CORALS in DISTRESS!

[penguin87]

my xenia looks like crap. it's like half the size it used to be, the polyps have apparently lossed their ability to close themselves, and the mushroom is all shriveled up too.

 

i have plenty of flow for the xenia, and plenty of lack of flow for the mushroom. i acclimated them properly to my csl 32w retro over my minibow 7, so lighting is not an issue. i also see no evidence that my snails or crabs have trampled all over them.

 

i do see a problem with ammonia, it must be like 3.5, which i know is really bad, so i added a bunch of prime yesterday and today (it detoxifies ammonia, nitrite [which is 0], and nitrate [which is also 0]). the ammonia must have gotten bad from overfeeding (whenever i feed my clowfish, he misses some of the food that goes by him, even if i feed him one pellet at a time, then i can't find the pellets when they hit the bottom of the tank).

 

another problem would be that the corals have nothing to eat, because the only dosing that they're getting is from my instant ocean salt after my weekly water change of 1 gallon.

 

should i start doing daily 1 gallon water changes until ammonia goes away (if that's what's killing them) and/or should i keep adding Prime, and/or should i get some food for filter feeding inverts in which case what type and brand of food do you all recommend?

 

PLEASE respond because i don't want to lose $70 worth of corals.

thanks, and sorry for the long post

[samthebigfish]

i would suggest trying reef calcium wether it's kalkwrasser (limewater) or seachem's reef complete. i use both once a month i use kalk, and then i usea reef complete as a supplament. i have skunk cleaner shrimp so i also add Essential Elements, for iodide.

 

hth

[penguin87]

this would work too, though, right? (it's readily available here in town) http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...d=6&pCatId=4761

[SteveC]

Did your tank finish cycling before you put the corals in? Because you really shouldn't be getting any detectable ammonia at all in a cycled tank, unless something really big just died and decomposed. Overfeeding should lead to elevated nitrates, not ammonia.

 

All the Prime in the world isn't going to help you once that nitrite spike hits. I think you should put your corals somewhere else until your tank's nitrogen cycle is established.

[penguin87]

my tank definately is cycled. i thought a snail was recently eaten by the hermits, because he fell on his back and i was unable to upright him, he was in between two large rocks. when i saw nothing in the shell the next day i decided that he was eaten up, but maybe he just died and i never saw him again, and HE was the one that created the icky ammonia.

 

thanks for the help, but i'm not unintellegent enought to put in corals during the nitrogen cycle. nice guess, though.

 

so the prime will "detoxify" the ammonia, and i just did a 2 gallon water change, sound good?

[tinyreef]

when in doubt, do a wc.

 

get a dowel rod for future nooks and crannies issues. yeah, the janitors will clean up messes but it'll take them a while to chomp it all down. btw the janitors will be processing the issue to further put strain on your biofilter.

 

remove the shell and carcass imo. for nanos, you can't just leave it up to the cleaning crew without expecting a hit on your nutrient levels and nuisance algae growth.

[samthebigfish]

yes penguin87 , i really dont see why it wouldnt. i try to keep my calcium at 450 to 500. i am not familiar with the redsea brand but im sure it fine. i use Kent kalkwrasser, and seachem reef complete, i have had good luck with that. i hope you get it figured out..............good luck

[LiQuiD]

Tiny is right, try a water change.

 

Calcium should have no effect on a soft coral that could care less about how much calcium is in your system, it has no skeleton to build upon and calcium is the least of a concern for Xenia. Xenia are touchy and can just crash for no reason whatsoever. The main concern for them is light, flow and water quality. You seem to have the light and flow going correctly and by the sounds of the amonia problem , I would think the quality of the water is the issue. Do a nice WC and see what happens. Sadly to say that typically once Xenia decides to crash, it is close to impossible to get it healthy again. Good luck.

[penguin87]

i think i was too late with the wc. it doesn't look like it's coming back. but since some people have trouble removing xenia from their tank, is there a chance that the xenia will grow back in the place of it's dead self? i sure hope so, or it's $40 down the drain.