Used kitchen/bath silicone.

Water quality and consistency is the goal.Overstocking is dangerous and counterproductive.I haven't used a sock on my system in over a year and have not seen any ill effects.I suggest using the polypad as it will absorb a wide range of contaminates.You can try raising the fixture if that's an option for you.Some members have even resorted to putting black electrical tape over a few leds.(Jerry....)lol

 

Hey, whatever works man!

 

When I would introduce corals they would last for a few weeks and then start to decline. I tried some birds nest and for the first month it did amazing. It doubled in size in a few weeks then all of a sudden the flesh started peeling off until it was just a skeleton. In a couple weeks my purple bonsai turned brown and was also losing flesh. My chalice and frogspawn also looked great for about 2 weeks but then very slowly started retracting flesh until the chalice was just a skeleton and the frogspawn heads fell off. My bubble coral did great for about 6-7 months then overnight it quit bubbling up. It's currently in my tank but it also looks like the flesh is slowly retracting.

The corals currently in my tank is a green nepthea which you can see pretty good in the picture but it also hasn't grown at all. My Duncan coral expands a little. It used to expand allot, then it grew new heads at the base and now it barely expands and if it does it looks all squished together because there's no room since the new growth. My ZOA's look like they're getting smaller in size and have lost their neon green color, my gsp stated out from the size of a dime and grew the most but it never fully extends. My ricodea has been trying to split in two over the past 6 months and my yellow toad stool is doing OK but not growing fast either.

 

I did raise the lighting to over 12 inches recently for about 2-3 weeks recently but I didn't see any changes so I lowered it about 2 inches from the water. I figured at least my Duncan or bubble coral would show an immediate change in some way, but nothing. If you say it takes longer than 2-3 weeks to see a change then I will raise it up again until I can get that other led from my buddy.

 

Man you know the answer.........Slow down.........

Nothing happens overnight except disasters.

 

Ok , lol. Any other ideas that may be causing this? So far I will raise the lights back up, get the polypads, possibly change out my generic trash can for top off to a good grade one, and clean out my sump from all the detrius in there.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the help.

 

Well, if you have corals do well, then they die, something changed. Two weeks is not nearly enough time to tell if an SPS is really doing good. Let's take your Duncan for example. It's a fairly easy to grow coral. Not very demanding. It's also a good indicator coral, meaning that it will show signs of unhappiness before other corals, that you can see. It doesn't like change and will show it by closing up. If mine is closed for more than a day, I test alkalinity. The better I get at reefkeeping, the more often it stays open. If yours is not open 90% of the time, you are making enough of a change somewhere to make it unhappy.

 

It does open it just doesn't expand like it did when I bought it. It used to have long flowing tentacles now those tentacles look more like round balls, and they're not long and stringy anymore. And it also looks like it doesn't have room to expand because of the new little heads that are trying to grow all around the base of the main head.

 

like round balls, and they're not long and stringy anymore = not happy. It doesn't like something. Usually it's a change in the water. They don't like even small swings in alkalinity. They don't like high magnesium. They don't like low calcium. They don't like to be moved to higher light. They will adjust to all of these conditions, but it takes time. Not fully expanded means something is not right. You need to take that sign and figure out what you are doing. Duncans are the canary-in-a coal-mine-coral.

 

Kitchen & bath silicone is the one with the bad chemicals in it. You should have used the window and door type. This is your problem.

To be 100% safe, you should only use aquarium silicone, or RTV (Momentive) as this is what pros use, you can get it at Grainger and it is not expensive.

Secondary to this problem is curing time. Contrary to what you read, it is highly recommended that you wait 2 weeks for silicone to fully cure before exposing to water, especially if corals and fish are present. This advice comes from a top manufacturer. 72 hours is recommended for structural testing only.

The fact that you have been having issues for s year now could still be a result of the wrong silicone. Remember, that stuff is added to prevent mold and bacteria from growing for years, it's not going to just go away in a few weeks