Help! Candy Cane is dying.

[Takito]

I received an order from LiveAquaria, sadly the temp in the cooler was too low and one fish was DOA. Candy cane and other fish were stressed but alive. I put them in acclimated properly and am acclimating the coral to my light. The day before yesterday it stopped showing its sweeper tentacles and my clownfish is refusing to eat and swimming weird. Parameters.
I had .25 ppm ammonia a nitrite spike to 1.0ppm and nitrates were at 60ppm and had to do two 5g water changes back to back over 2 days. I have a 20g Waterbox.

Today my nitrites are back to zero, 0ppm ammonia, and Nitrates are <5.
Alk is 12.6 dkh, I may have misread the test.
Calcium 420.

Pics are in order from most recent to oldest. I've had this coral for 1 week. Tank has been cycled for 1month.

P.s. I am very satisfied with LiveAquaria customer service they are great and have already given me credit for the fish that was DOA. And yes this is most probably New Tank Syndrome. The coral looks like it's going through STN, can I save it?

 

[Takito]

Pics were not in order. First was taken the day it arrived. Second was taken today. Third last night. And last was on it's second day.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Hi,

If I am following the center row is the most current? I cannot see the bottom row on my 1922 ipad I use. The center row does not look like it is loosing tissue.

Can you post your salinity , ph, and double check alk. What light and setting is it under. It may just need to settle. Have you dipped it?

 

[vetteguy53081]

Uf acclimated under low/blue light, iffer moderate water flow and light and it should do well
Ph range- 8.0 - 8.3, temperature range 77-79 and salinity range - 1.024-1.025

 

[Takito]

Hi!
The 3rd pic in blue shows what I think is tissue loss. When it arrived it had some parts that looked weird but now I see a clear ~2m line of skeleton that was not there. Looks whiter than the old base. 2nd fish just died on me.

Yes I dipped it with Coral Rx and MediCoral back to back before adding it to my tank.

Salinity 1.025 (started at 1.023)
pH: 7.8-8.0 (usuallt 7.8 can't seem to bring it up)
Temp: 79-80

Light: 100 blue, 100 violet, 50 white.
I had it under a cliff for a couple days then moved it to the center close to the glass.

Hi,

If I am following the center row is the most current? I cannot see the bottom row on my 1922 ipad I use. The center row does not look like it is loosing tissue.

Can you post your salinity , ph, and double check alk. What light and setting is it under. It may just need to settle. Have you dipped it?

 

[jamie1210]

I would put it in a low light/low flow area for awhile, and you should start seeing improvement soon.

 

[Takito]

Alk is 10.6 dkh
Mg idk if I did something wrong but it's off the chart. 1680
I'm using Fritz Salt blue box

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

Alk is high and mag is high, possibly too high. Do 2 water changes this week to get your levels correct and start broadcast feeding the tank, there is nothing in the water for the candy cane to eat. The water is pretty much sterile.

 

[Takito]

Mg is 1400. I misread the first test, need more practice. Conch died and coral is doing worse. More tissue loss.

 

[Takito]

Ordered another bottle of Dr. Tim's. Will monitor cycle better.

 

[Takito]

Here are a few pics from the first day and today for comparison. It's been in my tank for 12 days now. Can I save it? If not how long until it completely dies off? (3 first pics from today, last 2 from the first 3 days)

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

Actually starting to look better I think. I think you said you were feeding it, do that when the tentacles are out. Keep dosing aminos.

 

[Takito]

I think the pics are out of order. It hasn't shown it's tentacles in more than a week. I still try to feed it phytoplankton and bits of mysis shrimp.

 

[jkap]

I had the same experience from Liveaquaria. A Candy Cane and a Brain Coral were delivered extremely cold and very poorly packaged. The brain quickly died completely. The Candy Cane looked really bad and after 3 months has come back to about 50%. Hopefully it recovers completely.

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

I see looks like your tank is too new. You don't even have algae on the base rock so I would let the tank mature. Remember corals have algae in their tissue to help them gain energy from photosynthesis, so if your tank won't grow algae it won't grow coral. You'll be fine for another try in a couple months I'm sure.

 

[Takito]

I see looks like your tank is too new. You don't even have algae on the base rock so I would let the tank mature. Remember corals have algae in their tissue to help them gain energy from photosynthesis, so if your tank won't grow algae it won't grow coral. You'll be fine for another try in a couple months I'm sure.

I agree, now I'm just trying to figure out when it would be safe to add fish and more CUC. I've been feeding the tank a bit since there are no fish and I can't dose ammonia bc of the coral and hermit crabs. (Mainly crabs bc coral is almost gone) I see a .25ppm ammonia spike every 48hrs and it gets processed overnight.

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

Feed reef roids to the tank. That gets stuff moving. For CUC I would go with 1 or 2 hermits for now just starting out. But wait until you don't see any more ammonia spikes at all.

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

Also your candy cane can still come back from what I see in the pics.

 

[Takito]

Thanks! It's been more than 8yrs since I had a SW tank and it was a FOWLR cycled with a Damsel. I thought I had it right with the Fishless Cycle this time, but clearly I didn't. LiveAquaria already gave me a refund for the coral. I planned on getting clownfish, goby, pistol shrimp, 5 tiny hermit crabs, 5 tiny nessarius snails, tuxedo urchin, and conch. Mainly to fill the $150 for free shipping, but now I know it's not a good idea. I'll go for a more expensive type of clownfish and goby to not add so many critters.

 

[Takito]

And I'll do it when I see no ammonia.