Galaxea Died Over Night?

I've been working on setting up a tank for my grandfather... It's a 60 gallon cube and it's been running for about 2 months, and has been fully cycled for a while now.

A few days ago we went by the LFS just so we could find something, he was tired of having a completely empty tank... Anyways, he decided since he is going away at the end of the month he doesn't want any fish yet, (though I thought he should, just to help create a more stable biofilter) so we got a coral. They said it was some kind of star polyp. It was NOT a starpolyp, it had a distinct skeleton and just wasn't a starpolyp by any means. But they're one of the cheapest corals out there so I didn't say anything... :rolleyes3 We took it to his house and it was looking awesome. When we put it in the tank it immediately opened. They were incredible green polyps with purple rims. We didn't dip it or drip acclimate it, just floated it for about 30 mins... When I went home I went on to liveaquaria to identify it. I'm ALMOST positive it's a tooth coral (galaxea).

So I came by the next day just to see how it was doing. Well... There was very little flesh left. It looked like what little flesh it had was as retracted as could be. A few days later, I went by to see if it was doing any better. It wasn't... Absolutely no flesh. :-/


I can't figure out what's wrong, because everything "looks" right. Ammonia & nitrites are 0, nitrate about 3 ppm, sg about 1.024... Equipment includes 1 radian unit for lighting, and 2 mp10s for flow. I'm worried that it might have burned up from the light. At the store it was less than a foot down in an aquarium under a 6 bulb t5. I purposely put it near the bottom... I'm not sure if I set them to high... The blues are at 100% almost all day, though the whites don't really exceed 80%, the red doesn't really go above 50%, and I hardly run any green (about 5% max I think). I'm estimating all the numbers because my pc is out right now, so I can't check...



Any ideas would be appreciated. I'm hoping it was just bad luck but, we'll definitely be getting at least a fish before we get any more corals...

 

Any idea how long the lfs had it? You very well could have fried it. You are probably running that Radion about 50% higher than you need to.

 

Also keep in mind without fish in the tank the bacteria in the tank will starve to death. It is necessary for you to add nutrients to the tank.I.E. fish food. In order to keep the tank cycled I would strongly suggest adding a couple of fish after you have made sure the tank is still cycled.

 

That's what I was thinking... So I've been putting in small bits of seafood to feed the bacteria.

 

Probably no more than a week or two, since I didn't see it there before...


And would I be able to keep it this bright eventually if I slowly bring it up over time?

 

Yes, but keep in mind that a new coral won't be acclimated to the light. When something new comes in you may have to back the lights themselves down rather than just taking the start in the sand and move it up method. IME, led provide a more even par from top to bottom than traditional lights. And you may have to do this every time! I ended up plumbing a frag tank in and use it to light acclimate before adding it to my main tank, because I was frying new stuff even on the sand bed.

 

Corals also need the nutrients so adding a fish is beneficial.