Dying LPS

[pwendlandt]

Hello everybody,

So like the tittle says, I have a small lps garage that has been recently dying. I have in the tank more LPS Fraga which seem to be doing all right but for some reason this frag just won’t stop shrinking.

My parameters are the following:

Phosphate: 0.9

Nitrate: more 75 due to the Hanna tester blinking when the result was given

(Both phosphate and nitrate are high)

Mg: 1500

Calcio: 480

Kh: 10.2 (it dropped to 8.5 but it’s back up to 10 after a few doses)

Salinity is at 1.025

I would like to also mention that for some reason an urchin I used to have was doing all right for a month when it randomly died.

I plan on doing a water change to help lower the phosphate and nitrate but is there anything I could do to help the coral? Or prevent this from happening to the rest?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

nitrate and phosphate are way too high, your tank does not look clean and healthy. Looks like it has been missing some maintenance.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Any cuc in there?
How old is your tank?

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

You need to get nitrates down and take it from there. Do you do regular water changes?

 

[pwendlandt]

nitrate and phosphate are way too high, your tank does not look clean and healthy. Looks like it has been missing some maintenance.

yeah I’ve been battling with GHA for like two months now it’s been a rough fight tbh. Tried everything and now I’m dosing once a week Vibrant and removing as much as I can with my hands.

 

[pwendlandt]

Any cuc in there?
How old is your tank?

The tank is around a year and a halve old, the cuc I have is two astrea snails, one conch, a sand sfhirting star fish, two emerald crabs and a hermit crab (blue legged)

 

[pwendlandt]

You need to get nitrates down and take it from there. Do you do regular water changes?

Before the hair algae situation I did not do water changes but now I am doing one every week to every two weeks.

 

[AmateurAlchemist]

Before the hair algae situation I did not do water changes but now I am doing one every week to every two weeks.

How big is the tank and how big are the water changes? Are you doing/using anything else to lower nitrates?

I'd do multiple ~20% water changes per week until nitrates are under control and start thinking about how they got so out of whack.

 

[pwendlandt]

The tank it self is a 20 gallon tank, and I do a 10-20% water change (did one last week) haven’t done one this week

 

[Kooma]

I would start with reducing your feeding size, do a weekly 25% water change, drop in some GFO and test weekly. Hold off putting anything in the tank until you have things under control (phos under 0.5, nitrates under 50).

If you would like to have your phos reduced without growing GHA you can also reduce your light schedule, but be careful with coral as both are impacted.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

yeah I’ve been battling with GHA for like two months now it’s been a rough fight tbh. Tried everything and now I’m dosing once a week Vibrant and removing as much as I can with my hands.

vibrant kills algae, and corals have algae in their flesh (xoolanthalae is an algae), so by dosing vibrant you may be possibly damaging the corals.

IME, corals will not do well in environment that is lost to algae. I would suggest to start another thread to ask for help to bring your algae under control, this will be the best way to help your corals overall. You have to fix the environment first.

It sounds like you have very low number of snails, get a lot more, turbo snails are the best. Algae is fueled by dissolved organics and low algae grazers, so either you feed too much or you have a high bioload but either way your current filtration is unable to keep up. It is import vs export, and the export is not matching the import. If you don't have a skimmer, I think you system could really benefit from one. Increase the flow in the tank (my 15 gallon has 2 powerheads). Use only rodi or distilled water, no tap. Stick to weekly 5 gallon water changes, maybe ever more frequently. Run activated carbon to absorb some dissolved organics. Don't feed more than fish can eat in about 20-30 seconds, if you still see food after 30 seconds you fed too much. Good luck

 

[Gumbies R Us]

yeah I’ve been battling with GHA for like two months now it’s been a rough fight tbh. Tried everything and now I’m dosing once a week Vibrant and removing as much as I can with my hands.

Honestly what helped me get rid of a lot of mine was water changes, manually pulling out what I could, and reducing feeding

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello everybody,

So like the tittle says, I have a small lps garage that has been recently dying. I have in the tank more LPS Fraga which seem to be doing all right but for some reason this frag just won’t stop shrinking.

My parameters are the following:

Phosphate: 0.9

Nitrate: more 75 due to the Hanna tester blinking when the result was given

(Both phosphate and nitrate are high)

Mg: 1500

Calcio: 480

Kh: 10.2 (it dropped to 8.5 but it’s back up to 10 after a few doses)

Salinity is at 1.025

I would like to also mention that for some reason an urchin I used to have was doing all right for a month when it randomly died.

I plan on doing a water change to help lower the phosphate and nitrate but is there anything I could do to help the coral? Or prevent this from happening to the rest?

Mag and nitrate quite high and calcium elevated. If dosing these - STOP
Additionally , relationship these have is need fr moderate light and water flow. not extreme white intensity.
What salt brand are you using and are you using any water from faucet or RODI water only?
If RODI, are your cartridges expired?
Are you feeding these corals?