Angry corals, what do you think?

[Hannahhhh]

Just looked in my tank, and all my corals are pouting. What do you guys do when you see something like this? I did a water change with nutri seawater (first time using it) 6 or so hours ago, but my corals don’t usually get this mad at me with water changes. I included a picture of my parameter chart for a reference. 

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!!

[Tamberav]

I would start testing....alk... ammonia... Nitrate... whatever you got. See if there was a swing with the new water.

[jservedio]

Agree with Tamberav, but as a general principle I do exactly what you did when something looks wrong with the tank - a big water change.

 

First question is do you normally use nutri-seawater? If you don't, abruptly switching your water can make things angry if you do a big water change. Artificial Saltwater will be far cheaper than natural seawater from a box in the long run and gives you full control - I've seen really bad quality control on boxes of nutri-seawater. One of the times I moved, I used a few boxes of it to quickly get my tank back up and one of the boxes test 0.12ppm of Phosphate on the Hanna ULR checker and 1.028 SG - so YMMV with it.

 

If I do a big WC and things still don't look great, I break out all of the test kits to see what's up and maybe run a little bit of carbon.

 

You should definitely start a tank journal that lists out all of your equipment, salt mix, what you do for maintenance, etc. so we can get a faster read on the situation without asking questions.

[Hannahhhh]

11 hours ago, Tamberav said:

I would start testing....alk... ammonia... Nitrate... whatever you got. See if there was a swing with the new water.

The only change I could measure was a drop in nitrate, from around 15 or 16, to 6ish. That shouldn’t piss off the corals though... right?

 

4 hours ago, jservedio said:

Agree with Tamberav, but as a general principle I do exactly what you did when something looks wrong with the tank - a big water change.

 

First question is do you normally use nutri-seawater? If you don't, abruptly switching your water can make things angry if you do a big water change. Artificial Saltwater will be far cheaper than natural seawater from a box in the long run and gives you full control - I've seen really bad quality control on boxes of nutri-seawater. One of the times I moved, I used a few boxes of it to quickly get my tank back up and one of the boxes test 0.12ppm of Phosphate on the Hanna ULR checker and 1.028 SG - so YMMV with it.

 

If I do a big WC and things still don't look great, I break out all of the test kits to see what's up and maybe run a little bit of carbon.

 

You should definitely start a tank journal that lists out all of your equipment, salt mix, what you do for maintenance, etc. so we can get a faster read on the situation without asking questions.

The tank journal was a great suggestion, thank you! I’ve been keeping everything logged now! It was my first time using nutri seawater, and my last. One of my LFS hyped it way up, basically said it was the best thing ever. After using it though I’ve done more reading and it seems like it can be all over the place. I’ll mix my own water it buy from my (other) LFS moving forward. 

 

Thank you you guys both for the advice, still not sure what upset the corals, but they’ve seemed to bounce back. I guess this is why everyone tells beginners to stick with the hardy corals!

[jservedio]

9 minutes ago, Hannahhhh said:

The only change I could measure was a drop in nitrate, from around 15 or 16, to 6ish. That shouldn’t piss off the corals though... right?

 

The tank journal was a great suggestion, thank you! I’ve been keeping everything logged now! It was my first time using nutri seawater, and my last. One of my LFS hyped it way up, basically said it was the best thing ever. After using it though I’ve done more reading and it seems like it can be all over the place. I’ll mix my own water it buy from my (other) LFS moving forward. 

 

Thank you you guys both for the advice, still not sure what upset the corals, but they’ve seemed to bounce back. I guess this is why everyone tells beginners to stick with the hardy corals!

I should have been more clear about the tank journal - the paper journal of parameters is an excellent thing to have, especially in the beginning - but I meant a thread on here in the Aquarium Journals board that has your equipment, livestock, and components listed out with a ton of pictures that you keep updated with your progress. You can look at mine here or Tamberav's here for examples (her tanks are all way nicer than mine, though!). That way someone here can just take a look at that thread and be able to see how your tank is set up, what it looks like, and get a general idea of how it's been going in just a couple minutes and you can get answers really quickly.

 

And you are totally right about the hardy corals in the beginning - as you are dialing in your maintenance routine, figuring out lighting and f figuring out how all the chemistry works, and getting used to how your corals behave and respond to your input things can be all over the place and the tank in general unstable. However, once you get all that down, your tank can be stable as a rock with little effort and you can start branching out.

 

[Hannahhhh]

8 minutes ago, jservedio said:

I should have been more clear about the tank journal - the paper journal of parameters is an excellent thing to have, especially in the beginning - but I meant a thread on here in the Aquarium Journals board that has your equipment, livestock, and components listed out with a ton of pictures that you keep updated with your progress. You can look at mine here or Tamberav's here for examples (her tanks are all way nicer than mine, though!). That way someone here can just take a look at that thread and be able to see how your tank is set up, what it looks like, and get a general idea of how it's been going in just a couple minutes and you can get answers really quickly.

 

And you are totally right about the hardy corals in the beginning - as you are dialing in your maintenance routine, figuring out lighting and f figuring out how all the chemistry works, and getting used to how your corals behave and respond to your input things can be all over the place and the tank in general unstable. However, once you get all that down, your tank can be stable as a rock with little effort and you can start branching out.

 

Oh lol, thanks for clarifying!! I was wondering why you suggested that when I had a picture of my parameters included 😂

I’ll get to work on that ASAP!

[mcarroll]

What parameters are on your list?  Can't tell in the pic! 😀

 

We especially need nitrates, phosphates and alk....but everything else you test could be useful as well.