Acropora Help!!!

Hello everyone, i purchased my first three SPS corals about 2 weeks ago, i bought a very red Monti Digitata, a green tip stag, and one coral named a blue tortuosa frag, even though it looks no where near it and i doubt it is one, but anyway, the digitata was hapy for about the first week, and was open and everything, now near the base it seems to be closed up and stuff, and with my blue tort, it wasnt opening up that much, then about a few days after i bought them, i pointed the powerheads in differnt areas, and i had it blowing straight at the acro, and the next day it seems so happy with all of the flow, and just tonight, i frickin saw daed, white areas apearing on the base of the stony,

now im thinking, once i pointed the poweheads around in differnt areas, i ****ed up everythig in the tank, cus the digi seems more closed, but its open near the tips, and the blue tort is ****ing starting to die, i just moved the powerhead that was pointing at it back to where it was pointing when i first added them, so i duno, Is there anyway to save it???? This is my first shot at tryin to keep SPS corals , im pretty sure that , that day that i played with the powerheads i ****ed up everything, the green tip stag seems to be doing OK, it has its polyps extended just like 1-2 cm, the ones at work that we got, everythings alive, and im surprised cus they are all the way at the sand and have hardly any flow at all

what im tryign to get to is, What may i be doing wrong? all my amm, trite, trate, are 0, pH is 8.3, Sg is 1.024

i have 250w DE halides, and 2 seio 620's on each corner poiting to the middle of the tank, i recently hoked up a chiller and my tanks beeen about 79 degrees night/am and 81 when i turn the halides on, i turn on the actinics around 6:30pm, then halides at 7, halides off at around 11:30, and actinics off around 12

Is my photoperiod messed up, or what, i try to have it in the evening cus it gets too hot here in fl, even with the chiller set to 78, it still runs about 81 with the halide on

Anyone who can help, please chip in, i duno what i am doing wrong, but hey, i can understand that we are humans and we learn from our mistakes, i just duno what im doing wrong, thanks guys

Here are few guidelines for keeping SPS corals.

1. Water Quality.

Make sure you have 0 phos, ammonia, trite and trate. pH needs to be stable and same goes for salinity. You will also want your calcium level to be around 400 - 450 and alk level to be around 8 - 12 dkh. Magnesium should be around 1300 - 1350.

2 Water movement.

You want as much random flow as possible without pointing directly at the coral.

Your light should be fine

Also SPS are delicate corals, so when you make any changes to your tank, do it slowly.

Like Oogie said, they like alot of indirect flow. Also, are the frags on the sand bed? Sometimes if you don't acclimate them to the light long enough, they will bleach.

Other than that dial in your parameters, I'm sure they will recover will a little tlc.

what i may think it is, is that when i top off, i have to top off like half a gallon of water every day, and its only a 25 gallon tank, and i just add that water to the top of the tank,

what i think it is, is that my tank isnt stable, it may have everything fine, but its not like, steady, im having too many rapid changes at one time, and it sucks balls cus ive used so much money to collect sps corals, and i cant even collect a easy ass monti digitata, so my first attempt at keeping sps is a failure, they look worse and worse everyday, and i noticed the difference when i moved the powerheads around taht one day, i dont know how much indirect flow i can get, i have 2 seio 620s on each corner pointing to the middle of the tnak, i think what i may have to do is purchase a sump for the tank, and a top off thing, so that everything stays stable,

im going to test my Calcium tomorrow, and my other params, but i think what the problem is, is that the tank simply isnt 100% stable,

so there goes 70 bucks down the drain,

i just dont know if i can save them cus i duno wtf to do

Ok, i got my CA and Alk tested

my CA didnt show up on the test kit that i was using, the test kit goes only to 500, so it was over 500, and my alk was 2.63, so what so my calcium was too high and alk too low

i did a 5 gallon water change, the last time i did a w/c was 2 weeks ago and it was 2 gallons of water,

an ideas? my digitata seemed to open up just a bit, i noticed the difference, so i really dont know, i heard that digitatas are very hardy to keep , so if i kill this im doin pretty bad, but like i said, it seemed to be opening up more, but around the back near the rock it was still closed, its strange how the front part that your able to see was opening up and the back wasn't

anyone?

here are some pictures to show the corals and how they are doing

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what i am doing wrong.

Here is the Blue Tort which i know for sure is dead

Here is the Red Monti Digitata, It isn't dead, just very unhapy, it doesnt want to open up at all, i dont know why, when i first got em he was opened, now, look at em, thats when he was on the rocks

heres another picture, i jsut recently moved the three frags down to the sand bed

Now, here is where i beleive i have the most hope, my green tip staghorn frag, its poylps have been out the same 1/16th of an inch ever since i got him, there is another one at work and the polyps are extended just as much, mine are if not extended more, this guy as u can see, some of the tips have bleached, they turned dieing white, not growing white, and on a few growth points, they didnt turn white, once i saw this i moved it down to the sand and it seems to have been doing better, what is going to happen to the tips that turned white? it seems happier since i moved him to the sand for the time being, what i want to know is, is he going to be OK?! is that dieing going to spread more down, or are those dead tips due to too much lighting for the guy

Here is a shot of him

Here is a shot of the 2

Thank you guys so much for your help, do i have a chance with any of these 2 guys? I hope that the green tip stag doesnt start to RTN like my blue tort did,

and what do you guys think is wrong by the pictures? also, what happened with the stags growth tips to die on 4 out of 7 of the tips

sorry for all the questions, and thanks again for all the help

blue tort doesn't look dead to me. it should be pure white w/ no polyps at all if it's dead.

definitely might want to get auto top-off since stabiliy is key w/ these guys.

hard to say why they are dying all of a sudden. but sps are considered "expert" corals and some do unexpectedly die.

Your sps don't look like goners yet (assuming they look like the most recent pics you posted).

1st pic :The white bleaching from the bottom up looks to be a form of deficency or some for of disease.

3rd and 4th pics: The solid white tips on the acros look to be where you have touched them bare handed, and the oils from your skin have burned the coral.

Always try to wear latex gloves when you handle them or soak your hands to be sure most of your skins oil has been deluted away from the surface of your skin.

I usually rinse my hands/arms before I go into the tank. For some reason, I dont know why the tips on your corals died, perhaps improper packing or something.

Anyways, get them into high flow and CHECK YOUR ALK again, that seems to be the biggest cause of STN in my experience. You want around 7-10 dKh.

If you see tissue coming off or receeding, get them into more flow (it sounds weird but trust me) and possibly dip them in lugols or something.

Montis can be really forgiving, I have a montipora digitata in my nanocube which I know is a cesspool currently since theres hair algae all over haha. But it is doin fine under the PCs and has full polyp extension.

so do u guys think that my green tip stag will die? with only some of its tips dead like that, will it bounce back? it definatly seems to be the happiest out of the 3, which is making me happy, i duno wtf is wrong with that god damn digitata?!

They all look like they are not dead at all. Also, people tell me SPS is hard to keep but I think people say that because it requires more equipment like skimmers and lights and trace elements. I found out, SPS is actually quite hardy. In the beginning I was so afraid I will kill them by just sticking my hand in the tank or looking at it too close! LOL.

Again, keep your salinity stable, plenty of flow, Nice strong efficient skimmer, nice lights, and stable water param, they will come back thriving in no time! Test your alk, calcium daily until you can reach to param you want. Then do not dose for a day, and test to see how much ca and alk level has dropped. If it didn't wait another day without dosing, then test again. That way you can find out exactly how much alk and ca your tank consumes. Then dose accordingly. Once you get your feel for the doseing, you can test less frequently.

HTH