corals closing need help

[theone]

Recently all my polyp corals and zoas started closing. All I have are softies and a couple of leathers as well as a frogspawn and shrooms. I think I know what I did wrong but I'm unsure of the remedies.

Mistake 1.....I had 96w of PC lighting and added another 10K along with a 21W Nova actinic all at once and did not aclimate them to the new lights.

Mistake 2..... I removed the poly from my canister filter and added Chaeto directly to the tank ( no fuge) thus my nitrates plunged fast.

Mistake 3.... Added a 2nd powerhead creating too much flow, if thats possible.

Nothing seems to be dieing just closed. I removed the extra light and repositioned the power head.

Any thoughts?????

 

[NateHanson]

Flow can definitely be too high in a softy tank. How big a tank, with what pumps for flow?

I'd guess that the corals closing could be a result of too many changes too fast, like you said. I'd just let things be the way they are now, rather than undo all the things you just changed. (The only possible exception would be to remove the powerhead if you really have too much flow for the softies)

Nate

 

[theone]

Well for flow there is flow from the canister filter along with a rio 600 and an old hagen 402. Its a 50g breeder tank.

 

[JustDavidP]

That's probably not too much flow.

I'd watch your water. If you took out the filter media all at once, you will probably see a little cycle to your system. You've effectively removed some biological filtration by removing the floss and the bacterium and alga therein. You may see a cloudy bloom as your system re-adjusts. An ammonia spike like that could irritate your softies, stonies, and coralimorphs. I'd watch the water quality and do changes accordingly.

If it is the lighting, you could easily reduce the photoperiod or put screen over the top of the system to help them adjust.

Dave

 

[theone]

I never even thought of the possibility of the small cycle occuring. I guess since I'm kinda new to corals I wasnt thinking of this since the fish were doing just fine.

I'm faithfully doing 10% weekely water changes.

 

[JustDavidP]

It may not be a cycle. It may be lighting. I'm thinking it is NOT a flow problem unless one of those sources is directly blasting corals. I just figure I'd give you my two cents on the water quality questions.

A buddy of mine pulled all the bio bale out of his CPR bak pak (Should never have had it in there to begin with) and had the same problems. Initially it was a cloudy bloom caused by ammonia chowin' organisms. This was the indicator that prompted me to talk to him. I asked him to do a water change and instead he opted to let it "cycle out". He lost a lot of fish that week. Fool! High nitrate is one thing, some organisms can tolerate this less noxious compound, but high ammonia is surely a BAD BAD thing.

It may also be something as simple as the chaeto rollin around on the corals in the system and irritating the corals.

BTW, chaeto is nice, when it stays balled up, but if strands break free in your display, it's gonna be all over your system. Chaeto is very tolerant of light changes. It can grow under brilliant light, or very little light. I have some that is dark green, and growing well, in a 10 gallon tank under a 40W light bulb.

Dave

 

[theone]

Thanks Dave,

I'm going to do some more testing and observing and slowly do some things to hopefully resolve the problem.

 

[JustDavidP]

That's the dealio... even though this isn't "rocket science" it is science. Start by eliminating all the extraneous variables one by one. The neat thing is that our lil' glass boxes can be a 'controlled' environment if we just strive to keep it that way.

Good luck!