Trouble keeping coral alive

[Hockey14]

Ok so I have a 35 gallon hexagon tank with a fluval 405 canister filter which I clean every 2 months. Our light is a kessel a350 where we have played around with just about every setting. We run the light at 8 hours a day. My tank consist of reef safe hermit crabs, zebra crabs, snails, cleaner shrimp, 2 clownfish, 2 peppermint shrimp and 2 chromis. I keep the tank at 77 degrees. The salinity is at 1.025. With all of this I am unable to keep coral alive for over about 2 months. Star polyps, zoo anthids, acans frog spawns, trumpet corals, they have all ceased to live. The Lfs tested for everything and it all came out good. We had a problem with mini starfish but got a shrimp to take care of them and haven't seen any in months. I was doing 2.5 gallon water changes every week about 6 months ago. Then I changed to doing 5 gallons a week for the last 6 months to try and help but nothing changed. I am getting extremely frustrated and can not figure out what I am doing wrong. Could it be to much flow or not enough? That's the only thing I could think of now. I bought the reef master test kit and tested for everything, results below. All my fish are doing fine it's just my coral. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Nitrate-0
Phosphate was between 0 and .25
Calcium-460
Carbonate hardness-8°dKH or 143.2ppm KH

[shifty51008]

I would try to get a better test for phosphates. Check out the hanna checker. If its .25 then thats way high, you wanna be around .03 or lower.

How often do you test? Does your alk jump sround from day to day?

[Hockey14]

Originally Posted by shifty51008

I would try to get a better test for phosphates. Check out the hanna checker. If its .25 then thats way high, you wanna be around .03 or lower.

How often do you test? Does your alk jump sround from day to day?

I used to just take it to my Lfs and they said it's all good. I just got a test kit yesterday. I don't test often. I have not tested for alk

[shifty51008]

I would deff start testing yourself if you wanna keep corals. At min get a cal. Alk, mag, phospate, and nitrate test kits, i reccomend salifert or redsea coral pro for everything but phosphate, then go with the hanna checker.

Corals like stable parameters so if your alk is jumping around from day to day that can cause problems, along with high nitrates and phosphates.

Also

To Reef Central

[mcginnisandrew]

So you don't have a protein skimmer?

How do you top off your tank? Do you use RODI or tap water?

Do you have a lot of algae or not so much?

What do you feed your fish and how often?

definitely need accurate test results for the things shifty mentioned

[alton]

The corals you listed like a little Nitrates, I am not sure why the new generation thinks having 0 nitrates is always good for softies and LPS?

[Hockey14]

Originally Posted by mcginnisandrew

So you don't have a protein skimmer?

How do you top off your tank? Do you use RODI or tap water?

Do you have a lot of algae or not so much?

What do you feed your fish and how often?

definitely need accurate test results for the things shifty mentioned

I use distilled water to top off my tank. I feed my fish one frozen cube of brine shrimp once a day. I have been getting a good amount of algae but I'm a clean freak so I scrape it off the glass ALL the time.

[Hockey14]

Originally Posted by alton

The corals you listed like a little Nitrates, I am not sure why the new generation thinks having 0 nitrates is always good for softies and LPS?

So should I try to raise my nitrates? How do I go about doing that

[wrott]

Corals are not like plants where you bury it and forget it.
You are likely too ill informed to keep any aquatic invertebrates, sorry to say.
You would need to dose alk and Ca every day and use ro/di water to top off, not distilled.
Try one coral at a time, like green star polyps. If you can't keep them alive for more than 3 months don't buy any more until you research much, much more.
No hard feelings, good luck. I will give you frags.

[mcginnisandrew]

I would look into getting a good protein skimmer (do a lot of research). A skimmer is one of the most important pieces of equipment in this hobby and without one (or without a comparable filtration method) you will likely continue to have problems. Unfortunately a canister filter will not cut it(even for more forgiving corals like soft corals and lps).

I would NOT recommend trying to raise your nitrates as it's likely that the nitrate that's available is being consumed by algae and thus your tank isn't exactly nitrate starved.

You definitely need accurate test results however. As shifty said, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, phosphate, and nitrate tests at a minimum. I use hanna checkers for alk and phosphate and salifert for everything else.

Can you post a picture of your tank?

[Hockey14]

Originally Posted by mcginnisandrew

I would look into getting a good protein skimmer (do a lot of research). A skimmer is one of the most important pieces of equipment in this hobby and without one (or without a comparable filtration method) you will likely continue to have problems. Unfortunately a canister filter will not cut it(even for more forgiving corals like soft corals and lps).

I would NOT recommend trying to raise your nitrates as it's likely that the nitrate that's available is being consumed by algae and thus your tank isn't exactly nitrate starved.

You definitely need accurate test results however. As shifty said, calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, phosphate, and nitrate tests at a minimum. I use hanna checkers for alk and phosphate and salifert for everything else.

Can you post a picture of your tank?

[Gem Tang 88]

Corals are much sensitive than fish. Have you tested for Ammonia and Nitrite ? Do you feed your corals ? And I highly recommend a skimmer for every tank. You could get the water and go to a local aquarium/fish store to have them check the parameters for you, from there you can figure out what is wrong.

[ClownnGoby]

Be prepared for the he tang police also ... 35 gals is unfortunately way too small for a hippo tang.. Might want to return him for some store credit or a compatible fish for your tank size

[Keoki18]

A skimmer would help out tremendously. Buy a quality one though, less you be buying another one a year later. Do not raise Nitrates. What alton means is that there are some corals that are more adept to living in higher nitrate levels. all corals need a very very slight bit of nitrate in the water, but it should be around 0.2. It could be as high as 15 though (not recommended).

Tank is a fairly small for a tang as mentioned.

Your fluval is fine for your system as long as you get a skimmer.

RO water would help out as well. Most aquatic stores will sell it if you cannot afford a RO filter system.

[Dkuhlmann]

Ya that Hippo tang gets over a foot long I agree with trading for store credit or swap for something that better suits your size tank.

I also agree with the others with everything said.

[zachfishman]

Originally Posted by Hockey14

I use distilled water to top off my tank.

1) What water do you use to mix your saltwater? If you don't use RODI you should make that change.

2) I'd recommend checking your salinity against another piece of equipment like a good calibrated refractometer.

3) What do you mix/store your saltwater and top off water in? For a long time I couldn't figure out why my corals slowly faded away, and eventually tracked down the source to the generic plastic tub I was using as a sump. Replacing that plastic with a real acrylic sump saved my corals (see thread below). If there's any prolonged contact of your water with questionable plastics I'd look into that.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...2431220&page=3

[zachfishman]

How exactly do your corals die? Do they look healthy but slowly lose pieces of tissue (as if they were being eaten)? Do they get pale and slowly fade away? Do they seem to shrink over time (worsening polyp extension) and eventually shrink into nothing?

[Keoki18]

Originally Posted by Keoki18

A skimmer would help out tremendously. Buy a quality one though, less you be buying another one a year later. Do not raise Nitrates. What alton means is that there are some corals that are more adept to living in higher nitrate levels. all corals need a very very slight bit of nitrate in the water, but it should be around 0.2. It could be as high as 15 though (not recommended).

Tank is a fairly small for a tang as mentioned.

Your fluval is fine for your system as long as you get a skimmer.

RO water would help out as well. Most aquatic stores will sell it if you cannot afford a RO filter system.

I should have stated that those numbers are in ppm for nitrate