What’s wrong with my coral!? | Plz help!

[fachatga]

Don’t think I’ve seen anything about water flow. With high lighting you need lots of water movement or corals won’t be happy. Can cause negative effects.

 

[Jekyl]

Out of 10

Your tank is shallower than mine. However at that setting you probably don't need to turn the lighting down. Starting on the sand bed for a week is probably enough. Once they get established you can slowly turn it up a little.

 

[LAA]

Don’t think I’ve seen anything about water flow. With high lighting you need lots of water movement or corals won’t be happy. Can cause negative effects.

Yes there is definitely a LOT of flow on tHis coral as I know they enjoy it so nothing builds up in them. The coral is right in the flow path.

 

[LAA]

Your tank is shallower than mine. However at that setting you probably don't need to turn the lighting down. Starting on the sand bed for a week is probably enough. Once they get established you can slowly turn it up a little.

Yeah, thE coral is already glued in place at top of tank so it can get light and flow…
(20 gallon long tank)

 

[fachatga]

Then the advice you’ve gotten that it needs nutrients probably will help. Zero nitrates means no food for the coral

 

[LAA]

Then the advice you’ve gotten that it needs nutrients probably will help. Zero nitrates means no food for the coral

Alright I will feed more. I just know that can cause algae

 

[NicksTanks223]

Have you bought frags missing flesh ?

I have one right now. Have bought 3.

 

[LAA]

Okay. I will feed more, lower lights a bit, water change, and see how it goes from there! I will keep u updated.

 

[fachatga]

Don’t forget that your coral relies on algae itself to grow. It’s one of the difficult things to manage. Yes no nutrients can keep bad algae you don’t like in your tank. But will also stop corals from growing because they need algae too

 

[LAA]

Don’t forget that your coral relies on algae itself to grow. It’s one of the difficult things to manage. Yes no nutrients can keep bad algae you don’t like in your tank. But will also stop corals from growing because they need algae too

okay. Thank you!

 

[Jekyl]

Okay. I will feed more, lower lights a bit, water change, and see how it goes from there! I will keep u updated.

Just take care of the nutrients. Only change 1 thing at a time and give it 2 or 3 weeks before changing anything else.

 

[LAA]

Just take care of the nutrients. Only change 1 thing at a time and give is 2 or 3 weeks before changing anything else.

Ok.

 

[Jekyl]

Ok.

The idea is being able to see the effects of the change, which takes a few weeks. If you change 3 things at once maybe only 1 was beneficial and the other 2 were negative. However you won't have a way to tell what help/hurt.

 

[LAA]

The idea is being able to see the effects of the change, which takes a few weeks. If you change 3 things at once maybe only 1 was beneficial and the other 2 were negative. However you won't have a way to tell what help/hurt.

i see. makes sense. Thx! I am just hoping it works soon cause the coral ain’t looking so hot.

 

[Jekyl]

i see. makes sense. Thx! I am just hoping it works soon cause the coral ain’t looking so hot.

Hope it works out. I would recommend getting the tests mentioned previously before additional coral, especially SPS.

 

[Gtinnel]

I see that I am late to the party but I agree with others, if you actually have 0 nitrates (api test is not good for low nitrates, I'd personally switch to at least salifert) that is hard on corals, especially with the relatively high alkalinity. Algea needs nitrate and phosphate to grow, but the zooxanthellae in the coral, that provides energy to the coral, also need them for photosynthesis. You also started at a disadvantage for this coral because it didn't look healthy from the beginning.

 

[Gtinnel]

Don’t forget that your coral relies on algae itself to grow. It’s one of the difficult things to manage. Yes no nutrients can keep bad algae you don’t like in your tank. But will also stop corals from growing because they need algae too

Let's not forget that zero nutrients in the tank will starve out nuisance algea, but it can lead to so much worse things than algea. I'll take algea over dinos any day.

 

[Gtinnel]

Don’t mean to flex but I’ve never had a frag that died

You mean you've never had a frag that died YET. Everyone has corals that die for no apparent reason from time to time regardless of how stable and healthy their tanks are.

 

[Righteous]

For what it’s worth, that’s definitely not an Acropora, looks more like a Stylophora.

There’s little harm in raising Nitrates up to 1-5ppm quickly. Assuming the zero nitrate test is accurate, it’s probably the number one thing you can do to save the coral. There’s a lot of products out there you can buy to dose nitrates to help relatively quickly. Also, Red Sea Nitrate Pro, or Salifert are decent kits for testing nitrates.

 

[kingjames_dc5]

not sure where you bought it from but it doesn’t look happy at all .

IMO moving frags is stressful on it’s own .
more often moving a unhappy frag will not end well .
How old is the tank ?
Parameters ?

This is very true.