Coral question

[Stackbundles]

Recently I had my elegance coral die. I had it for about a month and everything was fine then it slowly died. Now my open Brian coral is looking bad. Any ideas? Pic attached. The only thing I was doing diff was dosing red sea nitrate/phos reducer. All my other corals are fine.

 

[KathyC]

What are your water parameters?

 

[Stackbundles]

The parameters are all fine except my nitrates are 160ppm. I have the tank almost two years and can never get them low. I even changed the sand bed. That's why I was using the reducer but I think some of my corals were looking bad so I stopped it.

 

[SanmanReefer]

The parameters are all fine except my nitrates are 160ppm. I have the tank almost two years and can never get them low. I even changed the sand bed. That's why I was using the reducer but I think some of my corals were looking bad so I stopped it.

Have you checked phosphates levels? If nitrates are at 160 I can imagine phosphates should be up there. Are you using RO or RO/DI water? Sump or Wet/Dry? Just wondering.

 

[KathyC]

The parameters are all fine except my nitrates are 160ppm. I have the tank almost two years and can never get them low. I even changed the sand bed. That's why I was using the reducer but I think some of my corals were looking bad so I stopped it.

160 is a huge problem for corals.
You really need to get that number down through the use of phosphate reducing media, water changes on a steady basis and patience. It will take a long time to get all of those nitrates & (no doubt) equally high phosphates out of your water and rock.
Nothing in a liquid form - that I have ever heard of - will do it. If anyone was selling a liquid phosphate reducer that actually worked, everyone would buy it.

If possible you might consider asking a reefer friend with good water parameters to babysit that brain as otherwise it will likely die in your tank

 

[SanmanReefer]

160 is a huge problem for corals.
You really need to get that number down through the use of phosphate reducing media, water changes on a steady basis and patience. It will take a long time to get all of those nitrates & (no doubt) equally high phosphates out of your water and rock.
Nothing in a liquid form - that I have ever heard of - will do it. If anyone was selling a liquid phosphate reducer that actually worked, everyone would buy it.

If possible you might consider asking a reefer friend with good water parameters to babysit that brain as otherwise it is likely die in your tank

I totally agree with Kathy, those numbers are way high! I would start with weekly water changes until your nitrates and phosphates are at least at acceptable levels. I used NPX Biopellets for nitrate control and it helped but my numbers were in the 5-10 range. One of my buddies never rinsed his buckets after doing water changes and was re-introducing nitrates and phosphates into his system this way. I went to his house and saw a thin film on his buckets, added RO water and tested and it was pretty high. Just my .02 cents. Hope this helps.

 

[Stackbundles]

I'm using RO/DI water and a sump. Last I checked the phosphates were close to 0. I'll check it again. I'm going to look into the NPX pellets. I also like the idea of cleaning the water bucket every time. Sometimes I forget and I have seen thin film in the bucket. This all may help. Thanks reefers!

 

[piranhapat]

You need to get to the root to why you have high nitrates. Because that is high. Do you have a lot of fish or are you over feeding your fish. You need to do several water changes with Ro/DI water. Pellets will help with nitrates. But you need to know what causing your nitrates to be so high. Cut back on your feeding and how's your water current any on bottom.

 

[jscarlata]

In your sump do you have a fuge section? If yes, does it have a sandbed? If yes, this could
Be your source. A 2 year old sandbed in a low flowing fuge Could be packed with detritus and nitrate...i just removed all the sand from mine after 1 year and it was nasty...

 

[Stackbundles]

I tried last year to get to the root of the Nitrate problem. I replaced the entire sand bed and was doing weekly water changes for months. The nitrate were still very high. I have about 7 fish in the tank and I feed them about twice a day. A snack when I get home from work and a meal before bed time. I like to keep my fish nice and plump. I should prob cut back a little. I have a fuge and a sand bed there for about a year. There is small amount of flow on the sand bed. I think I'm going to remove the sand bed in the fuge and get a reactor.

One other question. With in the past year I noticed a lot of hard dark green and purple circular dots on the back of my DT glass. I would say most of them are dark green. Do you think this is part of my nitrate problem? I would need a razor to remove them. I only left it like this because I see a lot of tanks with this but their circular dots are more purple.

 

[jscarlata]

It's hard to diagnose from afar, but I'd say to remove the sand from the fuge. When I did mine, the water was putrid, apart solid brown in color. No sulfur smell, but it was nasty, the sand was just packed with detritus in varying stages of decay.
I've since vacuumed at Least 50% of my sand. I plan to keep the sand clean from now on. I wish I had made this decision a few months ago when I rescaped my tank, I could
Have gotten all the spots that are now impossible to reach.
No idea what the green dots are. The purple stuff is coraline algae, good algae to have. I've never seen green coraline but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist...