Help! Corals not thriving

[Gmehal]

Hi all, my first post here. I have a 24 biocube in my office stocked with fish and coral and no issues, tank runs itself so to speak.

I recently bought a used bio cube 29 hqi for the house. Stocked with live rock from lfs and water from my office tank and let cycle for a month. Added a few fish, inverts and a few corals. The fish, inverts, clam seem fine but the corals are having issues specifically the zoas, hammer coral and the brain coral. After weeks in the tank I am slowly loosing them.

I do weekly 5 gallon water changes using kent brand salt and ro/di water. All water tests I can do are spot on, kh, nitrates, ammonia, ph, calcium, phosphates etc. water temp 78-80 degrees. Plenty of flow from the stock pump and additional power head. Replaced bulb with new 14k 150watt. I also have a media basket with cheato algae in one bay and chemi pure in another. Corals are placed mid to low on tank. No signs of predators at night that I can tell.

Sooooo any ideas?? I'm really at a loss here

 

[AdeptMrSniffles]

What's you SG level? and how long do your lights run for?

Oops, pardon my manners. Welcome to the living reefs!

 

[Gmehal]

Sg level 1.025-1.027. Measured with a refractometer. 11-12 hrs on the lights

 

[BL1]

Did you acclimate the corals to the light? And have you tired moving them to different spots in the tank to see if it changes anything.

 

[little_fish]

Hello and Welcome! The boys have you covered with questions!

 

[Waddi]

Welcome to the Reef!!!

 

[Gmehal]

Did you acclimate the corals to the light? And have you tired moving them to different spots in the tank to see if it changes anything.

Yes I did move the corals and zoas around but no real luck. Tried some spot feeding early in morning with lights off, seemed like they ate but no improvement. Tank has been in place now for 2.5 months

 

[fastrd400]

I'd guess it is light acclimation as well. I'd place them all on the sand bed for a bit to see if they begin to recover.

 

[Gmehal]

I'd guess it is light acclimation as well. I'd place them all on the sand bed for a bit to see if they begin to recover.

That's the one thing I have not tried, I'll try that tonight.

 

[Smitty]

Hello and welcome to the site.

 

[sen5241b]

It could very well be too much light. I have a BC29 with 150 watt MH and I have put corals too high on the rock and watched them melt -and I run my lights only 8 hours a day. I can't see any reason for you to run your lights 11-12 hours.

 

[sen5241b]

Also, it doesn't take much phosphates (1 part per 4 million) to start killing corals. Test?

 

[ZyberGoby]

welcome to the site...

+1 Sen Imyself run my lights 9hours tops. 2hours in the morning just True Actinic then 5hours both 14k& Actinic then 2hours Actinic at night. from there its my moon lights till morning. Like these folks have said prob a mix of things being light or placement mixed with some flow plain. Don't give up you can save them :D

 

[Gmehal]

It could very well be too much light. I have a BC29 with 150 watt MH and I have put corals too high on the rock and watched them melt -and I run my lights only 8 hours a day. I can't see any reason for you to run your lights 11-12 hours.

So today I removed the 150 watt lamp setup and installed an old sun pod 70 watt MH. Sure enough 75% of the zoas lightly started to open! I basically put everything on the sand bed and will slowly start moving things upward it things start to look good. Maybe the 150 was just to much. Hopefully things will recover. I'll keep you posted. The curious thing is that I have a bio cube 24 in my office with the same sunpod but with a 150 watt bulb, things grow like weeds in that tank, go figure.