquarium helped me get my 55 gallon reef tank established rather quickly. I have good light fixture with both MH and blue actinic lights. I would do 1/3 water changes every 4 or 5 weeks and test for Nitrates myself with my local store doing more thorough water tests for me when I would purchase new fish. I also purchased my own 3 stage osmosis setup for filtering water myself.
When my tank was about 6 month old I purchased two small colt coral frags. They grew rapidly and multiplied relatively quickly. Within a year they had covered the entire tank. I have attached a photo here. You will notice some aiptasia pests in the photo. Those were later controlled by my aiptasia eating file fish since I did not have good success keeping copper banded butterflies alive.
About 6 months ago, after flourishing for 3+ years my colts started to turn white and droop. Within a month they were almost completely gone leaving nothing but bare rock. I have since taken water samples to two different stores and purchased test kits for ammonia, phosphates and PH. On March 15my ammonia was at 0.25 and phoshphates at 1.0 so the plan was to do 1/3 water changes and vacuuming every week. I also stopped using charcoal bags as I was told this is not necessary and adds phosphates. I also changed my light bulbs and my osmosis cartridges.
After 3 weeks of water changes and vacuuming my ammonia and phosphates numbers were cut in half so I introduced a soft mushroom coral. With a week it was gone. I kept making the water changes for two more weeks and added a kendra tree frag, it also died within a week. I supplemented the water changes with Phosguard bags and Seachem Purigen for removing ammonia.
After 2 more weeks of water changes my ammonia and phosphates are down to trace amounts so I introduced a zoanthid frag. It started to open up the second day but now after two weeks I am convinced it will never open and the stalks have shrunk.
I am at a point where I no longer believe the water is killing the soft corals. Could it be some type of bacteria that were introduced to the tank? If so I would think that they are embedded in the rock and that nothing else can be done.
I would truly appreciate any help on this problem as I will probably sell the tank if I can't get corals to live. I have not tried hard corals but my thinking is that they do not multiply like the soft corals, or do they?
When my tank was about 6 month old I purchased two small colt coral frags. They grew rapidly and multiplied relatively quickly. Within a year they had covered the entire tank. I have attached a photo here. You will notice some aiptasia pests in the photo. Those were later controlled by my aiptasia eating file fish since I did not have good success keeping copper banded butterflies alive.
About 6 months ago, after flourishing for 3+ years my colts started to turn white and droop. Within a month they were almost completely gone leaving nothing but bare rock. I have since taken water samples to two different stores and purchased test kits for ammonia, phosphates and PH. On March 15my ammonia was at 0.25 and phoshphates at 1.0 so the plan was to do 1/3 water changes and vacuuming every week. I also stopped using charcoal bags as I was told this is not necessary and adds phosphates. I also changed my light bulbs and my osmosis cartridges.
After 3 weeks of water changes and vacuuming my ammonia and phosphates numbers were cut in half so I introduced a soft mushroom coral. With a week it was gone. I kept making the water changes for two more weeks and added a kendra tree frag, it also died within a week. I supplemented the water changes with Phosguard bags and Seachem Purigen for removing ammonia.
After 2 more weeks of water changes my ammonia and phosphates are down to trace amounts so I introduced a zoanthid frag. It started to open up the second day but now after two weeks I am convinced it will never open and the stalks have shrunk.
I am at a point where I no longer believe the water is killing the soft corals. Could it be some type of bacteria that were introduced to the tank? If so I would think that they are embedded in the rock and that nothing else can be done.
I would truly appreciate any help on this problem as I will probably sell the tank if I can't get corals to live. I have not tried hard corals but my thinking is that they do not multiply like the soft corals, or do they?
