Help With Closed Corals

Michael's Marine Park

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Hello,

I've had my 25 gal waterbox tank for 6 months now. I've noticed over the last month that I've been having trouble with my zoas and gorgonian corals not opening up. Particularly the last week they've been closed. Yesterday I did a 10 gallon water change and still don't see much success. Does anyone have any advice? I feed coral aminos and reef roids once a week. I am using David Saxby's signature lighting series with my AI prime HD light.

Here are my parameters for the last few days. I the 10 gallon water change after the 1/22 reading.

1674489987724.png


Is it my alkalinity?


Here's shots of my tank and the coals I'm worried about.

Any insight would be appreciated. IMG-1597.jpg IMG-1596.jpg IMG-1599.jpg IMG-1598.jpg
 

ScionFRSguy

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Do you happen to have any aiptasias in the tank? If so, that could be one of the reasons why the zoas are closing up. Once the aiptasias sting enough zoas for a good amount of time, they will start to close and melt which is going to release it's toxins causing your other corals in the tank to close/shrink, which then is going to cause another chain reaction = more trouble. Also check to see if one type of coral is in contact with another coral even for the ones that don't sting one another. If so, separate them as soon as possible.

I'm not sure how much light you use but it looks like it's on the low side. Try not to change the lighting intensity right away especially if the corals were doing just fine until recently.

I think the 10 gallon water change should only be done when you have a major crash because it's pretty aggressive for your 25g. By doing that, it's going to strip away the nutrients which is going to cause more problems but at the same token, if a lot of the zoas are melting, the water change is certainly going to help. Soft corals needs a fairly good amount of nutrients in order to thrive. Maybe the corals got stressed out because the water became sterile all of sudden. I'm not sure if that's the main problem because you said the corals were starting to close long before you did this large water change. I'm just saying try not to do aggressive water changes moving forward.

Are you dosing aggressively? If so, maybe you can tone down on dosing for now until they start getting better. You should be able to do just fine without dosing since you have a small tank. The weekly water change should be sufficient from what I can tell.

If you can, take out the zoas that have shrunk a lot and either put into another tank or ask someone if they can help you bring them back to health. In other words, try not to let them continue melting in your tank.

As far as your alkalinity is concerned, I think anytime you go past 9.5 to 10 is too high for soft corals. It's not always the case but generally, you want to be somewhere between 7.8 to 8.4 based on my experience. This is neutral Alk, it's not too high and not too low.

I know some people do well dipping corals in Iodine and other things that can help corals heal but I don't know much about that. It's just something you might want to be open to trying.
 
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Michael's Marine Park

Michael's Marine Park

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Do you happen to have any aiptasias in the tank? If so, that could be one of the reasons why the zoas are closing up. Once the aiptasias sting enough zoas for a good amount of time, they will start to close and melt which is going to release it's toxins causing your other corals in the tank to close/shrink, which then is going to cause another chain reaction = more trouble. Also check to see if one type of coral is in contact with another coral even for the ones that don't sting one another. If so, separate them as soon as possible.

I'm not sure how much light you use but it looks like it's on the low side. Try not to change the lighting intensity right away especially if the corals were doing just fine until recently.

I think the 10 gallon water change should only be done when you have a major crash because it's pretty aggressive for your 25g. By doing that, it's going to strip away the nutrients which is going to cause more problems but at the same token, if a lot of the zoas are melting, the water change is certainly going to help. Soft corals needs a fairly good amount of nutrients in order to thrive. Maybe the corals got stressed out because the water became sterile all of sudden. I'm not sure if that's the main problem because you said the corals were starting to close long before you did this large water change. I'm just saying try not to do aggressive water changes moving forward.

Are you dosing aggressively? If so, maybe you can tone down on dosing for now until they start getting better. You should be able to do just fine without dosing since you have a small tank. The weekly water change should be sufficient from what I can tell.

If you can, take out the zoas that have shrunk a lot and either put into another tank or ask someone if they can help you bring them back to health. In other words, try not to let them continue melting in your tank.

As far as your alkalinity is concerned, I think anytime you go past 9.5 to 10 is too high for soft corals. It's not always the case but generally, you want to be somewhere between 7.8 to 8.4 based on my experience. This is neutral Alk, it's not too high and not too low.

I know some people do well dipping corals in Iodine and other things that can help corals heal but I don't know much about that. It's just something you might want to be open to trying.
Thank you - I really appreciate the insight, especially on the water change.

I don't see any aiptasias in the tank and the corals are separated. I'm worried though because even my touch is looking a little sad. I was dosing reef fusion 1x per week, and over the last two weeks I started dosing Brightwell Aquatics MicroBacter Clean to help with the red algea in my sandbed. Do you think that could have an impact?

I do think the lighting was on the low side. Today I switched to the BRS settings but have it set to 20 days of acclimating from 70% intensity. I'll get a rough PAR reading this afternoon once my lights ramp up. Using the Photone app for that.
 
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Michael's Marine Park

Michael's Marine Park

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What kind of flow and par are they in?
I have the return pump pointed straight across to the far side of the tank and a 480gph powerhead shooting diagonally back at it from lower in the tank. I then have a Jebao OW-10 wavemaker below the return shooting up & diagonally across the tank running at half power with slow pumps. I feel like the flow is good, but I couldn't find any resources on how to confirm this.

As for PAR, I used the Photone app to measure and was getting ~150 PAR on the zoas. I don't feel like that was enough since a few of them started stretching so I just switched to running the BRS lighting schedule below but started with 70% intensity and a 20 day ramp up to acclimate them.

12 hour cycle with 2 hours ramp so 8 hours of high intensity per day.

UV: 119%
V: 116%
Blues: 80%
Green: 6%
Red 4%
White: 15%
 

I never finish anythi

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To me and I'm a noob , but the swings you have posted might be a factor. I'd work on getting things stable first
 
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Michael's Marine Park

Michael's Marine Park

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I have the return pump pointed straight across to the far side of the tank and a 480gph powerhead shooting diagonally back at it from lower in the tank. I then have a Jebao OW-10 wavemaker below the return shooting up & diagonally across the tank running at half power with slow pumps. I feel like the flow is good, but I couldn't find any resources on how to confirm this.

As for PAR, I used the Photone app to measure and was getting ~150 PAR on the zoas. I don't feel like that was enough since a few of them started stretching so I just switched to running the BRS lighting schedule below but started with 70% intensity and a 20 day ramp up to acclimate them.

12 hour cycle with 2 hours ramp so 8 hours of high intensity per day.

UV: 119%
V: 116%
Blues: 80%
Green: 6%
Red 4%
White: 15%
Attached is what the new PAR parameters will look like once my acclimation period is done with my new light setting. The zoas are in 160 PAR and gorgonians in 205 PAR
 

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ScionFRSguy

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Thank you - I really appreciate the insight, especially on the water change.

I don't see any aiptasias in the tank and the corals are separated. I'm worried though because even my touch is looking a little sad. I was dosing reef fusion 1x per week, and over the last two weeks I started dosing Brightwell Aquatics MicroBacter Clean to help with the red algea in my sandbed. Do you think that could have an impact?

I do think the lighting was on the low side. Today I switched to the BRS settings but have it set to 20 days of acclimating from 70% intensity. I'll get a rough PAR reading this afternoon once my lights ramp up. Using the Photone app for that.

I'm not so sure about the effects Reef Fusion and Microbacter has on the tank. I've never used them before. Maybe you can try siphoning the red algae on your sandbed instead. Google does say that Reef Fusion reduces nitrate and phosphates.

I don't have much experience with torches as I've only had 1 so far but I did lose it after doing an aggressive water change. It was doing just fine until I decided to do a big water change one day. It took a big dive and melted soon after in about a weeks time. I think it was because I stripped away the nutrients from my tank. My other corals were not doing so well either. Most corals are sensitive to nutrient swings come to find out. Anyways, I hope things will turn around for you soon.
 

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