Coral issue not lasting

based on geography , think im leaning towards the temp issue mostly now. i would imagine, and could be wrong, these temps there and in the tank are a constant. finding a way to cool your tank during the day is prob the most important aspect. and its not the lights i dont think that are adding the heat.

but testing your water is important too. also what type water are you using? tap or ro\di?

 

I too have had the same experience with heat issues. Only one gorgonian has died thus far. All other corals are doing fine. But my frozen water bottles in the sump is becoming a pain. A chiller is in desperate order for the both of us.
Temporary fixes are a couple clip on fans blowing across the surface or frozen water bottles in the sump.
80watts of light may not even cut it for low light corals and the corals you have there require moderate to strong lighting. On average, 2-4watts per gallon. Using this kind of lighting would surely raise your temperature especially if you use metal halides. I recommend T5's. Either way, you need a chiller for the long haul to keep your corals alive.
Everyone is correct with all recommendations indeed concerning your Lights, temp and test kits. These are all major problems to need to be fixed before your corals can flourish.

 

Beautemps - your in similar enviroment to me
your going to struggle to keep that temp down through the year, unless you can run home AC all the time or get a cooler (chiller)

pic 1 is frogspawn I think
pic 2 is elegance
pic 3 is a bubble with elegance in back ground
pic 4 looks like Goniopora -
pic 5 is another elegance

Pic - 4 - cant advise you really, no experience what so ever

others are all LPS corals, they do get a lot of food from light ( symbiotic algae photosynthesis) they will eat meatier foods
(the bubble can take bits of fish and shrimp, only small pieces and maybe only once every other week- many people never feed them small pieces of food)
the others eat smaller particles as suggested above

can you order test kits of the WWW? as adding without testing could give you additional problems even when you follow instructions , the instructions dont know what your tanks demand is, so you could exceed levels or never reach optimum levels, but you wont know that without testing

Steve

 

Yeah, I didn't notice that the first time. Those are really hard to keep corals especially the sponge. It needs high flow and regular phyto. The goniopora looks like the green type which is notorious for dying ... They must be fed. I feed mine cyclops and a phyto coral food mix and they are growing but I have the pink and a blue which are suppose to be much easier. Also they like manganese iron supplements...but keep doses very small cuz algae love s it too.
http://www.3reef.com/forums/coral/how-keep-goniopora-healthy-66232.html
I've never had an elegance coral but I've read Otty mention that he "must" run carbon to keep it happy. He says he knows it's time to change the carbon by the way it looks. The australian elegance is suppose be the easy one and Indonesian hard to maintain.

 

Thank you ReefPlayground.

I saw on the net that elegance need low to moderate lighting as they are quite sensible to too much light. is that correct?

 

ok after a little more reading throught the post here we go=)
You don't have enough light. I'm assuming that you are running 2 x 40 watt no flourescent which is nowhere near enough to keep any of those corals happy.

You aren't testing. You have to test. I'm sure you can get test kits via the internet

Temperature- big swing, too high too fast. You need ac or a chiller
Elegance will not last very long in anything other than pristine conditions with high light, and medium flow with low nutrients.

Elegance corals are really really wierd. There are those that come from indonesia and the ones from australia. The two have completely different care requirements. Indonesian elegance grow in muddy, lagoonal type areas with very low current and very nutrient rich(dirty) water. They don't need that much light because in the wild alot of the light is filtered out by the dirty water.
The elegance from australia are completely opposite and those are the ones that survive better because most of us run a fairly nutrient low system. The ones from aussie grow in very pristine conditions with a ton of light and way more flow than their indonesian relatives. If yours is indonesian you will have a really tough time convincing it to live if you want everything else in your tank to live because you can't keep the water dirty enough for them

 

thanks guys for all your feed back. I will get a kit and will get back to you.

I need to invest in a chiller but here it goes at around $1.500 the unit which i cannot afford now. The light I am ussing is 2 X 40 watts which are flourescent (don't know if it make any difference between a flourescent light and one which not).

I understand these corals are hard to keep but they are also very cheapest one. Here a good size elegance cost between $2 to $3, LPS between $1 and $2 for the big ones. I am just tired spending so much time caring for them with no result.

I will take all your advises above and get to it.

Thanks

 

Hey you came to a good place for info and welcome to 3reef!

 

Ok, found a test kit and here are the results:
PH 7.8
Ammonia 0 PPM
Nitrite 0.25 PPM
Nitrate 80 PPM
Salinity 1.010
Current temperature 86F

Any advise would be much appriciated.

Thanks

 

Beautemps

if you are 100% these test results are accurate
you have some issues - so get them double checked just in case

salinity is to low for long term success with corals - aim for 1.025 but gradually top up using salt water not fresh water until you reach 1.025

Nitrite needs to be 0 - so your filter system/ live rock/ bacteria filter is not performing as it should - if this result is accurate
PH - with increased salinity it should go up - but 8.1 - 8.3 is generally the target

Nitrates 80ppm - again this is high- so once again I suspect if this test is accurate
there is a problem with your filter system

Others hopefully will add comments

I need to revisit page 1 - but is your filter system described there, if not can you describe it please

Stev