What could possibly kill the soft corals?

[dawidmns]

Hi

What could possibly kill the corals so they react in the way you can see on the photo?

• toadstools, they will open up for few days and then close for week or two, some won’t open. Eventually, like you can see on the picture, they die from the top.
• gorgonian, only open up a little, you can see it is loosing the flesh
• sinularia, on the left, colony is still opening up, on the right, it has been like this for the last 4 weeks

I have been dealing with a lot of issues, ICP showed a lot of lucks with elements, since then I did 2x20% water changes, I have started dosing trace elements. But no improvement.


The PO4 and NO3 was very high, I managed to get down PO4 down to 0.46. I used NP-Bacto-Balance to reduce it. But still no improvement. I am adding prodibo bacteria every 2 weeks.


I used to doze Ozone every 1-2 weeks for few hours, but stopped as I thought it might burn the soft corals, but no change. None of the fish is picking on them.


See attached previous ICP, but like I said I have been doing all of the above since then, so the next ICP should look better.



What else could cause it?

 

[ryanjohn1]

How hard are you hitting them with light. Looks like hydra 32’s? And yeah no3 and po4 pretty high

 

[dawidmns]

How hard are you hitting them with light. Looks like hydra 32’s? And yeah no3 and po4 pretty high

The lighting used to be at about 65%, I reduced it down to 50% about a month ago.

 

[ryanjohn1]

What’s your flow like those boys like flow

 

[dawidmns]

What’s your flow like those boys like flow

Flow if also quite strong, I have Jebao RW20 in pulse mode, plus return pump pushing in the same direction.

I have added carbon yesterday, as I thought maybe there is something in the water, some kind of chemical etc, will see if anything changes.

For all this time I used to blame PO4 and NO3, but now since I got it down things are still looking bad, I start to suspect there is something else going on.

 

[ryanjohn1]

In my tanks my toadstools are usually the taddle tail on me not doing water change. And my gorgonian when I’m not feeding enough.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I'm agreeing with the flow, I only see one powerhead in that big tank, definately can benefit from another.

 

[exnisstech]

I'm agreeing with the flow, I only see one powerhead in that big tank, definately can benefit from another.

Agreed. My leathers love flow and light. In my 180 72x24x24" I have several leathers and two gorgonians. I run four MP40s and 6 Noopsyche K7 v3 lights that are putting out 300 par on the bottom.

 

[mfinn]

If the light intensity was too much for a while it will take some time for the corals to recover, if at all.
I would cut back on dosing anything. Just do regular water changes with a quality salt mix.
You said you started carbon, should help. Change it regularly. Add some more flow as suggested.

 

[Lemons]

I don't know if it's my garbage early morning chemistry skills but isnt 1mg/l =1ppm ???

How in all that is holy are you keeping stuff in 536ppm nitrate?????????

If thats accurate that'd be my guess for why they're dying. They like it dirty but not THAT dirty

 

[dawidmns]

Thank you for all responses. I will be doing another ICP test this month and see if there is any improvement.

When it comes to flow, while it doesnt look like, the flow is quite strong in the tank. I had to move some corals around as it was too strong. However, I have another Jebao RW15 so will play around with it.